A ton of my friends recently have joined the world of professional blogging. There are innumerable themes and subject matter to encompass and channel their creativity and they write up to 3 times a week. I was beginning to get inspired and then came face to face with my procrastinatory self who said, “3 times a week?? Ambitious are we? And what subject shall you choose o’ audacious blog creator? Can’t pick one can you??” So I turned away from the mirror a bit dejected and tried to push the matter under the carpet. Trouble is, all my friends are bloggin along and creating quite their own following for their little niche in the writing world. And I’m pea green with envy.
I have too many hobbies and interests to choose just one to run with. I know too many people and am involved in too many activities to pick just one to create a subject line. So what on earth would my professional blog look like?? I can’t even think of a title to encompass it all. Or wait, perhaps I can. A little over a year ago I started a blog to purge out my soul. It’s an invitation only kind of place as I can only trust what’s there to a special few who know me well and I feel I can be vulnerable with and safe in it. But the title of that blog just sums up my life. I think I am going to and clean it out and create a little place for myself to try a little professional journaling with an underlying theme to be a catch all for me. I may even have days specifically set aside for one subject matter.
As for this blog, I will try to keep it to family matters. Funny things those crazy kids of mine do and the moments that being their mom fills me with wonder and awe.
We’ll see. But knowing me, I may procrastinate, and it could be next month before I get it up and running or next year before I remember I even wrote this blog about it. And sheesh, two blogs to keep up with may just fry me all together. Who knows.
I have rewritten this about a hundred times and still don’t feel I’ve adequately captured the wonder of this Christmas to be able to share with you. There was so much worry and anxiety and just plain dejection anticipating the day that I hadn’t the slightest hope of actually experiencing anything happy about it at all really. But there was such a peace and a calm to our morning. Even in the midst of their excitement the boys were beyond patient waiting to get pictures taken and opening things at a more slow pace than we usually do. Each of the boys was equally delighted at what the other had gotten in addition to the gifts they’d recieved themselves. There wasn’t the usual chaotic shredding of paper and squeals and hyper craziness that usually ensues once we hit the floor. It was just beyond joy to spend the morning delighting in our family and the opportunity to share it together.
This year more than most I felt the importance of what the season meant. Not the gifts under our tree, not the decorations, or the lights, or the parties, or the food, but the baby in the manger who was a gift for us all. I truly felt the magnitude of what Christ has given to me in Himself and the bonus of the love of my family and friends as an added measure just because He loves me so much. I pray your holiday was as full and that the year holds for you constant reminders of Christs ever lasting, ever pursuing, ever faithful, ever constant love of you.
This is the first year I’ve forgotten. Usually the date stands out on the calendar for me. You would have been 5 this year. I wonder who you were and if you were another son or a daughter. I was so excited when I realized you were coming and had planned a special way to tell everyone at the holidays. Even your dad. It was the first time I’d ever been able to keep that kind of secret. Usually I see those 2 pink lines and I can’t contain myself and have to tell the whole world. But nearly as soon as I knew, at 9 weeks, you were gone . I had to take John with me to the doctors office and call your Uncle Matt to get hold of your dad to meet me there. And I had to tell your dad that you were coming and then you were gone all in the same moment. It was so awful. It was emotionally and physically one of the worst days of my life. And until this year, the day comes and I remember you and wonder about you and find myself jealous that God has you up there with Him and you can’t be here with us and your brothers. But this year it’s nearly a week past and I’m not sure what finally reminded me. I wonder if you’ve met your grandaddy up there already and if you two get to play with each other. He’s an awesome guy and you get to have him exactly as he ought to be. I’m really jealous of that too. You two get to share this Christmas together for the first time. How great is that?? It’s hard not to be sad missing you both so very much, but I have great peace knowing the hurt will be a little less as the years go by and as the years pass I am closer to meeting you and being reunited with all of the family I love that has gone on. I miss you little one. Momma loves you. Merry Christmas
It has not felt like Christmas this year. My heart full of dread since Thanksgiving, wondering how I”m going to put a face on for the boys and pull myself into holiday cheer for their sakes when not one fiber of my being feels the least bit celebratory. Lights have gone up early everywhere, Christmas music has been playing since October it seems and people are bustling about baking and shopping and anticipating. Everyone but me. I have been procrastinating. Putting things off til I can’t possibly ignore it anymore and the kids are begging. I have at least 3 meltdowns privately a day. Where my heart breaks and the tears come spilling out in floods and I cannot stave them off a minute more and find a quiet place to let them run as I hide it. No one wants to see you down at the holidays. I don’t wanna constantly remind people of the losses this year and become a constant pitty party. But grief is an arduous and long process that seems never to have an end in sight. It isn’t just the first Christmas without dad, this year has been so full of eternal goodbyes, and friends moving away, and family members with major illnesses and tragedy and grief have been a constant procession. Just when I think my heart will get a break or a rest, some new catastrophe rips it open again and I feel I will never break free of the awfulness.
But I look back and realize that even in the midst of the pain of this year, there have been moments of such pure joy that my cup has been full to overflowing. Our children have grown in knowledge and in character and their accomplishments bring me such pride in their achievements. And while they have moments where they don’t listen and you repeatedly have to remind them to do certain chores or homework or other things, they have moments of such tenderness and thankfullness that I stand amazed at who they are becoming. There are moments when Luke prays and the honesty in his heart is humbling and inspiring. When the guitar in John’s hands transforms him as the music envelopes him and he takes flight in the melodies. You can see the greatness he will be, burgeoning inside of him. I walk in in the morning and the delight beaming out of Noah’s eyes is palpable and tangible. He is bright and funny and theatrical, and a dare devil full of mischief and schemes even at this early an age. Every day there is some reminder in them of how much God must love me to have chosen Fred for my husband he and I to be their parents and to have chosen them to be our kids.
I started writing this about a week ago and our shopping is mostly done, we’ve done a bit of baking, attended several Christmas events. But it is two events in particular that have perched the spirit of Christmas into my soul. The first was a concert, an opportunity to corporately worship the Lord and remember the magnitude of what His birth meant. As the music ebbed and swelled my heart was carried to His throne and I could stand before Him and see the tears in His eyes as He wept in remembrance of this year with me. I knew that He stood with me through every terrible and awful minute and authored every good and perfect joy to whisper His love and His faithfulness into my bruised heart.
The other event was a play that a dear friend of mine and her daughters performed in. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, has been my absolute favorite Christmas story for a long long time and last year I bought her girls the book. They saw a flier at their school for a local theater house who was putting it on and insisted to their mother they had to try out. The girls each scored parts and Elaine was given the main role and anyone who knows her wouldn’t find that a shock. She was insanely amazing. The transformation of Elaine to Grace was seemless. But as I sat in the beautiful little playhouse watching the show, listening to the kids explaining to the rag tag bunch of forgotten children the story of Christmas, God was reminding me yet again what this season means to those who believe. I watched the Herdmans discover their own worth in the birth of a child who had every right to come in all His kingly glory and claim every throne on earth and command all the riches contained here, and yet he came so humbly, so relateably, so much like themselves.
A star in the sky announced to the world that our Savior was born and those outside God’s first chosen family were being adopted in to His bloodline, to become His children. Emmanuel come to earth as man to experience our hurts and pain, and to rescue us from every minute of our self destructive behaviors. He came and left homeless, owning nothing, giving everything. He came, the Creator of the universe, not as a great and noble king, but as a cold, hungry, baby, born to parents who were overwhelmed and confused and tired and dirty and who had nothing but themselves to offer Him. He came as a servant to us all. Seeking to heal our wounds, bind our hurts, fill our bellies, cleanse our hearts, and save our souls. And in the end, Santa, the presents, the lights, the cookies, the dinners, the family dramas, the painful memories, the everyday crushing life experiences, don’t matter one iota, because the King of all came humbly to ask me what He could do for me. To single me out, to call me by name, to love me completely, fully, with every breath of His life, death and resurrection, He became mine, and I am His and I strive daily to live in Him so that you see where He begins, and I end.
So I close wishing a Merry Christmas to you all and may you find the Savior in the manger, has come to you, to single you out, to call you by name, to dry your tears, to heal your hurts and bind your wounds, to love you completely, fully, graced with His life, redeemed in His death, and eternal with His resurrection, all to save you, to make you His own, even if you were the only one guided by the star to kneel at the manger,
We’ve had a lot of difficulty of late with the boys arguing and talking nasty to each other. Luke can be a pest and John is short of temper and there’s just been a lot of snapping even toward Fred and I. So I was talking to the boys about it and explaining to them the importance of being a servant to each other and putting each others needs and wants before their own but not having much luck getting my point across. I hate to lecture ad-nauseum and try to find good object lessons to drive the idea home. It usually involves an analogy that has to do with bodily functions. They’re boys, you have to speak their language, and gas and laughter are generally it. But this time, it just wasn’t cutting the cheese, so to speak.
But I think I’ve hit upon genius if I do say so myself. Last night I sat down with both of them and made lists. Each of the boys had to come up with 10 ideas of something really nice they could do for their brother. Lemme tell you that part alone nearly made me wanna give up the idea. I never thought they would find that so hard. So with a few promptings from daddy about what they would like someone to do for them, we turned it around into something they could do for each other. After about a half an hour we had 20 great ideas. I took each paper and cut out each idea and folded it up and put them all into a jar.
I sat them down again and told them that from now on, when they talk ugly to each other, or are unkind to one another, they will go to the jar and pick out a piece of paper and whatever it says they will do for their brother. The ideas range from putting away each others laundry, to letting someone go first in everything all day, and buying a gift with their own money at the dollar store. Each time they have to go the jar and execute one of the deeds, the deed will be followed by a sincere apology to the offended party.
My hope is that the jar won’t have to be used as punishment for long and that they will come up with other ideas on their own to add to it and that each idea will become a habit and way of life for them in how they treat not only themselves but others around them. They really do get along most of the time and Fred and I often marvel at how much they enjoy and love each other without much of a thought to it. But we want always to encourage them to put other peoples needs before their own and most especially their brothers. I’ll keep you posted on the results of this experiment.
Doodleydoo I ponder anew
The things I should log in
And share with you
But the brain is daft
And the canvas is empty
And words run scarce
Where once there were plenty
The children are awesome
And steadily growing
And daily amuse me
When their wits start a-showing
They frustrate and confound me
In quite equal measure
And some days so much
I lose sight of their pleasure
The baby is chewing
A lamp cord for snack
And my cute little dirge
I’ll fold up and pack
Check in for a spell
Every now and again
I just may surprise
With quips from my pen
Last night whilst making the evenings repast, a horrific sound bounded and thudded down the stairs. Dropping everything in my hands I careen into the front hall certain I will find a bloody massacre. Instead I find Luke at the middle of the stairs chasing his pumpkin from his field trip. Heaving a sigh of relief and biting off the shriek mid breath, I ask if he’s okay and he looks at me like I am the stooooopidest parent on the earth and says, “yeah”. Later that evening Gramma asks Luke why he threw the pumpkin and Luke shrugs and replies matter of factly (and with a bit of incredulity), “It was the fastest way to get it downstairs.” He shall be source of all hairs white upon my head.
My brother used to subscribe to a magazine when he was in the Boy Scouts called Boys Life. I really wish I’d read more than the funnies in it. Maybe it would have prepared me better for raising the hooligans I call sons. Perhaps there were articles on how to pack a perfect sand ball for hitting with a plastic bat in a way that didn’t fling particles into a younger siblings eyes. Or maybe there was a column that offered advice on how to organize all your toys into a crazed mess over every available floor space in your home that makes sense to naught but a little boys brain. I wonder if anyone wrote about how to keep a young mans fingers from straying into his nostrils absent mindedly or picking a wedgie publicly and REALLLLY diggin to get that bad boy out without a thought to the passerby near at hand. Was advice given on how to reassure your young sons that sharks live nowhere but aquariums and oceans and that taking a bath will not produce said creature from your drain hole? Were there instructional articles on how to amass every ounce of dirt in the surrounding county and pile it into hair, ear holes, fingernails, elbows, knees, toes, and butt cracks? A comic commentary on the never fail properties of a well timed fart gag anywhere, just about any time had to be in there somewhere I’m certain and boys are full of it and able to command it at will. I would have found great value in reading anything published having to do with distinguishing smells that emanate from beneath beds, inside closets, and hampers, and bathrooms that no matter how hard I clean, insist on smelling of old caked urine. I would also have been pleased to read in the culinary commentaries that every mother should purchase at least one metric ton of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and root beer per child to secure their sons survival. It would have saved many a slaved over meal. Were there write ups on volcanoes and the abject fascination with burning hot lava? Volcano week should seriously be considered on the Discovery and National Geographic Channels. My boys would be glued to the television. And speaking of glue, was anything written on the use of copious amounts of glue sticks and tape and staples to create original comics to peddle to your aunts and other bus riders and neighborhood school children? I should also own stock in those companies. There should’ve been something said about masked marauders hiding under beds and waiting stealthily for dripping wet parents wrapped in towels and ignorance, waiting so quietly to grab their ankles and send them shrieking to the ceiling sans towel and dignity to the soundtrack of giggling and hysterical laughter. But then, I suppose, had they included any of those things, I would never have wished for a son and gotten three that have made a daily, chaotic, insanely frustrating, crazy, manic, amazing, blessed, beautiful life
