Singin' in the Rain

There's been a good amount of rain lately. Not so much to make things flood, but enough to give the grass that beautiful deep green that only comes from binge drinking. It means we have to mow again, but I'll take walking perpetual lines in my yard over brown and dreary any day.

Late last week, after driving home through a torrential downpour, we parked the van in the garage and the kids literally refused to go inside. When they were younger, they would inch their way into a situation like this. At first they would beg to watch the rain, then they would ask to get an umbrella and walk around the yard, then they would tentatively stretch their hands out to catch a few drops (watching me to see if I noticed their deviance). Finally, they would look at me with their puppy dog eyes and beg to run around. The umbrella would be relegated to the grass and they would test the water, so to speak.

This day was different. Maybe they've changed...grown a bit. Maybe they've just begun to understand my parenting style a little more and know that sometimes it's best just to ask for the whole cake, instead of one piece at a time. Not sure, honestly. But they leapt out of that van and surrounded me, jittery in their excitement. 

"Mom, can we?"

They dove right in. 

No small steps, just a plunge. 

Outright, into the glory of the weather.

Soaking the rain down into their little souls

Dancing without abandon as cars drove by...

Thunder and lightening drove them inside for a while. One pile of wet clothing in the laundry room, three dry children with fresh digs. 

And then the thunder stopped.

Round 2.

Less water, more earth, but whatever.

I suppose you can't be picky when you're that awesome...

Like I said.  Awesome.

If I were one to write memes, this one would say:

"We don't always get this messy. But when we do, we make sure mom will have to wash our clothing three times to get all the mud out. And we'll leave it all by the back door, because we couldn't possibly carry it any further after having so much fun."

But I'll take it. Because someday -when their children are begging them to play in the rain- they'll remember that I let them do it. In that moment of nostalgic weakness, they'll say yes to their precious kids...and that pile of wet clothing will be their reward. *maniacal laugh*

All Things New

There comes a point, after you've owned a vehicle for a while, when you start to get a hankering for a new one. When we bought our van 5 years ago, we had three children. Wonderful, adorable little boys. The fourth was on her way, and we knew that our Ford Focus couldn't handle that much child. We had crossed that threshold into the land of low mileage vehicles, and we were kind of excited about the whole thing. There were two whole extra seats in this midnight blue gem. Enough for grandparents to join us on a field trip. Perfect.

5 years ago. With all the growing and birthing that's happened since then, we have approximately 8 more feet of kid in or family, altogether. Just wanted to put that out there for imagery sake. 'Cause I personally think it's nuts, and the idea of 8 feet of anything in a minivan gives you a good idea of how cramped we are in there nowadays. Add five mouths and a few bad attitudes to that, and cramped turns into trapped.

*eye twitch*

Our minivan was gently used when we got it, but has since made itself the dumping ground for our family of seven. Things live in there for months. Lost gloves find nirvana under the back seat, half eaten granola bars slowly grow mold in the cup holders, and french fries petrify in the crevices of booster seats. It is the grave yard of all things discarded in haste. This last car trip, the van was in such disarray that I was afraid to open the door at the rest stop for fear that the trash would file out with the children. To add insult to injury, our little lady decided that her hamburger patty would best serve its purposes masticated and soaked in water...in her cup holder. *boke*

When we arrived home from that trip, the weather was teasing us with sunshine and warmth. That was my cue. I pulled the van out of its dark den and into the spring day, the vacuum out of its dusty hiding place, and a wad of plastic bags to contain the flotsam and jetsam that I planned to extract from their evil dominion. At first, the kids just ran in circles around the empty garage, a re-discovered play area that they had forgotten over the winter. But eventually they got curious and decided to help. One brought the Windex, another the paper towels, and the third a bucket of soapy water and the ice scraper. Bless him, he tries.

After an hour of tugging at belts and bench seats, while vacuuming and wiping and cursing under my breath at the invention of bubble gum and stickers, it was done. We stood back to admire our work, all of us tired, but completely satisfied. My oldest piped up, "Wow mom, we have a really nice van. Let's not get a new one just yet." I smiled and agreed.

And that's when it hit me.

Before this great cleansing triumph, our van was filthy. And every time I got in it, my only thoughts were of a new one- a bigger one, a better one, a cleaner one- just not THIS one. Every time I had to bend myself in half to buckle in their cute little bottoms, the thoughts that filled my mind were all wistful desires and discontentment. Not once in the last 6 months had I looked at that vehicle and thought to myself, "Wow, we have a really nice van. Let's not get a new one just yet."

But now it was clean, and my mind was starting to do a little internal loop on itself.

If I have this feeling about our van, what else in my life am I dissatisfied with for the very same reason? What else have I allowed to become covered in clutter and dirt, buried under misuse or neglect?

So, I started to list it all in my head, and I thought about writing it down for you here so you could see, but the list was long enough to be cumbersome in blog form. Mainly because it was pretty much EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE. Seriously, everything. In some way or another the dissatisfaction that I found myself feeling about anything could be boiled down to the fact that I wasn't being a good steward of all of these extraordinary blessings.

After this little epiphany, I took a walk through the rooms in our house. What about this room is making me crazy? That mirror? Let's clean it. That bookshelf? Go through it, get rid of the old tattered books, and straighten the ones left behind. The scary linen closet? Stack it up nicely. The "loved" dining room table? A little olive oil and lemon juice will make it shine a bit more.

Now here's the thing. All that ^ up there? I can't live like that every single day. I am not Mary Poppins. If you've been keeping up with my ramblings at all, you know that I'm a big proponent of being okay with your messy house. But friend, there is a time for everything. And we all know that after the continual desolation and bleakness that winter brings, there's something about the advent of spring that makes us desire open windows, a clean house, and a catharsis of all the dust bunnies and bad attitudes that have been building up for five months.

So I cleaned for a day. Even with 98% of the mess still there, I feel much better. You have to be realistic when you have five kids that you teach at home. Grace, even in frantic spring cleaning, is an absolute must.

As I was scrubbing walls and cabinets I kept thinking about all of this stuff, and I kept coming back to this question: why didn't I just want a clean van? Why did I want a NEW one? Yes, there's the obvious space issue, but this mindset permeates a lot of my life...not just my vehicle. Is something old and a bit worn out? Yes? Get a new one. Go! Go shopping! Take the keys, go walk the aisles and find a replacement. Bigger and better. Yessiree. And while you're at it, see if there's something else that catches your eye, and get that, too!

Where did this voice in my head come from? How did people get from settling the wilderness and making their own clothing and homes, to throwing away a hairbrush because it has too much hair stuck to it? I personally blame the mail order catalog.

But that's not really the point. It's not how we lost something, it's what was lost.

Not so long ago, things were cherished, taken care of, and repaired again and again. This was mostly out of necessity.  Through the labor of a handmade life, people learned the inherent worth of things, and of the people behind those things...even when they didn't make them themselves. I hat wasn't just a hat. It was hours of work, done by a fellow in town who you knew by name. The few products that were actually bought in stores were saved for over long periods of time, and when finally acquired were treated with great consideration and care. Nothing wasted, nothing thrown away.

But that loop in my mind... it kept circling deeper...

What if...when the things we owned stopped being seen as precious and worth maintaining, and started instead to become disposable...what if we let that seep into other parts of our lives?

Friendships. Marriages. Families.

...Disposable...

Parenting your child is hard, so you check out. Your spouse is needy, so you stay at work. Your parents are getting old and cumbersome, so you stop visiting. Your friend doesn't agree with you, so you don't answer calls. To really address any of those issues is hard work, often full of heartache, and always time consuming. But to let those all go, to leave them where they are...that decision makes a statement: 

You are too broken for me. I'll just throw you away. 

---

Which of you can honestly say that you've never been thrown?

Truth be told, I don't believe that any one of us has been spared. So many homes are torn in two by divorce, lives are drowned by addictions, families are plagued by anger and rage, friends are left in the wake of our idle tongues, children are burdened with our criticism and resentment. But with all that said, and all that pain daily dealt and received, I still believe that not one of us is disposable, no matter how broken.

When I was young, a woman stood up in the front of our church and spoke about her journey away from, and then back to God. She compared her life to a bar of soap. Beginning fresh and whole, beautiful and white. Slowly being whittled down, piece by piece, washing by washing until it was merely a sliver of murky brown waste. No one wants that soap. It doesn't make much lather any more and it slips through your fingers too easily. It's the thing that gets thrown away when you scour the shower, and replaced with another- fresh, whole and white. And that's where she had been. Worn down by her life, her decisions, and the wounds given by those around her, until it seemed there was nothing left worth keeping. Disposable.

And then she talked about coming back -- Wandering into church broken and confused, feeling like the prodigal son who'd been eating alongside the pigs, and wondering if someone so far gone could ever be worth saving. She expected to be cast away; by the church and by God. But instead, she experienced the opposite. Grace and forgiveness. The people surrounded her and helped her move forward. And God...He didn't cast her aside. He didn't leave her where she was.

Instead, He took her sliver of soap 

-what was left after she had been worn down to nothing- 

and He made it new.

In many ways, we are all worn down soap. We each have places in our lives that we aren't proud of -whether the fault is our own or not. Yet even the most broken of spirits is not cast aside by God. It's such an amazing thing, the mercy that is offered. But what I find more amazing is that we are asked to do the same.

Not one person in your life is disposable. Say it. Out loud. Not one. That includes you. It includes your spouse. Your best friend. Your parents. Your opinionated mother-in-law. Your insanely disobedient child. The neighbor that doesn't read social cues and drives you nuts. The slow cashier at the grocery. The dude that pulled in front of you in traffic yesterday. Not one person in your life is disposable.

---

Think back to that dirty van. Very few things in life are that easy. More often than not, mending a broken relationship or showing grace and forgiveness take way more than an hour of hard labor. Sometimes these things take years. But after that hard work is done, and mercy abounds, you will have the joy of stepping back to see the repairs that you have encouraged - knowing that what you have is really very nice, and you don't need a new one just yet. 

Now that is some work worth admiring.

Say it with Dishes

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Once the kids were in bed this evening I turned my tired gaze towards my equally exhausted husband and announced that I had done absolutely nothing for him.  No card. Nothing.

He kind of stared at me for a moment, and I honestly wasn't sure whether he had heard me or not, because after swimming in a few seconds of silence, he went on as if I hadn't said anything.  

I can't tell you what his silence meant (11 years of marriage only allows for so much clairvoyance)...but I can tell you historically how we roll.  Most birthdays and holidays are met with little fanfare between the two of us.  We wake up, wish each other happy things and then go about the day.  No gifts, and usually no cards. That's it.

Now, before you start to judge...  We give our kids gifts.  They aren't all lying around the tree on Christmas morning sobbing for lack of celebration, and their birthdays are loads of fun.  I feel very blessed to be able to love on my kids with a gift or two.

But us grown-ups?  Not so much.

Earlier in our marriage, we tried a lot harder to give just the right gifts.  Our first Christmas together was delightful. My husband was still in college, and I was working a job with Americorps (i.e. volunteering with a W2).  That year I made a total of 9,000 dollars.  I look back at the ledger I kept that year, and every single month we went further into debt.  The misguided gift giving at Christmas didn't help our cause.  I received a pair of hiking boots, and he got two strange containers in which to organize his fly tying materials.  One gift, a hope of activities done together, and the other a not-so-subtle hint that his hobby was taking over the guest room and must be.contained. (There, I said it. I totally didn't realize at the time that I was being so subversive.  Oh well...live and learn.)  We both received our gifts gracefully, but I think that both of us wondered if we would get better at it.

Once children came along, the finance of gift giving certainly didn't get any easier...and it was met with the reality of very little spare time in which to shop.  So really, since 2004... 

We are odd birds.  I know.  We watch couples around us who are extravagant gift givers, and can't wrap our heads around it, because it's just so foreign to us.  Would we give each other more if we had the funds or the time?  

I don't really know.

But this is where we are now, and we've come to a realization together:  

Every single day we give each other gifts.

-I wake up earlier with a baby one morning and make sure his cup of coffee is waiting when he comes down. 

-He makes himself breakfast before work the next day, but adds an extra 2 eggs to the pan so that he can make me some as well...then gives me the best ones because he knows that I'll appreciate it.

-He does the dishes, and pulls in every single mobile child to help with the job, while I sit on the couch and just breathe.  Literally, just breathe. *heaven*

-He asks to go out with the guys, and I say yes.  All the time, as often as I possibly can, I say yes.

-After a long day with the kids, he'll push me out the door with a few bucks and make sure I go to a coffee shop and take a few moments to just breathe. And drink coffee. *heaven bathed in coffee*

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture.  

Every morning when we wake up, we have the opportunity to put someone else's needs and desires before our own.   To hold our tongue when we're frustrated. To give someone the benefit of the doubt. To clean up someone else's mess without complaining. To actually listen to their desires and musings that hold no interest for us, whatsoever. To use our words to encourage and build them up over, and over, and over... To come alongside them in every way possible, sharing their burdens and joys alike.

Tomorrow when I wake up, there will be no great hurrah over the "day of love."  I will share my day with a wonderful man, who will give to me all that he can of himself, just like he did today.  That is a wonderful gift.

The Un-favored Month

"Many hands make light work."  This is true.  And when I feel like doing a good job being a mom and preparing my children for the real world, our kids help with pretty much everything.  14 hands can get a lot done in a very short time.  It's a lot of hands.  However, those little hands are connected to bodies with more energy than I am able to comprehend with my immense brain.  All put together, they could pull Paul Bunyan backwards across Minnesota on any given day, and they have no problem wearing me out before noon. Needless to say, these small bodies -confined to sunless, tiny spaces over a few months time- do not make my work light...or pleasant...or possible.  

Despite the fact that it has the fewest number of days, February is always the longest month of this confinement. December is just delightful with all the anticipation. January has the residue of holidays, and March has the naive and misplaced hope of spring.  

February has Valentine's Day.  

That's like giving your middle child the last sip of your coke after all the other kids have had their turn, and all that's left is carbonated, caramel colored spit.  

...Poor, middle-month February....

And here we are.  Treading water in the dregs left behind by all the favored months.

As I type, my children are lined up in front of Netflix, arguing about which show to watch. One child is making strange squealing noises (not the baby, oddly enough), another is giving unsolicited advice to the squealer, one is demanding the remote control, another is sucking her thumb and rolling her eyes at the general state of things, and the baby is overdue for his nap...and wet.  Oops.

So, how do we cope?  Well, we don't always sit in front of a screen...but they certainly crave it constantly, and would become fully consumed by it if I allowed.  Some days I can force them outside into the cold.  Other days, even grocery shopping provides a reprieve from the confines of a stale house. And let me tell you, after the chaos of navigating THAT labyrinth with five kids, trying to stick to the list and avoid a tantrum in the cereal aisle, these four walls feel like a haven.

This February, however, there was hope.  My parents decided that their Christmas gift to the family would be a weekend away.  A respite in the dead of winter. A shelter from the storm.  A beacon of... {okay, I'm done}. So off we went.  A hotel with a pool, no cooking, a long awaited movie, and a circus.  Extra hands to help with -and love on- our dear, completely insane children.

What an amazingly well-timed gift.

Was it a crazy weekend? Yes.  Did my kids have too much sugar?  Probably. 

Are they currently in withdrawal from all the stimulation?  Oh yeah.  

But wow.  It was so. much. fun.

There are still 18 days left until I can begin dreaming of spring.  I am fully aware that February will still try to torment us with more snow and sub-zero temps and perhaps a stomach bug or two. But my tank is full, and as the Lego Movie so brilliantly proclaims... 

Everything is awesome!