things that hurt

I love going to the doctor with all five kids.

It's a monthly highlight in my life...schlepping an infant carrier into the office, small hands leaving little prints all over the sparkling glass doors. I watch my children do laps back and forth in the waiting room, refusing to sit and read, choosing instead to tap incessantly on the fish tank and ride the small inflatable creatures like pogo sticks. I'd love to know which doctor bought those for the waiting room. They have a sick sense of humor and I will punish them by bringing all five of my snotty kids together to see them EVERY TIME.

Today was a four year check up for our little lady. Where those one thousand four hundred sixty days went, I'm not really sure. But there she is: tall, and sassy, and four. I managed to haul all the kids out of the house in time. Wearing shoes, no less. (Feeling super proud of that one.) Their shenanigans in the waiting room were actually a little milder than usual. But despite these positive advances in my children's sophistication, my stomach was in a small knot.

I've had three fellas go through the four year check up, and there's something very special about that year. I use special in a very loose sense here. Words like grievous and bothersome are more accurate. The majority of her check up was fantastic. Her interactions with non-family are a coin toss most of the time, but today landed heads up. She was a charmer and show-off: giggling and giving me thumbs up every time she answered a developmental question correctly.

that look, right there.

I smiled back and my stomach turned, still keenly aware that she didn't know what was coming. All the smoothness of the morning was dependent on her ignorance, so I had decided to wait to tell her until it was almost time. After the vision and hearing tests, I sat her down on my lap and whispered in her ear,

Honey, you know how we've been reading about viruses and germs in science at home? *nod* Well, do you remember those special medicines that help our bodies fight those germs fast so that we don't get sick? *eyebrow goes up* Today is a day when you get some of those medicines. They're going to give you four pokes. *silence*

She looked down at her toes, and quietly agreed to do her best. I warned her that I would have to help hold her nice and still, but that it would be over super fast.

The nurse came back in a few seconds later, her tray overflowing with hypodermic horrors, little bandaids pre-opened and dangling off the sides, and purple gloves at the ready. She suggested that the best way to make this happen was for me to be in charge of stabilizing the top half of little lady's body while she popped as quickly as possible through the shots on her legs.

I laid my trepidatious, darling girl on the table, crossed her arms over her chest and held her hands in mine. Nose to nose, I looked down into her eyes. They were so calm, but only for a moment. The nurse wasted no time, and with each of the four pokes I watched my baby girl's eyes change from surprise to terror, and her face pinch as she dealt with the pain. I made it as far as the letter G in the abc's and it was over.

There are many opinions on vaccinations. As the wife of a handsome fella who got his PhD in immunology, we choose to vaccinate our kids because my husband has done all the reading. Literally, ALL of it, and we believe that the benefits far outweigh the risks. I totally realize that this can be a very volatile topic, and I bring it up only for the illustration. Just wanted to get that out there, because my non-confrontational self is super worried that you're going to block out all the important stuff because I used the "V" word. Moving forward...

As soon as the nurse gave me the go ahead, I scooped my baby girl up in my arms and squeezed her tightly. The tears streaming down her cheeks made their way onto mine, and we were there, just the two of us, slowly working through the pain. "You were so very brave."  I whispered.

"I know." she whispered back...

Like I said, four and sassy.

---

Parenting is hard. Watching your children go through something difficult is one of those hard things. The temptation to come to their aid, to defend them, to remove the assaulting thing from their path, is so often strong...but not always best. We do not learn to walk by means of our parents legs. We learn to walk on our own two feet, falling over and over, causing many bruises and many moments of angst in the hearts of our folks. 

Watching them go through something physically painful is even further up the list. I am a firm believer in the magic of bandaids, and I will put as many on as possible to stop the tears. Sometimes the gashes and bruises are a result of their own foolishness, but even though my mouth may chastise them initially for their lack of brain cells, my heart aches that this was the consequence for their actions. Plus there's all the blood. Blech.

Holding them down while they go through something painful that you've given a green light has been the hardest thing for me thus far. As parents, we have a perspective far above our children's that allows us to make those hard decisions...to know when certain pain is necessary, or even beneficial. When our oldest was four, we sent him into surgery to remove pre-cancerous cells from his arm. My husband would tell you that watching the nurse put that mask over that little face, letting him fall into the murky world of general anesthesia, and allowing his helpless body to be wheeled away behind closed doors...was one of the hardest things he's had to do. But had we left those cells there to do their worst...I dare not speak it.

Wounds must be cleaned, bones must be set.

These things are for their good, their benefit. We as parents know this, but it does not make it any easier to watch our children suffer. It does not make the pain any less real, or the look in their eyes any less harrowing.

---

To a four year old girl, getting four shots is a huge deal. She's still talking about it (now two days out) and reminding me that she's barely living through it. Many parents have had to make the decision to watch their child go through much worse than pokes. I am in awe of their courage, and thankful that I have not yet had to be in their shoes. 

With Easter coming this weekend, and Good Friday here already, the idea of a parent allowing their child to endure great pain for the sake of the healing it will bring...is very real. Whether you celebrate Easter with bunnies or crosses, or not at all...there is a universal truth in the love of a father for his children. He had one son. One that did all he asked. And he let him die for all his other children...those that had turned from him, and walked away. I can't even fathom the strength of that parent's heart.

You may not know the whole story. Or you might, but see it only as a moral tale. You may hold it central to your life as truth. No matter where your heart lies in the matter, it is hard to deny that the father in that story has a love for his children that no earthly father could muster.

I, for one, am certainly left in awe. 

A Day in the Life

Last night I ate broccoli. Hence little man enjoyed broccoli milk later on. For a guy who has problems with indigestion anyway, I doomed myself with the first bite. Along comes 11pm, and with it, the first wake-up of a very long night. 11:30, 12:15, 1:30, 2:15, 3:30... and that was the last, because the little broccoli monster stayed awake. It's a good thing he's so cute.

So, yeah. My day began at 3:30am with screaming broccoli burps. Coffee is my best friend.
I finally dragged him back into our bed around 5:30 trying desperately to get a few winks. The back of my eyelids are beautiful, and it's too bad we only got to hang out for a little bit, cause I could look at them all. day. long.

Adam woke up and forfeited his warm spot in bed to a sleepy eyed little lady. Within 30 seconds of her arrival, the midnight beast had awoken to play. Squeals abound. Good-bye sweet, sweet eyelids. I miss you so. I rolled off the bed and stepped on a mountain of blanket and a snoring boy that had made himself comfortable on my dirty carpet somewhere around 2am. That kid can sleep anywhere.

In an attempt to take some of my bed with me, I crawled into my robe and slippers. Plodding downstairs with a squeaking baby in my arms, I realize it's Friday. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. We can do this.

Slowly but surely, all the children appear like prairie dogs. The snuggles are delicious, the halitosis, not so much. But I'll take what I can get. The coffee is ready, and my wonderful man hands me some fried eggs on a plate.  I look over, and he's eating his out of a dirty pyrex measuring cup. He responds to my raised eyebrow with a shrug. Delicious, but a little weird. Bless him.

The euphoria doesn't last, cause we all know he has to go to work. It's Friday, not vacation.
Once he's out the door, I'm bombarded with the daily question: "Can we watch an episode of Clone Wars...pleeeeeeease?" Historically, I can count on one finger the times that a video in the morning has resulted in a good day of school, but I decide to ignore my instincts and say yes. I was up all night, so my problem solving gears are broken. Smashed, like something that's been...smashed, really well.

Yes. Turn it on. Pronto.

Two episodes later, I make them promise me that when I tell them it's actually time for school, they can't argue...and that if they do, I'll take away all their happiness. And their toothbrushes. Grrr.

Where am I during all of this screen time? Amnesia.  I type this line a mere 8 hours later, and I can't tell you what happened while Anakin Skywalker was saving his padawan. Those minutes have been fully erased from my mind. I would love to say that something got done, like laundry, or dishes...but since both those piles are still there, I'm gonna have to go with 'no'. The force is strong with this one.

Around 10, we finally turned it off and opened the blinds to reveal an absolutely breathtaking day. Hallelujah! Spring is a real thing. Something about those sunbeams transformed all of our groggy brains and put us into hyper-drive. Without a word, each boy pulled out their reading book, curled up in a sunny spot, and entered another universe. It was magnificent. Apparently, they really value their happiness...or their toothbrushes. Either way, there is little that pleases a homeschooling mother more than her child devouring a good book.

This lasted a few minutes, until nap time was over for little man.

Having five kids means that no one lives in silence. One must develop the ability to function and listen in the midst of chaos, or otherwise suffer the defeat of hearing nothing clearly for the entirety of childhood. One child is asking how to carry numbers while subtracting, another spelling out loud, hit, it, bit, sit..., the oldest pacing the kitchen asking for another snack, and someone else yelling from upstairs about needing a wipe. All piled atop of one another, while the smallest continues to squawk and pull my hair and refuse to be put down.

Most days, this cacophony draws me into a very dark place. I have explained borrowing three hundred forty nine times, I already know how to spell, you can NOT have another snack, and wipe your own butt. Today, however, I am amazed at the hope that the sunshine has brought to our dining table. I flit (spelling word!), answering each question without yelling. I wander into the kitchen and clean a counter, come back, answer another question, wipe a poopy behind, glide back downstairs, move on to the next spelling word and repeat the process until they've all finished. I felt like a domestic goddess.

Everything seems better in the light. The rooms are still dirty with the shades wide open, but something about those little dust particles dancing in the sunbeams makes even garbage look beautiful. With the spelling done and the carrying completed, I kicked them outside into the balmy 45 degree day. They chose sandals and sweatshirts (true Michigan-born babies), and rode their bikes back and forth on our block for an hour until lunch.

When they came in, their hair smelled of sunshine.  

That's up there with the smell of newborn babies. Seriously, someone should bottle that stuff and sell it on the black market. So. Intoxicating. And after the snowiest winter in the history of Ann Arbor, I could have parked my nose on one of their heads and left it there for the remainder of the school day. That has great potential for mommy weirdness though...you have to know your boundaries.

So instead I made lunch. --Three boxes of mac and cheese with veggies and meatballs. That snack at 11 didn't make a dent in their appetites. While I'm chopping up the meatballs, one comes in with a joke:

"Knock knock," he says.
Who's There?
"I'm a poopin."
*eye roll* I'm a poopin who?
"No, not I'm a poopin, ihm a poopin"
*still cutting meatballs* Okay, Ihm a poopin who?
"I'm a poopin"
*sideways glance*
"I know mom, I'm just not good at telling a joke."

I love that kid.

All that stuff ^ is now 48 hours gone. There was more, but considering the fact that two days of my life have passed since those memorable moments, I've completely forgotten all of the wonderful and hilarious things they said in the afternoon. Which is sad, 'cause my kids are funny. Currently, two out of those five hilarious kids are throwing up, which isn't nearly as good fodder for blogging...so I'll spare you the details. But it just goes to show that Master Oogway was right:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the "present."

If Wishes Were Horses: The Evolution of a Dream

Sometime after our first baby was born, I started dreaming about houses. We were renting a three bedroom apartment while Adam was a lab manager at our alma mater. It was plenty of space for the three of us. In fact, looking back at that year...we were swimming in it. But I didn't want an apartment. I wanted a house.

The village we called home at that time -Gambier, Ohio- is a beautiful place. The hills roll just enough, and a river runs through it with well worn fishing holes and bridges for jumping. Then there's the Kokosing Gap Trail that runs from Mount Vernon to Danville. I can still smell the earth alongside the paved path, and hear the river crawling along...hidden behind the leaves of ancient trees.

{nostalgia moment}

Gambier was where our story began, and though both Adam and I were in love with that place, it became clear that it we couldn't stay there. So Adam applied for graduate schools, and our time in Gambier came to a close. We still dream about going back there and settling somewhere in those fields. Key word: dream.

We knew more kids were coming along, so we stayed close to family and moved just north into Michigan. When the time came to apartment shop in Ann Arbor, I was on bed rest with our second baby. Adam and his parents trekked up to U of M and made video tours for me...breaking into campus housing so that I could see what we were getting into. We chose one in faith, and packed all our things into a Uhaul truck.

Family housing at the University of Michigan is a very unique place. Very. Unique. For seven years, we lived with neighbors from every corner of the world. Most conversations were in very broken English and ended abruptly with children running away and a tired parent in pursuit. During that time, we learned more about living alongside other people than we ever had in college. We began to understand what it really looks like to love your neighbor, whether you feel like it or not. There was little space (as our family doubled in size), and even less privacy. Shared walls, shared play areas, shared dislike of graduate school and Michigan winters...  It was a lot like coffee: wonderful and terrible all at the same time.

There are some days that I still miss it. A lot.

I brought three babies home to those small rooms.

--

I watched my children grow, learning to fail and rise again to keep trying...

There was a whole lot of life lived within those walls.

-----

One night, about half way through our stay there, Adam and I had a rare evening out and we took a bus ride downtown. We stopped by Borders, grabbed a coffee to share and wandered through the rows and rows of words. I turned a corner to find Adam, sitting on one of those tiny little round stools, fully enraptured in this:

Pause.

Early on in our relationship, I spent a semester in New York City and fell in love with the speed and excitement of city life. After 5 years of living in cornfields for college, we seriously discussed moving to a big city together.  Adam holding a book with a barn on the cover like that wasn't a complete surprise...but it certainly wasn't where we were originally headed.

He handed it to me, splayed open to a page about composting toilets... So. Romantic.

I raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and said that if he was interested, we should buy it and read...
And so we did.

Every page was magical. Well...every page except the one about composting toilets. I would read, turn the pages, read more, ignore the dishes, read more, ignore my children, read more. It was an addiction...very similar, in fact, to the way my children now drool over a Lego magazine. I had never felt anything like this before.

Land lust.

I will share some of my homestead centerfolds with you...

five acres. divided perfectly. so. beautiful. must. look. away...

it's like a utopia. the rows are so straight. and green. and edible. drool.

duck. houses. that is all.

And that was how it began. My dream about a house turned into a dream about a house on five acres with chickens, pigs, a cow, and maybe sheep. A root cellar, an orchard, rotating fields and dirt under our fingernails.

Soon after this obsession began, we came across a movie called Sweet Land. A beautiful story that illustrates perfectly the desire to work hard and make something from the land, and through that work comes the birth of a love that transcends the changing of times and the challenges of pouring your life into that land. 

I can not fully explain how badly we wanted this...to work our own land with our bare hands, to pay our dues in sweat and sore muscles, standing side by side in a field that grew food for our children. Suffice it to say that I'm pretty sure we can credit a baby to that movie night. Desire is transferable.

That was seven years ago.

All of that dreaming began in graduate school, where nothing...nothing...was clear. The future was uncertain, so although the housing market was perfect, we knew we couldn't buy. So we waited. Graduate school ended, and a post doc began, and we watched the market slowly rebound. The future was still uncertain, but I watched for houses anyway, trying not to get attached to anything I saw, or to dream do deeply. 

It was then that we decided, since we couldn't buy our own place yet, we would at least move out of family housing and into an actual house with a yard and a garage. Anything to get closer to our dream, even if it was just a rental, and really a step sideways instead of forward. 

But in some ways it was closer. This house feels like home.  We've filled it with us, and added even more of us to make it extra special full of us-ness. 

The kids have worn in the swing set and run circles into the carpets, and put ample holes in the walls with elbows and heels. They've decorated and redecorated their rooms to fit their monthly obsessions, and turned every corner of this house into fodder for make believe. 

It has certainly become our home.

Yet still, even now...

I wake in the mornings and long to look out of my window and see

-not the back door of a neighbor-

but the ingress of creation and life.

A land, a sweet land, that I can bury my hands in, and pour my soul out upon. 

I don't know when I will wake to that dream. Probably not this year, maybe the next...perhaps even further down the road. I certainly hold out hope. But in the meantime, in the mornings when I open my eyes to see the haloed carpet and holy walls...

I will remind myself that home is what we make of it.

Talking to Strangers

Grocery shopping with five kids isn't for the faint of heart. I do it as infrequently as possible, and always with a list, a straight face, a clenched jaw, and the intense desire to disappear in the wine aisle while the five children run free among the coolers of ice cream and frozen pizza. You would think that -in comparison- shopping with only one would be a breeze. *chortle*

------

When our youngest was born, it was fairly evident within the first week that we had ourselves a crier. Our first four babies had been pretty easy, as long as they were being held.  But this little guy...he would scream and scream, arching his back and writhing out of our arms, no matter what we did, or how much we jiggled. Sleep eluded us at night, and rest during the daylight hours was a phantom. The other kids worried terribly over this, and did their best to help ease my aching back muscles by taking turns walking the floor with their baby brother.

Around 9pm every evening, he would finally calm down for about an hour, only to awaken again with a vengeance and scream for an hour or so longer.  It was during this sweet spot one evening that I decided to go grocery shopping.  I dared not leave little man at home with his daddy, because -even if nothing helped when he was screaming- having mama around always helped the most.  So, I strapped the still screaming baby in the car seat, grabbed my shopping list, and pulled out of the garage.

He screamed the whole way to the store, slowly loosing vigor and sounding more and more like a strangled duck as the minutes dragged on. The moment I pulled into the Meijers parking lot, he fell asleep. Just in time. I strapped on my Ergo carrier, and gingerly lifted his sob wracked body from beneath the straps of his seat.  I tucked him into the carrier and hugged him against my chest in the hopes that the smell of mommy would keep him content.  I breathed a quick prayer and shut the van door. 

As I was grabbing the diaper bag from the front seat, another van pulled in beside mine, and a young mom hauled a baby seat from the back and plopped her happy baby into a cart. I didn't stick around to chat or even smile.  I was on a mission...but beyond that, I didn't want to talk to anyone, and certainly not to a mother whose small child was easy. Not tonight. 

The first thirty minutes of my quest through Meijers were peaceful. I was stopped more than once by sweet old ladies who wanted to peek into the carrier, or know how old he was, or tell me how cute he was.  I started to relax a bit, and slowed my step...I even looked at things that weren't on the list. Hooray, I thought to myself, I can do this.  

It may have been the cold air that woke him, but the peace abruptly ended by the frozen chicken. There was no slow crescendo. It was a sforzando of mass proportions. I pulled him out of the carrier and jiggled and hushed and rocked. Nothing. Switched to the sling. Not having it. 

My grocery cart, full to the brim with slowly melting food, could not be ignored any more than my siren of a child. All that could be done was to finish the trip in record time and blood-curdling glory. I tucked him in my arm and under my chin so that I could push the cart with one hand and my hips and then proceeded through the last three aisles, grabbing anything that looked like it might alleviate world hunger. 

A moment before, the store had seemed empty. But now, every soul had emerged from the shadows and was staring. I could feel their eyes burning holes. Some eyes spoke pity, others anger, some disdain. But every one of them was on me, the woman with the screaming infant in the grocery at 10:30pm. What a terrible fool.

I made it to the check out, and pried every item one by one out of my cart while he screamed in my arms. Eventually I stopped apologizing to the people around me and just kept my eyes on the floor. The longer I waited, the more he screamed, and the more they stared.  And low and behold, there she was, three rows down: the mama with the silent happy baby, checking out at the same time as me. 

shame. anger. frustration. hopelessness. 

The cashier took pity on me and sent another employee along to help me get to the van. Once the groceries were in the trunk, I slumped into the front seat with the screaming banshee. Diaper change, gripe water and nursing were all futile. Nothing would stop him. Nothing. I sat there, staring into his squinted eyes, wondering what I had done wrong...how was a mother of five fully incapable of calming her baby? Why had I been foolish enough to bring him along, to take this risk?

Then she came out.

Baby still tranquil, grocery shopping done. She was there, in all her maternal glory. As I sat in my car, just trying to breathe, she calmly unloaded her food and set her happy baby in his spot in the van. She climbed into the front seat and started the car. But she didn't leave. She just sat there looking down.

I looked away, and tried not to notice that she was still there...until I saw out of the corner of my eye that she was no longer in her van, but was approaching mine. I glanced up to see her standing outside my window with a napkin in hand. 

I rolled down the glass, she handed me the napkin, and I heard her whisper, "Hang in there."

Choking back sobs, I nodded, and she walked back to her van, and drove away.

I looked down into my clenched fist, and through my fountain of tears, saw this:

There are many different types of crying. Some tears are joyful, others not. Some cries are shallow and short-lived. But some cries, and the ones that do the most good, come from deep down in your toes. I sat in that front seat and sobbed, with each breath reaching back to support yet another wave of release. Minutes crawled on, as little man and I shared our burdens through our tears with only the angels to hear us. I cried out of exhaustion, and sadness, and frustration.

But it was more than that.

I cried because, in a moment where I felt that all was lost, and there was no light to be seen, God made it very clear to me that He had not made any mistakes. Through the words of a perfect stranger, God had spoken to the depths of my mothering soul: words of peace and comfort that pulled back the dark veil of despair and filled me instead with something I had lost. Hope.

Waiting for The Next Best Thing (Part 2)

We arrived home after that glorious week, and were promptly dumped straight back into real life. Instead of a nice s-l-o-w immersion, we were greeted by a messy apartment (which was boxed up for moving the NEXT week), and four kids that weren't into the whole concept of, "Hey, sitting down and being quiet is the most funnest thing to do in the whole wide world!!" ...Yeah, not so much.

That beautiful bottle of wine got packed in with all the kitchen stuff.  I remember wrapping the bright pink, transparent goodness in brown paper before setting it in the laundry basket that would be its carriage to a new and bigger home.  Hoorah!  We were finally moving out of family housing at U of M and into a house, with a yard, and a fence, and a garage, and a neighborhood.  I almost felt like a grown-up.

Once we were settled into the house (which really means the beds were up, and we could find the toothpaste), I thought to myself, "This here is cause for celebration!  How about that bottle of wine?"  But it was too close in time.  We needed to save it for something special...down the road.  So, I unpacked the wine and set it up on top of the microwave so that we would remember we had it. (Like I could really forget we had a bottle of wine we're supposed to drink.  Seriously.)

August arrived and I got a part-time job co-leading the kids program at our church.  I hadn't worked outside of the house since our first child was born.  I remember feeling so excited that adults wanted to be around me...that they recognized an ability set of mine that didn't revolve around poop and laundry. (Shocking, I know.)  Add to that the slight increase in spending money per month, and we had something to celebrate! Yes? ...No.  We were too busy.  Having a job was really hard, especially while still teaching 2 of my 4 kids at home.  No celebration, just survival.

Then came October.  The month of doom.  I had marked the date on the calendar, "Adam hears back about the grant".  We counted down the days, praying that it would fund. That we could stay in Ann Arbor...that we could actually start saving for a home of our own...that we could stop relying on federal and family assistance to make ends meet.  Something to show us that the past seven years of our lives wouldn't be counted as lost.

*sigh*

I think if we had opened that bottle of wine in October, we wouldn't have tasted the summer in it at all. It still would have had its sparkly pink appeal, but it would have been a bitter reminder that the beauty of that week away was just that, a lone week in an ocean of months and months of striving and failing. Our hearts were so heavy with grief.  Even now, looking back from over a year of healing, I write all of this, and that hopelessness is trying to seep back in and steal today's joy.  Yikes. Moving on...

Right after Thanksgiving, we found out I was pregnant with our fifth child.  We had talked about the possibility of having more kids down the road, when things were secure, and we had more space and more income. But this -now- was not our plan. There were tears and worries.  I cried for at least an hour one evening over the absolute impossibility of adding the cost of diapers to our already strapped monthly budget. I was pregnant and hormonal...it was rough.  But eventually we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and carried on into winter. Without wine.

During those cold and gloomy months, we made some tough decisions.  After spending over a decade of his life studying and working in science, Adam decided to leave it behind for the sake of our family. Again, more tears and angst, and again...more bootstraps.  There were a whole lot of mouths to feed, cause I was eating ...a lot (me and the growing boys around our table), and so on we went.

In February, Adam interviewed for a data management position in a health analytics company.  I remember that morning we sent him out the door, dressed in the only jacket and tie he owned...the same one he wore to defend his dissertation.  The sun was so bright and warm, and even though winter was still looming over us -ready to bite with more storm and bitter fury- it was the most hopeful I had felt in months. The interview went well.  The second interview went even better, and ended in an offer.

We had reason to celebrate!
But I was still pregnant. *oh bother*

Slowly but surely, the bottle of wine on the microwave became more and more buried; by bills, jars, cards, legos, and all things that needed a home up off the counter.  After a few months of being hidden, I think that both Adam and I had forgotten there was a celebration to be had.

There was a hot summer and a big belly, then there was August.  And Sam.  He was a week late, but cooked to perfection. Grandparents came quickly north to meet this beautiful new addition.

He was not our plan. 

But we could not have planned so well as this. 

Certainly, this was our best reason to celebrate yet.  A beautiful, healthy boy. An easy birth, and four big sibs who were thrilled beyond reason to have this little guy join our family.  But by now, that bottle of wine was stuffed so far under our tiredness and the noise of a screaming baby, it didn't even cross our minds.  

There have been so many reasons to celebrate since his birth last August: two weddings, major holidays, birthdays, successful work days, great days of parenting and loving and living.  

Finally, on Friday night, we noticed the top of the bottle peeking out from behind the kitchen chaos.  Adam suggested that now was as good a time as any. We had gotten the kids to bed...and any parent would know THAT is worth celebrating.  So I dusted off the bottle, and we opened it up.  And this is what we saw--

The beautiful transparent pink had turned into a murky, ugly, dark brown.  We had waited so long for the next best thing to celebrate, that our wine had lost some of what had made it our favorite in the first place. It still had the taste of country-picked strawberries, but it had acquired a backwards bitterness that was not originally there.  All that waiting...all those excuses...that, and the fact that I had something precious and didn't protect it from the one thing that would destroy it even faster than time: sunlight.

As we sat there drinking it in the darkness of our finally quiet house, we couldn't actually see the wine, so I don't think our celebration was dampened one bit.  In fact, I can say for certain that it was a perfect ending to the day.  But it got me thinking...

How often am I unwilling to celebrate a victory, or a blessing, or a day well lived because I'm waiting for the next best thing?  How often do I allow discontentment to seep into my joy and turn it murky and brown, leaving me with a bitter aftertaste instead of sweet rest?

Today was long, full of sick kids, and generally un-enjoyable.  But I spent that time in my warm home, with my beautiful family that grows more beautiful each moment. I have one glass of wine left in that bottle, and I don't intend to leave it there any longer.  

Here's to celebrating the blessings of today.

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!