A Day in the Life of Motherhood

I am certain all mothers would agree: being a mother can be exhausting! It's no wonder I'm still trying to loose the last pounds from Ethan's pregnancy. If eight hours of sleep a night helps one loose weight, I haven't had that in at least a year! Some days I feel like I never sit down. And I often ponder how a floor I just vacuumed five minutes ago can look like it hasn't been vacuumed in a week.

There are sooooo many things no one tells you about motherhood. Soooo many things no one posts on the millions of blogs mothers write about how wise they are in the ways of healthy eating, potty training, homeschooling and raising young Christians. You know the ones. The ones that make you wish your husband was a millionaire so you could afford organic food (and someone to cook it). Or how they potty trained their 13-month old in three easy days with never an accident ever again. Or how about teaching your 2-year-old to read in a mere month? Not to mention the ones that declare their oh-so-godly 3-year-old witnessed to the drug addict on the street yesterday who then made a profession of faith, dropped the drug habit and became a missionary to China in a matter of a week. Yeah, I've read them too.

For those of you perfect mothers who may stumble across my humble blog: Maybe your life as a mother is like that...but you don't have to make the rest of us feel bad.

For, yes, we try to eat healthy. But some days that is ridiculously impossible because every vegetable I serve Ethan ends up on the floor while he devours the roll with butter. And, honestly, a lot of times I don't have the energy to do more than scold for the food on the floor. Let him eat the bread. At least, then, he's not starving.

And potty training? Well, thirteen months into this ordeal I was safely saying that Emry (who won't be three until April) is 95% potty-trained. What I mean by that is she wears a diaper only to bed and usually at nap time just to be safe (even though she typically wakes up dry) and we venture out for hours in panties. Until she met self-flushing potties at the mall two weeks ago. As if hand dryers weren't terrifying enough. She is mortally afraid of these obnoxious self flushing things that totally waste water by flushing ten times during the 30-seconds you use them and refuses on pain of throwing a tantrum (which is very unlike her) to go anywhere near them. And now she thinks that all public bathrooms contain them. Sometimes hygiene is carried a bit too far...

Homeschooling? Well, I've not a lot to say on that subject. After all, Emry isn't yet three. She's working on the sounds of her letters, but there are a lot of letters to cover. However, since we read the same books over and over again, she reads them back verbatim and follows the words. We also realized recently that it wasn't the color of the ink on the prayer cards she was memorizing so she picked out the same ones every time: she actually knows what the words look like. I'm 100% sure, though, that we won't be reading by April when she turns three. And as for Ethan...well, I have a feeling I'll be lucky if he sits still long enough to learn his alphabet.

And am I raising little Christians? To be honest, I don't know that. I pray that, certainly, but I know from my own experience that one never knows how truly evil a heart is. "Desperately wicked" (as Ezekiel says) is hard for us to truly plunge...or, maybe, we simply don't want to. Does it cheer my heart when Ethan hums Jesus Loves Me with me? Of course! Does it give me joy when Emry tells me the Bible story from Sunday school? Yes! I am wary - maybe even scared - of the knowledge my children  can obtain from Bible stories, songs, verses memorized, church, basic conversation. For is it just knowledge? Will they one day cling to that and claim they're saved while living like a Hollywood movie star? I know the hurt and pain of believing one thing...only to discover the opposite and grieve. But I continue on. Not as I ought, certainly. We could always talk about Jesus more than we do Biscuit, but I pray I can do better. And I pray they will be saved - not by me, or a church, or anything we often cling to. Only God can save them. And, I hope and pray, raise them to be a better man and woman than their parents.

So, yes, today I am tired. Emry isn't feeling 100% and she shows it in her attitude. Ethan, perhaps in protest of being weaned, wakes up at three every morning just because he can. The usual piles up: laundry, cleaning, meals. There's Ethan's first birthday, taxes to be filed, little projects all over my desk. And we won't mention all the work being a "hit-and-miss" office manager throws my way. But last night as I woke up for the tenth time with one of the kids admittedly a bit frustrated (especially at my sound asleep husband next to me), I took a deep breath and realized I would get as exhausted as necessary to see Emry feel better, Ethan sleeps entirely through the night, the house is clean and our bills paid. Because of my internal Scottish stubbornness? Probably. But also because I love my family. And even if I'm not the perfect blogging mother, I'll do a lot for love.

A Yankee Education

I learned last week that the landscape architecture firm I work for designed the American flag plaza in the town I live in, displayed along the bend where the Ohio River meets the Beaver River.  Since I now understand what landscape architects do, I applaud them for the lovely design…and blame some other Yankee for the blaring mistake in its midst.

The center of the design is a 30 x 60 foot American Flag flown atop of a 120-foot pole As you can imagine, it can be seen from all over. Flanking this flag are 26 smaller flags on shorter poles (12 on one side and 14 on the other - something not noticeable by the way they curve, but when you count them...well, my OCD is very bothered by that), each set behind a pink granite slab that is engraved with a year and a list of the states whose stars were added that year. (Stars were once added as soon as a state received statehood, but as of 1818 the stars are added on the 4^th of July following the state’s statehood.) Opposite this is a 26-foot granite wall engraved with some flag history, the first verse of The Star Spangled Banner and the usual list of names associated with raising the funds, commissioning the project, etc. Upon first glance, it is a lovely and Patriotic monument.

Upon a closer study it seems to be yet another Yankee declaration against the South. For can you find the mistake?

Really? You Yankees won the confounded war. Do you have to continue to rub it in our face by being completely unable to even spell our state’s names? Or is this simply yet another example of your biased education? And while I understand your inability to get history right, can you not spell either? That’s sad. Really, really sad.

Life Before Ethan...Life Now

The end of one year and the start of another always increases my “to-do” list by a mile. Work, of course, has a million things to close out, put away, re-start and do-better. So does home: thank-you cards, Christmas stuff put away, taxes, yearly lists compiled in completion, pictures backed up. The latter is always a ton of work, but also a lot of fun.

I’m a little bit OCD (I’m sorry – CDO) when it comes to backing up the hundreds of pictures Ed and I take every year. I’m especially so since between phone changes we nearly lost all the pictures from the first year of Emry’s life. Since then, I back up a lot. And while I am making a serious attempt in giving my children photo albums (or books, as the case may be) since who doesn’t love curling up and looking at old photos (not curling up and scrolling on a laptop), I simply cannot possibly include the nearly 1,000 pictures taken every year in a book. So on top of drives that back up the pictures for myself, I also have drives for both Emry and Ethan with their pictures on them. A little over the top? Maybe…but if they don’t want them, they can throw them out someday. Honestly, I won’t care.

Meanwhile, it’s been great fun scrolling through those pictures and short videos of Emry and Ethan over the past few years. One night, Ed and I watched the twenty or so short videos we have of Emry over the first year of her life. One was during her first Christmas. She’s lying on the floor under the Christmas tree. Ed’s train is going around and around, but she has no interest in that. She’s pulling at her favorite ornament: a large bell painted like a bird. It’s very cute but not laughable…so I had to ask why Ed started laughing at it.

“Look at it,” he said. “There’s my coffee cup, probably full of coffee, not two feet from her. And she doesn’t even try to get it. Ethan? That thing would have been knocked over before we started the video!”

He’s right. No wonder some days I feel completely exhausted!

The House on Foster Hill: A Book Review

Some books stand out. For various reasons. Some are brilliant whodunits. Others make you laugh out loud or shed actual tears. Some you will read over and over again. A very few might change some part of your life. And yet another very few will make you rise up and say, “Wow! That was amazing!”

The House on Foster Hill  by Jaime Jo Wright is one of those books. Well written, intriguing, superb. And also disturbing…because evil should always be disturbing.

Kaine is a woman running away. Trying to find peace. Trying to find safety. Ivy is a woman in hiding. Trying to find purpose. Trying to find tranquility. Living over 100 years apart, both find what they are seeking at the house on Foster Hill. But not in the way either imagined. Not by disappearing but by hunting down the truth – and the God who gives strength and comfort even when that truth is hard.

The House on Foster Hill is a brilliant read for cold, snowy, winter days. But be ready for a challenge in the midst of an intense but dazzling read!

This book was provided by Bethany House Publishers for review purposes only.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

(now Grandma!)

Indiana!

For the last week, we have been visiting my family in Indiana. The main reason was to see my sister Grace who has been back in the States after a two-year period in Kenya. She was only here for three weeks, so we’re glad we were able to make it out to Indiana for some time with her, my parents, three more of my sisters, my baby brother, my nephew Benito and – of course! – all the dogs. We didn’t do anything very exciting, but we sure had a lot of fun!

Benito and Emry eating cracking nuts with Grandpa.

Grandpa, would you like some of my food?

The trampoline was the best!

Ethan riding Uncle Caleb’s old car.

Benito and Emry drawing on Aunt Jenny’s special wall.

 

Decorating cupcakes with Aunt Sally.

Teaching Aunt Abby and Uncle Caleb how to play.

Because Gus’s kennel is way fun!

 

Ethan and Max!

 

Emry playing the little piano from her great-grandmother’s house.

Family photo!

Happy Birthday, Grace!

11 Months!!!

This past week I was looking over Emry’s 1^st year scrapbook. Her 1-year pictures are so cute and she was so easy to take pictures of, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Ethan’s 1-year pictures will not be this easy.” And after attempting 11-month pictures this week, I KNOW they won’t be easy!

Our little man is never still. He crawls, he climbs, he walks along furniture. Steps are the favorite object in the entire house, even after Christmas. And he’s fast! One day, he was at the top before I got to him…and it’s not like I just let him climb. Even though I don’t feel like I’m loosing any weight, I must be burning a million calories a day just chasing him.

He’s a happy little man, laughing at his sister and just about everyone. He now claps his hands. And “talks” in “full sentences”. We’ve no clue what he’s saying, of course, but apparently it makes perfect sense to him.

He simply did not want to leave the sticker on…most of the pictures were blurry in a vain attempt to stick it on and quickly snap a photo.

And if he did leave the sticker alone, he wasn’t about to sit still.

Neither was Sock Monkey…

Yea – at least one decent picture!