Happy Mother's Day!!!!!

Is it wrong that this little video makes me so happy???  

I told my (wonderful, supportive) husband one day that if he comes home and the house looks the same way as it did in the morning when he left, that means I did something!  It takes work just to maintain the status quo...  and even more to improve on it.  Nobody understands that like a mom...  especially one who's at home with kids who are making messes all day long!  I'm not complaining...  I'm just sayin'...  

Actually, I've been realizing lately that I'm on the tail end (well, except for during summer vacations!) of having at least one kid home all day long and it's quite strange.  I've been a mom for almost 9 and a half years now!  Amazing.  I love my kids, but I'm actually enjoying them growing up and unlike some women I know, I don't really miss the baby stage.  Maybe it was the sleep deprivation (for 9 years!) but especially those early years (okay...  the first 6) of motherhood were HARD for me.  I don't miss it...  I praise God we all made it!!!  : )  God has done some major work through it though and today I am healthier, stronger, more whole, more at peace, more content and more healed because of it.  I know there will be more challenges - probably next week! - but I'm so grateful for what God's done in me during these years since I became a mom...  And I'm looking forward for whatever is to come.

If you happen to be a mom with young kids and you could use some encouragement, PLEASE know that you are NOT the only one who doesn't have it all figured out and who is exhausted and who wonders why she can't just relax and enjoy her kids more.  But they really do grow up and eventually you just might have a little boy who tells you as you're tucking him in that he can't wait to give God a hug when he gets to heaven, or a daughter who WANTS to read the Bible with you and wants to know what it all means.  I can't promise that they'll ever keep their rooms clean or come the first time you call them, but they really will get older and eventually sleep through the night and be able to talk and tell you what they want instead of just crying or pointing and saying "that!" when you have no idea what "that!" is.  They'll grow up, and BY GOD'S GRACE you will too.  With His strength, you'll make it.  

At least, I did!

Blessings to you all...  young moms, old moms and dads, brothers, sisters and daughters, too.  God loves you all!  A whole lot.

~Melissa

Little House in the Suburbs: The Fever Episode

Last Wednesday Toby came down with what I'm now calling "The Five Day Fever." He spent hours that day on the couch with a fever and chills. (Thankfully this one skips the stomach!) While the first day was definitely the worst, he had a fever off and on for the next 5 days! Close to 104 at some points. It finally broke Sunday night and he's been fine since. Yay.

I tend to think that I am immune to the illnesses my kids catch because I hardly ever get sick. Apparently, I should have been more careful last week because by Wednesday this week, I was feeling achy and cold and tired and by evening I had my own fever. And a few hours later Timothy had one, too. And this morning Mikaela came down with it! Lowell is the only healthy one left. Last night Timothy (also known as Fever Boy) (who is also getting 4 molars in right now, thankyouverymuch) woke up about 10 times (I'm not even kidding) so I was not the happiest camper when morning rolled around and my temp was still 102. Fever Boy unfortunately doesn't sleep or nap well when he's sick. Big bummer. Cause I'd really like a nice nap right now!

But I've been surviving and even thinking we could all just camp out with our blankets and make some memories together as we all lay around feeling cold and tired and achy. Around lunchtime, though, everyone was hungry and grumpy and Fever Boy was crying and I almost started crying myself. Not the kind of memories I was hoping for! I made it out of the recliner to go make lunch and saw on my windowsill the verse I'm memorizing right now. Ahem.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in persecutions, in hardships, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I'm still working, especially on days like this, on not feeling sorry for myself. It's amazing to me that Paul was able to say He delighted in his weaknesses and all the other persecutions he suffered. Amazing. I told God I was having trouble delighting in feeling sick with 2 sick kids but remembered what I have been learning about God's grace as I prepare for our women's retreat (in 3 weeks!) See where it says "My grace is sufficient for you"? Well, that word "sufficient" means far more than we usually think. The Greek word it's translated from actually means "to be possessed with unfailing strength." WOW. His grace is possessed with unfailing strength and that strength is perfected in my weakness. (It makes sense especially considering how many times Paul refers to strength and power in the following sentences.) I'm wishing I had more time and energy this week to work on my talks for the retreat, but I'm trusting God's grace to be unfailingly strong in my weakness.

As I made lunch in my nice 20th century kitchen, I started thinking about Ma Ingalls and all the feverish children she tended with everlasting grace and patience (she was amazing-esp on TV!) and about how I don't have to cut wood for fires or do laundry in the snow or medicate my kids with quinine and what-have-you and I don't have to worry about hungry wolves or plagues... We just have a Five Day Fever and Tylenol and Motrin and lots of blankets and a heater and Kleenex and refrigerators and couches and soft pillows a house with insulation and in a few days this will all be a memory. And in a couple of hours my husband is coming home and I'll get a nap. And God's grace is unfailingly strong.

Amen!

Mom-Ease

Grammar, schmammar. Being a mom for over 7 years has done something strange to my methods of communication. Now, like every mom I've every known, I say a lot of the same things over and over. Getting children to get up, get dressed, get out the door and get to bed requires a lot of communicational encouragement, shall we say! But what's funny is that lately, I've noticed that I'm not speaking in complete sentences to my kids anymore. And I'm not even just giving orders like "Stop!" or "Go!" that in the English language are acceptable for grammatical reasons that you probably don't care about. Instead I'm barking at them things like "Toby, seatbelt!" and "Hey you! Teeth! Now!" So in case you're ever around when it appears that I'm teaching an English vocabulary lesson to my children, let me explain to you what my kids know I really mean:

"Shoes!" = Hurry up and get your shoes on because I've already told you that we are late and need to leave NOW! "Seatbelt!" = Put your seatbelt on and stop playing in the backseat because I've already told you that we are late, etc. (See "Shoes!") "Homework!" = Please, PLEASE, let's get your homework done now so that we don't have to finish it in the morning while you're spilling cereal on it! "Teeth!" = Brush your teeth and stop playing with the toothpaste and the water because it's time for bed and if I don't say goodnight and goodbye (and I love you!) to you soon I just might completely lose my mind! "Pajamas!" = Get your pajamas on now because I'm even closer to losing my mind than I was when we were brushing your teeth!

Does anybody else out there do this??? Parenting... It's an art, you know!!! : ) Have a great week everyone!!! Love, Melissa

"Balance"

Well, you'll see at the bottom of this a reference to a Women of Faith copyright and all of their rights being reserved.  I don't really know exactly what that means, but I'm hoping it means that as long as I acknowledge that's where this came from and I don't make any money off it, that they won't mind me sharing it here.  My good friend Paula emailed this to me tonight and I loved it, so I thought I'd share it with you all hoping it will encourage you like it encouraged me.  I believe it is written by Anita Renfroe, who I just discovered, tours with Women of Faith (they do big women's conferences, in case you aren't familiar with them) and she is the same Anita Renfroe who has become a huge youtube star because of her mom version of William Tell's overture which, is you haven't seen yet, you have to see!!!

 

Blessings! 

 

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Hello, Girlfriends!

 We're home off the road for a few days and I am once again faced with scaling the heights of the mounds of dirty clothes we have all unceremoniously dumped from our suitcases. After all the sorting and pre-treating we crank up the washer and dryer and wonder why our "large capacity" machines can't handle "more" of "Mount Washmore". I have been tempted to cram it full (I know, I know: the clothes don't get as clean when you overload…) until I hear that familiar "ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-THUNK," alerting me that something is out of balance and, if I don't go take care of it (pronto!), my washing machine may walk its unbalanced self into the next county.

 I understand my washer because I feel unbalanced a lot of the time. This is not something that's easy for me to admit because I have spent a goodly portion of my adult life chasing this lofty and elusive concept called "balance". I have read books about it. I've listened to Bible studies about it. I have heard lots of talks at women's events concerning it. I have GIVEN talks at women's events outlining the "seven steps to achieving it". I even know a couple of women who seem to have mastered it.

 But here's the absolute truth about it:
 I'm giving up on it.

 Really.

 In fact, I'm not so sure that it was ever that great of a spiritual pursuit to begin with. There seems to be a lot of Scriptures you could interpret to be in support of it, but nothing that says, "Verily, verily, be ye balanced, sayeth the Lord." What we do find in God's word is a lot of Scripture concerning the subject of seasons. (planting, waiting, watering, working, weeding, harvesting, letting the ground rest ― then
 starting the whole cycle over again). Some of those seasons require lots of  work (planting, harvesting), some of them require less physical labor and more patience (weeding, watering, waiting), and some of them require periods of no visible activity at all (letting the ground rest so that it can be ready to plant again).

 When you are in the middle of any one of those seasons it doesn't seem very "balanced." If you are in the week when you have to get the crops in or they will rot, you have to put in some strenuous days and nights because the window of opportunity is so small. If you took a snapshot of people feverishly working during that week, one might correctly say, "Well, that's not balanced at all!" Or if you look at a farmer resting by the fire in the dead of January you might think, "No balance there!" But it's a season.

 Not all seasons carry the same work load or rest opportunities. They do all have their unique rhythms and it is up to us to recognize the beauty of each season and to know that it will, over the course of a lifetime, add up to something akin to "balance" – although we are unlikely to find it in a single day, or even a single week or month.

 So I am praying for you, as I pray for my own self, the ability to recognize your season you are in and to stop beating yourself up because you can't quite get to the place of perfect balance every day. As the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, "To everything there is a season and a purpose for everything under Heaven."

 Enjoying this season in my life,

 Anita

 Copyright 2007 Women of Faith. All Rights Reserved.
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On a More Positive Note...

I took these pictures a couple days ago because I thought they gave a glimpse of some sort (what sort, I'm not sure) into my life or at least my house and some of the messes I'm currently dealing with. (See, I told you you'd be getting more pictures!) First, I give you the fridge magnet display which isn't really messy but it does have a picture that is probably 2 years old of my nephew Matthew, the word "fox" (which Mikaela wanted to spell with an "a" in the middle because in Spanish the "a" makes the "ah" sound. Please don't panic... she'll be just fine, I promise.), and up on top I'm just sure one of my brilliant children was trying to spell "ingenuity" (which, I might add, I didn't even spell right the first time.)


Next we have the state of my almost new bedroom. We just have to clean it out and get some laminate flooring down and we'll be ready to move in. (Yes, I know... it's huge!) It should only take us, oh, another few months at the rate we seem to go. Well, hopefully just a few weeks. Maybe by my birthday!



But it is very, very exciting. And we really need to get in there quick because I keep thinking of stuff to put on the walls (like blown up versions of these pictures I took last week... I'm doing a beach theme)
And I might just keep buying more and more stuff if we don't get in there soon.







Lastly, I give you Mikaela's kitchen.

This is actually a workbench that she uses as a desk--or kitchen, or whatever her imagination (or whatever is piled upon it) dictates that day. So a couple days ago she called me in to give me the tour of her new kitchen. It included dishes, cookbooks, food, salt and pepper shakers AND EVEN balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese. Apparently we've taught her some things well... And though cleaning up is still almost always a BIG challenge, today something miraculous happened. Toby--all by himself, although clearly with Divine inspiration-- discovered that he could pretend his arms were BIG STRONG CRANES! (He was very loud during this process.) And he was looking for stuff to pick up and put away. This is my Toby who normally whines and cries about not being able to clean anything up because it's too hard... I have no idea how long the BIG STRONG CRANES will be around, but I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep them as long as possible because he cleaned up more with them than I've ever seen him clean up with his hands. Ever.

And now I'm going to go help my daughter go to sleep because she keeps thinking about the spider that jumped on her leg today and feeling like it's there again. I'm sure you understand. : )