Snow, Snow, Go Away

I can hardly believe it's only been 5 days since my last post. It feels like 5 weeks. I've been running hard over here as of late. It catches up with you.

Officially, I'm sick of snow and winter and colds. Our big weekend snow total was 15 inches. The snow banks along the curb stand taller than The Littlest Mr. On the courtyard, I'm guessing the snow pile is about 10 feet high.

The Little Miss is keeping us all busy. She has an extraordinary amount of appointments. She also requires a significant amount of phone time to arrange and keep all of those appointments. We expect that she'll be staying with us for at least another month. A delight for us. She's sweet and all that a baby girl should be.

The big surprise party was a total bust, thanks to winter weather. Every one cancelled. In the end, even we decided not to make the trip to the Mad City. Only my brave brother made it down from the great north. I hear that the cake was large and wonderful. I hope that everyone ate at least one extra piece for me.

Did I mention the snow? Today, just about every time I've looked out the window or been outside it's been snowing. The Mr. had to shovel again this morning before work. It's getting old. I want to be getting out spring jackets and sidewalk chalk. Not sidewalk salt.

Back to the phone, more calls to make.
jen

Excerpt From A Writer's Journal

Somehow, I'm not sure when, one of my kids went from being a toddler to a little boy almost overnight. He is going to be eight. I am going to be 35. What a strange sense of time. It goes slowly and yet slides by slippery fast too. Sometimes I look up and years are gone. I remember this child in my arms as nothing more than a tiny newborn bundle all wrapped in potential and now here he stands, before me in all his boyhood glory, wrapped in his own bursting, bold imagination. The world is his to conquer and mold. Every moment of his imagination. So let ones' imagination again flow like they do theirs. To be able to loose yourself so completely in play. To never tire of imagining and playing the same scenes over and over again. I remember. I have worked hard over all these adult years to hang on tightly to what it is like to be that child.

Life Journey Rambler

I love my life here and now. Exactly as it is in this very moment.
And Yet.
I linger. I miss certain moments past. People. Places.

Today as I drove around town in my van, sunlight blaring in, warming little faces in the back seats, I was content. Perfectly at peace. Certain that I was exactly where God wanted me to be. Even feeling certain that the life I live here, different than any version of my life so far, was exactly what He had requested of me.
And in a breath, a curve in the road, a turn in the music on the radio, I was lost. Longing. I wanted to go back to where I lived before. I wanted that back. Not so much that life, as I wanted the familiarity of that city. The familiarity of my friends.
I wanted the familiarity of who I was.
I liked who I was and it was easier then.
It's not really true. Life wasn't easier. In most respects, it was much harder. But I examined less. I knew myself less than I do now.

I love who I've become since moving here. I love the person I am growing into. I'm stunned, pleasantly, to be growing so much at such a late stage in the game.

Blessings stroll into your daily life on little hedgehog toes. Sneaking along. Stealing in to your heart on baby kisses.

It's all good you know. I have new friends. New familiar spots. But I still have an ache in my heart for friends left behind. Almost none of us are left in the starting spot anymore. Our lives have moved us around the country. But you've not moved from my heart.

And there have been times these last few weeks that have challenged me, pushed me hard, worn me down to my very last ounce of energy and I've stood still, alone in my kitchen, in the dead of night, thinking what I wouldn't give for just one round of tea and hugs. In your ordinary ways, living ordinary lives, you have left extraordinary impressions on me. And I miss you. I miss the gifts you've shared with me over the years. I miss the time we spent together. I miss your encouragement.

But I'm not lost. And I'm not alone. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. And I'm becoming who He designed me to be.

Truth Time

When The Little Mr. was an only, I was often parenting alone. He was more than a challenge. I was woefully bad as a parent.

These days I'm reaping what I sowed. There is a lot of bad parenting to be made up for.

Now is the time to hack away at, before he gets any older, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier.

We've been having some long brutal days, Little Mr. and I. None too pleasant for the rest of the family either I might add. But, I know if I don't take care of it now, I'll have a worse time in the teen years.

I've narrowed it down to three things. Obedience. Without all the back talk and negotiations. Selfish attitude. Anger.

What am I doing? Parenting in the dark, just like I've always done. No book or parenting advice has ever worked on this child. And, most importantly, parenting from my knees. Prayer. I'm counting on prayer. I'm counting on God to turn this child around.

Most of my prayer? Change in me what needs to be changed to parent this child the way that You want me to.

jen

Broken

In the last few weeks several people, friends and family have shared some really gut wrenching things with me. The pain and difficult things you are going through and dealing with burdens my heart.

It's bittersweet these dark times. Along with heartache is comfort. Comfort in change and comfort in Him. Knowing that none of this is a shock to Him helps a tiny bit. Knowing that He is growing you through this stinging raw wound helps.

There is peace in turning it over to Him. Nothing is too great or too awful.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. Pr3:5-6

You don't have to or need to understand a thing, just trust and follow. His path is the right one.

Always and Forever

This perfect life keeps a woman real busy.

A sweet Valentine arrived for me today. Miniature roses. Potted and live. Bright pink.

They were late due to weather, not The Mr. He's a compulsive punctual. He is never late if it is in his control. Rather, he is always early. Always.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get a minute and can add a picture of them.

The note was the best.

Thank you for always waking up.
So said The Mr.

Those of you with kids understand that statement.

jen

After Perfection...

Comes vomit.

Shortly after that moment of perfection on Friday, the flu hit our house.

It's been a whirlwind weekend of laundry, moping and carpet cleaning.

The Mr. was a trooper. He took on more than his usual share of kid duties while I tried to sleep it off. He even spent most of last night up with the Little Miss.

I'm on a new quest. She needs to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time and a lot more at night than during the day.

Everyone needs something to work at, right?

Time to recover the house before tomorrow morning. We're having a visitor. The official kind. So I need to have things a bit more in order than they are right now.

jen

Living Perfection

It's a quiet sort of home.

The lights are low. Jazz is playing down stairs. The Little Miss is asleep. The Littlest Mr. just now dozing off. The Little Mr. reading in bed. The Mr. doing the last of the tuck in's.

It's living perfection.

Three kids is significantly more than two.

Infant reflux with a bad cold means lots of laundry and carpet cleaning.

Liquid Zantac is a good thing.

My sister-in-law knows a lot of important stuff.

There is something perfect about little boys that fall asleep with their steamroller, dinosaur and football in their bed.

Jen

A Slacker Writes A Poem, Sort Of

In this new life of 3 kids and even more busy schedule, I lost a day. Sorry folks.

I'd love to say it won't happen again, but, it will.

Nothing much for today. Another day that makes buys an understatement.

A half captured poem.

spun silk snow
God's own gossamer
glistens
glides down through brilliant
sapphire skies
sunlight
pure
piercing
searing through my blinded eye
I hear a memory
in the laughter of my child


I'm reading a book that thrills me. Confessions of a Slacker Mom by Muffy Mead-Ferro. Oh this book. It speaks my language. And with the right amount of sass too. I'm loving it.

Here's a taste.

pg.3
An early indication that I might end up a slacker mom was a tendency toward sarcasm. "Like I need a smart baby,"I muttered, when hearing about the latest device for stimulating her intellect in-vitro.

This negative attitude was accompanied by recurring fits of laziness. "When pigs fly," I thought , as I evaluated the odds of my carving out time to engage in such dreary activities as charting her fluid intake and bowel movements.

pg.31
Wow, this violin plays music all by itself! Hey, this book reads the words for me! Gosh, this paper magically doesn't let me color outside the lines! I really wonder if this is good. It might be unthinkably bad. It might be turning our children into dimwits, dolts, and dullards. Not geniuses.

Pg.44
I knelt there and cried as I thought about how she'd stashed these flimsy reminders of her children in her bathroom drawer. I pictured her calloused rancher's fingers touching them as she rummaged around for a pair of nail clippers.

I realized then that my pragmatic rancher of a mother was as sentimental as any mom. I know these things wouldn't have been any dearer to her if she'd been more methodical about collecting them.

But no one has enough time to commemorate every meaningful occasion in their child's life. Especially when you include all the things that might be defined as meaningful. That's the difficulty, I suppose.

What's meaningful in a kid's life? Every moment, potentially. But I suspect that every moment is potentially trivial, too, once we start pasting them all up.

Let's say Joe wins the Pulitzer Prize. I don't want a photo of that mounted in some album alongside the first time he hit a hockey puck. I realize that could just be my way of letting myself off the hook, as I tend to do.

Of course, if he does win the Pulitzer, I'll probably have forgotten the camera. And I'll just end up with some nonsensical scraps in my bathroom drawer for Belle and Joe to puzzle over after I'm gone.

Oh, well, at least they won't ever have to think their eating strained peas qualifies as an accomplishment in my mind.

Slacker Mom seems to sum it up nicely for me. A good book, an easy read if you're already this sort of mom. It's confirming and comforting. If you're not a fellow Slacker, this might be a challenge, a stretch to see where she's coming from and why.

Either way. Try it on for size.

jen

My Path

Well, foster care is quite a ride.

I'm real tired. Somehow God gives you baby amnesia as they grow up. You painlessly forget all the messy and draining parts and only remember the sweetness of a baby.

She's up a lot at night and naps very little. Good thing I've already had two kids like this. Otherwise, I bet I'd be calling her worker and sending her on.

Except, that now I'm in. I'm into this insane thing called foster care. And once you're into it, there's no going back.

We're just beginning to hit challenge. I know that we have an "easy" child here. I know that my challenges so far are minimal. I know there is harder stuff and more difficult children to come. There are moments I stop and wonder why we've started this. But I also know, there's no stopping.

You look into their eyes, past all the garbage and see a child. Then you pour out your heart and begin again.

There aren't words to describe the foster experience and have it make sense.

It isn't something that makes sense. Something not sane or rational makes you choose this path.

I think the path was chosen for us.

Today, it's the path I'll be walking down.

jen

Burden Is A Blessing

Today I am burdened. My heart is full. My mind otherwise occupied.

My list of people and situations to pray over is long and getting longer with each person I talk with. It is a burden on the heart.

It is a blessing to be so burdened.

To be involved in the lives of these people is a blessing. To share their days, highs and lows, a privilege. To pray for them without them knowing, exactly as it should be.

So my day will be distracted and absorbed. My thoughts elsewhere. But all is well. The burden is good and will be passed to Him who can do all things.

Jen

Thank You Doesn't Cut It

There are people that come into you life and bless you in ways you never expected.

I am currently in the midst of several new friends like that.

They do things that are nothing short of spectacular in my life. One insists on taking some or all of my children. Another always calls at the perfect moment to offer to do some chore for me or bring things to me. And yet another, literally on the other side of the world right now, emailed to tell me I was in her prayers.

It's humbling to be the center of that. It's an honor. I'm amazed to think I mean that much to these people that they go out of their way for me.

And I know that I'll never repay it back as good as it's been given to me. I'll never have the right words or the perfect gift to tell them how much it all means.

On a day that felt like a ball of yarn unraveling as it bounced down the stairs in a week that feels like a cat in the washer, it was and is nothing short of perfect.

jen