Messy

Whew!
Sometimes kids come up with the craziest ideas.

Can I clean out the gutters?
Can I jump off the roof into the 1/2 inch of snow?
Can I build a house out of cardboard around the kitchen set?
Can I create a giant functioning clock out of paper to hang on my wall?



A lot of these ideas that they come up with are amazing.  However more often than not, what I actually hear is:

Can I
- make a mess?
-use all the construction paper up in one afternoon?
-use all the tape in the house on this one piece of paper?
-completely dry out all of your dry erase markers in one hour?

That makes saying "yes" hard.  I want to let them create, have fun, and explore.

  But it doesn't come without pain.  The pain of the money wasted, time cleaning up, and knowing that eventually they will need me to help them with part of it and I will have to stop whatever task I am doing, however noble, and come to their aid.  I will discover things they have done that I had not anticipated. Sometimes I'll get mad about it.  And often I'll discover that something I liked is ruined or gone as a result of their creativity.

But oh the fun of exploring!  Of creating and imagining and enjoying it together.   As much as the mess drives me bonkers, the joy of their play makes me say yes again another time after just enough time has past to dull the nerves from the last venture.  Sleep in a rocket in outer space?  Yes. 

Today was different though. I got to have my cake and eat it to and I just relished it.  Mariah is here staying with us this year as a live-in helper.  I keep pinching myself to see if I'll wake up from this dream world of assistance, but so far the dreaminess continues.  One way she helps is to facilitate some of these crazy ideas and help make them happen.  It still uses supplies, sometimes things get torn, and things get a little messy, but then there is a grown up there to help clean up, watch out for safety issues, and take joy in their ideas.  Ah!  And I get to come in and say, YAY! This is amazing.

Mariah and I were talking recently about the kids and I mentioned that I think I say no a lot.  I mean, playdough, paint, cutting and pasting giant poster board, etc. is a lot of time and money!  It also means investing a space to the project.  But she said, "Mary, I think you say yes more that you think you do."  It got me to thinking about it.  I do say yes a good bit- otherwise there wouldn't be MARKER ALL OVER MY FURNITURE! But every time I say no, a little guilt pang stabs me and says, "Maybe you aren't a very good mom."  Now that I'm noticing more of the times I say yes and the times I say no, I think maybe I do say yes a good bit. 

For example,
Rachel fell in love with the computer room of Flint Lockwood from the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and gradually taped notebook paper with colored buttons all over her walls.  I think it's hideous, but she loves it and plays in there.  Certainly wasn't the vision I had for her pink room with hand-painted butterflies.

Jefferson took a green room that I intended to make a tractor and cars themed room and gradually added more and more space stuff until the entire room is covered in planets, stars, and rockets.

James has a collection of sticks that he uses for various weapons.  And he's allowed a big pile of them.

They come up with all sorts of crazy things, from jumping on the trampoline with their blankets to taking a bath with their Legos. Many things have gotten a yes.

But they are enjoying life.  I fight against wanting to keep my house cute and picture perfect.  I want things to match and coordinate and stay organized.  There are some places in my house that look cute- I just fixed them last week. :)  But I want them to live and create and feel at home in this space too and that means letting go of some of my grand plans for the cuteness in their rooms and even some of my visions of having furniture that is well polished, clean, and shining.  All too soon, they will be grown, out of the house, and moving on.  I hope they leave with a love for exploring rather than sitting in front of video games all day.  I hope they leave with a firm conviction that they can try anything and that I support them.  And I hope they leave feeling like they can come back and feel loved and comfortable in our home. 

The only way to get there is to say yes to the messy sometimes.

Fun with Grandmother

Sorry this is belated, but I thought this was a great shot of how much the children enjoyed Grandmother- the one who lives with "The Fishing Grandpa" while she was up here.

The sure did have fun with her, especially during a few games of "Alligator". She created this game one evening while the children were in trouble and had to stay on the couch. It involved something with pillows thrown at her and her trying to "eat" them. Sounds like only a slightly different version of "Diaper Woman" if you ask me. (Diaper Woman is a game she made up when I was little. It involved a cloth diaper on her head and running and screaming by us and I think at least one time we were chased with a broom, but it was fun!)

Which just goes to show, quality time- time invested in interaction with the child is what they remember and cherish most. Grandmother did a great job of quality time while she was with us and the children loved it!

Today's Favorites

Favorite friends: A family in church whose last name rhymes with "Need" who invited us over for the afternoon.

Favorite meal: Blueberry muffins for breakfast that I made the night before- no dishes, no messy clothes, happy children.

Favorite clothes: White Land's End dress shirts for the boys to wear to church, from the grandmother that lives with "The Fishing Grandpa".

Favorite conversation: Talking with a person whose name rhymes with "sellin'" about enjoying my family and my role as a mother.

Favorite Scene: Rachel drinking from the dog bowl.

Favorite activity: Watching a girl whose name rhymes with "stain" boil maple syrup.

Favorite thing I learned today: Details about sheep shearing and cutting their tails off.

Favorite time of the day: 9:30pm- When I pulled in the driveway and knew the children would be in bed soon.

Favorite quote from James: (half asleep) No! I want to stay here and sleep. (he said this in the van and refused to get out. In fact, I almost couldn't drag him out because he was convinced that he was actually in his bed.)

Favorite quote from Rachel: "I'm a kiddo."

Favorite comment from Jeff: (actually it was best when he finally stopped asking for more food some three hours after lunch was completed)

Favorite Snapshot with imaginary camera: Jonathon trying to feed a sheep some hay.

Favorite Hymn at church: Great is thy Faithfulness, for that part, "morning by morning, new mercies I see".

Today was exhausting and wonderful all rolled together. I wouldn't change much except I might not have put James' pjs on so soon and then see him go back outside in the mud and thus have to put different pjs on before he went to bed.

Life is good.

Real Life

Hi there...this is just a quick post to say that real life has begun to settle back in and all those blissful moments of wasting time at the computer are coming to a grinding halt. So don't expect great things from me anytime soon... but here's a picture to make up for it.





Evening rough housing with Daddy (I try to stay out of it and often even leave the room.)

And my, oh, my! High speed internet does wonders for uploading pictures. I am VERY happy about this!

James is still alive...somehow

Just an update to let you know that by some miracle, James still lives. Last week he got bashed in the face with a snow shovel (unfortunately a result of brotherly anger) and ended up with a busted lip and a loose front tooth- which will probably fall out soon. Then, yesterday he ran into the branch of a bush and tried to poke his eyeball out. Fortunately, his eyelid took the hit instead of his eye and now he just has a nasty scratch on his eyelid and some bruising. I must say, if he makes it to adulthood, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that there is a God and he does protect us! A living testimony!

Lessons from Mother- #1 Don't Focus on the Dust

Lessons I’ve Learned from my Mother
#1- Don’t focus on the dust.

I thought I might do a little series of posts on things my mother has taught me through the years that I have been married and have been raising my children- things that she tells me when I call on the phone and wail about the latest incident in the house. I appreciate her balance of being sympathetic to my situation – she had 8 children herself, and yet honest and bold enough to tell me what I need to hear. Sometimes it’s the tough side of love, but it is usually the quickest way to get me out of the emotionally drained hole I am it.

So, the first one I’ll mention is “Don’t focus on the dust.”

She doesn’t quite say it that way on the phone, but that’s usually the way I remember it. Generally I hear the dust pep talk when I’ve hit rock bottom with the children and the house and everything all together. Usually I’ve had some disaster (real life example: Jeff floods the kitchen with the water that comes out of the door on the freezer.) and I’ve been interrupted with Bible School questions, and there are 5 piles of laundry sitting on my bed to be folded, and I haven’t done any school, and we need groceries, and I probably didn’t go to bed on time the night before. I’m worn out, upset, tired, and without a plan and so I call her and say, “I quit!”

She translates that into, “I am an Israelite walking through the desert. I don’t like it and I want to go back to Egypt.” Then I get the “talk”. She tells me all about the Israelites. I never really thought much about them and how they went from one place to another, but since she has latched on to this story, I see them very clearly now:

The Israelites are walking in a line, well a sort of line with all the tribes, one after the other trudging along. There are groups of cattle with their owners and then comes another family behind, then a cart or two of stuff bumping over the rocky ground. After that is another family with their meager herd of goats and 5 children and a wheelbarrow, next is a man who had a cage of chickens and a very large tent that no one understands WHY he must lug that huge thing around when EVERYONE knows it’s terribly impractical. There are 600,000 of these people and YOUR family happens to be smack dab in the middle of the line. Somewhere in between Reuben and Benjamin, thousands of animals, carts, kids, stuff, and noise, there you are walking along with the rest of them. It’s hot, it’s rocky, and the wheels on whatever you have don’t roll smoothly across the ground. Generally your children are running in circles around you because they’ve already walked for so long that they are TOTALLY bored of it and there are no signs for playing the ABC game- even if you could stand it. Since you are in the middle and happen to be behind some family’s herd of cattle and in front of some lady’s prize rooster, you manage to get the best of both worlds: the mounds of cow dung to avoid AND to try to keep your kids out of, the dust that gets in your face from being stirred up by all those hooves, and the lovely crowing behind to serenade your little escapade as you go. Can you picture it? Don’t you love your journey through the desert? Of course not! It’s hard, hot, long, crazy, and besides that, every night no matter what, you have more sand in your bed than anyone else in camp!
The key is that in your walk- you’re focusing on the dust. All the hard things of the NOW. Everything that’s tough that makes you want to complain. It’s hard to have long range vision sometimes, but that’s what the Israelites needed more of- long range vision. They needed to look beyond the dust and the noisy animals and see where they were headed: The Promised Land! God had prepared a special place for them, just for them. He was carving out a way, feeding them, giving them water, meeting their needs and going before them every step of the way to get them to their glorious home. That’s what I need to remember- where I’m headed.

God says children are a blessing from the Lord. He says that because they ARE, not because they might be or could be or someone else’s are to them. NO. Children ARE a blessing and right now during the little years when things are really hard, He has still said they are a blessing and they will be later too.

Then my Mom often reminds me of my relationship with my siblings. Since we grew up in a Christian family that focused a lot on doing things together- we love each other and times when we are together, it’s one of the best things in life. They are my best friends and we have a blast together. That’s the vision I can see. I also see my siblings making wise choices having good character and being a “Jesus” influence on others in the world. I can look at those things and think of them as my Promised Land for my family. When I look ahead, it’s easier to make sense of why I put up with the frustrations of here and now. I no longer want to give up and sometimes become inspired to walk harder, faster and most importantly, with a smile on my face.

We are building an army for Jesus in our family. As one politician put it, though I can’t recall who, "If we can’t change them, we’ll just out number them." Training lots of little soldiers is hard work, but we can have the vision of a mighty army of Christians changing the tide of thinking, action, and moral decay in our society and that is what keeps me going when the road is dusty.

So, don’t focus on the dust. Focus on the goal at the end, our Promised Land, our vision of making a difference in the lives of others, and the vision of raising Godly men and women who can do the same.