Fancy

    We’re borrowing my mom’s car for the week. She had surgery on her leg so no driving allowed for her. Needless to say, the kids were VERY excited to get to ride in her car. For some reason, this ranks right up there with Disneyland and the Ice Cream truck on a hot summer day- it’s just “SO awesome”.
    The day after I got back from my mom’s, the kids couldn’t wait to go for a drive. Being that it was Saturday and I was tired, we finally got around to leaving the house in the afternoon. I told the kids to get ready and we’d go to the library.
    Five minutes later Katie, Ben and I were waiting in the driveway. No sign of Emma. I opened the door and yelled, “Are you coming?”
    “Just a minute, I’m just finishing up my outfit!” She yelled back.
    Oh, my…the jeans and t-shirt she had on 5 minutes ago looked fine to me. A few minutes later she came walking out- jeggings, long sparkly shirt, high heels, puffy scarf, glittery hat, bracelets and a couple purses.
I just smiled and said, “What was wrong with your other outfit- you know we’re just going to the library, right?”
    “Mom”, she said as she walked past me, “It might be ok to wear comfy clothes in the suburban, but in Nana’s car it’s better to look fancy.” She clicked her way to the passenger side and heaved her purses in.
Apparently I never got this memo….

Lost and Found

I broke the news to the kids at 10:30 this morning. I waited until they had a chance to sleep in, catch a couple cartoons, eat breakfast and do some coloring. But then I HAD to tell them. I wasn’t happy about it, but I said the dreaded words- You three have GOT to clean your rooms. The are seriously DISGUSTING. Three smiles turned to frowns, three happy voices were silenced. Sometimes the truth hurts.
“But mom, it’s SATURDAY”, Emma started to say.
“Nope, I don’t want to hear it.” I said. “The fun stuff has to wait till the rooms are clean.”
Dejected, they headed down the hall. I went to clean my room, and 10 minutes later Ben yelled from his room that he was done. I thought it seemed pretty fast, so I went to inspect. Every inch of the floor was clean, the shelves were neat and tidy, and his top bunk was made. I was about ready to fall over in surprise.
Then I looked down at the bottom bunk. Ahhhhhh…it was PACKED high with stuff- LOTS of stuff.
“So, what’s going on with all of this?” I said pointing to the pile.
“Oh”, he said shrugging his shoulders. “That’s my lost and found area.”
“What?” I asked.
“I made a lost and found area so I know where to look if I can’t find something”, he said this as if it was perfectly normal.
“So basically you moved all the stuff from the floor and dressers to the ‘lost and found’ area?” I replied.

“I guess, it’s just easier that way” he said.

Of course it is, what was I thinking??

Prizes

The kids made up a game called “pass the toy around” and we were playing it yesterday. Basically, it’s like hot potato, you pass the toy around the circle till the music stops and then the person holding it wins. For the game, Ben had ransacked his room to come up with a box of prizes to give out. Emma and Katie had won almost all the rounds, and FINALLY the toy landed with me. I jumped up all excited to grab a prize. Ben looked in the bucket and said, “Sorry, Mom, the only prizes left are a flyer to do gymnastics and a coupon to save money on car insurance.”
Emma (laughing uncontrollably) said, “Why do you have a coupon in your room about car insurance?”
My thoughts exactly….

Old Soul

The kids and I were joking around in the car about reading each other’s minds. Then, the conversation turned towards predicting the future. What do we see in our future? Emma was having a blast with this and said, “Katie, guess what I see in you future?”
Katie: “What?”
Emma: “Chocolate!”
Katie: “Yeah!”
Emma: “Mom, guess what I see in your future?”
Me: “What?”
Emma: “A wedgie!”
Me: (laughing pretty hard) “It better not be from you!”
Ben was pretty quiet through this whole conversation. He was just looking out the window. Emma said, “What do you see in your future, Ben?”
Ben: “I see Hope.”
Me: “You mean you hope you don’t get a wedgie?” This made Emma laugh really hard.
Ben: “No, some people don’t have any hope. But I do, I have hope in the future.
Silence….. I realized he wasn’t joking around. I swear sometimes this kid was born with an old soul…

Utterly exhausted

4 hours playing at Jungle Playland = one happy exhausted little girl :)

Stranger Danger

  Katie was taking a shower and I went to get a towel from the other bathroom. When I came back I opened up the shower curtain to wash her hair. She looked absolutely scared out of her mind and jumped back a little. I said, “What’s wrong?” She did a nervous giggle and laughed, “I thought you were a stranger!” Yeah, in the 10.5 seconds I was gone a stranger broke into our house…I think she’s a little on edge.

Too early to smile

    This morning when I went in to wake up Ben he was wrapped cozily in lots of blankets. It made me want to crawl back into bed, too. But, as my dad always said, we were “burning daylight.” So, I opened the curtains and tried to sound excited.
  Me: “Hey buddy, wake up.. It’s gonna be a fun day! You get to go to the pumpkin patch and go to soccer practice!” I said as I tried to pull the blankets off.
  Ben: “Mom”, he mumbled into his pillow, “I’m excited about that but I need to have some wake up time before I smile about it.”
The kid makes an excellent point.

What's important

       Have you ever longed for simplicity? Not just as an afterthought, I’m talking about for real. The true gut-wrenching need that starts deep down in your soul and wrestles itself to the surface: the need for stillness, quiet, time, and peace. I have been wrestling with this thought for over 2 weeks now. With the amount of technology at our fingertips, the fast pace of life, and the pressure to be everything to everyone ALL THE TIME sometimes leaves me lying awake at night staring into the darkness. I find myself saying these words over and over again in my head : there has to be a better way.
I was in the car pick-up line at Emma and Ben’s school waiting for the throes of kids to come out the double doors. Usually I’m busy trying to entertain Katie while we wait, but on this day she had fallen asleep. It gave me time to look around. I was AMAZED at the number of parents glued to their iPhones. The ones IN their cars and the ones waiting outside. Eyes focused on a little screen and jumping to answer the rings and text prompts. Now, I’m not against ANY of these things, and I am guilty of this too. But what my eyes were opened to for the first time was this: Most didn’t even look up when their kids found them waiting. I saw kid after kid walk up to their parent and were shushed, ignored, or just simply told to get in the car.
They never put down the phone. I felt humbled instantly. Have we become SO connected to the world of technology that we are missing what’s right in front of us? Are we losing touch with what’s real? Do we really want our kids to think that the ring of a cell phone trumps them telling us about their day? Do we want our spouse to think we care more about connecting with long-lost friends on face book than actually talking to them from the other side of the room? Do we want our kids to remember us sending text after text instead of pushing them on the swings at the park? We’ve become disconnected, and I don’t like it- at all.
Friday night was the straw for me. You know, the one that broke the camels back? It had not been a good day. There’s just no better way to put it. Sometimes you just pray for grace and patience to start over again tomorrow. The craziness of the evening was in full motion. I was trying to get the kitchen cleaned up from dinner. There was a lot of whining going on: toys that needed batteries, cuts that needed band-aids, dolls that needed that one special dress right this minute. The news was on in the kitchen, Just Dance Kids was blaring “Kung Fu Fighting” from the other room, Dave’s work phone was going off, and my cell said I had 3 new text messages.
I started crying. All the sudden it was too much. I couldn’t even think straight. I wanted to SMASH every piece of technology we owned. And then I had a revelation: there IS a better way. It was a moment of clarity that I totally believe was the Holy Spirit. A peace fell over me and I set the rag down right in the middle of scrubbing the counters. Go outside. That’s what I needed to do. I left the kitchen, grabbed a blanket and walked out the front door. I know I got a lot of stares from my family as I passed them, but I was on a mission.
I laid out my blanket in the middle of the front yard and stared up at the sky- peace. I felt it instantly. A new perspective. I laid out there alone for only a few minutes. I knew they would come. Emma was the first to come out. She lay down by me and said, “Why are you laying out here?” I just said, “Looking up in the sky.” She looked up and as if on cue, a falling star shot right in front of us! She screamed and that brought out Ben. He plopped down next to me and layed his head on my shoulder. A few minutes later I heard the TV’s turning off inside, the porch lights go off, and Dave and Katie joined us.
      It wasn’t quiet anymore but we were together. We were talking with NO distractions. It wasn’t complicated. It felt right. It felt like the better way. I know we will probably relapse and fall into old patterns. But I am earnestly praying that we all can live in the moment. That God will stir in us a desire to prioritize what is important. Hug your kids. Grab their little faces smeared with jelly and tell them how much you love them. Kiss your honey right when they get home. TURN OFF the distractions and talk to each other. God is teaching me to be still.
     Psalm 23:1-3 says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”
And Exodus 14:14 : “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
And finally, I leave you with this verse from Job 6:24:
“Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong.”
            THERE IS A BETTER WAY….