Melting Peanut Butter

He lost us at church yesterday, my second boy, middle child, the one with loudest cry and strongest passions and most demands. I signed the two boys into their class, even though they begin the service in the auditorium where I am, up front in a cluster of their classmates to sing with us a few songs before they leave for their own stories and activities. Then I headed to the nursery across the room to deposit Raindrop with the babies. Christopher Robin followed me in and helped put the numbered tag on her diaper bag, then we went out to collect Peanut Butter and head for the auditorium. He was where I had left him, face in hands, bent over a bench, crying. Quietly, because, passionate as he is, he is closed, silent, and reserved around strangers. I knelt and pulled his hands from his tear streaked cheeks and hugged and listened while he told me he didn't want Christopher Robin to leave him there alone, and I apologized and told him we were just through the door in the nursery, and lifted his sturdy three year old body and took him to the front row of the auditorium where the kids all collect, set him beside Christopher Robin in a seat, showed him where I would be at the front, singing, and asked Christopher Robin to please hold his hand on the way back to their class when the time came, just for a little added comfort and security.
It was most of the way through the third song that I heard Peanut Butter's wail and realized that the tears of a little while ago had returned and taken over and washed his self-possession away. I saw one of his teachers pick him up and lead all the children back towards their class area. Songs ended, I found a seat in the back next to My Hero, who was manning the screen for the service. They came and got me then, to rescue my puddled three year old, who was still beyond recovery. He sighed with relief to be held in my arms, and when I promised to hold him in my arms through the service if he could quiet his sobbing, he swallowed again and again and held his peace. As I listened to our pastor explain the Holy Spirit as our guarantee of salvation, I thought about Peanut Butter's emotional instability and the rushing of getting ready for church on Sunday morning and the many sleepy mornings when he just wants me to hold him and I nudge him to make his bed and empty the silverware tray of the dishwasher and eat breakfast and get dressed. I think of the 5 love languages and wonder if his is touch or quality time... And I wonder how much it would help him want to do what's right, how much it would help my relationship with him, if I took the time to hold him and snuggle with him for a few minutes in the mornings to let him know he's important to me and that I love him. Too often these days I see him look at me with challenge and rebellion, even dislike, and I know that will happen sometimes, that he doesn't like the rules I lay down or the consequences I apply, but I sense an imbalance... like maybe he isn't as sure about my unconditional love for him as he should be. Like he needs to know I'm on his team and I'm cheering for him and the things he does matter because I love him so much.
I wonder if some time on my lap wrapped in a blanket reading a book or talking in the morning might have helped prevent yesterday's meltdown.

Focus for today: Make sure my kids know how much they are loved.

learning flowers

Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes.

Proverbs 19:2

My friends and I have been reading the book of Proverbs for our LTG these last two weeks, and one of my friends laughingly mentioned the verse above in relation to her family's current (and very first) experience with buying and fixing up a house.

The same applies to me and my gardening. Although I have to say, of all my mistakes, haste has not been the issue...it was several years of planning and dreaming and waiting for the money and missing the cut-off date for ordering bulbs and deciding to prepare the beds better by letting them cook under weed barrier cloth all summer to kill all the weeds and planning some more before I finally took the plunge last fall and bought plants to fill the flower beds in front of my house. I have done reading and learning and planning and soaking myself in lovely pictures of flower gardens from Better Homes and Gardens magazines, but I still feel as though I know very little, really, about what it takes to make a beautiful flower garden. Last fall we filled the van with pots of mostly brown, dying plants from a local nursery and I lovingly planted them spaced according to the directions into the prepared dirt. A few were still blooming bursts of color, but mostly it looked like I had filled the space with ugly, dying plants few and far between. I dug holes and put clusters of bulbs in empty spots, and watched as cold weather came and browned the remaining green leaves, and snow came and flattened the stems and leaves as if they had been stepped on, and waited full of hope for spring. They tell me, I've read, been reassured, that spring will bring these lifeless twigs to life again, and in my imagination, the house is adorned by a necklace of pinks and blues and lavender.

Spring is here, and life is evident at the base of nearly all my plants, and the beds pull me towards them like magnets whenever I step outside, and I have to check, peeping at the base of dead brown for sights of fuzzy gray/green shoots, smiling with satisfaction at the green buds unfurling leaves on the wild rose bushes I had transplanted from the edge of my grandfather's field, the ones I had watched turn brown and die in the weeks after the transplant, and with them my expectations of them bearing for me their pretty pink buds in early summer died too. But this spring they surprised me with enthusiastic life, and tulips burst up from underground hybernation, and I watch with fascination the slow, steady changes to all the different types of flowering plants in those beds.

Still the beds aren't much to look at, and I expect every year I'll find things to add and tweak and move around before I really like the way it looks. Most of the plants are ones I haven't actually seen in real life, just read descriptions and saw pictures in books or on the tags in their pots. So I feel as though I am rich in enthusiasm and still very poor in knowledge. But I'm highly optimistic that in...five, maybe ten years I will have a well-loved and familiar flower garden at either side of my front door.

Just more things I'm glad about...

282. My sister who comes and spends evenings with me (and plays with my kids and helps put away supper dishes)

283. My sister who is coming from Chicago on Saturday and bringing my dear little niece

284. 70 degree weather day after day at the beginning of April

285. Perennials planted last fall that withered and died and now are coming to life again to fill the long dreamed of and carefully planned flower beds in front of my house

286. Two new nephews, four days apart, my own two brothers' firstborn sons

287. Morning run, outside, cool fresh air, stillness, cows beside me just behind the fence watching with their round staring eyes, birds chirping excitedly ("can you believe the days are this warm in April??")

288. Picnic lunch by a waterfall

289. Enthusiastic boys too unafraid of the danger of falling off the rocks into the raging rapids ("Can we jump across to the other side, Mom?" "No, it's too far. Not even Daddy could do that." "Then, can you throw us across?")

290. Cinnamon rolls premade for breakfast tomorrow

291. Early bedtime...not for the kids, but for the parents

17 more reasons to thank Him

265. As I fold laundry, Raindrop picks up a washcloth and rubs it across pursed lips as if cleaning her face after mealtime. Then she hands it to me to fold.

266. Two girls, one from rural Maine and one from, well, Russia originally, but travelling from her parents' home in Oregon, met in the middle, in booming Chicago, four years forming friendship, studying, attending theater, arranging visits with beloved professors, writing papers through the night and right up until 10 minutes before class, racing to the computer lab to print them off, student teaching together, travelling east to Maine and then later west to Washington and Oregon and California... unforgettable friendship, leaving this girl from rural Maine forever changed.

267. The hope of one day meeting again, and introducing my children to her.

268. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, washed down with chocolate milk

269. Baby girl's cries, awake too early from naptime, and the realisation that my subconscious has been hearing the warbling song of a harmonica playing (loudly) from the kids' bedroom. Taking the harmonica away from three year old boy, settling blanket over wide awake little girl, and twenty minutes later, realising with relief that all is quiet.

270. A fire to feed, flames welcomly hot near cold fingers, warming this chilly house on a cold gray wet day.

271. Plans for raking and outside sunshine maybe tomorrow if forecast holds true and spring sunshine warms us again!

272. quiet

273. cheer

274. Other moms whose stories make me feel understood.

275. Hearing the choking caugh last night just in time to wisk baby Raindrop from her crib to the bathroom sink, saving the clean sheets and blankets of her bed from needing to be changed again during phase 2 of the stomach flu.

276. Pale five year old, restless and lethargic this morning, requesting another Paddington story read aloud to him. Three times. The (secretly delightful) sacrifices a mother makes for her children.

277. the book of Proverbs

278. That I don't have to let selfishness or the quest for pleasure be my master. I can lift my eyes up and let the High King be my master, and go where that path takes me.

279. Raindrop sees me finish putting dishes into the dishwasher, so she, with a look of importance, pushes the bottom shelf in (first! to save dishes from crashing), closes the door with a click, and applauds herself, watching expectantly for my joining her in the applause.

280. Dollar store loot... five dollars worth for each boy, spending their own money: two plastic bats with balls, one water squirting tube, two 25 piece puzzles, a small toy rhinoceros, two packages of glow sticks, a package of yellow marshmallow Peeps, and a box of Nerds.

281. Five-year-old generously sharing a pink glow-bracelet with baby sister, who lovingly admires it on her wrist, in the semi-darkness of bedtime.

sick day

The flu struck yesterday...a stomach virus, to all three little ones.

Today is recovery day. We did minimal schooling, and now is time for quiet, stay at home fun. On the agenda:

• Super Mario Bros. wii
• Paddington stories
• Reading through library books
• Games/puzzles

We're currently working on the first.

Neat as a Pin

When the kitchen island is finally clear of clutter, just my daily journal laying open neatly to remind me of priorities, and the kitchen table is clear and gleaming, peace settles into me, and I realise again how neatness and simplicity improves life for me.

"I need to focus on that," I tell myself, and determine that each area I leave, I will leave beautiful, tidy, cared for. "That," I explain to myself, "will help my attitude all day long."

It's true, life seems better, easier, when things are in their place, when I come out in the early morning to a restful, orderly house, a wide, clean carpet surrounded by neatly arranged furniture, a blank table ready for my Bible and journal and books. It is without question a better way to start the day than when chaos left over from the day before fills my mind with unfinished tasks when it should be clear for stillness and hearing His quiet voice.

But hours later, growling and frustrated by the impossibility of my goal, at the continual messes constantly being created (and recreated...I just picked that up!!) by three separate persons with no notion of my personal priorities readjusted, three little people just living life as any children would, I realise my goal has not brought peace, but more anger and bad attitudes than before.

My heavenly Father, as I continually beg Him for wisdom, gently restores perspective. Reminds me that, while neatness can be a goal, and an excellent habit to train children in, it can never be a highest priority. Joy comes from doing each task, not for a continually clean home, but for Him. Peace comes from resting in His wisdom rather than trying to fight the battle on my own. Life comes from seeing each task, from cooking breakfast to brushing little girl's hair to cleaning up the horrible mess of spattered corn meal mush caused by my own clumsy fingers dropping the bowl, cleaning it from windows, walls, floor, and furniture, as a work of love for His glory. From seeing the purpose of trying moments, trying days, in helping produce patient endurance.

I have three precious children, I remind myself. Drink them in! Teach them neatness as consistently as possible, yes, for the improved quality of all of our life, for the glory of God, who orders and creates beauty, but don't ever lose sight of the main goal, to love God, and to lead these three little people to know Him and love Him, too.

Love is in the air...

...because spring is here!

And I'm in love with my tiny crocusses...

My very first.

I think I may plant them in a million new places next fall...