some real life going on around here.
bailey gray has been sick since tuesday. she's had really high fevers since thursday. activities and plans get cancelled. we stay in jammies. hair doesn't get done. not sure how meals get prepared. and the house is no where near clean. thankfully, i think she's on the mend.
last thursday, finley was at school and bails was down for a "nap". i turned daniel tiger on for audrey. i went in my room to try and retreat and get some alone time with the Lord while i could. i knew my attitude needed it. sick babies have a way of making their mama's heart hurt. i was reading proverbs about keeping loving-kindness and faithfulness bound around your neck. i heard her footsteps. and i was annoyed. audrey comes in and asks to climb on the bed with me. i really wanted to be alone, though, Lord. remember? i lifted her up and told her to stay quiet cause mama was reading. she asked to color in my journal. but it's MY journal. it's my life with you, Lord. remember?
and then something happened. i realized it won't be much longer that my baby will want to crawl on my bed and be with me. she won't always color in my journal. my journal that represents this season of my life. the one where my feet stumble on legos and hair bows and squeaky toys. the one where i am dressed in real clothes much less than not. the one that smells like syrup and dirt. the one where i am journaling prayers about being a mama and so desperately wanting to do it well. how silly that i felt annoyed. what will be sweeter in 20 years than looking at this journal and seeing my 2 year old audrey's doodles? not much, i realized. and i breathed deep and i embraced, rather than fought, this season of mine. i know it goes so fast. all those seasoned mamas say that. and now some pages are filled with her art and i pray, again and again, that my mind and heart will remember that those moments ARE THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE THING. relationship.
i was washed with grace in that moment. He knew just what i needed. i thought i needed to be alone. i thought i needed a break. really, i needed my little girl to come be with me for her sake and mine. how kind God is to teach me and lead me in gentle ways. even when i feel like i need a gigantic billboard just telling me what to do because i hardly ever know.
it is not always like this, of course. sometimes you go to target on saturday with all 3 kids and literally feel like you are going to fall down dead because of the anxiety due to a mix of circumstances. you are sure you, or one of the 3, will not make it out alive. one child is yelling the whole time. the popcorn treat you got at the beginning is, literally, trailing you all over the store (sorry target). the baby's fever is rising. you really should leave the cart and walk out, but you already opened the baby's snack and you probably should pay for it. and then the two potty trained kids HAVE TO PEE RIGHT NOW. so you keep walking and don't make direct eye contact. and then you text your husband tell him you are definitely ordering pizza for dinner.
oh the graces.
hope all is well in your world. tell me something.
love to you.
mer
Oh, Target and peeing. Here's a laugh for you today - wondering if I missed any...
ReplyDeleteThings you won’t believe before you have three of your own kids:
• How much food you will clean up off the floor and walls
• That after enough nights of no sleep and no breaks from the kids, you will have thoughts like, if the washing machine and dryer could talk, what they would say to each other?
• How much liquid can be disgorged in a single squeeze of a juice box
• That you will have to remove every recipe from your repertoire that has the words, “cook, stirring constantly” anywhere in it.
• The minivan. Why do I give them lollipops in the minivan? Or bags of crackers and raisins? And there are stripes of smoothie-mess all over the ceiling because of kids flicking their straws.
• How many times you can step on the same Lego in one day.
• For the amount of time I spent agonizing over their names, I should have just known they would be called “MasJake” and “PaigMason” or something like that. If I blurt out a name, I usually don’t get it right the first time. Once I was at the park with a woman who was from Germany. Her youngest two kids (out of four boys) were Sebastian and Johannes. I thought that because the names were so dissimilar, she’d never mix them up. But sure enough, when the three year old started running for the road, she was shouting, “Sebastian! I mean, Johannes! Stop!”
• The cost, quality and annoyance level of toys bought in desperation.
o The math isn’t simply, is this toy worth this price? It involves deciding if the toy is worth the price tag plus the ability to get out of the store without a tantrum. Or the price plus the promise of an afternoon spent happily playing with that new toy.
• How much noise a handful of rocks will make in the washing machine
• Nursing hormones could be responsible for your nursing a child past the time they can speak in three word sentences even though you had thought that was so New- Age crazy that you wouldn’t be caught dead doing it.
• How you can fill the entire top of your dishwasher with sippy cups every day for years!
• How much children’s Motrin you will go through while they are teething and sick
• How low your standards of cleanliness will sink with each additional child
• Weathering storms of needs, coming in waves. Today: Partly crabby with a chance of tantrums this afternoon.
• That having two might be easier than having one. They entertain each other, even when it’s with fists.
• How many times a day you will be presented with mutually exclusive demands on your time. For example, someone needs help getting to the potty to poop, and someone else is injured at the SAME TIME!
• That one-year-olds can be harder than babies, and three-year-olds can be harder than two-year-olds. Maybe not all the time, and maybe not all kids. But I’ve seen a lot of easy babies and difficult toddlers. And the terrible twos are hard, but they have nothing on the irrational three-year-old tantrum.
• That after hourly wake-ups for weeks on end, you will howl for someone to rip out your baby’s teeth and replace them with pediatric dentures.