The Week I Was Going To Have It All Together

Saturday: With the husband and the oldest two at camp, the girl at the grandparents' house, and the littlest entertaining himself with Lego and lightsabers, I spend the day cleaning and rearranging. Papers are filed or discarded and homeschool books are sorted into crates for each child. The floors are vacuumed and mopped, and I go to bed feeling ready to embrace a new week with joyous, focused energy.

Sunday: I wake to find our sweet boxer sleeping in a lake of her own urine. Her continence and hips have been failing for a couple months now. When our campers return, I notice the pile of laundry they dump in the hallway only long enough to schedule it for Monday morning's first load of launch.

Monday: Again, I wake to a dog in a puddle, and it feels like the proverbial last straw. I just can't bear to wash the dog's blanket and the floor every morning or so. I tell Geoff, rather firmly, that it is time for him to take the dog to the vet. I've already taken her twice, to no avail. She's old, and despite medication and special diet, she's not improving. When he agrees to take her the next morning, I fall apart. She's our dog. I don't want this to be the end. I don't want to have to make this decision. But her health is unmistakeably failing... and as I watch her sleep that night, I see her tensing in her sleep and know that she is ready to rest.

Tuesday: We say goodbye to Sara, the dog who has been so perfect for our family for almost seven years. As on Monday, we work through our school lessons in a jagged sort of way - a little of this, a bit of that, with breaks now and then when the tears won't stay where they belong. I don't think I can look at another boxer again.

Wednesday: Geoff sends me a link to a boxer mix at the Humane Society of Charlotte. He's cute. And when I call, they tell me he's sweet.

Thursday: With a prayer for wisdom, I lead my four children into the humane society shelter and ask to see Simba. They send me out to the kennel. I walk between rows of cages, cold air nipping at my cheeks while dogs jump and bark on either side of me. I'm a little nervous that one of the kids will get too close to the wrong dog and lose a finger. And then we see him, sitting in his kennel, quietly looking at us. One of the kennel workers leads us to an interaction pen while another brings Simba. He walks around, sniffing along the edge of the fence, then stops to investigate us. He's beautiful. He's sweet. He's big. He's gentle. Geoff and I are texting back and forth. He suggests sleeping on it. I'm terrified someone else will adopt this dog. He comes home with us.

He tries to look out the windshield. He steps on a kid or two, trying to look out a side window. When we arrive home, he chases the cats. He strains to get to the guinea pigs. I keep him on the leash until Geoff gets home and sets up the crate we'd used for the Great Dane we had many, many years ago. When we put him in the crate, he whines every time we leave the room. He even escapes the crate once.

I can't sleep. There's a knot in my stomach. I'm sure I've done the wrong thing, and I wish I could go back and undo the whole crazy day. I miss Sara. This new dog... He's going to be a lot more work than I had expected. If only I'd listened to Geoff... If only I'd listened to that tiny voice telling me to wait... I hadn't realized how unready I was for a new dog. All the things that had swayed me into adopting him - his beauty, his gentleness, his sweetness - none of them seem to matter much anymore.

Friday: I wake up tired, with that knot still in my stomach. I apologize to Geoff, and I ask him if we need to take the dog back before the mistake gets any bigger. My husband - the man I love so very much - tells me to give it time. It's not so bad. We've had plenty of emotionally driven decisions turn out for good. We dub the dog Bane, because emotional decisions seem to be the bane of our life, and we might as well embrace that fact, and because the dog never responded to the name he'd come with.

I take Bane for a short walk while Geoff moves the guinea pigs upstairs. When our pastor stops by to welcome Bane to the neighborhood, I try not to cry. I don't want to admit how awfully selfish I've been to bring him home...and then to wonder if we ought to take him back, because I am just not ready for a new dog, no matter how sweet, gentle, and gorgeous he is. And then, as we go about a new day of school and cleaning and letting Bane get comfortable, I kind of, sort of fall in love with this big boxer mix whose daddy, I begin to suspect, may have been a Dane. By evening, when the youth group comes over for a bonfire, I introduce Bane to each visitor with hopefully not too obvious pride. Something has happened, and I think the simplest way to put it is that Bane became mine. He loves his people, and he tries so hard to please us.

And please us he does.

I could write more - about how wisdom isn't always logical, about persevering when one would rather give up, about life's detours not always being nearly as bad as we think they are, about finding grace, amazing grace, in the midst of one's foolishness. Maybe someday I will, but it's late now, and we'll soon have a new Monday to live. I doubt I'll ever have it all together, but that's okay.

I sign off with heartfelt gratitude to all who helped welcome Bane home. He is, without doubt, a keeper.

A Simple Philosophy of Family Size

I've read a lot of blog posts on family size lately. Rather, I've seen a lot of blog posts on family size. Some of them are just too long to read while waiting for the toast to pop up. Anyhow, since talking about family size is so in vogue, on this cold Friday morning, with Jake and the Neverland Pirates playing in the background and an adorable girl leaning against me with her hair in every bit as much disarray as my own, I offer my own simple philosophy of family size.

1. You get what you get, whether you plan it or not, and it's really no one's business why you have the number of children you have. More importantly...
2. You love what you get. No matter what, you love your children. Every single one of them.
3. You do what you have to do. With each additional child, some things get easier, some things get harder. Sometimes you hang your head in shame (Jake is a huge step up from some of the shows we watch around here), but sometimes you amaze yourself. But whatever your situation, you do what must be done to keep your family alive and well.
4. It's hard. Whether you have one or twenty, raising children is a daunting journey, with unforeseen challenges at every turn.
5. It's worth it. That part about loving what you get... It's true, and it's what makes you unable to imagine life without any one of your children.

That's it. My simple philosophy. No pros and cons of any particular number because I don't attach virtue to the number of times a woman has pushed a baby out of her body. This is not to say that I've never noted a difference between myself and mothers with fewer or more children than I have, or that I've never appreciated posts about largish families. But we speak of mothers coming together and supporting one another, and while I think we can honestly lay out the joys and challenges of life with what society considers "a large number" of children, it's far more important simply to recognize and celebrate the joys and challenges of motherhood and fatherhood, without regard for family size.

Because there's another point I might add, and that's that, as parents, however many children we have, we're all in this together.

When Celebration Doesn't Come Easily

Tomorrow is Christmas, a time of joy and celebration, yet as I scroll down my Facebook newsfeed, I see article after article about imperfect lives, about loss, about grief. I think of families I know who are navigating this first Christmas without a loved one, awkwardly learning new roles, new traditions, new ways of remembering the person whose absence on this first Christmas without stings so much, and I wonder if more than a Merry Christmas, we need a Real Christmas, a Christmas when we shed the facade of cheerfulness and speak honestly of our imperfections, grief, and even plain, old-fashioned weariness. I'm not saying we shouldn't be happy and joyful and all that... just that maybe it's okay to be still when all the world dances.

Below are some thoughts I shared two-and-a-half years ago on grief and loss as they pertain to Easter celebrations. I think they apply equally at this time of year when we celebrate the birth of Him who came to take away the sting of sin and swallow up Death in victory.

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Good Friday typically does not top the list of favorite holidays, probably because it's not really human nature to celebrate Death with warm fuzzies and apple pie.  Deep down, I think we all pretty much despise Death.  I sure do.  Yes, because of Christ's death and resurrection, we have the hope of eternal life in heaven when we die, but until then...

Until then, Death steals from us without remorse.  Though defeated, Death lashes out, like a dying despot trying to destroy as many in his demise as in his reign.  Death takes ones we love and leaves us swimming through a flood of emotions ranging from horror to anger to fear to emptiness and finally to surrender.  A shadow of sorrow remains, even as Life brings new joys to celebrate.  So when Good Friday comes around, and I think about Christ's death on the cross, a bit of my soul rejoices in the knowledge that someone, namely Jesus Christ, took on Death.  And won.  While it may not be entirely reverent, I picture myself on the sidelines of an epic boxing match, shouting, "Yes!  You're going DOWN, Death!"

And then comes Easter, with pastels and bunny rabbits, pretty clothes and special music.  The meaning of Easter sometimes seems a bit hidden under all that clutter, but it is a beautiful day.  Easter is that day when we learn that Good Friday worked.  Jesus won.  We win.  Easter is a day of rejoicing.

For some though, rejoicing may not take the expected form.  Rejoicing may not be a jubilant laugh bursting forth from a glad heart, but a choking cry, wrenching its way from the deepest recesses of a broken heart, for whom Christ's death and resurrection are not only its greatest hope, but its only hope, the fine thread keeping its nose above the flood of grief, sorrow, and agony.  For those acutely suffering Death's dying sting, rejoicing is more gritty, more desperate than a pretty pastel Easter morning.  But this sort of rejoicing is just as beautiful as glad faces raised toward Heaven.

Listening to John's ipod as I ran last night - yes, my child is more technologically blessed than his mother -"He Reigns" by the Newsboys came on.  I like the entire song, but the last verse especially stood out last night:

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard
'Cause all the powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word

When all God's children sing out
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God's people singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

All God's children sing out "Glory, glory.  Hallelujah.  He reigns."  Whether in jubilation or desperation, this song silences the powers of darkness.  It rises above the dying shriek of Death to give glory to Him who defeated Death once for all.  I guess the point I want to make today - besides expressing appreciation for the raw wonder of the cross - is that whether your heart is moved by the softer side of Easter or stinging from the agony of Death, whether you feel more attuned to Easter or to Good Friday, you have a part in the worldwide choir of God's children.  Don't wait till Sunday to sing.

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Grief is ugly. It's clumsy and messy and painful. But it is real and it is necessary, and I hope and pray that those enduring it this season will find the grace in the midst of it. 

The Grace of Living in Community

I don't remember what started it. Maybe it was staying up late last night. Maybe it was the excitement of the local festival. Maybe it was all the candy they'd downed at said festival.

Whatever it was, when my children climbed into the van, they did so with - How shall I say this? -  less grace than I would have liked.

And I, stellar mother that I am, oversaw said loading into van with less grace than I would have liked. Sliding the door shut with more force than necessary, I moved to the front of the van and sat on the hood, thinking that maybe they'd figure out that we weren't going anywhere till they settled down and began behaving like little human beings who have been carefully instructed on proper manners and conduct.

Go ahead. Laugh with me.

As I settled into my hood-top perch, someone behind me and a few cars away said, "I know that feeling." The father chuckled and continued unloading his van, and I laughed, too.

We all know that feeling. Sometimes a reminder that we aren't alone is enough to dispel that feeling.

We were out of the parking lot in moments, and our stop to fill up the van went off without a hitch, but the best was yet to come.

As we tumbled out of our van and into the grocery store parking lot, an elderly lady stopped and looked at my children most wistfully. She remarked on how beautiful they are and asked if they are all mine. She then told me very sweetly that I "have a job,"  and that I'm doing it very well. (If only she'd seen me sitting on the hood a few minutes before!) Maybe I'm a great mom, maybe I'm not, but her words reminded me to be a great mom - or a greater mom - right then and there. Her words - words of love and encouragement - lifted my spirits as I headed into the grocery store with four energetic children.

We were almost to the entrance of the store when the most bizarre, wonderful, tear-inducing thing occurred.

My son, so often prone to keep to himself as much as possible, asked my permission to go help an elderly lady load her groceries into her car. Permission granted, he approached her and pleasantly offered his help. She declined, but my heart soared seeing his desire do something so simple, yet so beautiful for someone in his community.

We live and grow and thrive in community. None of this - not the encouragement I received nor the connection my son made - could have happened in isolation. I had to take my children out into our community. I had to be honest enough to sit on the hood of a van of screaming kids. I had to be humble enough to let an elderly lady see the inside of my van, in all its candy wrapper-dirty socks-towels left after swim practice-glory. And my son had to see a frail woman with a cart of groceries standing at the back of a beat up station wagon. There is amazing grace in living within a community.

We never know when our words or actions may set another's course in an entirely different and vastly superior direction. So be nice. And moms, dads... If you're wondering what happened to all those lessons you've taught your children from the cradle, they're in there, they'll come to the surface when you least expect it, and it will be nigh unto impossible not to cry when they do the beautifully right thing on their own.

These seemingly insignificant events have left me humbled. At the close of a half hour that began with less grace than I would have liked, I found far more grace than I ever would have imagined.

On the Subject of Negativity

I jokingly subtitled my last post, The Post in Which I Ignore All Things Negative. It was a joke, mostly, because we all know people whose lives are so perfect you want to, I don't know... spill gourmet coffee all over their spotless counter and wipe it up with their brand-new, organic cotton washcloth. Or maybe, don't judge me, lick up said mess because who wants to waste coffee?

But seriously. I know those people, and I roll my eyes at them, too. Life isn't perfect. It's full of messiness - literal and metaphorical - and I'll never pretend it isn't.

But here's the thing: It felt really, really, really good to sit down and write about everything that's going right. Maybe it's a bit self-congratulatory, but maybe it's a lot refocusing. Maybe it's where you exchange doubt for confidence.

So, here's what I want you to do - because today, I'm going to be all hokey and ask you to do something. In the comments section, tell me what's going right in your life. Don't be shy, don't be meek. Look around and see the beautiful things happening in the midst of your mess and chaos. Rejoice in those things.

Other Things (or, The Post in Which I Ignore All Things Negative)

So, we're still here. 

In the midst of other things, I haven't completely forgotten about this blog. It's just that, well, other things take up so much time.

We've been back to school for a while now, with a sixth grader, a fourth grader, and a first grader, plus a four-year-old who loves to color pages and pages and pages and pages and... yes, even more pages. Our home is a sea of paper on the best of days. (On the worst of days, it's a sea of coffee and chocolate milk spills and dog vomit and laundry, but not all weeks are as filled with messiness as this one).

Despite the mess and chaos, we're learning. 

Our oldest is learning independence, responsibility, and diligence as he delves deeper into his studies. He's also joined me in some flash fiction writing exercises, and it's always a delight, though sometimes a little frightening (ahem, Sith backstories), to see what flows from his creative, eloquent mind. Our biggest obstacle is staying on task, as there are so many other things we'd rather learn than, say, grammar... (Scratch that. I love grammar. I mean, things he'd rather learn!) But even in that department, we are progressing. Slowly at times, yes, but Rome wasn't built in a day, though he might be able to tell you how it was built, complete with sketches of ancient architecture - a lesson I don't perfectly recall assigning.

Fourth grade has a different set of challenges and delights, the biggest of which are both found in the need of the child in question to have me nearby. We're spending more time in discussion, with closer supervision and deeper explanations, now that Andrew has moved to Middle School level materials and we have switched to a Math that requires more teacher instruction than our previous program. He, too, is learning so much. He's learning to take deep breaths, to see each task through to completion, to correct his errors. I hope he's also learning how very awesome he is, how he can do anything he sets his mind to do. Because he is and he can, and I am so proud of his growth over the past couple of years. I'm also thankful to him for teaching me the very lessons he's learning himself. We are, as I often tell him, in this together.

Then there's the girl, who in addition being (usually) eager to complete her lessons, has shown steadfast determination to keep up with all the older, more experienced kids on the swim team. Her Wise and Wonderful Aunt could probably tell you the origins of such plucky competitiveness. Even so, it amazes me to see her so at ease among her teammates, so eager to please her coaches, and so enthusiastic about each practice. 

Last but not least, our little Doodlebug is not so little. At four-and-a-half (How on earth did that happen?), he's sweet, funny, smart, creative, and all around incredible. He is also singlehandedly destroying the forests via his insatiable appetite for coloring, drawing, writing... (What does he do with all that paper?) 

So we're busy and we're messy and we're loud. We're navigating through laundry and paper and books and things we aren't sure where they came from or where they're supposed to go. There are weeks when I'm in such a fog I repeatedly run the Keurig without a cup, but when I write it all down, for myself as much as for anyone else, I realize that in the midst of all those other things, we are alive and we are well.

Of Pea Green Chairs and Everlasting Love

Few people would wander into a thrift store on a Wednesday afternoon, spy a pea green chair worthy of Archie Bunker, and think, "I have to have that!"

Then again, the husband and I aren't particularly in the habit of avoiding what "few people do."

When we were newly married, he dropped out of seminary to pursue another career. We sold most of our furniture and moved halfway across the country to settle ourselves sight unseen in a new city for the three years he would be in school. On our meager income, we furnished our tiny apartment with secondhand furniture. In the very beginning, we had...

a dining room table and chairs, $125

a dark green recliner, $40

a pea green recliner, $25.

Within a few years, the dark green recliner had fallen victim to the cat's claws, but the dining set and pea green recliner have traveled with us from house to house over the last twelve years. We sanded the table (with the exception of the leaf) to a beautiful light shade and gave it a coat or two of polyurethane. Then the children added the finishing touches using various shades of permanent markers and oil paints. It currently resides in our third child's bedroom, topped with jewelry, little girl books, and art supplies. Which leaves the pea green recliner...

Despite years of begging, my husband refuses to part with it. He denies my suggestion that it would look lovely in his office. He insists it remain an integral part of our living room decor. (In case you were wondering, our living room couches are blue, with not a spot of green to pull the chair into the decorative scheme). He's kind of, sort of in love with that monstrosity.

So when I saw a second pea green chair in a local thrift shop, I was as surprised with myself as you might be had you seen a pea green chair and thought, "I have to have that!"

But here's the thing: I've realized my husband and I might not grow old to sit on our porch in white rockers. We might just opt for pea green chairs. Not because there is anything inherently better about pea green chairs - They certainly aren't prettier than white rocking chairs! - but we have this pea green chair that's been with us almost since the beginning. It's a part of us - of our past, of our present, and it seems, of our future. Somewhere along the way, though I hate to admit it, I've come to cherish the old pea green beast enough to think we ought to have a friend.

That said, even I'm perplexed by this turn of events...