Snow and a Rash

Our best Williamsburg snow in five years arrived yesterday. Somewhere between 8 to 12 inches of fluffy white wonder. The last time I experienced a foot of snow it was while working in a hospital in Philadelphia. Brandon graciously drove his 25 week pregnant wife home very slowly through the snow in the early morning hours after finishing an ER shift. It took over an hour to get home. The significant snow before that, Brandon and I walked a mile up to the hospital because as a fourth year medical student I was certain that it was essential that I show up to work (thoughts like that helped me make it through medical school...). So when the snow came down densely yesterday, on a Saturday, I shared a smile with Brandon, commenting how wonderful it was to have a snow and no where to go. A few hours later, as the wind continued to blow snow sideways, a neighbor called panicked. Her young child, a beautiful girl who has spent a lot of her first year in the hospital, had been sick for several days and now had a rash. The urgent care was closed, the pediatrics office was not answering...what did I think she should do. I asked the questions, listened...but you have to look at a rash. I walked a mile with lots of layers on to go and look at Natalie. I brought my stethoscope, my cell phone and I felt like this odd combination of a neighbor and a Mom and a doctor and a friend. Natalie did have a terrible looking rash. I told them how to avoid the ER, when they would know they had to go regardless, and that she was actually doing really OK...right now. I walked back home, thinking it all through...like I always do, which is why I have a hard time as a doctor. The wind was still blowing, the snow was still falling fast and the gray clouds would soon turn into darkness. Did I give them the right advice, or lead them astray at the time it was easiest to make it to the ER? I came back home to hot chocolate chaos, but somehow making a neighborhood call felt more real and attached to my life than when I use to come home to the fullness of kids after a day at the office. So I settled back into dinner and life. Today when we came back from sledding, there was a pot of black bean soup at the door and two beers (my husband was oh so glad); a message on the answering machine said Natalie was doing better and to enjoy the meal. It made old time medicine feel real and good: soup for a rash. A very different medical snow story for us.

Parties and Fairies

OK, so it may be hard to tell but in the bottom of this picture is a fairy house. Or, a bug house that was decorated with sticks and grass and a small cup of water to turn it into a fairy house. Caroline and Henry are working really hard to decide if fairies "exist". They have several friends who swear they have caught their very own fairies in the woods near their homes. This week Caroline and Henry set out a house to "trap" a fairy. Caroline announced to me that she definitely does believe in fairies and that I need to believe too or all the fairies will die. This is what her dear friends have told her; peer pressure at an early age to believe in fairies. So she and Henry spent quite a while outside. They built the house then played on the other side of the yard, quietly checking back to see if the fairies had arrived yet. At one point, they were inside for a while and Daddy placed a small fairy figurine in the bug house for them to find. They were not amused. "Daddy!"......

Caroline is fun. This is a picture of her trying on her doll's glasses and hat one afternoon. Her favorite school friend has glasses so she had to give it a try. Last week Caroline kept referring to things she was going to need for her party Saturday night. It wasn't a holiday, a family birthday, a special date that I was aware of....I just nodded my head and went along. By the end of the week though, she mentioned she needed extra chairs in her room for the party and did I have some she could use? I finally asked who all was invited to the party. She named each family member. I felt a little relieved in that she seemed pretty busy with preparations, and I was a little concerned that the entire Kindergarten class had been invited to our house without me knowing. Saturday night arrived. After bath and pajamas, Caroline announced it was party time. She had us all sit on the floor (she decided the chairs took up too much room). She gave out gifts to each of us and did a special entertainment show with the flashlight in the dark. She included her brothers in the show which they loved and Baby Hannah was just glad to watch the lights. I was given a special ribbon to wear as the Mommy award. Henry was given some of her favorite fairy stickers. She was thoughtful and generous with each of us. Then to complete the party, she threw pink and red confetti that she had been making herself all week, all over each of us in the room. I didn't have the reaction I expected. I did not look at all those tiny pieces of paper and feel the immediate need to vacuum. Instead I just marveled at this five year old girl that already knows how to throw a fun party.

Funny Thing...

A few months ago, after ongoing guilt at not returning my Parent Volunteer Form to the school, I wrote an email to the volunteer coordinator at school. (By the way, I still feel so bad about not returning the form that I can remember the date it was due....Sept. 8th.) I wrote her to say that as the mother of four young children, there were not a lot of activities I could do easily out of the house, but that I would be glad to do quiet, behind-the-scenes type jobs that could be done at home. I think what I meant by quiet, behind-the-scenes jobs was along the lines of stuffing envelopes, placing stamps, alphabetizing things? I am not sure exactly what I thought I could do, but I can guarantee that I did not predict that my quiet volunteer work would include laundry. Or, more specifically, ironing. I do laundry every day. I find it is my greatest reason not to have more children. There are some people that would mention finances, chaos, noise, general order in the many reasons of not to have more offspring....my greatest obvious hindrance is laundry. In addition, I do not iron. By God's grace, I did marry a man that irons. My clothes are occasionally without wrinkles due to his love alone. Now you can tell where I am going, right? The kind volunteer woman asked me to launder and iron tablecloths for the school open house. Yikes. What do you say? I'm sorry I don't iron? That the T'giving tablecloth ironing was a huge fiasco that I would never repeat because by the end of my ironing you could never tell I even began? No, I wrote back to say let me know when you need them. So, here I sit with SIX very LARGE white tablecloths that I do not know how to iron. I called my husband and asked if he would pick up some spray starch on the way home. Here goes nothing.....

A Good Day

Just like the rest of the world, you have good days as a mother and bad days as a mother. For me, a good day as a mother means that I remember the gift of getting to be a mother: to teach and to train and to enjoy the journey of life from a different perspective. Yesterday was a good day. Caroline was out of school for the day and we all headed to the museum. My husband and I have long thought of ourselves as "museum-geeks" and I think we are quickly passing it along as the museum on a day off was my daughter's request for the day. There were several moments where I just loved watching the four of them together. Caroline wanted to push the stroller and show Hannah around. Henry surprised us all remembering odd facts from our last trip. John Mac showed his usual exuberance at all the little things. Small glimpses of goodness shining through. It was a day where it was easy to remember that sharing all of this with them is a real gift.

"MoonSon"

Here is another interesting conversation with John Mac:

JMac: I'm not your sun.

Me: You are my son.

JMac: The sun is in the sky. I'm not your sun.

Me: I am the Mommy and you are my boy; you are my son. It sounds like sun in the sky, but it is a different word spelled with different letters.

JMac: Ok, then I'm the MoonSun.

A few pictures

A few pictures from recent days.

~Below is Hannah with her Daddy. She is becoming quite the crawler. She speeds through the house daily, mostly trying to crawl into the coveted room of her older sister. It has become special as she has quickly realized it is the one place I am afraid for her to be in our home. The danger of small beads and Polly Pockets is no laughing matter....

~And here is a picture of me making a recent dinner....Veggie Surprise, also known as Breakfast Scramble. I keep reading books about food, nutrition and health, so I keep thinking more about what we are putting in our bodies....and trying new recipes. You would think for someone with a medical degree that this type of reading would be redundant and unnecessary. Unfortunately, I feel like I keep needing to learn more. When Mom was diagnosed with cancer recently, it sent me back to the books with yet another learning perspective. Recently I finished the book The China Study and I am still overwhelmed by the amount of information in it. So tonight's dinner was another attempt to eat more meatless meals, save the environment, save our wallets, save our bodies....I am not sure I can ever be a big fan of tofu, but you can sure use a lot of spices and vegetables with it!

~Over the weekend, we were able to spend two evenings in a row with friends and their children. A great evening with friends and good food is wonderful. A four year old napping out of utter exhaustion from the fun is even better. He is asleep on top of his favorite book, the classic Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

Schooling

January has become the month to agonize about school decisions for me. I was gleefully unaware of this reality until my oldest child hit preschool age. Suddenly my peers had all registered their children for preschool when I had not even realized I missed a deadline. Once again, I find the dates approaching to enroll, reenroll, choose to do neither....It feels daunting to me. I like to tell myself that I over-contemplate the issues because it affects the life of my children; it's a big decision. Today I spent time with several homeschooling moms that I really enjoy. All of them are wonderful wise Moms. I found myself just hoping that someone would flat out tell me what to do, how to live my life. But that is not the point. I'm the mommy. I need to make the choice. The truth is that this choice, just like the many I make every day, will affect my children. But this choice, like the many I make every day, does not alone have the power to determine their lives, who they are to become. God is graciously upholding me, upholding them. In all things may He be preeminent.

BIRTHDAY!

Yesterday was my birthday! I love the chance to celebrate birthdays. For me a birthday celebration is a great statement of the goodness of life and the uniqueness of a person. In a world that rewards productivity, riches, moving fast and wearing skinny jeans, it feels good and counter-cultural to stop and just be glad for the person God made someone to be. I had a great birthday. My morning started with a surprise morning off...a babysitter arrived at 9am by my wonderful husband's arrangement. I spent the whole morning by myself! I realize this can sound sad and lonely, but to a mother of four solitude is like a swimming pool in August in the South, much needed and almost too good to be true. I ate breakfast at Art Cafe, my favorite local place, and enjoyed reading the newspaper. The lovely owner there knew it was my birthday (how else did I get to quietly sit and read the paper while drinking a wonderful cup of coffee?) and serenaded me with a decadent chocolate dessert and a candle. Picture elegant but simple, not large clapping restaurant singing. That was enough right there....the day would have been more than I deserved at this point...

I celebrated with my husband and kids over dinner. While I made the dinner they made "party hats" and hung streamers. This was in addition to the "birthday poster" on the front door they decorated for me. It was so good to celebrate together. As my four year old said, "Mommy this is going to be a really good party. You have party hats and decorations!". The simplicity of a good party is really something we adults should have held on to. Finally, my husband had to go to a meeting, so I put the kids to bed and was folding laundry when I received a great birthday surprise. Four dear friends snuck in with champagne and goodies and we had a "Mom Party"...a short period of time to talk and laugh without kids that we are oh so grateful for these days. It all felt like more goodness than I deserve, and I am so glad that the rich company of friends means so much. How blessed I feel to celebrate another year!

Happy Birthday to me! Such a fun day!

faith of a child

This is Henry at his grandmother's birthday party, blowing out a candle.

He is our dreamer, our constant child of imagination.

This past fall Henry prayed every night for his dear friend Brogan's father, who was deployed to Iraq until April of 2010. We explained to Henry when Brogan's father left in August that he would be home in April. Despite this, Henry prayed daily for Brogan's father to come home before Christmas. Several times we corrected Henry; the prayers for Brogan's father would be for him to come home safely in April, not for Christmas....Finally, we relented. God knows when he is coming home from Iraq; he'll know what Henry means.

Last week Brogan's daddy came home for Christmas. There were extenuating circumstances; it was only for a week....But I couldn't help but realize that Henry's specific prayer - the one, by the way, that his mother would have been afraid to even hope to pray for - was answered. Our God is so good and does so much more "than all we ask or imagine". Perhaps it is because we do not have the imagination of our youth.