Sister as Hero

Hannah has a hero and her name is Caroline.  Caroline is five years older than Hannah and it is so beautiful to watch the special place that her big sister has in Hannah's life.  Yesterday, while Caroline was at ballet, Hannah suddenly broke into tears, "I miss Caroline.  It isn't fun when she is gone."  Caroline paints Hannah's nails; Caroline fixes her hair almost every day (in colors and styles that no mother would think of).  Caroline encourages and distracts Hannah when she is sad and can always get her to stop crying.  Caroline is patient with Hannah and includes her in all that she does.  I watch with joy at their friendship, but I also realize I am missing out as a Momma.  You see, I was the one that thrilled Caroline when I painted her nails or braided her hair in a french braid.  I can remember how excited she was to have tea parties with me, to eat hotdogs with toothpicks on our back porch.  Hannah doesn't even know I can do these "fun things" because she is so busy having fun with her big sister.  There are many articles that talk about what a shaping influence siblings have on your life.  I am so thankful that Caroline is a beautiful shaping influence.  And I will wait and one day I hope I get to show her the fun side of Momma.

School Days

I think school decisions can be some of the hardest decisions parents make for their children.  They feel more powerful than the many small ones we make for our kids everyday.  (Although I think this is not really true...it's those thousand character shaping moments of yelling or patience, prayer or anxiety that probably really matter...).  We look ahead and see two roads diverging...and we must choose one.  This year we chose to homeschool, but I am far from a homeschool poster child. I wanted to place these pictures here to remember what I love about that road for us, at this point in life.  

First, Hannah in her bathing suit (dancing of course!).  Hannah has been wearing her bathing suit daily for about three weeks now.  It really bothers me, but I try to role with it, reminding myself she will not wear her bathing suit to college one day.  At night, we bathe Hannah, put on clean pajamas, tuck her into bed....and in the morning, we find her in her bathing suit.  She keeps it on for school.  Thankfully, we are able to accommodate this clothing request in our basement schoolroom.  She can be three years old, and well, the rest of us can enjoy Hannah being Hannah.

This is a picture of Henry reading to William and Hannah.  Henry loves books.  He started looking at them when he was nine months old, pulling them off shelves and pouring over the pages.  But reading has been slow and hard work for him.  Henry is finally starting to turn the corner, and I love to listen to him read to his younger siblings.  He loves being able to share a story with them now.  It has been good for Henry not to know if he is in the "blue reading group" or the "green reading group", etc.  He has been coming along at his own pace and it's a joy to see it come together finally.

Every year, we draw the same animals from the book Drawing with Children.  I love the book because it teaches you how to use straight lines and curves and dots, basic things, to slowly build a picture.  And because I wish I was an artist who could make beautiful things every day.  Anyway, back to drawing...we do the same pictures every year in the fall and compare them with the previous year.  Every year, our lines are stronger, the proportions are better....Well, John Mac has never been willing to try and draw with us.  He didn't like to color or pick up a pencil for any reason really.  This week he drew with us for the first time...and look!  So fun to see what you can do when you try.  We were all amazed at what we could do this year.  We sat for an hour with classical music in the background, drawing and coloring....and it was all that is good and beautiful about homeschooling.  

I won't show you any pictures of the day before this when William screamed for 30 minutes in the pack and play because I wouldn't give him a gumball.  And Hannah put play dough on the carpet.  And Caroline, my stable strong student simply cried on me over her math for no clear reason.  We all have our days, but it can be tough when we have them all together.  And it can be good, very very good.

Sometimes you just need....

A menu plan.
Nothing was going right today.  I was fuzzy-headed and tired, over-thinking and un-directed.  The second cup of coffee didn't help as I kept trying to move in a more straight path through my day.  But it wasn't working.  A friend found me.  I tried to explain the myriad of thoughts whirling in my brain, none of which added up to anything.  None were solid; all were the fuzzy sneers of Satan.  She listened, she was patient.  I ended by explaining the one clear example of my foggy day: "And when I went to plan meals for the family coming to visit us...I tried for all of nap time, with nothing."  So she pulled out the legal pad and pen and went to work.  And now I feel so much better.  I feel so loved.  And so ready for my friends to visit.  Thank God for the body of Christ, for friends that can practically love you when they know you don't make a lick of sense.

A Good Run

A dear friend just moved to Rotterdam.  I am sad, though I haven't seen Linnea in almost a year.  But my eyes burn when I think of her being so far away.  I think of her each time I take my first tentative steps out the door in the morning to go for a run.  You see, she is my running friend.  So I step out and wonder if she would be running in this heat, this rain, this....We did not live near each other or go to the same church or work together when we began running.  I was hesitant to join her for our first run.   She is lively and tall and beautiful while I am short and shy, but we had shared the same excitement for long runs while talking on the kindergarten playground.  And with children wrapped around us as if we were maypoles, she convinced me to join her, promising she could maintain my slower pace.  She slowed down; I tried my darn-dest to keep up.  Three years later, I have run miles and miles with Linnea and they were some of the brightest spots of life in Williamsburg.  We talked about the environment and politics;  we covered topics of faith and prayer. We talked about the books we loved, the food we were eating, our marriages and our children.  I can remember where we were running when she shared with me her prayers as a child;  I know the gravel path we were on when I told her I was unexpectedly pregnant.  But we could just as easily debate the value of a bikini wax or laugh about our floppy bellies as we ran with tight legs.  And we were never interrupted by phone calls or children, just stopped by our own physical limits of exhaustion and heat intolerance. Coffee was our reward;  well, until she quit coffee on me.  Then my reward was talking to her while drinking coffee and not running.

     I don't know when I will see Linnea again.  I do know that it will be great fun though;  I know that we will run and talk as if we have not missed a day, or a year, or been divided by an ocean.  Until then, I hold it as a picture in my mind as I step out each morning...talking to myself.  How much is a ticket to Rotterdam anyway?

Cello

John Mac just started taking cello lessons this summer.  So far, we love Miss Sarah and are pleased to do "bow holds" and clap out rhythms together.  He is learning how to take a bow and how to sit with a cello.  John Mac is a sincere kid; he is often like a clear pond of calm in our family and to see real ripples of excitement in him as he learns music has been delightful.  The picture above is of his "practice cello;  it is bright blue and made from styrofoam and a paint stirring stick, but he couldn't be more proud of it.
We take classes at the university down in the city, and so we pay parking meters and rush into the building for our lesson.  I thought he would enjoy putting in the dimes and quarters, so I have let John Mac feed the meter the past few weeks.  The other day after class though, he told me he didn't like having to park at the meters.  Why John Mac?  "Well, I don't like that we have to put our money in the meter.  We don't want to use up all our money going to class."  My five year old sees the coins we place in the meter, but not the monthly check I write Miss Sarah.  He knows money matters, but for him it is the quarters he sees disappear in the slot.  Next week we're going to let Daddy drop us off for the lesson, so John Mac won't need to worry about a thing....until he's in his thirties paying for cello lessons.

A Fish Story

They say that a fish can't describe the water it swims in; it's all the fish has ever known.  Sometimes the things that come most naturally to me are like that - the water I swim in and can't describe.  What do you mean you can't picture a calendar in your mind or you don't love to remember numbers?  Of course this is the water I swim in....don't we all?  But every once in a while you realize there are many different types of animals looking down into the pond...wondering why you are so content in the water.  Animals that wouldn't want to swim in the water if given the choice.  I first realized this idea when I spent time overseas with missionaries in Romania.  I remember one missionary named Susan describing to me how coming to Romania was like coming home for her.  Romania gave her a sense of place and belonging that she had never known back in New York.  And I stared at her and wondered how it was possible that she loved this foreign place.  And I knew I never would be a long term missionary in Romania without a heart like Susan's.  It is rare for me to go out with the children without someone stopping me and saying, "Are all those children yours?".  Once I answer, it is quickly followed with a phrase along the lines of "you must be so busy". The tone conveys worry and pity in most instances.  I have friends with large families that are offended by these frequent questions.  I don't find them offensive;  to me they are a reminder that I swim in a pond not everyone would choose to swim in.  I love having five children and most people would not be so excited about the proposition.  And that is OK.  At times I have felt guilty that I would get to stay at home with five children.  What a gift I think!  And yet, not everyone would think this is a gift.  I have been slow to realize that I really like this pond, and I always have.  It's the way I was made;  it's the water I've always been swimming in.  The families I remember enjoying spending time with as we grew up were families with several children.  I seriously dated a guy who came from a large family that I loved.  I spent my summers as a children's camp counselor and my weekends babysitting.  I have always loved little people and watching them grow and change up close is a real privilege for me.  So, yes, dear lady at Target (Publix, Costco, etc.), I am busy, but I am very thankful to be so....And I just can't believe you aren't jealous!  

A Surprise Vocation

I met another post-professional mother this week.  A former lawyer, now staying at home with her first -borne daughter and doing flowers for weddings on the side.  She enjoys arranging flowers, doesn't miss practicing law, and is glad for time with Florence.  She doesn't share it loudly, it was in quiet voices that we spoke; but there was a smile in her eye and certainty in her voice as she said "No, I don't miss it."  Another mother I spoke with this week, also a former lawyer, told of her awareness she had growing up that she shouldn't be a physician,"too many hours".  But she had had no concern for law school.  No sense that any and all professional choices, vocations are really life-callings, with life shaping and changing requirements.  The good doctor is a good doctor to his or her core, not simply as the coat comes on and off, but training as a physician shapes the way a doctor sees people, responds to passing a car accident, hears a child's cry at the pool....And a lawyer will consider thoughts and ideas on a case not simply while pouring through the details at the desk, but late at night while trying to sleep, and early in the morning while showering.  It is a life; it is person-shaping.  It is not something to pick up or put down. And here is where a woman is astounded...when she finds that being a mother is a vocation.  It is person shaping deep down to the core.  It also changes reflexes, shapes thoughts.  It is not something to clock in or out.  And how do I live with two vocations?  For many of us, it is a dissociative experience to travel back and forth from one vocation to another within the span of several hours.  And while some manage well, I did not manage well at all.  I found myself wondering why no one had told me that motherhood was a vocation of it's own.
Was it all a waste?  Those years, that tuition?  I know there are some who are certain that it was.  How ludicrous to waste government loans, government contribution on our training?  What about the people that could have trained in our place?  How are we possibly using that training at home with diapers and dishes and laundry?  Our experiences mold and shape us, and the experience of professional training is significant.  It contributes not only to what we "do" but to who we are.  But could we have circumvented the journey?  Was there a short-cut to take that in our modern culture has grown covered with brambles and well-hidden, hard to find or discover along the main road?  I think there may have been a path I missed, a road I walked right by while listening to the voices of so many ambitious and intelligent people around me.  It is marked with signs that motherhood is a vocation.  It is not something that can be done easily or lightly.  Take care, pay attention, choose wisely.  I am not sure I would have known enough of myself to read the signs, to listen well, but I am glad to know the fullness of the requirements on the other side.