A December Mind

My thinking is most comfortable when moving forward. I like to wrap up experiences and move on. I have them color coded at the ready to extract to maintain conversation or indulge in fond memories. Except today, my thoughts hovered, not to my new year goals but to Christmas. I had tucked in Christmas nice and neat, decorations properly placed in the Christmas corner of the basement. Only bits of glitter and stray ornament hooks remain. It puzzled me how I felt a need to dwell, especially today, the day when we all line ourselves up and go about our non-Christmas business. Troubling. So here I am, writing in order to move on. Because I also like to think in lists I have come up with four Christmas notes: Two reflections on Christmas I think we did just right and two others which leave ample room to improve! Leave it to me to list up Christmas!

Reflection 1 “We Did It!”: Our Advent Calendar – So soft, colorful and inviting. It helped our family bring our thoughts around to Jesus. Each day either Genevieve or Enzo would pluck a figure from a pocket and Velcro it to the Christmas scene while Rosalie proceeded to de-Velcro. It was a joy to watch G place an angel on high while E chose a sheep to soar above. Inside the pocket a paper provided a Bible verse to be read. We had our small visual and Biblical journey leading up to our Savior’s birth. The children really enjoyed being a part of celebrating advent with our calendar.

Reflection 1 “Not So Much.”: Our Advent Calendar – This wonderful journey was not flawless. I took charge of something so simple and made it complicated, waiting for the perfect moment to let Genevieve or Enzo tend to the Advent calendar despite their eagerness. Knowing the longer I waited something else would come up. There was much doubling up (okay, tripling up) on our verses. I needed to trust in the Lord. Simply read His Word even during an egg frying cereal flying breakfast, He can handle our mess.

Reflection 2 “Oh Such Joy!”: Christmas lights – Our little Rosalie was enamored with Christmas lights. She squealed, cooed and ahhed when she spotted Christmas lights twinkling, no doubt for her enjoyment. This little tot scooted over to our playroom window, tippy-toed up to peek out and gaze on the lights Art and our neighbors displayed. Every single time I saw her do this I became lighter. Rosalie took something commercial and gave God the glory through her pure enjoyment; He did create all for His glory! I pray to never forget the joy she displayed this Christmas – twinkly Rose.

Reflection 2 “How Do I Do This?”: Christmas! I love Jesus I want my children to know love for Him too. I want us to glorify Him in all we do and say! So why Santa and mysterious elves too? Now what? I struggled with this all season long. How do I balance this? How can we have the fun of Santa, elves, reindeer, bundles of presents, and still hold fast to our hearts why we celebrate our Savior’s birth? I winged it. It was messy. Sometimes I tittered about like Mrs. Clause, other times I could not muster another story, all the while trying to remind my children why Christmas in the first place and trying to do so without sounding like a broken Christian record.  We all,due to God’s grace and sovereignty had a joyful Christmas full of wonder. My Father provided me Art to patch my blunders and give me an outstretched patient hand when I was stumbling.

I’m glad I daydreamed about our Christmas today. Allowing myself to smile and cringe at my Christmas spirit. I can rest on how He loves us and sent His Son for us on a Christmas night. I’m going to let my pen down and thoughts drift here now, moving on.

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Uncomfortable

Being a homemaker is unique for me. It instills emotions and expectations  I am still working on diagnosing. This fall I, among a flurry of personal changes, was re-affirmed in my choice to be a homemaker. I was not assured because my children demonstrated exemplary manners or won the coloring contest, nor were my dinners more thoughtfully planned but because of an internal struggle I have been dealing with.

While pursuing my heart’s desires I was met with challenges I did not foresee. What is wrong with going-for-it, with taking some me time? Nothing really, I suppose, except that uncomfortable feeling I would get as I needed to walk out the door yet again to continue my pursuits. It is not guilt, fully, though I suspect guilt anted up a dollar or two in this pot of uncomfortable. More it was a sense of displacement. On my short drives alone, with no little child in tow, I thought about this uneasy feeling. With each exit, I began to understand the trouble. I was meant to be a homemaker. This oddness with each getaway was my reformation of my choice to be a career mom. It’s okay to care for your family as a career. This was a truth I needed in my life. Sometimes we have to be uncomfortable and given to aches in the belly to see what is best for us.

I did not stop pursuing my goal this fall. Instead I made it very clear, to myself, by making a choice to pause mom-duties in pursuit of Rebecca goals, I best Make It. And I did.

Psalm 33: 13-15 The Lord looks down from heaven and sees all mankind. From where He rules, He looks down on all who live on earth. He forms all their thoughts and knows everything they do.

(This image of G is right after I decided to become a homemaker.)

#homemaker #change #family #goals #Godhasaplan #wife #mom #careers

Three, Two and One

And then there was one as little Rosalie and I motored away from school drop off number two. At first it seemed odd. My instinct double checking care seats for the other children. Is the van lighter now? Seems so. My hands are fidgety at the ready to pass a snack, grab a fallen treasure, make a mom, “cut it out” gesture. Rosalie is chatting in one year old speak in the back, comforting me. My mind is jittery. I could visit the bookstore with one child, albeit a toddler but just one toddler, easy breezy! Or let’s get home and accomplish the daily to-do’s, ugh no! Not yet, not on a perfectly placed September day. I think of Rosalie, maybe this is a time for us to get to know each other one on one. For Rose, in the beginning there was not one but three. As soon as we came home after her birth, she was a bundle of three children. Is this her “one time”. Yes it is. Sometimes one time is a little lonely when you are used to running in a pack but sometimes one time is exactly what you need. How about a walk around our favorite park loop at a pace suitable for a new walker? A snack, all to your self Rosalie? Maybe a snuggle and story is what we’ll do. Me and you, you and I, a little one on one for my one and only, till 11:30 at least, when pick up number one brings the pack back.

Just Write

Good Morning, I need to get something on paper right now! I’m feeling perfectionism take hold on me again. This happens a lot with my writing and I suspect with other areas of my life. I have not wrote a blog in weeks now, the plan was at least once a week. Today, I write. This post does not pack the literary fun I like to include in my writing, it simply is fingers to keys, pen to paper this morning in order to shoo away perfectionism and get back on track. I was going to write about perfectionism how irritatingly crushing it can be but I won’t, beyond this, it has had enough stage time for now. I’m back, ready to write, my ideas rolling about in my head are lining up to roll onto the page.Every good and perfect gift is from above… James 1:17

Happy First Birthday Rosalie

Little girl, you are one now – a little walker chatting consonants, teasing with an occasional Dadda and MumMum. A Mona Lisa smile behind two tasty fingers tells us you know more then you say. Your size is small, hair wispy and you just now sprung a new tooth, making a tally of three. Inside you your soul is real, large, known by the Lord from before time. He knitted you together* and knitted you together again when you were just shy of six months old. Your heart has stitches and patches and has been resculpted in order to beat in a rhythm keeping up with life. Your chest bone has wire securing it, all wound up like pumpkin vine attaching itself to a fence. You were re-knitted. I wonder if that Mona Lisa smile knows of His great work in you. I know God does. He’s your Great Physician. He has used your little being as a tool in His great plan. Whole churches prayed together, believing strangers paused to pray reaching out to their mighty Father and your family and friends have cried out to God to heal you Rosalie. You are one today, God answers prayers! How exciting to wake with your childlike faith each morning, reaching to get out of the crib to start your adventures. Rosalie, this is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it**. Happy birthday Rosalie, you are loved.Psalm 139:13-14* Psalm 118:24** 

 
 

Flower School

“Mommy, when you say ‘kindergarten’ it makes me think of flowers.” My little Genevieve says this to me during one of our many discussions about her beginning kindergarten this upcoming school year. The imagery of this is joyful. Kindergarten should be like flowers, a growing process, fun, pretty, a little wild. As a parent having this discussion about attending big kid school is a trip. It’s exciting to see my daughter daydream about her upcoming kindergarten adventures. During this last bit of summer everything about school is noted and analyzed by little G. Spotting a school bus on the road has personal meaning since she’ll be a “busser”. Errands have a new twist in anticipation of getting a glimpse of her new school from the car window, “Mom, there’s my school!” I’m thrilled. Truly. I will miss G. during the day. We are a little team, but it’s time, her time now, to grow a little more, peak out of the nest a bit. I’ll remind her the first day of school, when the nerves set in, how she thought kindergarten was like flowers. I’ll get her a flower patch for her backpack, she’ll smile and touch it softly. Big backpack in tow, she’ll be a little silly about it, then board the bus, wave, and head on into the kinder-garden.

Moments

I have a moment.  Am I working it?  A moment, empty the dishwasher, quietly, to keep the moment from quick fingered children.  I have a moment, fold the laundry, run it up and put it away. No! Yes, okay, moment laundry filled.  I have a moment, make some coffee, mid afternoon, in order to avoid making a strong drink and becoming a Mom tragedy. Use coffee induced moment to straighten up the yard and ponder how does one find out that straightening up a yard is even a chore.  Does it make it into the planner to be checked off? I’m penciling it in to check it off later when I take my check the planner moment.  I’m getting the feeling I am using up all my moments on chores.  Snacks, I hear an order called, alright give me a moment.  Another moment on snacks, which are wonderful, I love pretzels and strawberries but I do feel  another moment has gone by and I have not really, taken a moment.

This post is dedicated to me taking a moment to work on my writing by becoming a blogger.  (A smile actually surfaced on my face as I wrote the word blogger)  My children are playing on my bed, over tired, creating just enough joy to stir their baby sister.  I’m still stealing this moment to finish this post and to thank God for moments.  Also to mention in order for posts to actually be published they may be a bit rough but spell checked. Click.