Motherhood

Before the Snow Melts

Blog_MeltingSnowIt’s fascinating to observe how different the perspective of a child is from that of an adult. Take snow, for instance. For a child, it means endless hours of fun. For an adult, it means endless hours of shoveling.

When it snowed Thanksgiving weekend, my kids begged my husband and me to take them sledding. Exhausted from the busy school year and ready to relax for at least one day of break, I suggested some lower-key, indoor activities. “It’s not even winter yet,” I reasoned. “We have a few months of snow ahead of us. Plenty of time for sledding.”

I didn’t expect it would only snow a few times after, and hardly enough for sledding. The one time we had what seemed to be a sufficient amount, I was the one telling my kids we had to get outside “before the snow melts”. We got to the hill and they made it down only a few times before they were sledding on grass and caked in dirt.

As I look through our winter pictures spanning the past few years, I see how time is like the snow—so quickly melting away, the kids growing with each passing year. It won’t be long before they’ve outgrown sledding and are complaining about shoveling. Makes me want to hold all the more tightly to these innocent years.

It’s easy to take things for granted—like snow in the wintertime. Out here, it’s as expected as the turning of the calendar from December to January, to February. Expected, but not guaranteed. Just like the precious time we have with our children. The more I realize how quickly the snow melts away, the more I want to treasure each moment before it, too, melts away.

The Work of Love

At the end of my life, do I want it to be said that I was very involved in the task at hand?

No. I want to be known for being committed to the work of love.

Source: My Two-year Old Professional Distractor

It Ain’t Always Easy

It’s easy to love your kids when they’re being sweet. When my daughter tells me she loves me “more than all the stars” and my son tells me I make him “shoooo happy” and they both shower my face with kisses, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to love them back. But there are days. Days when big sister doesn’t want to share and little brother won’t stop screaming at that impossibly ear-piercing pitch. Days when little princess decides she doesn’t have to listen unless it involves cookies, and little prince decrees the toilet his new waterpark.

It’s easy to love your new puppy when the little furball first comes home and showers you with love. But just wait until she showers your carpet with something else and chooses your best shoes as her new favorite toy. And that cute little stray kitty you found in your back yard? She’ll hypnotize you with those dilating pupils but one day she’ll hack up a fur ball at four a.m. or help herself to that dinner you spent hours cooking.

And what about Prince Charming? He holds the door for you, and you’re walking on air. He holds your hand, and your heart melts. He looks in your eyes, hanging on your every word, and you know he’s a keeper. Then kids come along and doors are forgotten, and who has a free hand to hold? And you pour out the depths of your heart only to watch him turn up the radio to catch the next play of the game.

Love is not easy. Anyone who’s had a pet, or a kid, or a relationship of any kind…KNOWS. The secret is out. If you care enough about someone, you’re in for some hard work. There are times when love is as easy as downing a chunk of chocolate cake, and times when its like scaling a rocky cliff. There are times when you flow in love, and times when you choose to love.

But as much as love is hard, it’s also something else. WORTH IT. For each moment I endure of quarrelling kids, there are thousands more of smiles and hugs and kisses and fun. I’ve cleaned up after my furry friends more times than I care to count, knowing how much joy they bring to my kids and warmth they bring to my home. And my Prince Charming? He’s still my prince, and he’s still charming. He’s also my friend and teammate and encourager and so much more. Beyond the hard work that is love, there are priceless blessings and countless times of saying, “So glad I stuck with it, no matter how hard it’s been.” And it’s been hard. But it’s so worth it.

Source: It Ain’t Always Easy

Lived In

Blog_Living RoomWhen I was a teen I babysat at a house where all the furniture was covered in plastic. My Mom told me, “That house doesn’t look lived in. A house has to be lived in.” And that’s the reason my home looks so VERY lived in today.

Couches aren’t meant to be covered in plastic! They’re meant to be comfortable. Homes aren’t meant to be sterile. They’re meant to have traces of life…everywhere. Who wants to live in a mortuary?Blog_PlasticCouches

If you have kids, there should be crumbs on the floor and handprints on the windows. There should even be an occasional landmine of toys. My son likes to make artwork with his sticky fingers over every surface of the house. My daughter likes to scatter her books everywhere she goes. Yes, it bothers me…sometimes. But more often I’m reminded of how long I prayed to have kids. And that means I prayed for all that kids bring with them.

There’s a Proverb that says, “Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.” A farmer who wants a harvest doesn’t need a clean stable. The ox that helps him bring in the harvest will do more than make a mess of the stable, but with that mess comes blessing.

Children bring with them a harvest of life and joy. Their little messes are worth it. Yes, my husband and I teach our kids to clean up after themselves. And we’ve cleaned up after them more times than I can count. And yes, I’ve snapped as many times when the place was getting unbearably messy.

But in the end, I’m glad our home is LIVED IN. That’s how it should be. And I’m blessed because of it.

P.S. The very real blog post A Little too Real inspired my thinking that led to this post. It’s a great read!

Another PostScript…Take a look at the pictures above. Where would YOU rather live?

Didn’t I Just Do the Dishes?

Blog_DishesI’m always amazed how fast the sink fills up after I do the dishes. Or how the hamper fills up so soon after I finish the laundry. And how the floor becomes a land mine of toys minutes after I put them away. Sometimes it seems like everything I do gets undone just as quickly.

There’s something inside me that longs for permanence in what I do. I want the things I invest my time and resources in to last—and not just for a day or two, or even a year. I want them to last beyond me.

Maybe that’s why I like writing so much. As long as the computer doesn’t crash, it’s nice to know my words will still be there even when everything else I spent the day working on is unraveling around me. There’s a satisfaction in completing something and having it stay…complete.

It’s easy to forget that the little things I do for my family are more permanent than my written words will ever be. Dinner may be quickly devoured and the dishes as quickly dirtied, and the clothes I just washed will likely end up in the hamper within hours. But action by action, day by day I’m investing in the lives of those I love and enabling them to one day be all they were created to be.

Someday the book I’m working on will be published. I’m hoping it will last beyond this generation. But I know my children will last, and what I impart in them now through servanthood and quality time and sacrificial love will be passed down generation to generation. I’m writing on their lives things they will take with them and pass down. Every act of love, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly temporary, and no matter how forgotten, will outlast us if only in unseen ways. And that makes everything worth it.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)

Tough Love

Oh, the look on my son’s face when I told him he couldn’t stick his head in the toilet. And when I thwarted his attempt to dive face-first into the empty bathtub. Or that time he figured out how to remove the protective shields from the electric sockets and I had to snatch his hand from certain danger. Those huge brown eyes, that look of shock. “Really, Mommy? Tell ME ‘no’? But I thought you LOVED me.”

That look of surprise typically melts into that smile he knows I can’t resist. He squints his eyes as if to say, “How can you tell this FACE ‘no’?” And he knows just how hard it is. When I steel my resolve against his charming tactics, that smile fades into the most pathetic, heart-rending pout. And when that doesn’t work…the WAIL that says, “If you loved me, you’d let me do whatever I want”.

Of course, big, compassionate sister comes to the rescue with that look. “How could you tell my impossibly cute baby brother ‘NO’?” And as they both stare me down with those eyes I have to explain I was saving him from drowning, cracking his skull, getting electrocuted, or whatever other potential disaster I just helped to evade. I may have even been saving his LIFE. No matter how I explain, they just don’t understand.

I’ve never liked being misunderstood. Especially when I’m saying or doing something because I love someone. The prevailing mindset is if we love someone, we watch them do whatever makes them happy even if we know it’s gonna hurt them. If it makes them happy to walk down the middle of a busy street and step in front of a semi, hey—just let them. If I say there’s a sidewalk to keep them safe from traffic, I’m considered narrow-minded and unloving. Just let me do what I want. The semi’s coming at me full-speed, but don’t intervene. It wouldn’t be loving.

If I love my kids, I’m most certainly going to intervene if something could hurt them (or if they’re about to hurt somebody else). In truth, it would be neglectful not to intervene. It’s the same in any relationship. If I see a friend or loved one nearing the edge of a deadly cliff, the loving thing is to say—and do, something…even if it’s misunderstood.

True love cares more about others’ well being above it’s own. It means being willing to step out of our comfort zones and even risk our reputation, if that’s what it takes to help someone. As for me, I sometimes have to be dubbed “the mean mommy” for a few hours because I cared enough to keep my kid from taste-testing the cat litter. Keeping the ones I love safe (and healthy!) is worth it. Even when I’m misunderstood.

Source: But I Thought You LOVED Me

With

Blog_FathersDayOne talent I would love to have been gifted with is the eye for photography. I admire those with a knack for getting the perfect shot at the right time, in the right lighting. My reflexes are a little slow, my hand a bit shaky, so my pictures tend to turn out blurry and off-center.

For a while, I didn’t bother to take pictures at all. Until my kids came along. Now I’m a regular mamarazzi. That’s paparazzi, take out the Papa, add the Mama. Of the multitudes of pictures I’ve now taken, a few have actually turned out okay.

Among my favorites is one of my husband sitting on our daughter’s bike as she walks alongside him. It almost looks as though she’s schooling him in the art of bike riding when in reality, he’s teaching her, and humbling himself a bit along the way.

The picture aptly captures what I love about my husband. He’s a good father, and he loves our kids so much he’ll relinquish the more “important” things on his agenda to invest quality time with them. And most often, he relates to them on their level.

It’s also a picture of what I love so much about my God. He loved us enough to lay down his very life, to relate to us on our level. Emmanuel—a name most often associated with Christmas, is equally appropriate for Father’s Day. It means God is with us. And that’s the kind of father he is: one who sacrificed everything to be with his children forever.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (1 John 3:1)

 

Photo Copyright j.e. fernandez