Bolthouse Brother Bonds

We’ve been spending Friday nights in a hotel in the mountains, which greatly increases the probability of arriving on-time to the boys 8:30 AM ski lessons on Saturday morning:-).  It’s been fun to break our normal routine and get away, if only for 24 hours.  We go out to dinner, swim, and then settle the boys on the pull-out sofa for a little TV before lights out.  There are always shenanigans after lights out, which prompts Darin or I to give them a firm warning.  The shenanigans then turn into five minutes of whispers before the exhausted trio give in to their individual dreamlands.  

These boys and their shenanigans bring me to my breaking point nearly every day.  I can only take so much silliness, wrestling, and talk of butts.  I’m not in their little club.  I’m their mother.  They love me dearly and often profess that love, but I’m still an outsider.  This makes me a little sad, and increases my yearning for a daughter (because that would fix everything—HA!).  Strangely enough, it also thrills me.  I long for my boys to be lifelong friends, and I’m old enough to realize that the strongest friendships are ones with plenty of shenanigans creating the foundation.  So I’ll relish the night time whispers, try to steel myself for all the butt jokes, and pray that my three Bolthouse boys remain as thick as thieves.

A Christmas Dare

I’m reclined in a chair with my feet up and knee iced (thanks to a skiing incident over the weekend).  My favorite Christmas CD is playing.  The lights on the tree are twinkling, enhanced by the morning sunlight reflecting off of the new-fallen foot of snow.  It’s December 16, and I’m reclined rather than running and I’m at peace with it.  WHAT!?  

I wrote in our Christmas card this year that I want to be more like Mary and ponder things in my heart.  It’s pretty hard to ponder if I’m running around like a crazy person, my typical M.O.  So I’ve cut back on the baking and entertaining this year.  I could care less when the Christmas cards get mailed, something that used to cause heart palpitations.  I’m thinking God is on-board with my plan, blessing me with a knee injury that has forced me to slow down.  

It’s been a wonderful December.  We’re skiing on the weekends, and filling the weeks with playing games, transforming Amazon boxes into forts and robots, watching “performances” choreographed to favorite songs.  I even breathed easy for most of the snow day yesterday….only freaking out once when the lamp became a casualty during indoor foot races.  I’m pondering December in my heart, from the excitement of my children to the chaos of the world around us.  But despite all of this the words, “Be still and know that I am God” keep making their way into my mind.  “Be still”……I’ve got that part covered!  “and know that I am God”…..Oops!  I guess God has the war on terror covered.  I guess I don’t need to worry about my kids’ school being put in lockdown because a crazy person is on the run nearby.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  

I went to Psalms to read more,

“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.  Be still, and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”  Psalm 46:9-10  

It is such a relief to know that God’s got the chaos of this world in the palm of His hand.  And it challenges me to know that rather than worry about the stories leading the nightly news, my job is to exalt His name.  There’s no better time of year to put this into practice.  Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the Hallelujah Chorus all have prominent places on my play list.  So I’ll gladly delete the Republican Debate focused on national security from my DVR and join my children in a dance party of joy. 

“Be still and know that I am God”.  I dare you:-)

Daring to Dance

I love the saying, “Dance like no one is watching.”  And I recently had the opportunity to witness my six-year-old live it out.  We had a lunch for young families after church.  There was a stage, and background music playing.  Towards the end of the lunch, one of my friends whispered in my ear, “Check out Kenny’s dance moves!”  I turned around to see my oldest, introverted child break dancing on the stage!  He had some pretty sweet moves, and was totally unaware of his audience.  It brought a big smile to my face, and made my mommy heart happy that this boy was so comfortable in his own skin.  And then I heard the ticking of the clock and began to wonder how soon he would become self-conscious and want to blend in with the crowd (queue the crying and digging out of baby pictures:).

We all enter this world as uninhibited creatures.  Slowly, as time passes, we learn the norms of our culture and depending upon our personality follow or fight them with a passion.  Either way, we become conscious of how others view us.  Too often this gets in the way of being the person God created each of us to be, and it robs our world of so many simple acts of love and kindness.

A few weeks ago during preschool drop-off, there was a mom battling her two-year-old while holding a baby and trying to get her 4-year-old into school.  Her red face and the scary tone in her voice were tell-tale signs that it had been one of those mornings.  She managed to complete drop-off and was marching back to her car with her baby and screaming 2-year-old in a way that hit too close to home.  I wanted to walk over and give her a hug, or tell her that I would be praying for God to give her the patience she so desperately needed in that moment.  But my self-consciousness got the better of me.  Would she think I was weird?  Would she yell at me to mind my own business?  So I let the moment pass, and rather than providing her with verbal or physical encouragement, I sat in my car crying for all my similar moments and praying for this particular mom in her moment.  Don’t get me wrong, the prayer piece was nice and all.  But I felt a nudge by God to act, and I chose to ignore it. 

In that moment, I wished that I could be more like my 6-year-old.  He forgets to flush the toilet; he can’t perform more than a one-step instruction without getting distracted; he won’t wear anything but blue shirts and blue jeans, but he dances even when people are watching.  What a great way to live life!

Male Brain Envy

Last week brought a new mommy experience my way.  The boys picked the basement for their venue of play after dinner.  I was busy completing typical mommy tasks in the kitchen and thrilled that I wasn’t interrupted once in nearly an hour!  As we headed up to bath, I noticed one boy had a black eye.  As the boys were undressing, I noticed another boy was bleeding from his hairline.  The third boy had a red and puffy face, reminiscent of a boxer’s face between rounds of a boxing match.  I could only conclude that after-dinner play had been MMA or some sort of Fight Club.  No one had cried.  Not one boy had ascended from the “ring” to report the rough play.  My mind was in horrified awe trying to imagine what had taken place.  I was left with one thought…..what is wrong with them and their brains?  

Fast forward a week.  We were hosting a classmate for the afternoon.  The three 4-year-olds made their way to the backyard and proceeded to engage in winterization of the playhouse.  The boys had rounded up hammers and a box of nails.  They spent the next hour dutifully hammering nails into the wooden play structure with the intent focus of astrophysicists.  I was thrilled that their brains seemed to have recovered from the MMA incident.  I also couldn’t help but compare the focus they put into that single activity and the five frantic tasks I completed in the same time.  

Before I knew it, I was in awe of the male brain (gasp!) and a little jealous that they can so easily pick one thing to place all their focus.  My husband has been diagnosing and attempting to repair our faulty furnace for a week.  He patiently reads blogs, watches do-it-yourself videos on YouTube, orders parts off of Amazon, and calmly installs the parts when they arrive.  He’s been through three iterations of this.  It’s his one project of the week, and he’ll be a furnace expert when it’s all said and done.  

I, on the other hand, have spent the last week running around like a headless chicken.  Prepping dinner while doing laundry and listening to the school board debate, packing a lunch while prodding the first grader to read me his book, driving to school drop-off while drilling first grader on flashcards, driving to the gym while drilling myself on a memory verse.  My life is one big juggling act of trying to keep countless balls in the air (and I’ve never been much of a juggler). 

I’ve come to realize that my multi-tasking has resulted in a sort of Attention Deficit Disorder.  I have trouble prioritizing when tasks aren’t urgent.  And activities that I enjoy, or that benefit my soul get dropped.  I’m more likely to pick up the toilet brush then a pen to write.  And I’m more likely to stand in the kitchen to prep the food that will fill our stomachs than I am to sit down with my Bible and fill my heart and mind.  Oh if only I could have the simple mind of a male;-) 

Women’s brains are intricate and complex.  God designed us to be multitaskers.  He gave us a desire to fulfill the needs of those around us.  It’s necessary that I juggle many balls throughout my day.  But it’s also necessary that I carefully pick those balls.  Maybe the ones that fill my soul should be considered a little more urgent, and who needs a clean toilet anyway?

Unleashing my inner tiger mom

Fall break is upon us.  Our first grader has a record 1.5 weeks off from school.  (I would have personally preferred an extra week of summer when the pools were open and mountains were warm!)  Of course the long break was complicated with little brothers’ having school for one of the weeks.   Kenny and I found ourselves with lots of quality time together.  Fall break fell right after conferences, so I had plenty of ideas for activities (aka school related learning) that could fill our quality time together.  I’ve been read a lot of books that go something like this, “The dog is hot.  The boy is hot.  The dog and boy get a drink.”  Riveting, let me tell you!  And we scored a Star Wars workbook at the store, which has received praise from my Star Wars-obsessed 1^st grader.  

Reading and writing were going well…so it was time to start counting by fives.  I decided that the lunch table would be a good place to start.  I demonstrated counting by fives.  The four of us counted by fives together.  Then it was the 1^st graders turn to give it a whirl.  His effort was lack luster to say the least.  I helped him a bit, but lost it when his younger brothers started offering assistance!  We cleared the dishes and broke out the dry erase board.  This new tactic was met with zero enthusiasm.  So I reminded the struggling academic that counting by fives was a first grade skill that if he failed to learn would have him repeating the first grade rather than moving on to second grade with his friends.  His response?  “I don’t mind doing first grade again!” WHAT!  This child obviously has mutated genes….and he obviously doesn’t realize his mother’s stellar academic history.  I was in the academic hall of fame in high school, graduated from college with honors and a Bachelor’s degree in engineering, and achieved the same level of success while completing a Masters degree in business.  So the chances of my son repeating first grade because counting by fives (or any other required skill) doesn’t excite him?  Well I’d say there would be a better chance of snow Brittany Spears being the first female president.  And I promptly declared Fall break “1^st grade boot camp”.  My oldest child was going to embrace learning even if it meant taking everything out of his room except pencil, paper and flashcards, and I proceeded to tell him so.  We spent the next hour painfully counting by fives until he started showing some improvement and I started sweating.  

The tiger mom has been unleashed.  We do sight-word flashcards whenever we’re in the car.  Kenny is required to read us a book during any family reading time.  The Star Wars writing workbook has a permanent place on the kitchen counter, and I've hung a 100's chart over the picture in our kitchen.  I have always judged tiger moms….but now my viewpoint has shifted ever so slightly.  I will do everything in my power to keep my child from failing.

Of course this little episode gave me an “aha” moment when it comes to my relationship with God.  I am His beloved child, and He is determined to get some lessons through to me.  He’s patient, allowing me to take as long as I need.  He’s willing to repeat lessons until I finally get it, and I’m positive there’s a celebration in heaven when I do.  I may have been an academic all-star in school, but I’m pretty sure heaven has me classified as special needs—ha!  But however slowly I’m moving, at least I’m moving forward towards Him….and that’s all only thing that counts.