Suffering without Sun

Summer is officially here….at least in the schedule sense….certainly not in the weather sense.  We’ve been cooped up inside for weeks while it rains.  We thought we moved to the sunniest place in the U.S. four years ago, but it’s more like living in Seattle lately. The first two weeks I spent being thankful for the rain that would prevent devastating fires brought on by summer’s heat.  I was amazed and amused the third week of rain and made jokes about building an ark.  My patience had worn thin by week four, both with the weather and my children.  My husband suggested I take Vitamin D to offset my deficiency of sunshine.  I started researching UV lights.  And then the sun came out.  I ran to the window and shielded my eyes.  Sunshine is surely medicine to the soul!

Now that the sun is a normal part of life again, and I’m back to being emotionally stable, I can laugh at some of my mothering moments from the past month.  I threatened my boys with going to bed without dinner one night when they forgot to bring their manners to the table.  I informed my boys they would never play with a certain friend again after a playdate riddled with fighting.  My personal favorite was telling my twins they would NEVER again push the handicap door buttons at the gym after being subjected to their bickering over this subject for a full thirty minutes before we arrived at the gym. I’ve rarely thrown out crazy consequences during my mothering tenure, but hit an all-time high this month.  It just felt so good to let craziness come out of my mouth, and thankfully my boys aren’t quite old enough to tell me I’m crazy:-)

I’m back to showing more understanding and grace.  And while I can laugh about my month of being a crazy mama, I know deep down that this isn’t the type of mom God made me to be.  He made me to show love and grace that will point my children to His love and grace.  All the Sunday School classes, years in Christian preschool and summers in Vacation Bible School can’t replace them seeing me act out God’s love every day (okay, let’s be realistic….MOST days).  It’s good to have the sun back.  It’s good to be back to myself.  And I’ll probably just order that UV lamp from Amazon….just in case!

Laughter is the best medicine!

It was an errand running morning:  Ace Hardware, the gym, Costco and then back to Ace.  I hate running errands with kids, but the cupboard was bare, and the last day of preschool is tomorrow (teacher gifts this year are garden flowers), so I had no choice but to drag the J’s along.  Everything went as expected, down to the poking that always starts halfway through a Costco trip.  I was searching for the quinoa, and the boys were going at each other like only brothers can do, when all of the sudden a loud buzzer sounded.  We’ve never heard this in Costco before, so the boys stopped cold and asked what it was.  I jumped at this rare opportunity for a little mommy fun and told them they were being watched and the workers didn’t like how they were acting.  The look on their faces was PRICELESS!  Both sat straight up with hands in laps with Jacob on the verge of tears for the rest of the shopping trip.  I was so amused by their reaction that I started laughing, which neither appreciated.  I laughed myself through check-out line, parking lot and into the car.  

There are too few opportunities to laugh as a mother…..or maybe there are plenty, but I fail to see the comedy in most of my day!?  The incident brought me a feeling of levity that was common in my pre-kid life.  It felt so good to claim that feeling as my own again.  It left me remembering all the ornery tricks my Mom would play on me and my siblings, and recalling stories of ornery tricks her Mom played on her.  My favorite is my Grandma telling her kids that monsters lived in the corn fields (and there are a lot of cornfields in Iowa….just a few yards from their house).  Then my Grandma would hide in the corn field and jump out to scare her kids!  Hilarious….and just what she needed to make it through the day as a mother of seven.  At ninety-three years old, my favorite thing to do with my Grandma is to laugh.  We usually do it at the expense of our husbands, who seem to provide an endless supply of material.  Her longevity is proof to me that laughter extends life, and makes the life you live richer.  

So as summer break is knocking on my door, rather than be stressed or frustrated by my little “helpers”, I think I’ll search for reasons to laugh….and maybe install a Costco-like buzzer in my own house:-)

Problems with Personalities: Trying to fit a circle into a square hole

Life has changed drastically since my first Mother’s Day six years ago when I was one week into the mothering gig.  My husband and I were both reeling from the experience of bringing a baby into the world.  He was so moved by what I went through that he bought me an emerald necklace (delaying the epidural until the last two hours of labor and delivery totally paid off;-).    Those first weeks as new parents were overwhelming as we tried to figure out how often to bathe him, when to let him cry it out, when to introduce foods and which foods to introduce.  Each new milestone seemed like the most important and therefore merited extensive research and preparation.  

Now we have three boys.  The baby stage seems a distant memory, but I still find myself compelled to research whatever aspect of parenting has me sweating.    My latest obsession has been to understand my children’s personality types.  We have three boys with three distinct personalities.   Two of the three boys have personality types that are shared by just fourteen percent of the population.  This leaves me worried in the short term about how they will function in an education system, which has been designed to teach to the majority.  I also worry about their long-term lives and how they will function in the big, bad world that will not understand them.

Becoming educated on this subject matter has been enlightening and encouraging.  Understanding what makes each of my children tick and adjusting my parenting so they can feel loved and supported is empowering.  But this only alleviated a portion of my worry.  And then I heard author and mother of an autistic son, Emily Colson, speak.  She shared her story of being the mother of a severely autistic boy, all the challenges and heartache that she has experienced, and how she discovered joy through it all.  Most importantly, she discovered that God uses her son to shine His light in the world.  I was moved to tears at how this brave mother refused to let her son be a statistic or left on the sidelines of life.  Just like every person on this earth, her son was created in God’s image.  And just like every person on this earth, his purpose is to love God and love others.  He’s 24 years old and does this beautifully.  He is living out his purpose despite being a minority in our culture.  

Suddenly the worries about my perfectly healthy and “normal” children having personality types that may cause a few minor bumps in the road was put into perspective.  And not only was it put into perspective, but it provided a whole new lens to view these unique boys.  I should delight in the ways they are different from the other kids in the class.  I should encourage them to embrace the way God made them.  

I have been in the majority much of my life.  My personality, learning style, health, religion and appearance have always landed me square in the center of the majority in our culture.  The journey of motherhood has helped me understand and accept differences and appreciate, rather than judge those differences.  If I could just see each of my sons, and every person I meet the way God does….as a treasure created in the image of the Creator.  Each of my days would be overflowing with beauty!  What a way to live life.

**If you're interested in learning more about personality types (both your's and your children's), I'd highly recommend the book "I'm a Keeper" by Ray W. Lincoln.  The book provides quizes to identify temperment, descriptions of each temperment, and ideas for how to successfully parent each temperment.

My Takeaway from Tea Time

Yesterday was the Kindergarten Tea.  Kenny dressed up (with some coaxing), and played the part of the perfect gentlemen.  He took me by the hand when I entered his classroom and escorted me to his chair where he presented me with treasures created by his own hands.  One of the treasures was a book (and by book I mean a bunch of papers stapled together).  Each page asked a different question about his mother, and on each page he wrote a sentence in response with a picture to go with it.  I glanced at the mom seated beside us.  Her book was detailed, neat, and filled with color.  Kenny’s book was awash in #2 pencil, his handwriting a wreck, pictures were penciled stick figures to represent him and I.  But it was the most thoughtful and beautiful piece of work he’s ever produced, so I pushed comparison aside and fought back tears as he read me each page.  

It was heartwarming and hysterical to see myself through a six-year-old’s eyes.  He loves me because I cook, play, and lay with him at night.  He thinks my way to relax is to sit on the sofa and watch the news.  He wishes he could buy me a pot (very thoughtful since my favorite thing to do is cook!)  It was a sweet and rare 45 minutes of one-on-one time with my firstborn.  I left the tea with a huge smile on my face and a heart overflowing.  But I also felt convicted to be more transparent with my boys about the things I really enjoy.  They need to know that mommy likes pedicures and reading books without pictures and watching Downton Abbey.  I don’t want them growing up knowing only my (stellar!?) mom attributes.

And as often happens when I have any amount of time alone…this line of thinking expanded to the spiritual realm.  How many years of my life did I look at God through the type of narrow lens that my son currently sees me?  I kept Him in my “Sunday box” and didn’t realize all that I was missing by not allowing Him into every area of my life.  My life has become rich and abundant since letting Got out of the box.  I experience Him in the most unexpected places and ways, and much of the time through interactions with people.  

What an amazing day…..tea with my favorite six-year-old and the realization that just as I am a multi-faceted woman, God is a multi-faceted God….with every facet more good and loving than the last.

Finding the source of true love

Everyone, less fever boy from last week is sick.  The sound of coughing has a high probability of sending me to the looney bin.  We’re on week two of illness.  I HATE being stuck at home….I’m definitely a go-go type of mama.  The one positive side-effect of being in week two of illness is it’s 7:23AM and everyone (less fever boy from last week) is still sleeping.  The house is quiet and I have time to think while the sun is actually up!?  So I find myself thanking God for the sickness in my house, and typing out thoughts that have been rumbling around my mind for the last day.  

I was watching the “AD” mini-series last night, chronicling the early years of Christianity right after Jesus died, rose again, and ascended to heaven.  The episode featured a man who murdered a Roman guard, and was hiding in the Christian camp outside of Jerusalem.  The Jewish leader found out the man’s location and visited Peter in the camp.  I was fully expecting Peter to turn this murderer over to face justice, and protect the camp of Christians from a Roman invasion.  But he refused.  After the Jewish leader left, Peter sought out the murderer, confronted him, and forgave him.  He told the man that God was the judge and his only assignment on this earth was to show love. 

I can’t get this scene out of my head.  Just an hour earlier I was watching the nightly news….with segments on the movie theater shooting trial and the Boston marathon bombing trial.  These are two of the most hated men in the United States today.  One has been convicted, the other will surely be convicted.  It’s really no different than the murderer in the “AD” episode.  That man was the most hated man of his day.  Peter was face to face with him and extended love and mercy.  How did he do it?

Peter had mastered the premise of Christianity:  Love God.  Love Others.  And that’s not, “love God and love others that haven’t wronged you”.  We’re not meant to overthink the simplicity of these words.  It’s simple and crystal clear, so why is it so hard?   I think it’s hard because love doesn’t come from us.  We have an abundant supply of the easy kind of love….the kind of love we show to those who compliment us, give us gifts, create a space for us to merge in a traffic jam, but true love comes only from God.  And this kind of love is what’s required to love our enemy.  That God…..He’s pretty clever.  He made Christianity so simple, but at the same time impossible for us to put into practice without Him.  

My skin prickles at the news stories of today.  Not because I’m disgusted by the criminals wreaking havoc on our world, but because I’m sad for them.  They are lost and they have hurt others in their lostness.  I think that’s a sign that I’m on the right track.  Now if I could just have true love for all the coughers in my house:-).