Dear Lizzie...(17)

Dear Lizzie,

Well, fall fell as usual, but I was secretly hoping it would get lost and never show up.

I haven't written lately because we seem to always be so busy. I can only imagine how busy this time of year was for you. Preparation for winter has changed quite a bit over the years. Were you busy canning, drying, and curing this time of year? That's what I wish we were doing, but the blow dryer of summer made gardening really difficult.

I wish I knew if you ever went to any fall festivals. I love fall festival time. I miss the ones we had access to in the south, but we have still had a fantastic time with what Kansas has to offer. Believe it or not, it's now popular to take your kids to a pumpkin patch for fun. There are rides, slides, corn mazes, and you can purchase pumpkins and gourds. I suppose this sounds a bit odd to you, as I am sure you just grew your own pumpkins and gourds. And did it ever occur to you to have a bunch of families you didn't know come traipse through your patch?
Many more leaves cover the ground than when you lived here. I wonder what fall in Kansas looked like 150 years or more ago. I can't hardly imagine fall without trees.
Well, Lizzie, I need to go now. I have some little ones to attend to. It was good chatting with you. It would have been fantastic to take an afternoon walk with you some time during the fall. I bet we could have had some great conversation.

Yours truly,
Charity 

What One Ponders on Tuesday Nights...

"What do you have in control?"
I ask this in a teasing voice, giving her a hard time.
Her issues are serious, deep, and could be overwhelming if you let them. My jesting is always to bring just a bit of levity - to help us both.

I kiss all the kids good night. It's the only thing I seem to do consistently in OCD fashion. I suppose I think this ritual will ward off all those unwelcome things the night can bring.
Tonight, little Miss has a fever. Oh how I loathe young ones with fevers. I hate going to bed knowing they are sick ; not knowing how they will fare during the night. I never sleep well when this is the case.

I know control is just a facade - an illusion to make ourselves feel better.
The harder I work for it the more fleeting it becomes.
I always feel like it should be more amazing when things go well, when we aren't sick, or when we aren't injured, than when the opposite is true. When a worrying mom thinks of all that can go wrong, or a sick friend has to contemplate possibilities, you suddenly realize how frail and powerless we are.

I was amused again today that my kids think I am so strong, so able. For the second day in a row, I get an exploding head ache when I start working out. I went for a jog this afternoon, and was splitting up the running with some strength training exercises. Levi and Noah were hanging out with me, and I told them how bad my head hurt.
"Call Papa Tim if I pass out," I said as I went off for another part of the run.
"You'll never pass out, mom. You're too tough!"

The comic relief of your children's outlandish view of your abilities goes a long way to soothe the reality of a mama's aging body.

So this hologram of control I comfort myself with, it's showing me again how it's solid as mist.

I'm preparing myself for a sleepless night, and realize my old muscles will be so sore tomorrow.
And while it may not be glamorous, it's real, and it's my life. All chaos and out of control, but stitched with Divine thread.

Another week has flown by as the aftermath of heading to Tennessee for yet another CT scan and doctor visit. After getting home at three in the morning on Wednesday morning, we launched back in to school, work, co-op, AWANA, laundry, a trip to the state fair, church, and endless cleaning of the house. Somewhere in all of that I remembered to breathe, well, because here I still am in the flesh.
Even when blessed with more good news we come home exhausted. The twelve hour drive coupled with fresh sadness at leaving friends we love behind is a drain.
This chaos and change really doesn't get better. I am accepting that. And if it was better I wouldn't like it. I don't think it would mean anything good. As we plan for a field trip 90 minutes away tomorrow, and free museum day on Saturday, oh, and a birthday party Sunday... I need another deep breath.
Another deep breath, and time to laugh. I figure you all need a good laugh too, so I'll share my embarrassing, and frustrating Wednesday morning.
I've had the two older boys up since 6:00, and we get math, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling all out of the way by 9:30. (You may clap for us now, if you wish.)
I get my workout done, and decide to make a big smoothie for lunch to drink on the way to co-op. I call a couple of boys in from outside so I can shower (don't like wandering kids out and about while I am in the shower). They are dragging their feet, and I am getting frustrated.
"Let's go, let's go!!" Me, trying not to unravel too far.
"Moooooommm!! Someone's coming in the driveway!!"
Black SUV is pulling in the driveway, and why Oh why can't these boys get their rears in this house?!?
And dread overcomes me as I realize who it is, and I have no time for this.
We go through the obligatory exchange, and I "really do have no time right now, see I have to shower and gets these kids to co-op..."
And I am thankful I know I am going to heaven anyway as I head back in with my new brochure, and wondering about what they thought of my post work-out hair do.
I scramble to get the smoothie done so I can shower and rush out the door. And isn't the biggest hurry a mama can be in always detected, and foiled?
"It's yucky."
"Huh?"
"It's yucky."
"What's yucky." I have yet to really look.
"It's on me finger."
"Let me see your finger."
Oh. It's brown.
"What is that??? Where did you get that???"
Seriously?!?
"It's yucky!"
"Really?!?!?!!!"
I have had a boy or boys for over ten years now. Not one time did any one of them stick their finger down in the back of the diaper...
She really is a princess. She's a beauty. She cuddles babies and smiles sweetly. And she draws on walls, stains nearly all her shirts, yearns to play in dirt, and likes to do things, just so her mama can experience all those things she has only heard of.
Thanks little love.
We did make it to co-op on time. Some of us with new, clean pants and freshly scoured fingers.

Smiles in HIndsight

Here they are.... hiding up inside all the turmoil and stress, bad days, and lectures to self. The things that make you smile. Not smile at the time, but smile later, when they hit you out of the blue. You remember them, remember that you didn't give them enough time at the time.

Her little body sprawls by mine, having found my hand around five in the morning. It's cold, but she gets mad when blankets are on her feet. It's now seven, and he is leaving for work.
"Bye. I love you."
"Bye. Love you too."
"Love you too, mom."
Her little voice takes me off guard - she has said it in her sleep!  He laughs, but I roll over trying to catch a few more minutes.

What got us all into trouble in the first place was the inability to be content. Sure there were other things, but didn't it boil down to that?

Wishing you an unexpected smile today. I will be working on remembering more of mine.

I've had three showers today...
Such a hot summer. It's been like a "blow dryer," to quote my dad. Records set, and everything has been wilted and withered. Nothing could grow and you could almost imagine another dust bowl if things got too windy.
I took five kids on an adventure this morning. I was watching my niece, who is four, for the day. We walked down to Santa Fe lake, which really isn't a lake anymore. It was drained for maintenance, and with no rain and triple digits, it shrank under the sun's assault.
Weeds, over my head, had covered the lake bed.  Someone had made some paths by trampling the weeds down, and we followed one for a bit. It was tough going for Tia and Claire, so I took them back to an open spot. For an hour they "cooked" with the dirt. Shells were their dishes and leaves their salad. The sun beat down, we sweat.
An hour and five showers later, we finally had lunch.
A second trip out to play in the afternoon had us drenched with sweat in the first few minutes due to the humidity. I saw the clouds billowing up, expanding like shaving cream high in the wild blue. Big hot air masses were preparing for the front blowing our way.
Another shower after little niece leaves, and I prepare to unwind from the week.
I sit, mindlessly browsing Facebook. The wind starts. I sigh. I run out quickly, to feel the heat just one more time, but I've missed it. The cool is on it's way, and though most are glad of this, I struggle with the change.
That strong wind, it's through my fingers and mocks the sadness in me.
It's calm now. No visible change from inside where I sit. Twenty degrees cooler heralds that I must ride the changes yet again.
And though there is a restlessness in my soul that I can't seem to calm or even begin to figure out, I know that for today, I made the most of it. There is a little clearing, in a little forest, on a dry lake bed, with proof.

It's...elemental...

I suppose for most of us, life really never does settle down. We just replace old crazy with new busy and it all keeps cycling through. We may have some slow times, but it never really stays that way. I have had an exceptionally busy last couple of years. In that time we have had a lot of stress, and over the last year it's been hard to keep our family unit defined.

The more nuts life seems to be, the more I get into a rut of self condemnation. I hate the feeling of not getting things done, and not doing all things I need to do as well as I would like. Something is always suffering.

For me, it helps if I can just get back to basics. What am I doing every day? Well, since I currently don't work outside the home, home is my priority: my kids, keeping up the house, helping my husband.  And really, aren't these what I want to be priority anyway? Start at the core, then work out.

As we are doing our science lessons this week, I see it again. The atom. The smallest unit of matter. At it's core, the nucleus. The protons make it what it is. Only Carbon has six protons. Any more or any less, and it's not Carbon. My family, with Jesus at the pure center, is my nucleus. We are this family, and anything different isn't us.

The electrons are racing around in shells in a crazy extra-nuclear orbit. They zip at nearly the speed of light. The further from the nucleus they are, the fast they go.

 Ahhhhh...... I'm seeing it now.

I am more hurried, more wild, more likely to fly off and bond with something else, when I get further away from my core.

So, when I am fraying at the ends, and I am failing my own standards yet again, I guess I should see where I am at. Am I starting with the center, or am I looking to share electrons with that exciting situation over there? Folks didn't circle the wagons just for fun. Protecting your center is important.
I feel like God wants me to focus on this. He can always hand me more later. But I should be good at this before I should want to take on anything else. It's elementary...

Dear Lizzie... (16)

Dear Lizzie,
Well, we are here. We live within your walls now. It's been a bit over three weeks. I've been meaning to write you, but we have just been so crazy busy and disjointed. The projects haven't stopped since we moved in, and I started school back up with the kids. I know you sent your little ones off to the country school. I actually keep mine home with me and teach them myself. Most days I am pretty happy about this, some days I wonder what I was ever thinking.
The best thing that has happened since we moved in? Having a birthday party here. My youngest two both have August birthdays. Just having a gathering here again, with kids and games and sugar - it was so much fun. The house hasn't had a fun gathering in a really long time.
I keep thinking of all this noise here now. These wild kids within these walls. I wonder what sounds your children made when they played, got a little too wild, or ran in to tell you some news at full volume. My father was the last kid that lived here.
I look out the north window that is in the living room. I hardly ever look out that window that I don't think of you gazing there too, and the door that is now gone slamming shut beside it. Were there grazing bison, billowing thunder heads, men on horseback, curious Indians?
There is a bustle here again. The curve of the circle that the events of life trace, it keeps flowing on. I know you are gone, but you live on here, with us. Though I visited your resting place just a few days ago, I picture you as my age, managing your offspring, working hard just to survive.
I hold this Baptist hymnal of Frank's in my hands. I picture his work-worn fingers clasping it, singing the words in a clear deep voice. Your faith, his faith, they were strong and sure.
So, I am glad to be here. There is a lot of work to be done. A lot of projects to finish, and so many more that still need to be started.
I think, hope, that you would be pleased with what we've done, and happy that this place didn't rot and fade, but gained a new lease.
Rest well, Lizzie. Maybe you sing these words in this well worn book on the table beside me.

Yours truly,
Charity