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...