Peter's Birth Story

This little boy was brought into the world with laughter on the night of the pink full moon.  There was no laughter during labor, but laughing started it off.  On Wednesday night, the 24th, I went to bed early feeling extra tired, but decided to check facebook before bed.  Of course that got me reading and I ended up reading an article with hilarious autocorrect mistakes that people made on their phones.  I can't find the link now, but suffice it to say, I laughed so hard that I had to finish reading it in the bathroom.  I thought I had compromised my bladder laughing.  Seriously.  When I got up later that night at 2am, I felt a little gush, but since it wasn't a big gush I thought it was my bladder.  Turns out I was wrong.

I woke up on the morning of the 25th and realized pretty quickly that I was in labor.  A very random, disorganized labor that would last all day, on an off.  Matt worked from home and took us all for a walk that morning, where I realized that my water had REALLY broken since I didn't make it down the block without soaking my pants.

A kind friend, Jaime, took the kids for the afternoon around 3:30pm and that is when my body decided to get down to business.  It felt like I could finally concentrate on what was happening.  Our doula, Lauren, came over and within just a few hours, my contractions got very close together and we both thought I had transitioned.  I had all the signs.  Close, long, and intense contractions, vomiting, hot and cold flashes.  I had hoped to stay home long enough that when I got to the hospital, I would be almost ready to push.  God had other plans though. 

8:30pm We took a very not fun trip to the hospital with Lauren in the back seat with a bowl in her lap and me hanging over the back of the passenger seat and Matt holding me up while driving.  Every bump and turn brought another contraction.  We got there and though my contractions were a minute or less apart, I was only 4-5 cm.  I wanted to cuss everyone in that room out.  I thought for sure I was nearly ready to push.  I had done 29 hours with Judah before I wanted some kind of relief from labor, but it had only really been 4 hours of regular labor and I was losing it.  The contractions were stronger and more intense than I had ever felt with the other children.

9:30pm I asked for nitrous oxide, which they warned me would not really take the pain away, but just make me not care.  This was a very accurate description.  Essentially I felt like I was stoned out of my head and the contractions still hurt like hell, but I just didn't give a crap.  Matt had to hold me up while on my birthing ball so I didn't fall over.  I heard Matt and Lauren comment about how 'high' I was and I wanted to laugh, but couldn't really concentrate on laughing while having a contraction and trying to huff that gas.  It wasn't really working.  I finally asked for an epidural and though at the time I felt like I was chickening out of "real labor", it was really all I could do.  My blood pressure was on the rise and I felt like I could not continue with the crazy contractions.

10:30pm I get half of an epidural, which just worked on the left side.  There are some drawbacks to birthing at a teaching hospital.  But they fixed it eventually and both sides went numb.

11pm I felt better, but the baby started having late decelerations, which were worrisome for the medical professionals watching him.  They give me oxygen and his heart rate improves for awhile.

After that, the rest of the birth is a blur, but sometime after midnight, Peter's heart rate became more and more worrisome and they took me to the O.R., just in case.  I progressed all the way to 9cm and the midwife is trying to help me still do it naturally, but Peter's heart rate was getting slower and slower with every passing minutes and the Docs made the call.  Another C-section.  They turned up the meds and my arms and part of my lungs went numb.  It was rough.  I felt like I couldn't breathe and was so woozy and doped.  I remember hearing Peter's first cries when he came out at 12:54am.  I remember the nurse saying that he peed on the doctor.  I remember they said his cord had gone ahead of him in the birth canal and he was pinching it off with each contraction, thus the decelerations.  I remember his little crumpled, red, sweet face next to mine, and him not happy about being out in the cold world.  He went away with Matt to be cleaned up and I doze in and out of a panicked, scary sleep where I felt like my lungs weren't working, gagging because I can't swallow all the way, even though they kept telling me I was at 100% oxygen saturation.  They got me put back together and wheeled me to recovery, where I got to hold and nurse Peter for the first time, with help because I couldn't sit up or feel my hands.

But he was strong, and healthy and we both recovered quickly and well.  There were things to mourn about this birth. I am not able to fully nurse this baby either, even though I am making more milk than ever before, and for a very short time I felt bad that I had to have another C-Section and that I felt like I was not strong enough to labor all the way through, but you know what?  I don't feel that way now.  There is so much more to rejoice for.

My labor signs got ahead of where I was in terms of dilation, but in hind sight, I believe that was God's way of keeping Peter safe.  He knew my water had broken early that morning and that the cord was ahead of him.  He knew that Peter might be in trouble if I spent too much time at home, stubbornly waiting to get far enough along so I could just push when I got there, so I wouldn't have to be monitored (because I hate that part!).  I'm grateful for how things turned out.  I am grateful for our beautiful, healthy son.  And there are small blessings to having a C-section.  Like not having post partum incontinence, for example!  It's nice to not pee my pants. Just sayin'!  So here he is.  Our littlest guy.  Peter Israel.
(Photo overload to come! *Mama and Papa, just let it load for awhile. :) )

A blur...and a baby

Our third baby is here.  I'm working on a fancy post with photos, his birth story and all that, but for now, I'll tell you this much:

Peter Israel Evans was born on the night of a "pink" full moon (and lunar eclipse if we lived in Europe or Africa), April 26th at 12:54am, weighing 7 lb, 5 oz and measuring 20 inches long (21 inches if you ask his pediatrician, who measured him 5 days later and declared him an inch longer).  It was an unexpected C-section instead of a second vbac, but I'm OK with that.  He is here and beautiful.  The entire thing is big blur of time and images and thoughts that I am collecting for later.  I'm sifting through them like sand, sorting them and arranging them in my mind. 

So for now.  A self portrait of me and my new little guy, taken the day he was born.

More to come.  When I find the time in the middle of all this chaos!

Right here. Right now.

Are we near the end of this pregnancy?  Who knows.  None of my previous babies made it this far into the pregnancy.  Today I'm 39 weeks and 3 days.  Judah was 38 weeks and Cora was just 35.  Physically I'm OK.  In fact, I'm better that I ever was with either of the two before in terms of how well I feel on a day to day basis, but I am tired of keeping the house/fridge/car/laundry in a constant state of readiness. 

Each day brings "practice labor" and I'm ready to be done practicing and move on to the real thing.  I know, he's still growing/baking/packing on the lbs and I SHOULD remember that it is easier to take care of him on the inside than on the outside, but OH I am so ready to hold this little guy.  I am SO ready for the kids to meet him and SO ready for the family time that follows the birth of a child around here.  Inlaws and friends visit and Matt is home from work for weeks on end.  It's hard and good and wonderful and tiring, all at once.  I love it.

I've always been one to look ahead to the next thing, the next day, the next event, the next wonder, missing what is right under my nose.  And what is right underneath my nose is so delicious and in need of Mama, even if Mama's mind is drifting ahead to the future.

Judah's vocabulary grows and grows, even if most of what he talks about centers around Lightning McQueen and Thomas the Tank Engine and all his (Thomas's) friends (I try not to feel like his TV habit is a total parenting fail after making it 2 yrs with no TV for my oldest.  Sigh).  He loves to snuggle with me in the morning and puts his face just next to my face and smiles his little smile that crinkles his eyes into half moons.

Then we read "'Dog Go' by P.E. Basement". Every morning.  Until a car outside distracts him and then he's off to the window, telling me what he sees.  He wants to wrestle and play rough with Cora and she has no desire to.  None.  And it usually makes her start howling and tattling.  Judah doesn't understand that at all.  He's just being a rough an tumble boy!  We practice gentleness a lot. And in truth, he's still so very small and has so much to learn.

Cora wants to be big and yet get equal treatment to her younger brother, who is still learning the rules she master long ago, all the time.  We have lots of conversations about either being the big girl, or the baby, but not both.

I remind her of the benefits of being oldest, but she quickly forgets, reverting to baby talk she never used, even as a baby, but Judah did, and sometimes throws fits just to match her brother's fit.  Lord, give me patience.  The sassiness wears me out!

We talk a lot about her heart and her attitude and finding beauty there, rather than in princess clothes and sparkly shoes.(Although she has those too.) She cranks out around 30 drawings per day of people and places and friends and parties and fairies etc. My art stack grows and grows! ( Don't worry. I save the favorites.) Her questions are deep and somber and often out of the blue. She loves in a different way than my boy and her love is quiet and sweet and tenderhearted, not the run-by strangle hugs that Judah gives. It's easy to lose that quiet love in the wild wrestling of a two year old boy whose joyful exuberance is often louder than she has any desire to be. So we find time in the quiet moments together.

It will all change soon. A little one will be between Matt and I in the bed again, taking all our extra moments.  And while I love change, I love these moments too. And I get to practice being right here. Right now. For a little bit longer.

Snapshots of an evening - with words

A friend and neighbor of mine, Alana Rasbach, does the most wonderful documentary style photography, capturing a family at home, or a birth.  Her images are beautiful.  I strive to do the same with my own family, except I am never in the photos, so I sometimes have to capture it with words.  This is set of snapshots that sum up an evening in the life of us, in this season, with words.

4pm: Finds me in comfy clothes, nearly 38 weeks pregnant, waddling around the kitchen getting dinner started for my family who are always ready for dinner at 5pm.  My bare feet on a never quite clean floor, apron wrapped around my huge belly, while Cora "cooks" in her little kitchen or sits at her small blue table pouring over a book or random catalog that has come in the mail.  Judah, bare bottomed in the last stages of potty training, is "helping" me, standing next to me on a tall step stool and saying "wassat, Mama?" amid a flurry of chopping and stirring and mixing.  Music plays in the background, symphonic classical, or oldies, or family folk favorites, depending on who makes the request first.

4:30pm Dinner cooks in the oven and the kids hear the roar of Matt's motorcycle on our street, causing a riot of running feet and squealing children who shout, "Papa! Papa!  I hear him!".  Little faces peer out of the door's sidelights, waiting for him to come up the steps.  The door opens and the giggles and squeals start again.  Hugging his legs and scrambling for kisses while Papa tries to get in the door properly.  Stories and tickles and hugs and "Hi, Papa, Hi!" over and over again from the children as they fill him in on the day.  I stay out of the rabble and Matt comes to find me and kiss me hello.

4:45pm Little ones run back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, setting the table as best they can, carrying heavy dishes one at a time and arguing over who gets to carry what and Judah ends up climbing in his chair to wait for dinner there, impatient for food with cries of "I hungry, Mama!".

5pm Dinner on table, we pray and eat and talk and joke with each other.  Things like "No cars at the table." and "Use your fork." and "No forks in your drink." and "What do you say when you burp?" punctuate the conversation again and again.  Cora snuggles close to me on the bench, eating all her veggies and leaving the meat, while Judah eats all the meat and leaves the veggies.  Judah likes to make his Papa laugh with silly antics and words, while Cora, our thoughtful girl, tells stories about her day and asks questions she has been pondering.  Matt and I sit close and talk about the day, over the continual rabble.  Clean up and chores follow.

6:30pm We all troupe upstairs for bedtime.  Teeth brushing in the bathroom with me saying, "Say Ah.  Say Eee.  Stick your tongue out. Spit!" to the youngest who still gets a followup brushing by mama.  Everybody goes potty and puts on jammies and then meet on our bed for nightly "Hop on Pop.", a wild wrestling and jumping on Matt with pillow fights, tickles, giggles, and nearly falling off the bed only to be saved by Papa grabbing a foot, while I sit safe in the recliner, watching the fun and feeling our unborn son wiggle with the noise.

6:45 Matt reads the chronicles of Narnia to a solomn eyed girl in the crook of his arm while I sit and rock in the recliner with Judah, whispering the words of his favorite picture book in his ear and he snuggles in close, looking up at me with his sweet smile and eyes that crinkle into little half moons when he grins.  He is too wiggly for Narnia still.

7pm Prayers at the end of the day, sips of water, kisses for everyone, kids climb in their beds and snuggle down bunny and puppy, respectively.  A final tickle and kiss and small chubby arms wrapped tight around our necks.  "Good night.  I love you.  Sweet dreams." and then we switch rooms and say it again to the other child.  Pleas for one more snuggle are kindly declined and we head downstairs.

Easter Pictures - the week after

Easter was gray, cold and rainy, but the week after was glorious and full of Spring.  So I postponed photos until the sun was out. Get ready.  There are lots.  I can't choose.  I love the personality in each of my kids that comes out in these photos.

Nearly there

The days are full of busy and ignoring the aches and pains of 37 weeks pregnant while guiding small people toward kindness and sharing and helping and not making mama pull her hair out.  The nights are tossed and turned and tangled sheets and trips to the bathroom and too hot for snuggles, shooing visiting children back to their own beds at 9 and 10 and 11pm and 12 and 2 and 4 am.  The light sleeping oldest girl hears me stir and comes to beg for a snuggle.  Or to sleep on my floor, or in the big blue chair.  I nearly stepped on her last night, wrapped in a discarded comforter and at the foot of our bed.

Each night wondering if this is the night.  Timing pre-labor contractions to see if they are getting closer or just for practice.  Washing things.  Sorting things.  Packing a bag.  Making sure we are stocked up on things the family will need while I am gone.  Praying for short labor.  Please, let it be shorter this time.  Under 24 hrs.  For the love.

Pondering names.  Reveling in my last days with the soon to be usurped baby of the family.  Each little word and wiggle and sleepy smile seems sweeter.  Every time he throws that chubby arm around my neck or wants to 'rock rock rock' in the big blue chair before nap, even though my lap has no room left for him.  Dancing himself dizzy while playing the flute and then taking a moment to shake his backside to the same song.  Pondering things with concerted effort, furrowed brow, and chubby cheeks, stacking and lining things up all over the house, even on his dinner plate.  He has no idea what is coming.

Cora is more prepared for what is about to happen.  She remembers..  She has gotten over the disappointment of no sister to come and sweetly talks to my belly so he will remember her voice.  Her newfound freedoms with mama so tired have led to more trouble (self haircut!), but I try to remember she is only 4 and that is not so big, in spite of her attempts to resemble a teenager in attitude.  Her dear (and precocious) questions about this baby and how (exactly?!) he will make his entrance into the world and won't it hurt?.  Her sweet worries about me being gone and will I be OK.  Every day asking if it is today and I tell her I don't know.

We have surrendered to the quiet of not going anywhere, no long errands, few playdates, getting ready.  Closing in as a family so we can care for each other and get ready.  We are nearly there. 

A knife in the Dark - grateful for the end of long dark days

 

 A spring photo from last March!  My how my girl has grown.

In a book by one of my favorite authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder, called These Happy Golden Years, there is a chapter called "A Knife in the Dark".  In this chapter, a settler's wife, Mrs. Brewster, loses her mind in the dark cold days of winter and goes after her husband with a knife, all while teenage Laura sleeps on the other side of a curtain in the Brewster family home, which if it was built by standard log cabin measurements was smaller than most of our bedrooms.  Good times.

As a kid I was kinda freaked out by Mrs. Brewster's behavior, but after this long wet winter of sharing the car with Matt and being housebound and pregnant with just my two littles for company most days, I started to be able to relate.  Not that I'm ever going to or have ever gone after Matt with a knife, but the tedium and loneliness of these long dark days stuck at home have made it hard to stay cheerful. 

Today was the first time in a long time that the weather was warm and sunny and we got OUT of the house to spend time with friends.  Just talking and relating and connecting.   I am so grateful for that time.  It made all the difference in the world for my mood and how well I am able to parent.  Not in actions, but in my heart.  Often my actions and words are alright (barely), but my heart is angry, or sad, or fearful.  It's hard to do the right thing by these kiddos when I am acting out of that place.

The time change may have done a number on my sleep schedule, but it means the days feel longer and brighter and I'm grateful for that.

Mediocre

Every day.  Every moment.  We hear this voice from inside us, from around us, telling us, "you were meant for more than this."  The eternal is calling.  Let it all go.  With enough faith, you can walk on water. 

And then the day comes.  And then the nights come. And someone needs a new diaper.  And someone wakes up scared of monsters and has to sleep in your bed.  And lack of sleep steals your joy.  And someone melts down over legos and you feel like you spend the day breaking up fights, putting small people in time out, wiping backsides and cleaning up endless messes and hunting for small socks for small feet and listening to someone cry over having to wear socks or having to share or having to not hit their brother.

And the eternal feels lost.  And the days go by in a haze of mediocre.  And the wrinkles and the gray hair are multiplying in the mirror.  And no one hears you sing except the walls in the shower and small ears at bedtime who want the same song every night, while they rest their head on your shoulder.  And this thankless job feels like letting go of anything that might be bigger.

But the words, the deeds, the kisses, the meals, the small hands, the songs, the lost boots, the found socks, the sand piles, the muddy hand prints all add up to you.  The world changer.

Long ago, before the gray hair, I heard the call to go unto all the world and preach the gospel and stood on the shores of foreign lands.  And waited for that moment when the soundtrack began playing and the montage of my world changing deeds began to roll.  Chariots of fire.  Me serving in some selfless way and showing Jesus to someone every day and winning the world for Christ.  But the reality was when I was there, I did what I do best.  Caring for a small one and singing songs in a tiny church.  And there I was.  The world changer.  I changed it for one girl.  She didn't live past the age for 4.  But I was there with her every day, every moment, every night.  Loving her in those small ways, for that stretch of time.

And here I am now.  With these two, soon to be three.  Every moment.  Every morning.  Every night.  Loving them in small ways.  In mediocre ways.  And the lie creeps in, "you were meant for more than this." and the truth is, I am already doing more than this.  The mediocre is profound. The meaningless is not meaningless.  Not for these small ones.  For them, I am the world changer.  And so are you.

This mediocre moment is just a snapshot of all of eternity that we don't yet have the eyes to see.

Convalescing

For those of you who know me, I don't do anything slowly.  I am and have always been an all or nothing girl.  Call it a symptom of my ADD or whatever, it's how I have existed in the world for a long time and slowing down is hard.

Last week, Matt brought home a pretty bad version of the flu from work and slowly but surely each of us succumbed to its slow but terrible wrath (in spite of the flu shots the kids got - awesome).  All except the (soon to be) middle child, who never stopped bouncing up and down and running around the house talking about "Mator" the tow truck, in spite of a mild fever and a small cough. The same boy who decided he was going to become potty independent while the rest of us lay around in the livingroom.  (I found him on the big potty, stool pushed up so his feet are touching, going potty like a pro.  Not once, but every time now.  Not bad for 2 years and one month old!)

Because I am just 28 weeks pregnant today, the thought of flu was kind of terrifying.  All these accounts of preterm labor for pregnant women who have the flu had me pretty worried.  After some digging, I found that it was dehydration that did it, so I drank enough water to float away.  And a week later, we are all on the mending side of the flu, three of us with a lung wracking cough leftover, having watched altogether too much Thomas and Tinkerbell to calm the sometimes unending tears of the small ones who didn't understand that the aches would pass.

The house is a wreck, with piles of tissues and empty tea mugs, unvacuumed floors, various heaps of undone things, and I am mentally struggling with the mess and how much strength I have to make the mess right, which is none.  I've barely kept up with feeding the gang and with the dishes that seem to multiply over night.  Nighttime brings less than enough rest for all with coughs that steal sleep, but at least the fevers have subsided.

So things are slow around here.  Yesterday the weather was strangely warm for February, 60 degrees F, so we went to our favorite park to play in the sandbox and sit in the sunshine.  We walked slowly to the playground and the effort wore me and Cora out.  Judah had way too much energy and got away from me unnoticed, only to be retrieved by a kindly mom who was nearby.

It's hard to slow down.  It's hard to not be strong.  It's hard to not be as vigilant as I normally am.  It's hard to sit still and still have a mind that is running at maximum speed.  But the days will bring rest and recovery and we will all feel better.  The house will be clean again someday.  And for now, I am accepting the slower pace and trying to be still in the moment.  It's kinda peaceful really, letting go of these expectations I have of myself.

2 year old boy

Oh, joyful, wonderful two year old son!  When everything is new and every question is, "Wassat mama?"  and every assertion is, "My do it, Mama!"  Not a baby, not a big boy.  Still I hear in the night,  "I need you, mama.  My scared."  Still you want to "suggle" and yet you run just far enough ahead to make my mama heart beat fast, wildly aware of the world.  Wildly unaware of any problems or dangers.

You bring so much excitement to whatever you do.  You feel the joy, with your whole body and it can't stay still.  Your favorite things are anything with wheels and I hear the sound of cars and trucks and trains come out of you wherever we go.  Every time we drive over a train track, you notice if there is a train or not.  "No train, mama," you say sadly.  Or "Train!" even if it makes us stop to wait.  It makes the waiting easier to see you love it so much.  

When you were born, I remember standing in the middle of the room while a friend was visiting and crying to her that I didn't have enough love for two kids.  She replied, "You do.  You just don't have enough arms."  And it's true.  I didn't have enough arms to hold both of you as much as I wanted to.  I wanted to hold you all the time.  But you took sharing your mama in stride and are so independent, yet still connected now.  A beautiful balance.  You are so strong and brave.  My heart wells up when I see you doing brave things all by yourself.  You've even taught your sister to be brave and to try new things too!  And my heart wells up again, when you come and find me and say, "I need you, mama."

Your Papa introduced you to the movie Cars at a very young age and it has become the anthem by which you live.  Everyone is a character from the movie.  Tractors say "Moo" rather than "chug chug".  All police cars are "Sheriff".  It is sweet and endearing...until you throw a fit about not being able to sleep with your miniature Lightning McQueen.  It's still sweet to see you so excited about something.  Sometimes we snuggle and talk about your imaginings.  Your sentences grow more complete every day.  Every day you say something and I marvel at how fast you learn to communicate your thoughts.  You see jokes in things we say.  "Mama funny," you say.  (or Cora , or Papa, or a friend)  You are very aware of people and how they feel.  "Mama sad?" you ask, when my pregnancy hormones overwhelm me during a family cartoon viewing (sheesh).  "What wrong?"  Oh my tender hearted boy.  So like your Papa.  Don't harden your heart too much to protect it from the big world.  You charm everyone with your smile, wherever we go. (you even try it on Mama when you get in trouble, but I am growing more and more immune to that head tilt and mischievous grin, thank goodness.) You have never met a stranger.  You still take everything and everyone in and wonder at it all.  My favorite sentence you said recently was, "WOW!  I yike it!"  and that pretty much sums up how you greet the world.

Not to say that you don't rail at injustice.  The injustice of not being able to sleep with your monster trucks.  The injustice of not getting to have instant food as soon as the mood strikes you to be hungry.  The injustice of feeling grumpy after naptime.  The injustice of having a big sister who sometimes bosses the heck out of you.  The injustice of having to take a potty break.  Oh yes, my love.  Then, you howl as though the very world should fall at your feet and do your bidding.  And sometimes fight back.  We have to teach you daily to use those small hands for loving, not for hitting.  It is hard to be small.  It is hard to have to leave the giant mud puddle and head home when the sun sets.  I understand. 

You adore your Papa.  He is the only one you want to play with or snuggle at night right now.  You sit on his lap and ask him a million questions about what he is doing on his computer.  You sit and watch silly car cartoons together and always laugh at the funny parts.  You two, and your sister, wrestle and act rambunctious every night when the parent bed becomes a trampoline and wrestling arena.  It is wonderful to see.  You children have each taught his heart something as well as mine.  Our love for you grows every day.

I can't wait to see the boy you are becoming, when all the words you want to say finally come out.  I pray that you will never lose the joyful exuberance you bring to life.  Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

Love,
Mama

Beautiful Mess

The old year is passing on.  The new is just beginning.
The spaces and places we call home are still filling.
With laughter, love and anger, with hopefulness, the rearranger
of everything we have brought together here.

I can't call it perfect, this life we built together.
The crooked path to happiness went through a lot of valleys of darkness
The mountains of perfect days, the deep pools of quiet dreams.


But I catch your eye across the room, the room we filled with little children
And you smile with that twinkle in those blue eyes and I fall more in love
with this beautiful mess and you.

Beckon Lovely 12/12/12 - a reply from Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Way, way on back (months last forever around here), I sent a letter out to the internet-o-sphere, (and through the actual post) to Amy Krouse Rosenthal about the film she released on 11/11/11 (and then promptly retracted 5 days later).  A silly thing, a sincere thing, a sorta fangirl thing, a request.  To bring the film back! Pop on over and read it.  I'll wait.

Did you read it?  Well not too many days later I got this!!  A letter from Amy KR! 

Included was a transcript of a TEDx talk she was going to deliver on 12/11/12 entitled 'Beckon Lovely and Save the World'.  Imagine my giddiness!  And yet, I had to keep it on the D.L. so as not to spoil her surprise.

So go on over and give her TEDxTalk a listen.  It's OK.  I'll wait.  I'm patient like that.

And now, it's time.  To make lovely.  To call it into your life, into your relationships, into your heart, into your words.  And what better time than now, in the Advent season, when lovely is all around us?   As we anticipate the coming of the light and the celebration of the coming of the Light of the world, Jesus.

Amy's call to action is to "Make the most of your time here" and I couldn't agree more.  Plant your post-its with me and let's bring on the loveliness!

Here's the lovely that Cora and I made together today, as gifts to bring loveliness to others.

What's your lovely?

On colored lights...

One can learn a lot about oneself just by decorating a Christmas tree.  This year, all but a couple of strings of lights gave up the ghost and I asked the family if we should get white or multi-colored lights.  They unanimously voted for colored lights so off to the store I went.

I wrestled the 600 feet of lighted strands onto the tree and stood back to admire my handiwork (and to check for gaps) and realized I really, really don't like multi-colored lights.  And then I realized why.

When I was growing up, my family was, shall we say, economically challenged.  OK, we were poor.  I didn't really have an understanding of that, but as I grew up, I began to see the differences between my house and other kid's houses, my clothes and their clothes, my one Sunday dress and their endless array of Sunday dresses.  Kids can be cruel.  Teenagers, especially, can be extra vicious.  I did my best to avoid and ignore comments, but some of them bit deep.  And so began the personal quest to be good enough.

Around Christmas time, I noticed that the nicest houses had all white Christmas lights, whereas the trailers, such as mine, had colored lights and somewhere in my head, I began to associate multi-colored lights with being poor and all white lights with class and wealth.  It's weird, I know.  And here it is still, hovering around my 36th Christmas, the same old aversion to appearing different, or less than others, merely by something as simple as Christmas lights. 

So there they sit, my multi-colored lights.  (On a timer so I don't have to scramble under the tree every morning to turn them on.)  The kids flipped out when they saw them, of course.  Judah said, "WOW!  I yike it!" while hopping around.  Cora just sat at the foot of the tree and smiled up at it with shining eyes. And I smiled and did my best to prevent the youngest from pulling the 7 foot monster down on top of himself in his exuberance..  Their joy adds to my joy and I can let go of this association.  Multi-colored lights are beautiful and I am good enough, lovely even.  My tree and house are good enough, lovely even.  It's a process.  

3 am life questions with my little girl

It's 3 am.  I feel the air pressure in the room change as a little one sneaks in.  My eyes are still closed as our oldest girl, just 4, appears on my side of the bed, but I feel the brush of her small hand on my arm.
"Did you have a bad dream?" I say, the usual cause of her appearance in my room at this hour.
"No. I just need your help."
"Help with what?"
"I need to you to help me pray to ask Jesus in my heart."
Confused, I ask her what she said again.
She repeats, "I need you to help me pray to have Jesus in my heart.  I want to go to heaven to be with God."

My mind races, fully awake now, trying to scramble around and process what I've just heard.  This is my 4 year old.  It's 3 am.  The ramifications of this question are deep and life-changing.  I hold her close in my arms and tell her, "I will help you.  Let's talk about it when the sun comes up."
I want to be fully present for this moment.  I wonder silently if this is the right choice, but I can't talk to her rationally at 3am about the choice she wants to make and I really want to be able to.

This is my girl of deep questions.  In the last month I've gotten the following, usually at 6:30am when she first wakes up:

"Mama, how do I know what is truth?"
"Mama, can two girls get married?"
"Mama, how does a baby get inside of you?" (She actually asked this one at age 3, but now she wants more details.)

The list goes on and on.  She desperately wants to grasp the world around her.  Not HOW things work, but why.  Mostly interpersonal relationships.  She recently held a fellow mom friend of mine captive with her questions for more than thirty minutes.  The questions were all about my friend's parents and grandparents, divorce, death and on and on.  This girl cuts from, "My favorite colors are pink and purple," straight to, "my baby sister died.  Is your mama dead?"  It's kind of rattling.  It keeps me on my toes.  I am grateful for the job of helping to shepherd this little deep well of a heart.  I pray for the knowledge and understanding to do so.