Signs of the Times

You might be almost middle-aged…

… if your new glasses prescription includes invisible bifocals so you don’t have to hold your song book at arms length in order to read it in church.

… if you buy a ginormous box of plastic wrap on Amazon, because you now have plenty of dishes that require wider than standard width plastic wrap.

… if you double most recipes so that you have leftovers or extra food for the freezer because the food is always evaporating and the people are always hungry and you have become philosophical about this situation.

…if you become excited about a few hours of lawn mowing to relax and think quiet thoughts in a loud place, and you no longer have to worry about little people spilling milk while you’re mowing.

… if you find yourself debating conundrums such as, ” Why are the Dutch blitz cards on the dryer?” And you can’t figure out why nobody seems to put their things away in the right place, while stumbling over your own shoes at the door.

… If you have bad dreams about looking into a mirror and seeing that you are growing so many chin hairs you could call it a beard.

… if you play a game of softball with the cousins at the family reunion, and every other person either has to have a pinch hitter because of shoulder issues, or a runner because their knees are rickety.

… if you take great pleasure in feeding birds and quietly watching gardens grow and looking at other people’s landscaping.

… if you can’t sleep unless you have the right pillow, not one like the right pillow, but the exact one.

… If you honestly do not get what your children are talking about, and they wonder what century you were born in, and you laugh because it certainly wasn’t this century.

But…If you have learned to squeeze the hilarity out of the weird aches and idiosyncrasies that you used to think went with being old, and you know you’re not actually old yet, that’s kind of funny.

It’s oddly fun to know that you know stuff because you’ve lived it, but you don’t really feel like everybody else has to know it the same way.

It’s liberating to accept your limitations, be comfortable in your own skin, and walk on cheerfully even when you have peasant feet that aren’t cute in flip flops.

It’s wonderful to dust off a dormant dream, and trot it out into the light now that you have a bit of time to pursue it.

It’s nice to relax a little about getting everything done, because you finally understand that you won’t get everything done and it’s more restful this way, doing the next thing and stopping when it’s time to sleep.

It is easier to be faithful with what is right in front of you when you give up the burden of taking care of the whole world.

It is good to use your gifts and no longer care if nobody notices, because you understand a little how insignificant you are in the whole scheme of things, and yet you know that you are required to endure to the end, so you keep going and commit the end results to God.

I like this season. Really.

It’s just a season, but it’s a good one. Mostly.

I could live without the chin hairs.

The less grim things

…my children teach me.

I thought about that word “grim” and decided that it encapsulates how it feels to die to myself, which was mostly what my Mother’s Day post was about. How about we hit a few of the high spots?

Children are born as little hope capsules. They are the best motivation for people to make the world a better place, to work to level the rough places, and to protect what is worth protecting in our world. In Sunday school we read Jeremiah 32, about a time when Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonian army, and Jeremiah was confined in the royal palace. He heard a word from God that instructed him to buy a field and to make sure the deed was securely sealed in a clay pot so that it wouldn’t disintegrate. “For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” Jeremiah was showing his people that it was worth investing in the future, no matter how hopeless their current situation may look. It’s not always going to be this way, friends.

This is the reason we plant fruit trees and build homes and write books and donate to cancer research. Our children or maybe our grandchildren will reap the benefits, even if we don’t. Hope.

Children sense what is real and what is fake. “She is a spoiled brat,” they say frankly. “You’re not listening to me, Mom,” they insist. “He is kind to everybody,” they notice. We call it “having no filter,” but in a child it is usually just honesty. There is no point in pretending that you love a child, then spend your entire life reminding them that they aren’t good enough, quiet enough, clean enough, grown-up enough, etc. They know intuitively what real feels like, whether they can express it or not. Even if they submit to the browbeating, they will know, “Mom never let us have screen time, but she watched Netflix for hours in her room.”

What’s more, they have a built-in bologna detector that gets honed to razor sharpness by the time they are teens. When the children were little, I found out very quickly that I can’t pretend I’m eating carrots when it’s actually chocolate. They can smell it. Busted. Now that they are older, it’s on to higher stakes, bigger inconsistencies. You can’t tell your children that you should love your enemies, then in the next breath mutter road-ragey threats about the idiot who pulled in front of you. They hear and they will call you on it.

These are good things! Death to hypocrisy!

Children have grand ideas, often impractical, but exciting! They want to sleep in a treehouse, on the trampoline, in a hammock, on the sunporch… basically anywhere but in their own comfortable beds. They want to feed hummingbirds and orioles sugar water, plant ornamental gourds, grow strawberry popcorn. They see complicated patterns for colonial costumes and have very specific ideas for appropriate fabric to make them. They need a thousand feet of paracord to make bull whips and another thousand feet of cotton rope for all the macrame things. They assemble bug-out bags and spend their money on lighters and Life-straws from Amazon. And the fishing gear. Oh, Lord, preserve us from more fishing gear.

You know as well as I do that those are good and hopeful things. I’m guessing you also know about the resulting clutter. It has been one of the longest running, most sanctifying works of my life to stop being precious about a tidy house.

“Your place looks like the sort of place where things happen,” a friend said to me. It was meant as a compliment and I accepted it. A place where things happen is not a showplace with no dead leaves on the ferns or stains on the carpets. It’s more like a ~~barn~~ factory where important stuff is going on. You get out the pushbroom at the end of the shift, but you deal with it in its own time.

Our children teach me to laugh, good old belly-laughs. We have inside jokes and then they have inner, inside jokes that I don’t get because I can’t remember all the random stuff they quote. Sometimes they are irreverent and I get flash-backs to my childhood when the witty remarks were flying and my mother was protesting, “Where do you learn this stuff? Is nothing sacred anymore?” My standard advice in this situation? “You can talk like that at home, but it is not appropriate outside the family.” I’m probably not doing too well with this, because I have dubious tastes in what I find funny, and they know it.

I suppose one of the biggest lessons my children continue to teach me is that it’s not about me. That is sort of a circle back to the original “dying to self” motif, but it is also extremely liberating and helpful. Getting over my own self-importance is a life work that I welcome. (Wince.) I am still, as always, learning to offer my work to Jesus and letting it be His business what He does with the investment. So many of the pitfalls of parenting (and life) involve how it makes me look. It becomes impossible to have a pure and quiet heart when appearances become the important thing.

“God gives grace to the humble,” it says in James 4:6. This is a good word for parents to stand on. We don’t know everything, but we know who does.

And there they are, those beloved pieces of my heart, running around outside my body.

Ten Years and Text Prayers

Ten years ago I prayed very short prayers, mostly in the form of an S.O.S. “Jesus, help me,” or “Your patience, Lord.” There simply wasn’t time for long, theologically impressive prayers.

One day I went to my bedroom, left the door open so nobody would think I was in there, lay behind the bed out of sight, and this is what I prayed: “Please, don’t let me hurt anybody, Jesus.”

I finally set up our desktop computer this week. Yes, a whole year after we packed it for our move. We can access our photo library now, an endless source of amusement.

This was our family on my husband’s thirtieth birthday. He was in nursing school, working part time to support us. Addy was one week old. Alex was eight. Rita was two, going on twelve. It was a sweaty eyeballs time, as Rachel Jankovic would say. It’s a good thing that breathing can be done without conscious effort, else we both would have gently expired for lack of oxygen at some point.

I thought back to this time last week when we went out to eat for Gabe’s fortieth birthday. We used a gift card Alex gave, and everybody had dressed themselves, including footgear. We ate at a steakhouse, and we didn’t have to clean up any spills, or take anybody to the potty, or even cut up their meat.

I thought about it again a few days ago when we ambitiously planned a full day of cooking for the freezer, seeing as the kitchen redo is coming right up and we will be limited in the kitchen for a while. Rita mixed up a triple batch of bread rolls for VBS, her lifelong fascination with patting and shaping yeast doughs having at last come to fruition. Then she mixed up four pounds of meatloaf, again digging in with no qualms because she loves to knead and stir. Addy made monster cookies, also for the upcoming VBS. For some reason those are always huge batches in the Amish cookbooks, but she nailed it perfectly. Olivia assembled beef and bean burritos for an easy future supper, and Gregory peeled 5 pounds of potatoes in less time than it takes to bake a pan full of tater tots. Then he lit the grill and cooked a bunch of pork, both chops and sausage. I floated on the periphery and did quality control. Olivia had been doing laundry all day, and about the time we put away the clean dishes, she was putting away the stacks of folded clothes.

This level of house help wasn’t even imaginable to me ten years ago. I had help: generous, constant help, and I was grateful for it. I just had to be careful not to trip over anybody, and that can be so, so trying. Many of those days felt like it was one step forward, two steps back.

“Don’t let me hurt anybody.” Somewhere in Elizabeth Elliot’s wise writings, I picked up the concept of communicating with short prayers and I continue the practice even now. They are kind of like texting a friend, not nearly as satisfying as a sit-down conversation, but still a way to stay connected.

These days the most frequent snippet is a simple, “Into Your hands.” I don’t even bother to name the concern/fear. I just verbalize the relinquishing and then I (try to) leave it. Sometimes multiple times in a day.

A friend on Instagram (@heartofthebison) has blessed me with her phrase, “I see You, God,” when her eyes light on a beautiful thing in creation. That perfectly tender cucumber I just picked. The folds and folds of a dahlia opening out of a tight bud. The soft edges of the clouds at sunrise. The coincidental arrival of a note in the mail on the very day I need to read it. “I see You, God, and You see me.”

Do you “text” God?

Change Is In the Air

We are still alive here. I experienced the very first sickness of the winter last week when I contracted a miserable head cold that drained me for 3 days. (Get it? Sorry, I know that is obnoxious.) I found myself dragging along in a haze of Vicks, carrying a tissue box, so far behind with normal life that writing seemed downright frivolous. In fact, I entertained discouraged thoughts of shutting down the blog entirely. Then I started to feel better and got over it.

I have noticed some milestones recently in my children’s lives. My absent minded son was on kitchen duty the week I was dragging. “Mama, what in the world are all these pills doing on the counter? You would think they have no home!” Not only did he quote my words back to me, but before that he had actually noticed some stuff that needed to be put away. I am sure I cannot really describe to you what a marvel that is to me. Until very recently, this child saw no reason why anything should have a spot. His practical idea of locating missing stuff was always traveling with a mother. I must have explained to him twenty-eleven times why he should always put his treasures away in his drawer, his boots on the rug, and his bike in the shed. So even though I felt like snot, I got a little burst of encouragement from that conversation. I think there may come a day when he might actually become neat and organized. I see some small signs and how they do cheer me!

I saw some buzz on the web for using a system of mom-bucks to reward a child’s responsible behavior and decided to give it a trial shot. Obviously, penalties involve paying back some bucks to mom. Thus fixing the bed earns a buck, but leaving the pjs on the floor costs a buck. It is impossible to redeem privileges from the mom-store if all your bucks were frittered away in penalties because you neglected to put your folded piles of laundry into the proper drawers or you quarreled with a sibling. I picked some specific behaviors to reward and zeroed in on some especially entrenched habits. There is no way I can keep up with anything complicated, but I think I can cautiously say it is helping my boys to be more heedful.

Gregory seems to have hit his stride with baking. Just a year ago I groaned (privately) when he asked to cook something. He does so dearly love to mess in the kitchen, going into a really happy place, humming, measuring with flourish, the dry ingredients puffing this way and that, the eggs unpredictably doing their oblong rolls off the counter, the whisks and scrapers all saved for licking with gusto when his project is safely baking. At first I had to watch every step of the way or he would use a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon, or forget to grease his pans or use a little more sugar than the recipe called for “to make it better”. I will be honest, it was a trial. The cleanup was dreadful. We blundered along like that for a very long time until he graduated to me just carefully explaining a recipe to him, then forcing myself to let him alone, only coaching him as he came up with questions. Last month for the first time ever he made cookies all on his own steam. Even scooping out the dough. Even putting the baking sheets into the oven. Even cleanup. Whew! Then he did it again and again. We had snickerdoodles one week, chocolate chip cookies the next, and brownies the next. I can see that this could pose a problem, so we will need to work on spaghetti or omelets or chicken soup for a while. 🙂

Olivia is losing teeth with alarming rapidity this spring and now she talkth with a charming little lithp. And she can read. Just like that, she finally got over the hump of great effort in sounding out to reading for fun. I just sat and got all sentimental while she read Ten Rubber Ducks to her little sisters. Forgive me for the little rave, but it thrills me every time it happens for the first time. And every homeschool mom said Amen.

I won’t go down the whole row of children and their changes, but I should tell you that I started about 120 little plants in peat pots: tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, etc. There they are, all plucky and greenish, straining to the sunshine. I keep them on the warm floor of the kitchen, where they may not always be safe from stomping feet, but on the sunshiny days I set them out on the deck. Today I thinned out the extras and I ate them. It was such a lovely, wheatgrassy thing to do.

I also freed the bulbs and perennials from the winter’s accumulation of blown leaves and junk, so that now they can reach for the sky. It always reminds me of Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, setting the little plants at liberty to flourish. Strange as it may seem, I like weeding, especially my flower beds. I find it about ten times more fun than wiping the dirty handprints off the walls in the hallway. Mmmhmmm, that explains a few things.

Change. It is good. It is delightful to feel the cocoon of winter slipping into a memory. I sneeze an average of 17 times a day, so pollen is also in the air. Oh, how I do love this time of the year!

I Am From

Recently a friend found an old picture of our family and posted it on Facebook, a picture from an era of exceedingly large glasses and hair parted straight down the middle. In the comments my sister mentioned that better haircuts and cuter clothes might have helped, but what can you say, we were secure and happy children. I have been thinking about that and decided to do something I have wanted to do ever since Shari put a link to this template on her blog. I am posting this today in honor of my mom’s birthday! Many happy returns of the day, Mom!

I Am From

I am from a wide, extended table, whistling tea kettle, and chocolate chip cookies.

I am from the teeny yellow cottage by the creek and the square farmhouse in Dutch Corner.

I am from restoring a log cabin on the hill overlooking the sunset.

I am from the ancient apple tree whose brittle limbs threatened to drop us on the ground every time we picked its bounty.

I am from a crackling fireplace and praying every night before bed.

From three siblings and many “adopted” little ones.

I’m from coffee with creamer and dunking donuts and from “hols hocka” which is fried batter in hot salted milk.

I’m from you may not ever pout, we don’t work on Sunday, and it’ll heal before the cat lays an egg.

I’m from Saturday night games of chase and give-away chess.

I’m from Indiana and Ohio blended in Kentucky, from ancestors ages ago in Switzerland,

From homemade scrapple and creamy mac n cheese.

I am from Aunt Ruth’s cherry delight made with lime jello and Uncle Tim eating his noodles.

From The Ten Commandments hung on the living room wall, carven camels from the Holy Land marching in a row, wobbly stacks of books on every nightstand.

I’m from relentless teasing, laughter, and inside jokes.

I am from a secure and happy place.

Snow Day, 2

My children asked me, “What’s a snow day?” And I had the startling revelation that they really don’t know. We used to sing a song at school, “Whatever the weather, we’ll make it together,” but we should have added a quick clause: “Except when it snows and sleets and freezes too much.” Homeschoolers, however, do the whatever the weather thing. It’s the time of year when too much study drags down little people but we have to keep on going. So we think up excuses to have tea parties. We always make a party for the beginning of school, the half-way point, and the grand finale at the end. We have tea parties on birthdays and holidays and as rewards when the house is all cleaned up. Even the boys love it! We just eat our ordinary food, except we pretty it up with garnishes and cut teeny squares of bars to serve on glass plates and everybody gets a little candy favor.

I have no glass-fronted hutch to display my pretty dishes, so unless I use them, I never see them. We keep watch at second-hand stores to replace the teacups that happen to get broken. None of them are heirlooms or priceless, but it is so much more fun to drink out of teacups with dainty handles.

Now I decided that we will also party for snow days. Because snow days should be fun! While the boys were finishing up with their history classes, the girls dressed in pretty dresses with flowers in their hair. We spread the lace table cloth and got out the brand new tea party dishes! (Goodwill, 2.99 🙂 ) It took us about an hour to prepare and then it was time for fun! It was a Snow Day!

Be Kind to Everything and Don’t Say “Stupid”

Nap time. It is so restful when the time comes to settle down quietly after a strenuous morning of striving to be nice to each other despite… everything. That includes the slow start in school, with a wrestling match that abruptly vanished without a trace as soon as my feet hit the staircase to go down to the schoolroom. By the time I hit the bottom step, the boys were busily pulling out math books. It also includes juggling Learning to Read, spelling word lists, grammar quizzes, and laundry for a few hours, secure in the knowledge that the two smallest ones were sweetly playing babies in their room. Later I discovered that in the course of the morning they were also skinning a cucumber and feasting on it in the top bunk bed; they were peeling oranges in the living room; they were eating a lot of sliced lunchmeat and graham crackers. For some reason, they still ate salad like starved bunnies with a ranch dressing love affair at lunchtime. One would think there has been naught but bread and water for days if one didn’t distinctly recall feeding them quite often and well.

So yes, naptime: when all efforts of goodness and mischief are suspended for a while. It is my favorite time of day every day when I lie beside my two year old until she falls asleep. Much of the day I am too distracted to listen closely to the piping little voice that is Addy, but at naptime she unwinds by saying every thought that enters her little head until suddenly she conks, just like that. I get much amusement out of her chatter. There are only seconds between each of these bits of confidences.

I like dogs, mama. Do you like dogs?”

Mmmhmm.

Little dogs. Not big dogs. Do you like big dogs?

Hhhmmm.

We just like little dogs, right, Mama?

I have lots of excuses, Mama.

I’m sorry. I’m a little tired in the bed.

Mmmhmm. Me too.

Lollipops are sour, Mama.

But we don’t have any lollipops, do we, Mama?

Huhuh.

Maybe I could have some candy when I wake up?

That would be fun.

We don’t have any candy, do we, Mama?

Do you like candy?

You shouldn’t snip yourself. You might get hurt.

And then you would cry. You would cry for a bandaid.

Do you know where the bandaids are, Mama?

Mmmhmm.

When I have a bleeding owie, I cry for a bandaid.

And then I need a Mama.

If I eat too much toothpaste, I might get sick.

Then I would have to go to the doctor. And pump my belly out.

Yeah. Now shhhh.

(Quiet little whisper) I can talk, Mama.

No kidding.

The Bible says be kind to everything. And don’t hit.

And be kind and don’t say “stupid”.

We like little dogs. But we don’t have a dog.

We just have cats.

Mmmhmm.

And a rabbit at Jakes.

But no dogs, Mama.

Am I your baby, Mama?

Mmmhmm.

Be quiet now.

I love you, Mama.

I love you, too. But no more talking.

Okay, Mama.

ZZZZZZ.

Unthankful, adj.: not feeling gratitude

Well, it has been a while! I sat down at least three times to write a Thanksgiving post. It is my favorite holiday, the one with absolutely no controversial pagan underpinnings. 🙂 I love the traditions of turkey and cranberries and family. This year we had our traditional meal almost a week early to include two of my siblings as well as two of my aunts and their husbands.

The actual Thanksgiving Day found me cooking a birthday breakfast and playing Catan with my husband and little boys until I had to stop and cook up some delectables for an early afternoon supper with the aunts. No turkey at all, but such a fun day. Camaraderie with loved ones, good food (possibly the best date pudding ever constructed in Osterburg, if I do say so myself) and good cheer. Do you ever feel like you are so blessed, it isn’t fair? It is easy to list all the cozy things, the smiley things, the kindnesses.

I set myself a challenge, every year, to find the things I am most tempted to grouse about and be thankful for them. The list is both revealing and embarrassing. Also private. But I will give you one example.

A few weeks ago a bunch of us ladies from church were polishing fruit for baskets to distribute to our neighbors. My nurse friend who works nightshift and I were talking about how nightshift just stinks, me from my perspective and her from hers: how the rhythms of normal life get so mixed up, the social life withers and all but dies, etc, etc. Someone else observed, kindly and truthfully, “There are probably worse things.” I suppressed the sudden urge to lob an apple across the room and we dropped the subject.

But it kept coming back to me, “This is your unlikely thing to become thankful for.” Okaaay. I started thinking about it. I write in the evenings when I am alone, after the bedtime drama is over and I don’t have my husband to converse with. Without so much night shift this past year, the blog would probably only have half the posts, or fewer.

Nightshift means much less cooking for me, since “the rhythms get all messed up” and my kids think Ramen noodles are a party. It means long evenings to read stories to the children and play games and having all the pillows and the bed to myself. 🙄 Nightshift is mostly calmer for the nurses and pays a teeny bit more.

It is easier for me to be thankful for nightshift, since my man now has enough time at his job to state his preferences for next year, and he stated his preference to be day light hours. Oh glory! I think I can stay thankful for the month of December, yet.

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child!”- Shakespeare