parenting

Flyboy

/ Jaimie / 1 Comment

20130220-174452.jpg Flyboy finds a shell and sends it soaring helpless into the surf. He knows he can cause it to skip and skim instead of sink. When it disappears deep, he finds another and begins again, each time adjusting his angle, the spin of his wrist, the speed and thrust.

Finally, he looks up to Dad for an example. As the shell, gracefully leaves his hands, Flyboy watches with wonder as it jumps three times before falling deep.

Flyboy believes he can be just like daddy. He sees shell skipping on water in his mind and knows he can do it. Frustration is short-lived and only causes him to look up for instruction.

IMG_0211I pray I look at life just like Flyboy…knowing I can do anything…knowing when I’m sinking, I can look up. I pray I never lose the wonder of what surrounds me. I pray I always remember that I can fly. IMG_0253 IMG_0256

An Angel in Sock Monkey Slippers

/ Jaimie / 4 Comments

She’s an angel in sock monkey slippers.

Her smile amazes me.

She sees the world in color without fear of what others may see.

She’s come along way since her little blond curls and her belief that apples made her superman.

She’s stronger than most and wiser than her peers.

She’s brilliant and discerning.

She’s conquering her fears.

 

She’s an angel in sock monkey slippers looking for the right angle.

I love her determined focus when she sees an opportunity.

I love her sense of humor, her integrity, the sound of her laughter.

I’m very proud of the young woman she’s becoming.

 

She’s my angel in sock monkey slippers.

We can drive each other mad at times.

Still, I love our time together, fake accents and spontaneous singing.

I love talking with her about random things.

I love that I get to be her mom.

Dream on Sock Monkey!

 

 

Gotta’ do what you gotta’ do

/ Jaimie / 4 Comments

Whoever said pregnancy was magical must not have dealt with morning sickness. I have, in my four pregnancies, experienced varying degrees of first trimester ickyness. This time hasn’t been too bad until the past week or so. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that folks ask how I am feeling and up to this point, I’ve been able to say that I’m feeling great despite a little fatigue and the occasional nauseated moment. So since I was bragging, I am getting hit with the big guns. I am not feeling so good these days! Even as I sit here and type, I feel more and more rumbly in my tumbly. I’m sure this post will be cut short and revisited before it becomes complete as a result of this.

I realize that this is a completely normal part of a healthy pregnancy so I try not to complain about it too much (though my husband may disagree with me about the quantity of my whining). I also know there are little things I can do to stave off the nausea. The most effective is for me to eat something which always makes me laugh when I think about how ironic that is. When I feel the least like eating and the most likely to be unable to eat, I must eat in order to feel human again. What an awful trick?!

Like so many other things in life, the principle holds true that sometimes we need to do what is good for us regardless of whether or not we feel like it. My kids rarely jump out of bed first thing in the morning bursting with excitement about another day of school, but they need to go in order to grow. I rarely revel in the thought of a tough workout (try NEVER these days), but if I want the results I go for it anyway. I rarely find my kids begging for more zucchini or broccoli (except for my oldest who is abnormal and prefers veggies to meat at ALL times) but I know they need healthy foods to be healthy so they eat them anyway. Sometimes, I don’t feel like spending an hour in prayer or a little extra time in the word, but without prayer and study, I cannot maintain my spiritual health.

I am sitting here at lunch time trying to determine what I’m going to try to ingest to calm my queasy midsection and nothing sounds appetizing but I either eat or I continue to feel miserable. What we need may not always match what we want but that doesn’t mean we won’t end up with the desired result. God knows exactly what we need and what’s best for us. Instead of trying to beat the system and get our way, maybe we should just do what we know is best and get rid of the ‘icky’ for awhile. Sometimes we just gotta’ do what we gotta’ do.

My Poor Inner Neat Freak

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I am a neat freak who is hopelessly trapped inside a messy person’s body. I find myself overcome with the desire to have a beautiful, clutter free home but the ability to keep it in such a state eludes me. This split personality frustrates me more than any other attribute I possess.

In May, we found the perfect, cozy little nest to call our home. It’s in a great location. The yard is great for the kids to play. We love it here and it was a huge upgrade from the tiny apartment we were living in prior to our move! As an added benefit, we live next door to our pastor and his wife. I work for the church and our offices have been located in my pastor’s home while our church was transitioning to a new facility so I can walk across the yard everyday to go to the office. Bonus!

Yesterday, I found myself colliding with my inner perfectionist when my Pastor called and said he had a dining room table we could have to replace the rickety one we had which never did quite fit in our dining area. It was a huge blessing! However, my house was not quite “fit for company”. I worked all day and then went to pick up the kids and rushed home to straighten up only to find out he was on his way at that moment. There was no time. In my frazzled state, my husband made a profound statement that shook me. He said, “It is what it is, why hide how we really live?” I can’t say I was happy with his comment at the time, but the truth is, we do live this way.

I can so easily find myself in a rose-colored world of denial where I run around like a madwoman attempting to hide the things I’d rather not let anyone else see. I can so easily find myself becoming comfortable with the chaos rather than mustering up the motivation to fix it. I can so easily find myself shifting the blame for my mania to those around me with things that are fundamentally true but possessing inherent faulty logic: statements like, “the kids really need to do more to help me around here. I shouldn’t have to do it all myself” which may be true, but I forget to acknowledge that I am responsible for assigning them tasks. I can’t complain that the house isn’t magically clean when I’ve not told them to do anything and I’m fighting in my own strength to stay on top of it as if I were some super ninja of organization. I can so easily find myself making excuses for my negligence (I am so busy, I work, I take care of three children, I’m pregnant and tired etc.).

Even deeper than the dirt and clutter in my home, are the implications these tendencies have in the realm of the soul. Are there areas I don’t want exposed to the world? Are there things in my heart, I’d rather not bother cleaning out, so I stuff them away to be dealt with later? Are there things that come out from time to time that would make me wince when others see them? Do I hesitate at the thought that someone may see “how I really live”?

My goal for this week is to examine myself both inside and out. I know better than to overwhelm myself with trying to conquer all my giants in less than 24 hours. I also know that starting where I am, in all my shortcomings, without beating myself up when I don’t perform up to my own standards, is better than remaining stuck beating my head against the same wall day after day. So today, I will accept where I am and take a step forward. My house won’t be spotless tomorrow and I probably won’t be posing for a write-up in Better Homes and Gardens any time soon. I doubt I’ll be receiving calls from the saints gone on before to tell me what a model of faith and holiness I am, but when all is said and done, no one will be able to say of me, that I didn’t try. That is enough to make me smile and I believe it pleases my Father as well.

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” Colossians 3:23

 

Memoirs of a Superhero

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I’ve been distracted…

I’ll admit that I’ve often been impressed with my supermom ability to be able to juggle multiple tasks at once. You moms will know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s those moments when we’re on the phone, cooking dinner, cleaning up, folding laundry, watching our kid who wants to show us his/her latest amazing trick, refereeing the argument brewing between the older siblings while managing to sneak a kiss or two from our spouse. All the while, it doesn’t even seem to faze us. It’s what we do. We were designed to be perfectly capable of accomplishing multiple things at once before our “going batty” sensor starts to blip. It’s life.

Somehow in the midst of it all, we find time to spend with the Lord. We meditate on his goodness while doing the dishes. We worship in the car. We pray in car-rider line. We read the Bible daily. It’s essential to our survival; so we make sure we keep our life line stable and we’re off and running. Even more surprisingly, we manage to teach our children the value of this.

My pastor’s wife once told me that a mistake many moms innocently make is that the only time they read the Bible is when the kids are asleep. This makes perfect sense because it’s the only time there’s peace and quiet to really focus, but the problem lies in the fact that then, our children never see us reading the Bible. I’d never thought of that until then and I quickly shifted my schedule so that though the majority of my study happens before they are awake, I spend time in the word in front of them as well so they know it’s a priority in my life.

I’m still doing all of these things. My household is running smoothly. I’m grounded in the word. I’m praying. But I’ve been feeling disconnected.

I attribute this distraction to the fact that I found out about a month ago that I’m expecting baby number four. My husband and I and the kids are all excited. We know that a baby is a blessing from the Lord. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them” Psalm 127:3-5. I am so thankful. For the record, my husband is amazing! His reaction to the news was a little shock at first and then he pulled me close and prayed a blessing over me and our new baby. It doesn’t get better than that. But I digress.

I feel as though, my brain and body have been abducted by my hormones. I can’t focus. I’m so tired that I accomplish everything five times slower. My once superhuman multi-tasking skills have been reduced to blank stares and “huh?” It’s bizarre. What I fear the most is that I will let go of my life line. I remember when my other kids came along; I had to focus so much on them that I lost some of my focus on the Lord. I don’t want to make that mistake again. I’m trying to be patient with myself and realize that I’m still indeed human and God doesn’t demand that I be supermom or super-Christian or super-worship leader. He just wants my heart. My heart is His.

The scripture that I keep returning to is:

“The Lord your God is in your midst, The Mighty one, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Then this morning I read this:

“You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance” Psalm 32:7

While I am running around down here striving with all my might to keep it all together, God is in my midst delighting in me, rejoicing over me with gladness and trying to quiet me with His love. He doesn’t want me working myself to the point of exhaustion (which isn’t too hard these days) in an effort to keep everything “perfect”. He wants me to chill. He wants me to hide in His presence and find my strength there.

I’m a singer and I’m passionate about it. I long with all my heart to hear the songs the Lord is singing over me! He is singing songs of deliverance and songs of rejoicing over ME! I think instead of striving, I’m going to practice listening. Who knows, maybe someday, I’ll get to hear those songs if I quiet my heart and head enough. Either way, I choose to rest in His love. I choose to enjoy my children, my husband and this new gift growing inside of me. I’ll even rejoice in the morning sickness!

Every good and perfect gift comes from above. It’s our job to acknowledge them and rest in His presence.