Happy Exhaustion

We took four kids to the Zoo today. (The picture above might be my favorite.)

I had a 6:45 a.m. wake up call courtesy of the baby, who also woke me no less than three or four times last night. Traveled 240 miles roundtrip to zoo. Packed four sippy cups, two bottles, snacks, two extra outfits, tissues, sunscreen, diapers, cameras, jackets, hats and more. Saw lots of wildlife.




I am exhausted. But happy. Good night!

Never Grow Up

It's a constant theme, and yet I keep learning it. It's not that I forget, really, but somehow, I have to be reminded. These days are precious. There will always be dirt, but these kids won't always be little.

We had a great weekend of camping with friends at Wolf Run. There were way more kids than adults, so, of course, it wasn't always relaxing. But there were a lot of hands and a lot of eyes, and it worked out beautifully. The food was great, the company was fantastic, and memories were made!


I've been thinking about seasons--not so much the seasons of the year, but the seasons of life. Dave and I, and the other amazing couples and single parents with whom we spent the weekend, are in the season of young parenthood. There are times you can't imagine ever getting out this season. While it is nice to feel needed, it's also a bit suffocating at times. As hard as it is to believe, these days will end. The kids will grow up faster than we ever expected, and it will be time for a new season.


So while the weekend was full of the busywork of caring for children, it was enjoyable and right. I had a couple moments of decompression, mostly later at night, when the kiddos were in bed and my mind wasn't racing to keep tabs on four little people. One of those moments was thanks to my dear friend, Traci, whose beautiful reason is pictured above. My girl has pipes like you wouldn't believe. She pulled out a song Saturday night that has been right under my nose for nearly a year. "Never Grow Up" by Taylor Swift. If you haven't yet really listened to it, you should.


Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up,
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little.
Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up,
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple.


You and I both know I am still fighting to find that balance in my life. To accept the past (all of it), to enjoy today, to not worry about the future. I'm consciously trying to keep money in its place -- not just in my wallet, but out of the realm of worry, out of the realm of utter importance. I'm always seeking that balance between work and home, and struggling with the 45 miles I drive between them.


But there are images like these, not art by any means, but snapshots of my most important little people, smiling and enjoying life, that remind me, that ground me. When this season of summer is over, I'll pack up and welcome fall, knowing summer will come around again, and that hopefully, I'll be here to see it along with the players of my life.


But when this season of my life is over, I won't see it again. I'll likely never be this tired again. I'll never be this needed again. And, more than anything, I may never been this blessed again.


I have to admit, in spite of the worries, I'm glad to have grown up. I've spent my whole life being an old soul, which is probably why motherhood suits me so well. And, of course, I want my kids, all of the kids in my weekend, to grow up. Please get to grow up.


But not yet. Ride your bikes in the 90-degree heat until your Daddy agrees to trade you his gel seat for your hard pink one. (True story.) Eat nothing but hot dogs if you want. You'll be fine doing that for a couple of days. Share string cheese with your adorable little friends.


And let's just keep this as simple as we can. You've all the time in the world to worry about the woes of life, real and imagined.

Please, for now, darlings, just don't ever grow up...

Love in Child Form

It's been said that babies are a wonderful way to start people.

It's true. Babies are really wonderful. I've always been a baby person. As one of the older grandchildren, I spent many nights with my aunts and their newborns. At 14, I mothered like you wouldn't believe. I've always found my peace in babies, in spite of the stress and havoc they can cause. I guess it's not surprising that I ended up with four of my very own.

Our young friend Ava, who has been battling a brain tumor, has found peace in Luke. While my other children have befriended her and taken care of her in their unique ways, Luke has also unknowingly found his niche in making her world a better place. In February, fresh from Disney World, Miss Ava came to the house to meet Luke. It was love at first sight.

Four months have passed since that time. Our baby has grown up a bit, and Miss Ava has continued to do what she does best: she's changed the community one person at a time and continued to brave the ups and downs of her condition.

One of the highlights of my weekend was watching Ava hold Luke again with her daddy's help. There were smiles and giggles. Pure love in child form.


I've been thinking that if we could all just see each other the way kids do, we'd be in a better place. We wouldn't see the past or the future, or the divisions we create.

We'd see that we're all gifts from God, with our own talents to bring to the table. We'd see that a four-month-old can make someone else's day just by his presence. We'd see that living well trumps living long.

Ava has shown so many of us that we can't be defined by the ways in which life is unfair. We can't dwell on the flat tire, the petty fights with our families or friends, the good fortunes of others in our own times of struggle. She's shown us to see each other for what we are: imperfect, yet precious; different, but the same.


Ava is a warrior and a teacher. She both loves and fights like a girl. She has lived her life out loud and has been heard by so many. Ava is love in child form.

Tonight, I lift her in prayer and stand on her behalf. May God hold her in the palm of His hand.

Deck the Halls

I've had a great weekend of friends, family, snow, shopping, decorating and getting reacquainted with my hunky husband. Life is so good, but I am exhausted.

So I'm going to serve you this photo of my loves in front of our decorated Christmas tree: today's biggest accomplishment. Thanks to my mom, I have a camera on loan to use until mine comes back from its second attempt at repair. (Thanks, Mom!)

Won't be long 'til Christmas, and we are almost ready! I hope to have at least a week or so to just relax and enjoy it!

Giving Thanks

I love Thanksgiving. It's family, food, gratitude. It's no pressure, a cuppa coffee with dessert and the meeting of the women when we try to come up with a Black Friday plan and simultaneously plan a Christmas gathering for 80. It's my Vera Bradley apron and the matching one I bought for Lily but that gets more use from Max. It's the anticipation of Christmas; the beginning of four intense weeks of kids lip-syncing songs at holiday programs, family gatherings and Advent calendars.

And it's just my kind of holiday. I try to be grateful for the many, many blessings in my life year-round. I seek to always be aware of my own situation and those of others, especially those less fortunate. I strive to teach my own kids what it is to express gratitude everyday.

What am I grateful for? I'm grateful for my husband, who gets better all the time, I swear; for my delicious children and their little brother kicking away in my womb. I'm thankful for my mother, my sister, my entire family. For friends who know me well, and like me anyway. I'm grateful for my health, my country and my freedom.

I am grateful for my house with the furnace rumbling, my warm bed and my life stretching out before me.

I'm drinking from the saucer because my cup is overflowing.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you get to spend it with the ones you love.

About 128 Pounds of Heart

It occurred to me today that about 128 pounds of my heart live outside of my body. No wonder I have been heavy-hearted this week!

With Lily around 56 pounds, Max at 46 and Colby at nearly 26, I live my life, truly, with 128 pounds of vulnerability outside my body. As vital to me as my own beating heart, my kids are subjected to a world that doesn't always love them, protect them or care about them. I leave them in the care of others, in the uncertainty of a school day and under the expertise of medical professionals when they are sick and at their weakest. As a mother, I have to trust that all will be well, that no major catastrophe will ever strike these precious, irreplaceable little people whom I love and adore so much that it hurts.

It's tough!

It's almost too much to ask of a parent! But it's reality. So we watch them grow. We take the baby steps with them, hold their hands to the bus stop, we let them form their own friendships, opinions and views of the world. And I know it will get harder as parents of older children have told me: the problems get bigger and involve more people. You watch them miss the most important basket of the game, you see them snubbed by the popular kids, feel their hearts break with the loss of first loves. You hand them the car keys when your heart screams "No!" You watch them marry mates you wouldn't have chosen for them, see them deal with bigger problems than you ever dreamed they would have to face.

I really don't know how we mothers do it, but we do. We strive to give our children the strong base of a good beginning, moral beliefs and unconditional love. And through it, they grow their wings. We learn our boundaries and our limits, the ways in which we might influence them and the ways in which we have to accept their actions and feelings.

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart.

And so, I put one foot in front of the other. I stir the chocolate milk, soothe the crying baby, wipe the running nose. I pray and trust and dream and hope that I can make these years count in the ways they will need to count for the rest of my children's lives. I remember this isn't about me; this isn't my show, it's theirs. While I will recognize and feed the need to make time for myself and to recharge in the ways that I must, I refuse to be a product of the me, myself and I mentality that dominates so much of what I hear these days.

Because these days are precious. They are good and true and all that is right in the world. As my heart continues to grow and dream and spread into the world, I accept the reality of the lows and the highs, the hows and the whys.

This is motherhood, and it's a privilege.

Sweet Fair Days and A Tribute to Belle

So, when I was about 12 years old, my parents convinced me to take a pig to the fair as a 4-H project. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but my sister, who must have been 14, and my brother, 11, were taking pigs as well, and the care was split three ways. We spent our hot summer days in the tomato and pepper patches, which we loathed, and then one of us would step into the hot, dusty pig shed to water and feed the pigs. Not much to it, really. Occasionally, as part of the project, we were to get the pigs out, or climb into the pen with them, to "get used to them" and "train them," or something. (This was the part about which I wasn't fond.)

I, perhaps unwisely, even named my pig. That stinky pink sow was Belle, to me.

Summer marched on, and fair time drew near. Back then, the pigs all had to be tested for drugs or steroids or something, so the local vet had to make farm rounds in the weeks leading up the fair. The day Doc Lowe came to our place was in the 90s. And the quest for Belle's blood wasn't pretty. She ran, she squealed, she fought like hell (like somebody I know). And damned if she didn't end up having a heart attack and DYING!!!

Seriously, a week before the fair, my pig died.

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, I remember my dad was in Ann Arbor or someplace for work, and my mom was charged with finding help to butcher the thing within the hour lest all the meat be spoiled in the heat. (Thanks, Neil Huck. Wasn't it you who came to our aid?)

At any rate, I didn't show a pig that year, or EVER. In a wry twist of fate, my sister's pig was a mere two pounds underweight and didn't make it into the fair either. So, after feeding three pigs all summer, we netted just one to the fair.

And, Belle, I'm sorry about how it all turned out. It was traumatic for both of us.

These days, the fair for me is much more enjoyable. I don't have the pressure to show a pig, the frustration of unrealized teenage lust, the insecure feelings of wearing the wrong thing. In fact, now I'm a PTO booth shift worker! That's right, folks. I'm a parent. So now I get to see sights such as these: beautiful kids riding carousels, waving flags while watching parades, smiling big from the most rickety rides and feeding OTHER PEOPLE'S animals. Seriously, folks, it doesn't get much better than this.

If you live in the area and haven't yet visited the Waterford Community Fair, go tomorrow and get yourself a lemon shake and at least one delectable food item.

And, if you get down the hill and get a whiff of those pigs, please help me to remember Belle, who taught me that you can fight like hell sometimes and still not make it to the goal.

And now: My beautiful kids!

The Fight for Pillow Pets

So, yeah, have any of you other moms seen the Pillow Pets commercial on TV? My kids have, and they want Pillow Pets!

So much so that when I told Lily I have arranged for the two of us to finally have "Girl Day" tomorrow afternoon for school shopping and other fun, she said all she wanted was a Pillow Pet! I said, "Lily, it's time for school shopping. We're not getting Pillow Pets." She insists that she has $9 and that I'm a "mean mommy who never buys [her] anything!" This, of course, was after she put on a fashion show with the five or six outfits I bought her at a yard sale on the way home from work.

Remember the post about teaching my kids to be grateful? Still working on that.


In other news, Lily has been an amazing help lately. She can even get Colby to fall asleep for his nap now. She takes her own showers, pulls the stopper at just the right time to "get the boys' bath ready," and she's just kind of amazing in general. Come to think of it, she just might get that Pillow Pet after all.

Mr. Max is also growing up. I've noticed this week that his "thank you's" are automatic. He's still working on the "please" part, but we're getting there. He is a strange mix of sweetness and aggressiveness right now. He and I have had some one-on-one time this week as well, and it was great! One of the bigger challenges in my crazy life right now is getting enough time to spend one-on-one with each kid. Of course, Colby doesn't yet care.

Speaking of Colby, he's rotten and ornery. He's walking everywhere now. I said the other day, and it's true, that he has turned in his gorilla baby crawl for more of an old chimpanzee walk. He looks like a wobbly old man still, but the huge, proud smile really helps!

Alas, another week has passed. I'm saying goodbye to the first trimester. (May I never see it again. =) ) And I realized this: I'm starting my 132nd week of pregnancy (in my life, you know.) So hey! I get to be quiet, moody, peaceful, tired and elated, in strange and twisty turns.

Hoping my energy level is about to spike... There is just so much I want to do!

You Are Worth It All

Though my identity as a writer is important, I think I might have misled you yesterday. In reality, I am more of a mother who writes. While I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I always knew I'd be a mother.

I became a mother at 25. Our firstborn is a girl named Lilith. She is amazingly beautiful, intelligent and tall. I can honestly say that she is probably the one person in my life who has taught me the most about how to truly be selfless. In that, I mean, I had to lose myself--and still do sometimes--to learn to take care of another human being so completely.

Our second is a loving, incredible little boy named Maxwell. Max is a lot like Mommy. He's joy and truth and BOY. He's all boy, but a loving, sweet little thing. I'm convinced he's going to be a wonderful man--the kind every woman wants to marry and every man wants to befriend.

Our baby, who just turned one, is Colby. Colby has a headful of fiery red curls to match the sunshine he brings into our lives everyday. He is an incredibly cute, ornery, gap-toothed reminder that, yes, it is all about the people who matter to us the most.

While the last six or seven years have been a lot of work, I wouldn't trade them for the world. Motherhood is a full-time job. Somewhere in the endless household tasks, the stirring of the day's fifth sippy cup of chocolate milk, the breeding laundry piles, cries for Band-Aids, the marathon nursing sessions and the guilt, I've found myself.

When I look at my reasons/my children, I thank God for the kind human beings I know they will become.