"Mink" Farewell

Where have all the binkies gone? Please don't tell Colby, but they're hiding in a bowl on the kitchen counter.

It's amazing how many we have accumulated over the years. Because Luke is not a fan, this is goodbye--one of our first true finales of the baby days. I'm not sad at all that Colby will now advance in his speech and that he won't wake up looking for his binky and not go to sleep until someone retrieves it from under his crib. I am sad that he is both sad and mad about the loss of his precious "mink." It's been five days, and he is still asking for it, but not nearly as much as he was. I think we're going to make it!

I had no intention of not blogging for nearly a week. There were several nights I wanted to write, but it's always too late. Usually 11 p.m. Mornings come way too soon. This week was typical in that I had many trying moments, others that melted my heart and not enough time to truly finish any one thing.

On Monday, Lily woke me up in time for me to make her lunch and push her out to the bus. She only packs her lunch once a week, and she always gets a note. I like to imagine her happy little face as she finds it each time.

Colby had a particularly hard time without the binky that morning. There were tears. I didn't discover it until I parked an hour away at work, but I forgot one of the five bags that needed to get to the van at home on the kitchen counter. Luckily, I did hit my marks in getting four of four children where they needed to be.

That forgotten bag included a very healthy, perishable lunch and--oh yes, again--pump parts, bottles in particular. So I was inventive. And it worked.

There were a lot of spills this week. Today, coffee with hazelnut creamer was my perfume. I inadvertently treated the kitchen floor to Luke's hot, steamy oatmeal with honey. Yesterday, Colby may or may not have dumped fresh iced tea on the counter (in, around and under the Keurig, Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker and canisters).

I tell ya. This life.

But I've made it to this golden moment: Thursday eve with the work week over and my sights firmly set on the weekend. The snow has arrived, and I am ready to hunker down in my house and read a book. Oh, the kids, you say? What will I do with them? Hmm. They can build forts out of the cushions all day. When they hurt each other every two minutes, I'll soothe the boo-boo and yell at the offender. That should buy me two more paragraphs or so.

So blessings abound. They tuck themselves right in there with the conflicts, the cleaning sessions and the timeouts. They manifest in the golden moments when Lily and Max are happily playing school; in Colby's true helpfulness with laundry load transfers; and Luke's sweet open-mouthed, wet kisses.

And so it is.

Wine a Bit

My life right now is one to-do list after another. I'm preparing for a trip to Denver and three special events at work. I'm up to my eyes in details and trying to fit so many tasks into the matrix. All of this, along with my life, is incredibly overwhelming.

But I'm hanging in. My car and my body are both threatening to drop out, but I'm forging on. A couple more weeks, and I'll be crashing.

The kids are all well. They got a brief taste of mommy being away this past weekend when I went to Pittsburgh to visit my best girl, Roberta, and celebrate her bachelorette status before she wills it away later this year. There were several bottles of wine, some really great margherita pizza, amazing line-dancing cowboys and laughs galore. Some rode bulls. (As in mechanical.) It was an enjoyable, memorable night. And I rocked it in a new dress from Target (that's tar-JAY) and my brown suede high-heeled boots.


Now I'm suffering from a really jacked-up knee. It's been whining for weeks and will no longer be ignored.

My goals right now: bed, accomplish a couple dozen major tasks tomorrow at work, possibly risk this knee further by playing my league volleyball games, pack for Denver, figure out how I'm going to fly with 60-plus ounces of breast milk and -- oh yeah -- leave my four kiddos for three days with a kiss and a promise to come home.

Taste the Rockies!

Whatever moments of utter relaxation I manage to find in Denver will be much deserved. I'm looking forward to long showers, plush robes and some great times with awesome people. But maybe not as awesome as this one.


So long for now...

Goodnight Blues

Sometimes you just can't get a good picture....

Wow, am I feeling low tonight... I had hoped to title this post a little more positively - maybe after a glass of wine - but then that last thing happened, and it all went to hell. I am so tired of trying to do it all. I don't know what the answer is anymore, how to keep this working motherhood ship from going over the edge and into the falls. There are so many dynamics. It's not even the details anymore. It's that the major components aren't even in place to keep the whole gig from sliding down the drain.

I got home from work today to a house where everything was wrong. There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the kids tonight, and a daddy working late to boot. They are all four bathed and sleeping now, and I'm too despondent to even feel a sense of accomplishment.

Mama said there'd be days like these.... only she didn't. Conventional wisdom tells you there will, but I really can't recall my mom ever telling me this.

Women have been mothering for centuries. There have always been challenges. I think the set of challenges today's mothers face can't come even close to the worst of times for mothers through the ages. We've got so many modern conveniences that make the sheer work of motherhood so much easier than it used to be. But we've got too much technology, too much desire for perfection, too much of a role society expects us to fill.

Working motherhood is for the birds. There are good days at work, good days at home and a whole lot of terrible days, where nothing jives, no one is happy and momma's candle is burnt all the way down on both ends.

I don't know what the answers are for me, but I'm not going to give up on finding them. I'm holding on to the few smiles I can remember tonight, the few moments where I wasn't feeling clobbered by the messy house, the mosquito I can't seem to find but who won't stop finding me, the kids that were acting out the way that I feel. And I'm hoping those kids, bad though they were, forget the yelling and grumpiness that was their mother.

I'm hoping I'll be back next time in a much better place. In the meantime, if you know of an awesome sitter who wants to watch my kiddos while I do the work "thang," give me a yell. 'Cause on top of everything else, the perfect one I had lined up just fell through. (And, of course, I understand. Our plates are ours to fill, and we can only guess at our limits.)

So goodnight, moon. Goodnight, you. Goodnight, overwhelmed. Goodnight blues.

The Cowboy in Me

I am indeed aware that I haven't posted in nearly a week. It's hot, my laptop is on the fritz, I'm busy, blah, blah, blah. Mostly, I'm feeling quiet. Actually, I think I'm making myself feel quiet so I don't spout a whole bunch of negativity. It's cyclical for me, these times of introspection. I can't lie, and so I don't write. But I'm fine, really. I'm functioning. My motherhood is prime, my citizenship a bit subpar. But I'm in it to win it, and this, too, shall pass.

I have found myself reflecting on my days and days in the hot tomato and pepper patches of my youth. It is absolutely amazing to think of those endless hours in the heat, working like a dog for a sliver of what I make per hour now. Those days took discipline not easily found in young people. There were days of solidarity with my fellow workers and days of solitude, where I could only know myself.

Those days were precious. Because I can still see my grandpa, the man of my life, leaning on the tractor and wheezing, plagued with so many breathing complications, but still right there joking with us in the heat. I can still remember the joy of lying in the TV room with the window air conditioner unit blasting, Matlock soapboxing on the TV in the background, on our fleeting lunch hour. I can still remember the feeling of the muscles in my arms, shoulders and back burning as I quickly and repetitively lifted two ten-pound baskets of tomatoes at a time from the rollers of the truck bed floor to the waiting hands of my male counterparts packing the night truck just as high and as tight as possible for those incredible height-of-the-harvest loads to Pittsburgh. I can both see and smell the oil of the basket wires and the green tomato plant residue on my fingers and palms.


Those were hot, sweaty, difficult, amazing days. And Lord, am I ever thankful to have been brought up that way. It was an active, respectful, passionate way to make a living, and I yearn for that in my work now. I long to find the purposefulness that I knew then, to work hard and to see the fruits of my labor, to believe I've earned what I sow.

A young cousin who remembers the atmosphere of those days but didn't have the privilege to live them as a teenager has been harping on me to share a story I wrote more than ten years ago. It's a 4,000-word magazine feature on our grandpa, and it's got legs. It's going to be published somewhere, someday.


As I'm preparing to finally do something about my dreams, to root out those elusive boot straps I talked about last week, to pull them as hard as I possibly can, I thought it might be fitting to share a couple grafs of that story, the "grandpa story." Here's a quick sketch of a man who was anything but, a tribute to one of the last great American cowboys.

A common man in appearance, Bernard's typical outift on a summer day would include a blue chambray work shirt, dark blue cotton workpants, dirt-caked boots and an ever-present package of Red Man peaking out of his breast pocket. His muddy brownish gray hair was usually tucked under a hat, and his skin remained brown year-round and had the appearance and feel of worn leather. Bernard was most often seen with an ornery look on his face, as if he were still processing the last joke spoken. He teased people mercilessly, especially those who he cared about most.

Bernard lived in only two different houses, which sat adjacent to each other, his entire life. His regular trips away from the farm included church, high school basketball games and the local feed store. Bernard was not a verbal messenger of any sort. His greatest gifts to others were simple and subtle. He was not a leader, a lecturer or an officeholder, yet throughout his life he somehow managed to impact hundreds in his community...

And so, tomorrow is a new, hot day. I'm going to channel Bernard, work hard and positively impact those around me.

I guess that's just the cowboy in me.

When Life Gives You Mud

...make mud pies.

So. I'm back to work. Life is different, for sure, but we're okay. But I must admit, I am a bit grumpy tonight.

Most of the first day back at work was fueled by adrenaline. It was almost fun. I over-prepared. There were organized piles all over my house, ready for packing, dressing, grabbing, whatever, on Monday morning. I even made dinner (in the crock pot) before I left for work! I rocked the first day of getting out of the house with four kids!

At work, I was heady with the accomplishment of it all. By afternoon, though, reality set in. I worried about milk supply, I was reintroduced to some of the work problems I'd left behind, and I started to crash. I very keenly began to feel the invisible ties that bind me.

And I've done some thinking and reflecting since then. What I've come to is this: one day, I plan to get paid to do what I love. I am a work in progress. I am evolving. I am not yet done. And while "all I ever have to be is what He made me," I am not yet completely who I was made to be.

How does one work on a large, long-term goal when they are as busy and needed as I am? Well, I am not sure. But I know if I do all for good, good will come of it. I am quietly confident that this will work out for me. I just have to keep doing what I'm doing. I have to research and act on my dreams when I can. And I have to believe I can do it.

I can't find the exact quote that I'm looking for right now, but the gist of it is "God is never late, he is always right on time."

So I'm going to go with God here. I'm going to keep doing the things that are good and right. I am going to try to designate some time to be still and listen.

And while I'm busily going about this plan, I am going to follow my four-year-old Max's simple, unquestioning way of life. When life gives me mud, like it did here today, I'm going to make mud pies.

Tonight I'm Almost Ready

Lucas, looking a "widdle bit wuwwied" about momma's return to work...

It's a work night. That's right, kids. Tomorrow, momma heads back to work. I'm feeling pretty confident, seeing as how God gave all six of the Roberts a cold for the occasion. Wow. They say He won't give us more than we can handle, so I'm thinking He thinks I can handle a lot!

Seriously, I'm good. I'm ready to take on this beast, to continue to be among the ranks of kick-ass working mothers who get things done in big ways.

I spent a couple hours in my work town, which is not only a college town but my college town, on Friday night. And I remembered then how much I miss it. Rumbling brick streets, happy spring-lovin' college kids, great eats and some incredible legendary people. Hello, Athens! How I love thee.

So tomorrow I'll be rockin' it. I'll be throwing bottles in bags, packing breast pump parts like a pro, tossing scraps of food into my lunch bag, changing last-minute dirty diapers, carrying at least five bags and strapping in four kids, and, hopefully, doing it all with a little bit of grace so that I don't scar my kids for the rest of their lives.

After I April-fooled myself on Friday by driving 15 minutes to a Zumba class before I remembered it was cancelled for the day, I realized I needed an April babysitting calendar. Heaven forbid I leave a kid somewhere. So the calendar is ready. And it's stupid. It's ridiculous. While the whole month is a bit mind-boggling, this Thursday in particular looks like a complicated calculus problem, as it will take three different sitters as well as me and Shrek to pull off that day's schedule.

It's crazy that I need a calendar for me, my husband, my mother, my sitters--my village. But I do. And Audrey, Rachel, Joel and all of you other mothers who will randomly step in to care for my children when needed, thank you.

So here we go. I'm ready as I'll ever be. I'm crossing my fingers and jumping in with both feet. Hang on; it's going to be a wild ride.

My Ship is Sailing Into the Sunset

Wow. Am I ever tired. This is going to be a lame post, so here's a recent photo of my reasons to get you through it!

I have had a couple busy, productive weeks at work. A huge press conference today was the climax, and I'm pleased to say it went very, very well. Yea, me.

Now I'm gearing up for one more day and then planning to tackle the house the rest of the week. It's summer/winter switch-out time. Remember? That's a mom task. Shrek has NEVER done this.

I'm actually thinking of shipping the kids out to his mom's house for about a day and a half this weekend... Momma's crashing. Starting now....

Needing a moment, and taking it. Hope you can too.