One Thing

Things that make me go ahhhhhhh

Washing my face at the end of the day

Washing my feet at the end of the day

Feeling my clean feet against my sheets

Nursing the baby

Sitting down with a cup of coffee

Eating something delectable with the abovementioned coffee

Leaving Wal Mart

Standing in the surf

Breathing ocean air

Standing on a mountain

Breathing mountain air

The smell of fresh cut grass

The smell of a cook-out fire

Baby cuddles

Toddler cuddles

Little kid cuddles

Big kid cuddles

Teen cuddles (?cuddles?)

(cuddles looks funny when you type it over and over again)

Cold root beer on a hot day

Sunrises

Sunsets

Thinking about heaven

Thinking about my blessings

Thinking about God's Grace

Reading over this list

*ahhhhhhh is not to be confused with AAAAAAAH!!! which is quite a different thing, and not nearly so nice.

Conflicted

I was a strange kid. Sometimes, when my own offspring are odd, I like to remind myself of this fact. My formative years in the 1970s are a jumble of memories involving velour, cinnamon gummy bears, Wonder Woman, roller skates, the Muppets, stuffed animals, unicorns, macrame, and--because my Dad was building our home on 160 acres of Oklahoma prairie during much of that time--dirt.

Dirt was a big part of my life. And sweat. We would get up on Saturdays, leave our centrally-air-conditioned house in town and drive out to the property where my Dad would work on the construction of his dream house. All day long. Mind you, this was years before any pertinent plumbing bits were installed into said dream house, so I learned early on how to utilize the prairie as a toilet. Oh, how I envied my brothers.

My older sister turned up her nose at the Great Outdoors. She always had somewhere exceedingly important to be when it was time to head over to the property to get some work done. She was larger than life, my older sister was. This might have had something to do with her enormous permed hairstyle and the 4-inch high Candies that she wore with such attitude, but whatever the case, she was Woman with a capital W to me.

I, however, was Girl. Just Girl, with a dirty face and stringy hair and gangly limbs and scabby knees and no interest in shoes at all. Farrah Fawcett was the epitome of all things electrifying about the female form at the time, but it was all just a mystery to me. It wasn't that I didn't want to be Woman, just that I seemed to lack any shred of inner guidance that would teach me how.

My love for Wonder Woman betrays just how earnestly I longed for the power of the feminine mystique to be my own. The wall of my bedroom was bedecked with her life-size image in poster form, and I sat enthralled through every episode of her television show, searching for hints on how I, too, could be beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Hermes, and stronger than Hercules.

I wanted to have the secret identity, to wear the enormous black glasses and work all day long with Steve Trevor (swoon), even though he never recognized the woman of his dreams hiding behind Diana Prince's demure countenance.

Dumb. As. A. Post.

Cute, though...Lyle Waggoner and his little toothy gleam always made my heart go pitty pat.

Alas, no matter how I twirled, the crash of thunder never came. I could never manage to make the leap into those shiny red boots. To this day I still feel more often like the gangly kid with the scraped knees who is only pretending to be a Woman, even without the Wonder in front of it. I'm guessing I always will.

I'm learning to be okay with that. Forget the invisible jet and the bullet-deflecting bracelets; I've got some armor of my own that puts that to shame. My life is hidden with Christ, and my identity is found in Him. "Child of the King" sounds better than Wonder Woman anyway. Best of all...it ain't no secret.

On fathers, and forgiveness

Every Father's Day it is the same. I go with trepidation into Hallmark. I stand for an hour, reading every single card they have to offer for the 3rd Sunday in June. After exhausting their supply of sunny images (and my mental and emotional reserves), I usually leave empty-handed, marvelling that I could have failed to find a single appropriate sentiment amidst the thousands.

Yet it happens, year after year. I simply cannot bring myself to spend money on a fabrication of this magnitude:

Thanks for your constant love and encouragement

or:

I could always count on your loving and gentle counsel

or, worse, those that have three panels covered in verses along these lines:

Dad, my whole childhood
could not have possibly been any better
because you were always there for me
to help me, to wipe away my tears,
and to teach me how to be the best person possible.
Because of you, I never doubted for a moment
that I could achieve any dream I put my mind to
blahdy blahdy bladiddly blah

(I also refuse to buy any card having to do with farting, drinking beer, money, the remote control, or those that feature any sort of primate on the front.)

(This narrows my choices quite severely, as you might have guessed.)  

Could someone explain to me why it is so difficult for the card companies to come up with something more realistic for those of us whose fathers were not ever-wise, ever-kind, ever-supportive demi-gods whose sole purpose in life was to fix broken toys and broken hearts, dispensing sage advice and just enough monetary help?

Maybe something along the lines of:

Being your child, I learned the valuable skill of walking on eggshells. Happy Father's Day!

or:

Because of you, I'm never satisfied with anything unless I do it myself! Thanks, Dad!

or:

Life was always exciting with you as my Dad! Sort of like living in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius! 

It's all in the spin, isn't it?

My family and I watched one of my favorite films not long ago. Smoke Signals is a humor-filled and heart-aching story of a young man as he struggles to resolve his conflicting feelings towards his father. The perspective is through his eyes as an American Indian, but the theme is universal.

We all long for forgiveness, both to give and to be given.

Watching young Victor Joseph both love and loathe his father in equal measure--and even simultaneously--was as familiar to me as my own skin. I desperately wanted him to be free from the hurt and find a way to hold onto the good, letting God heal the past so he could be whole. 

I found myself wondering if I wanted the same for myself just as badly. How much do I really want freedom, and how much do I enjoy the security of the status quo?

The final scene of the movie is that of Victor Joseph shaking his father's ashes out over a river as his travelling buddy, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, speaks the words from a poem by Dick Laurie. I've included the video clip here, but I urge you to watch the whole movie to really understand the power of this final scene:

So often we let unforgiveness rule until we think it defines us. We are afraid of who we will be without it. We believe that it is a part of us, and therefore will lessen us if it is carved away.

But it is not a part of us. It is not what we were made for.

It belongs to satan, as sure as a malignancy in the body belongs to him. Yet we claim it as our own rather than let the Great Physician remove it and heal it. 

If we forgive our fathers...
what is left?

Peace. Blessed stillness of heart. But even peace may be difficult to desire when it is something we've never felt before. We choose instead the twisted comfort of a common ache instead.

Today I say a prayer for all those struggling to forgive their fathers. And I start with myself.

Lord, help me to desire Your strange peace more than my familiar pain!

Winches and Pulleys Are Recommended

When I put on my bra in the morning, it groans. Literally. It makes a groaning noise. It squeaks when I move, too. If it were a car I would be getting it in to the shop as quickly as possible, but being as that it is a brassiere, I think it is telling me something else.

It obviously hates me.

The feeling is mutual, I'm sure. When I remove it at night, I nearly weep with relief.

The straps dig into my shoulders. The cups are too small. The cloth around my ribcage is becoming transparent from so many washings. Any moment now I expect to hear a "Poing!" which would be the moment it releases its tenuous hold on the Items Meant To Be Assisted By It, followed by a "Kablooey!" as the whole thing disintegrates.

Then there would be a "Fwump!", but I'll let you figure out what *that* would be.

I'm calling upon you, my friends, to help me avoid that noise.

Please, if you have one, tell me your favorite, all time best, nursing bra. I need serious advice here because I'm so very desperate. A bad bra can cause homicical tendencies, I'm convinced. I need a really good nursing bra. One that is comfortable. One that supports. And if it could *not* look like body armor, all the better.

I am not asking for links to fluffy little adorable nursing bras worn by those whose bosoms defy gravity, or who think the word "pendulous" only applies to grandfather clocks. Because if you say "My cup size went from an A to a B+ when I was nursing! I hardly knew what to do! It was great!" and link to a bra that only runs up to a size C, I just might kill myself. 

Answers, Random edition

Here are some of the questions that I either forgot to include in the other posts, or that refused to be pigeonholed as one thing or the other, so you could also call this "Answers, the flotsam and jetsam edition" if you wanted to. But you don't have to. It's a free country.

I think.

I suppose it depends on who you talk to.

At any rate, Marisa asked "I do wonder if you and your husband knew when you got married that you wanted this many kids?"

Answer: Did we know that we wanted a whole tribe, a fleet, a pride, a clan, a gaggle, a mob, a horde, a throng, a veritable legion of children?

No.

But we didn't know much of anything when we got married, so that's not very telling, in and of itself.

Heather asked What would you do if your doctor said you had to stop having children for health reasons?

Answer: I would get a second opinion.

she also asked "Why do you sometimes have what people consider to be bad language in your posts?"

Answer (sort of, but not really): Could you define "people" and "bad language"?

Sarah asked " how do you handle the hormones/babyblues after birth?"

Answer: I have never suffered from severe PPD, but the hormonal fluctuations after childbirth can be daunting, for sure. I read scripture and remind myself that it will pass in time. I also remind myself that satan is a big fat dummy head and that he is compounding the basic problem of chemical flux by whispering his filthy lies into my ear, and that makes me mad and want to kick his ass (spiritually speaking, of course), which feels better than being just plain miserable.

Rebecca asked about bathtime, and also about how we store our toothbrushes and bathroom cups.

Answer: Our toothbrushes are stored in holders that keep them from undue fraternization, although I can't say with any certainty that they don't throw wild parties late at night when we are all sleeping, swapping bacteria til the dawn's early light. I try not to think about it. We also have one bathroom cup. I know, gross. The little ones use it because they don't know any better. The big kids get drinks in the kitchen from their own cups. I use my hand. So far we are all still alive.

Stephanie asked  "do you think you'll have any more kidlets?

Answer: This is a tricky question to ask a woman who is still newly post-partum. The "correct" answer, according to our philosophy of family planning, is "Only the Lord knows; it's in His hands and we trust Him unflaggingly" but in the back of my mind are the howling wolves of fear and doubt that threaten to devour me and pick their teeth with the splintered shards of my convictions.  

Julie Beth wanted to know "what people, authors, etc, have influenced your views of family, homeschooling, parenting, etc.?"

Answer: The Way Home by Mary Pride was the first book I ever read that opened my eyes to just how much falsehood I had swallowed unquestioningly throughout my life, and All The Way Home was the second. The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer is a beautiful book that encouraged me to see the beauty in the everyday (hm. need to read that one again.), and For The Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay kinda sorta defined our homeschooling philosophy. How to Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor by Robert S. Mendelsohn was instrumental in "gelling" my attitude towards modern medicine, gave me confidence to recognize a true emergency from a scare tactic, and, as an unforeseen benefit, has saved us thousands of dollars over the years. That's a quick sampling, drawn from my extremely (and hopefully temporary) synapse-depleted brain.

Johanna asked "what was the most healing thing for you in the process of recovering from your [miscarriages]?"

Answer: I've said before that loss becomes a part of you. I don't say that flippantly or romantically. Anyone who has been through it knows just how it can blindside you, make you question everything you ever believed, and forever change your perspective on life. It all feels so negative when you're in the midst, but looking back...I'm grateful for the changed perspective. I'm awed by how much I've changed over the past year and a half. I truly didn't think there was anything left that the Lord could do with me (not as in "I'm perfect" but as in "I'm beyond hope"). He proved this was not the case.

So the obvious answer is Him. His presence was the most healing thing. Finding out that there was more to myself than I had previously believed. I learned how to give up on bitterness, strangely enough. Here I was, blessed beyond measure and yet holding onto bitterness, and along come horrible events and I let go of it. Plumbing the depths of my own trust didn't leave any room for that baggage. Is God good, or not? Is God wise, or not? Am I going to serve God, or Baal? I had to listen to Elijah and finally stop trying to keep a foot in both camps. I wrote more poetry in 2007 than ever before in my life, which was a very therapeutic outlet that I hadn't explored previously.

The love of a particular man was greatly healing to me as well. Twenty years earlier when he said "for better or for worse" to me, he meant it. Loss is a make-or-break time for couples, and never for a moment did he cause me to doubt which way this scene was going to pan out.

The comfort of those who had walked this way before was such a blessing as well. How amazing is the fellowship of those who can come alongside and shed tears with you because they have also been where you are and know the pain of it? It's amazing, I tell you true. I was overwhelmed by the sweetness of the people I knew--some just acquaintances--who took the time to tell me I'm sorry. I know how it feels.

And Toby Mac's Portable Sounds has my undying love and affection for possessing the ability to make me feel alive again when I was sure I was mostly dead. It's the soundtrack to the most difficult time of my life thus far, and it rocks.

How about you, my friends? What, besides the grace of God, has helped you get through the valley of the shadow of death intact?

Answers, The Easy-Peasy Edition

I'm avoiding most of The Questions That Will Wring My Soul in order to answer some of these less-wrenching sorts.

No, no, really! I love the soul-wringing questions! Don't apologize for asking; I told you to! But I think I should confess that I've taken to sucking my thumb again, and also my left eyelid will not stop twitching.

Not that I think that's in any way your fault.

Jolyn asked "Do you ever go on vacation as a family?"

Answer: Yes! For a long time our vacations consisted of travelling to other states to visit family, but five years ago we took our first trip to another state in which no family existed at all. At least, none that were related to us. That I know of. We went to the Alabama coast and stayed for one week in a beach house directly upon the ocean. And I managed to foist my love for all things beachy upon every one of my children, plus my sister-in-law, Becca.

Two years after that, we spent a week in a house on Eagle Rock Lake in Missouri. That was nice too, because a lake is a Large Expanse Of Water Somewhat Like The Ocean, although not quite so amazing.

And then last year we spent a week on the Gulf Coast of Texas in another beach house. Lovely time, although not as lovely as Gulf Shores, Alabama. The water was, erm...rather an industrial color, shall we say?

Ruth asked "Why were you born in Alaska, and how long did you live here?"

Answer: I was born in Alaska because my father worked in the oil biz. I lived there until I was 3, and I don't honestly remember much of it, except for when I was practicing standing on my head in our living room and I landed on my Dad's cup of hot coffee. The people at the hospital were very nice. Then we moved to Corpus Christi, where visiting the ocean joined the coffee experience as one of my earliest memories. The ocean was better.

Ruth also asked "How do you find time to be crafty?"

Answer: Aw, shewt, you know the answer to this one. It's the whole *you make time for the things you love* thang. Sure, other items (eating, sleeping, digesting) have to fall by the wayside to accomplish it, but I have said before that craftiliciousness carries a high price. When it's in your soul, resistance is futile.

"Lisa Lavy" asked where I get my energy. And also if my children are "very laid back and gentle." Susan also asked about my energy level.  Bekki asked if I have ever had a difficult baby, and if any of my children had special needs.

Answer: I have always been a pretty high-energy person. Or at least equal parts high-energy and a driven personality that carries me forth even when I'm going on fumes. I am a sporadic vitamin-taker. I have no magical formula for energy, but I will say that if you're dragging through every day and nodding off for no apparent reason, you might want to get your thyroid levels checked. The thyroid can be a dicey buggar.

My children are actually very laid back and gentle, yes, for the most part. I honestly am not saying this out of pride because I don't know why they are, but I have witnessed enough other children from other walks of life to say that yeah...my kids are pretty low-key. Not that they don't have rowdy moments, but they don't tear things up from sunup to sundown. When I yell at them to KNOCK IT OFF! then they do it, for the most part. If I'm working on something crafty, they stay away from it.

I have never had what could be characterized as a really difficult baby. Not in the traditional colicky sense. I've had some babies with more sensitive systems, and one in particular who made his daddy's life pretty miserable through the first year because the second I stepped out the door he would begin to cry and would not stop until my sole came back through that opening, but other than that, meeting their needs has been pretty straightforward. Also no kids with special needs, although we have at least one who meets some Tourrette's criteria. He's...quirky. But hey, he's also part of a way-huge family. Can you blame him?

Bekki also asked how many of my children still live at home.

Answer: All of them. For another month, at which point my eldest will fly away to something she keeps referring to as "my house" at which point my eyelid starts to twitch again.

"Linda in St Louis" asked me what I do for myself if I get a moment of free time, which was similar to "smilinmom22"s question about how I make time for myself.

Answer: Occasionally I will say to My Beloved "I need some time to myself" and he says "groovy, baby" and I take myself to Target or Panera Bread or out for a bike ride. I used to go to the library, but since declaring a jihad against it, I don't go there anymore. I might also just sit and completely lose myself in a book, like I did last Christmas, but I can't afford to do that very often because I forget who I am. Mostly, I blog.   

"AM" asked about our childrens' sleeping arrangements, and how many bedrooms our house has.

Answer: Our house has five bedrooms. One is mine and Beloved's, along with the baby for now. One is for the two little boys, and one is for the two big boys. One is for the two middle and the two little girls. And the last one is for the three oldest girls.These rooms are not all the same size, obviously.   

AM also asked if my pregnancies have all been different. "Bonnie" also asked if I had had any *issues* in my pregnancies.

Answer: My pregnancies have all varied only slightly. Up until this last one, I puked my guts out every time (this last pregnancy was puke-free but full of other fun things like faintness and migraines) and had the normal compliment of fatigue and such. I have stretch marks, I have varicose veins. The VVs are by far the worst problem that I have. Overall, no GD, no BP issues, or anything else that you could call major.

Bubba's Sis wants to know the names and ages of my children.

Answer: Rose (21 next month) Molly (19) Miriam (17) Caleb (15) Connie (13) Jordan (12) Josiah (10) Charity (8 this month) Emma Ruth (6) Gabriel (4) Tobias (2) and Xavier (1 month old, as if that is even possible)

Toni asked about my potty training philosophy.

Answer: My potty training philosophy has morphed over the years into something that goes like this: put diapers on the child until they rip them off their bodies and say something along the lines of "STOP PUTTING THESE THINGS ON ME, MOTHER! I'M USING THE TOILET NOW!"

I'm serious. It works. Don't do the power struggle thing. Just don't. None of my children has gone past the age of 3 in diapers since I began following this mentality. It also helps to tell the kid regularly "no, you can't use the potty. you're too little" because this makes using the potty seem like a big priviledge which they cannot wait to earn, like driving the car and watching Cloverfield.

"Sheila" wins the prize for asking me the most flattering questions, which are:

have you ever looked into getting paid for your writing?( if not you should)
-have you looked into getting paid for your pictures?(if not you should)

Answer(s): No. But thank you for the compliment. I have been published in non-paying venues before (Joyfull Noise before it went bye-bye, and Above Rubies), and I would love to finish&publish the novel that sits patiently waiting in my hard drive, but it's in the Lord's hands. If it's gonna happen, He's going to have to do it. As for the photography, I'm not really that great.

Carrie asked me what is the most difficult number of children to have.

Answer: One. Absolutely unequivocably. For me, the shock of going from none to one was never again experienced.

"Phylly3" wondered if I'd ever had any moments of reluctance or fear upon discovering that I was pregnant. And also whether I'd ever hoped for one gender more than another during pregnancy.

Answer: Before miscarriages, I was always excited and thrilled to find that I was expecting.  Always amazed. Always grateful. After miscarriages I was still all those things, with a fair amount of terror mixed in.  It's never the same again after loss; loss becomes a filter through which every other emotion must pass first.

Never cared about gender. Never.

Happy Mommy asked "how old are you?"

Answer: I will be 40 this year. Can't wait. Always love turning older. No, I'm not kidding. I think it has something to do with heaven being that much closer.

Johanna asked what My Beloved and I do for dates or time alone.

Answer: We go to the Caymans. Haha! Not really. Okay, once. Mostly we just go out to eat when we can. For normal upkeep, we lay in bed and talk until way too late at night.

The lovely and talented Jody asked "If you could have, or say had to have, plastic surgery what one thing would you have done?"

Answer: I love this question. This is a fun question, and actually one that I have thought about and asked other people too. It always has to be couched in the right terms, though, or people try to say something noble. So I always say it like this: "You have money that can ONLY be spent on plastic surgery, and it has to be ONLY for cosmetic reasons and it has to be ONLY for you."

That's what you meant, right Jody? Okay, then I'll answer.

It was always a toss-up between my legs and my bosom. My legs have the bulgey blue ropey veins and my bosom, well, you can guess what that's all about. But since my legs have gotten bad enough to actual necessitate medical intervention for which insurance will pay, they are out of the running. So the bosom wins. I'd like a lift, please. And I don't even think I would feel guilty at this point because after all it's done, it's a charity case in and of itself.

And thus ends my fluffy and totally depth-less answers.

Ain't no guilt like Mommy-guilt

Warning: this will not be your typical smarmy Mother's Day post. If you're looking for carnations and breakfast in bed, look elsewhere.

I didn't go to church today. Gabriel's fever was the reason I gave, but deep down in my heart I was glad. Today is Mother's Day. I didn't want to go to church.

At church they will make everyone stand up who is a mother. Then the count begins. "Who has more than five? Six? Seven?" etc. At first in groups, the women sit back down as their number is called, and then one by one they begin to fall. I am the only one still standing as the numbers climb to the double-digits. And then I win a prize.

I'm sure I cannot be the only one in existence who thinks this process is fatally flawed. .

Mother's Day is designated to honor mothers. And obviously only the most hardened cretin would say such a scheme is stupid. So I will stop just shy of being a hardened cretin and say instead that I think the day is somewhat...pointless.

It is pointless because it is unconscionable to laud someone simply because she can reproduce. I am not the first nor will I be the last to say such a thing. People whose mothers were abyssmally deficient in their mothering capabilities have voiced this opinion for years, as well as cynical types who refuse to line the pockets of card and flower companies who prey on the emotions of the general populace.

My mother was not abyssmally deficient. On the contrary, she made mothering look entirely too easy and set the bar at a height I can never hope to attain. And so I should honor her every day of my life, and hope that I do (how am I doing, Mom? I know you're reading).

I also have nothing against cards and flowers. Heaven forbid! I consider myself grand vizier in the art of card-selecting and many is the hour I have spent reading every. single. card. in the aisle in an effort to capture the perfect picture + sentiment for the occasion.

The reason I state that it is pointless is that, as a mother, no amount of cards and flowers and accolades at church or beyond will tell me what I most want to know. No person's words or reassurances can answer my heart's cry.

Am I doing a good job?

Somebody, anybody...please! Tell me if I'm doing all right! But more importantly, tell me if I'm screwing up royally!

If you are a mother, I believe I speak for you too. We are desperate to know the truth. But there is no one who can tell us.

The people at church cannot tell us. They see us lined up in a row on a Sunday morning, looking good (where else do you try to look better than at church? "Sunday best" doesn't only refer to clothing, I wager), and are generous enough to assume that we've pretty much got it all together, all the time. Have a carnation! Have a whole bouquet!

Our husbands cannot tell us the answer. If we are blessed with kind and gentle men, they extend to us as much grace, and more, than we deserve. They boost our spirits when we are down. They cheer us on. If we have hypercritical, miserly men in our lives, they tear us down and add to our grief daily. Neither one is an accurate assessment.

Even our children, those reasons we are who we are on Mother's Day, cannot tell us. Sure, they may love us, but what do they know? You're the best mom ever! their little hand-drawn cards may say. But it's not like they had a trial run with fifty others and chose us in the end, is it? And a child will love you for letting him have his way, and hate you for saying "no," which pretty much disqualifies him as a judge of success-in-parenting.

So what's the yardstick for deciding a mom is successful as a mom? Quantity of children? I hope I already shot that assumption to hell. A well-put-together facade? Hardly. What about the success of her children? Shouldn't that be a pretty good marker?

Maybe it should be...but there are countless examples of children who come out of hideous, abusive situations in childhood and go on to great success in spite of it all (should their parents be exalted?), and those children who come out of solid, loving homes and yet manage to choose every evil that comes their way (should their parents be vilified?).

How about worry, and guilt, and fear? If we feel enough of these every day, doesn't that mean we are good moms?

Isn't that pretty much the most absurd thing ever written?

Funny how tenaciously we can believe something as absurd as that, and often without even realizing it.

No, that triple-threat is not a yardstick either, although Satan would assure us that it is. Anything to keep us from the throne-room of God, where we are instructed to drop all such baggage off, daily.

Am I doing a good job?

Is there ANYONE who can tell me that I don't completely and utterly SUCK at this parenting thing??

**crickets chirping**

There is no other job on earth besides parenthood where you have no promotions, no pay raises, and no yearly assessments from your supervisors to let you know your status. Never have you more desperately longed for someone to examine your work and give you a review, and never has such a critique been less available.

One thing I do know, and that's the fact that the The Accuser, along with my own condemning heart, will also never give me a correct answer. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between what they are saying, and what the flower-strewn Hallmark ads proclaim. Can I accept that? Can I find hope and joy and happiness there, in that middle ground where I sweat and toil and cry and doubt?

Can we, as mothers, learn to have joy in the journey, when there is no dingdingding! when we get it right, nor a loud and angry buzzzz! when we misstep? Can we stop believing our own press, whether good or bad, and instead bind on our foreheads this unequivocable truth:

God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.*

Can we stop craving reassurance from the world and go to the only One who holds the true measure in His hand? The accurate scales? The non-distorted mirror?

Sometimes the guilt threatens to eat me alive. The opportunities for it bloom over my days like mushroom clouds, and the fallout is crippling and toxic. Neither carnations nor applause can stop the bombing.

I need Jesus, plain and simple. The Bible calls Him a strong tower, a very present help in time of need. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say He is also a fallout shelter, a hazmat suit, and a decontamination chamber. This mother's day, and every day, I'm trying to remember to take refuge in Him.

*1 Sam 16:7

Suggestions, please

What does one wear as the Mother-of-the-Bride when one generally runs a size Small-to-Medium, but one's Lactating-Area is a size Triple-Mastodonic?

My fashionista senses, under the best circumstances, are pretty rudimentary.

I'm feeling a growing sensation of doom.

Size Seven, If You Must Know

Bikini style or boy shorts. *Whew!* You people are SO nosy!

I'm flattered that you think I'm all that interesting, actually. I think I have enough blog fodder from these questions alone to last me until 2012!

I must admit, however, to a certain amount of trepidation upon reading some of your questions. You may not like my answers, frankly. You may be disappointed in me. You may decide to quit reading this trash and find someone really admirable to hang out with. The litany of insecurity goes on and on.

But I am determined to sally forth, and to be as frank and honest as everyone else on the internet is  the Good Lord requires that I be. If I take your rose-colored glasses and stomp them to smithereens, then so be it. Please accept my apologies in advance. Perhaps you could trade them in for a slightly-pink monocle instead.

How about if I warm up first with some of the easy ones, though? Just to get my feet wet? Something innocuous, maybe? A few people (Natalie, Shel, Linda Sue, Toni) asked me about my girlish figure (cough). How do I maintain it, and so forth.

Answer: My exercise regimen is as bipolar as my brain, folks. The pendulum swings from doing absolutely nothing (usually during the seasons that I am both pregnant and homeschooling; the energy and time is simply not there) to frenetically biking and running as though fleeing something with very sharp teeth (usually during the non-pregnant, non-homeschooling seasons, which are admittedly short-lived).

I used to do aerobics to video tape in my living room, but as more and more small people were in danger of getting trampled, I had to give that up. And so I limp along with my hit-and-miss schedule, trying to make up for the lack during the times of abundance, and somehow it all evens out. The rest of the equation can be summed up in one word: genetics. I inherited some pretty sturdy abs and a bitchin' pair of biceps* from my Dad, and that goes a long way.

Soliloquy asked a couple of questions that I found especially ~fun~, the first being "How has your blog and its purpose evolved?"

Answer: This is the second blog I have had. The first was begun after Toby's birth, and I maintained it for about 6 months, I think. I don't remember what I called it. I don't remember why I stopped it, either. I think I need to stock up on the ginko-bilboa. Anyway, after I had my second miscarriage a little over a year ago, I needed a place to just spill my guts and work through what I was feeling and what the Lord was saying to me.

Very quickly, however, the blog began to be a bit of an unhealthy obsession. I almost shut it down a few months in because I was far too focused on saying everything perfectly and worrying about what other folks were thinking. Upon reflecting, I was able to refocus and I realized that I wanted to keep the blog because I STRAIGHT UP LOVE TO WRITE and I stopped fretting so much and just had fun with it.

Now, looking back over this steaming heap of thought-compost, I am so grateful that I kept it up. I have such a wonderful record of God's goodness, and of my own journey, that I never would have had otherwise. I have grown much simply by seeing my own thoughts, good and bad, right in front of me. Sin has been exposed to be dealt with, and God's truth has at times hit me upside the head. It's all good.

Her second question was "Where did you get that freakin' vocabulary??"

Answer: I love words. Love. Them. Words are just so much fun. When I was in high school English class, we used a little curriculum called "Word Wealth" that was a vocabulary strengthener, and I was the weird kid who thought it was So Much Fun. Nowadays I subscribe to A Word A Day and all kinds of new words just show up in my inbox, like "kerfuffle" and "jobbernowl" which, besides building my vocabulary, are just plain fun to say. Don't know what they mean? Look them up! Impress your friends!

Minnesota Mom also asked some intriguing questions. She asked "Were you homeschooled?"

Answer: No. I went to parochial school until 6th grade, public school from 7th to 9th, and halfway through 9th grade moved to Norway, where I went to a hoity-toity private school just especially for the fat cat oil company brats and any Norwegian who could afford it (IOW there were no Norwegians attending). Interestingly, my youngest brother was homeschooled through late elementary/jr. high years (after my parents and he moved back to the USA) and my mother and I enjoyed comparing curriculum and teaching frustrations for a while before he went to public high school.

She also asked: How did you meet your husband?

Answer: Ahhh. If I am not careful this might turn into a novel similar to Pioneer Woman's "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" in length, but I'll reign myself in. For now, anyway. Basically, My Beloved was a senior in high school in that Norwegian-but-really-American high school when I moved as a freshman. He was not really on my radar at all until I began, as a sophomore, dating his best friend (a year behind him) and we met when he was home on Christmas vacation. I thought he was just about the most delicious slice of bow-legged, crinkly eyed-smiling sweetie pie I'd ever seen.

Annnnnd: What's your favorite dessert?

Answer: Didn't I just answer that? heh heh. Oh, you mean actual food. Uhhhh....I'm pretty partial to a box of chocolate-coated caramels, actually. The chewy kind, not the gooey kind. I also like cookies that are almost burned. And the corners of just about any sort of dessert that occupies a 13x9 pan. And anything that includes "lemon" or "key lime" in the description.

I'm horribly picky, as you can see.

And finally, for the last question o' the day: If you had never had kids and were unable to adopt (for whatever reason), what would be your dream job?

Answer: I think the dreamiest possible job would be writing for travel books like Lonely Planet, as long as I got all the beach gigs.

To be continued...

*did you notice? I resisted! I resisted linking to my post about slugs and biceps! Aren't you proud of me?

Open Season

This was my brain, a few weeks ago:


See how pink and shiny it was? You can almost smell the synapses firing merrily away.

But this is my brain now:

No synapses. Only a gooey lovey dovey swirling pink cloud of baby euphoria.

Crack cocaine's got nothing on Baby Fumes. They'll fry your whites and your yolks faster than you can say but I have to....wait...what was I going to do?

Admitting that you are powerless over your addiction is step one.

Hello. My name is Jenni, I am a hard-core baby-snuffler. In light of this, I am going to rely on  you, my friends, to help me out in my time of need. And I need subject matter.

I also need to say that what I am about to do is highly uncharacteristic of me in the Real World in which I (usually) live. Usually I am reluctant to even answer the question "So how many do you have?" at the grocery store, simply because I Do Not Want To Deal With The Shrieks. I do not want to then dodge (while my ice cream melts) a zillion and one rapid-fire inquiries regarding How Do I Do It.

But for you, my loverly readers, I am putting myself squarely in the cross-hairs. And because I know my ice cream is safely ensconced in my freezer, I will attempt to answer whatever questions you have.

This is your big chance! If you have asked me any questions in my comments before this time and I have not responded, please ask again! If you have been kept awake at night wondering about some aspect of my life, now is the time to unload your burden! If you simply want to know what size underwear I wear, by all means, throw that sucker in the mix!

But I reserve the right to say none of your freakin' bizness to any of them.

Fire away!