How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have attempted to plant a vegetable garden. Last year I killed no less than 5 houseplants, so I don't have high hopes. But I just can't get this romantic scenario out of my head where I traipse out to the garden each afternoon to pick what we need for dinner, stopping a minute to milk the cow and grab a few eggs from the chicken coop. Ok we don't have a cow or chickens, but there's something so lovely about 'living off the land' right? Plus I am going broke trying to buy organic food, so I figure growing my own might be cheaper.

Farming fantasies aside, I am learning a lot in my garden. First of all, I am acquiring a healthy hatred/respect for weeds. It is crazy to me that some plants have to be tediously tended and might die from the slightest imbalance of pH in the soil, while a weed will thrive and spawn thousands of offspring even if (or perhaps especially if) you ignore it.

As I spent time last weekend clearing some space for my tomatoes, I noticed something about weeds: the bigger roots are easier to pull out than the small ones. I mulled this over as I squatted in the dirt. I pictured God as a gardener in my life, tending to the good things He is growing in me, pruning and weeding. I thought about times in my life when God has pulled up some monstrous roots - big, ugly, obvious sins that were crowding out the faith, hope and love He had planted. Then I thought about all the little pesky roots... the ones that aren't as easy to pull because they aren't as obvious, but they still cause harm in the garden. A line from a Derek Webb song came to mind, "I repent...for the way I believe that I'm living right, by trading sins for others that are easier to hide."

God is working on my heart, just as I am working in my garden. He is pruning and weeding and preparing to plant, tend, and harvest. But He is a gentle gardener who chooses to only work on us when we give Him permission. I am free to live in the midst of weeds and thorns if I wish. But today I will try to live in submission, asking him in, allowing him to do as he pleases with me, whether it be painfully pulling up roots or joyfully harvesting a good crop.

Praying Small

I spent a few hours last Tuesday by my sister's hospital bed. When the nurse granted Courtney a two-hour "get out of jail" pass, I helped her get out of one hospital and into another so she could spend some time by her son's bedside in the NICU.

The obvious question that rises out of my family's current circumstances is Why? Why does the 24 year-old mother of a NICU baby get gall stones and need to be hospitalized herself? Why does a young couple dealing with the hardest imaginable situation have to also struggle through living apart for months? Why does financial hardship arise the same week as a brutal infection in their tough but fragile infant?

To be honest, there's no point in asking those questions. As trite as it may sound, it is not for us to know. And if somehow God decided to break character and actually tell us, would we want to know? Now there's a question.

So I don't know why these things have happened, are happening. But one blessing of being so close to this situation is that I am drawn in, not only to the pain, but also to the joy of the daily miracles God is doing. A successful post-surgery extubation. A long cuddle for mum and baby. A quiet day together as a family. Simple and tiny things, but important and vital things that make it possible for Courtney and Jesse to face each day. Subtle yet clear signs that God is present. God is faithful. God is good.

When I look at the horrific tragedies that are playing out around the world, in places like Burma, Sudan, Uganda, I am led to pray for these small miracles. Of course I pray for the big miracles too: complete healing for Asher, restoration and recovery in Burma, peace in Sudan and Uganda. But I am learning the value of the smallest miracles in the midst of great suffering. God feed the hungry, even if it is one crumb at a time. Father bring peace to the war zone, even if it is only one less bullet today. Jesus show us you are with us, even in the tiniest of ways. Amen.

Along for the Ride

I took these pictures the other day when we were out for a cruise around the neighborhood. Dexter stayed in the stroller the whole time, but Nate and I switched off: half the time he rode his trike and I pushed the stroller, the other half I carried his trike and he pushed the stroller. Thankfully not many cars drove by, because Nate is not very good at steering yet!

The look on Dexter's face in the close up picture makes me laugh and it makes me think. Laugh, because he looks almost teenager-ish, like he should be texting his friends that he is 'so over it' or something. (Truthfully the kid was just tired and in what I like to call a 'stroller trance.') But just seeing his facial expression makes me think about what a different life he has compared to Nate's at that age.

You would think that the same two parents would be able to raise each of their children in basically the same ways, but it doesn't happen. Not only do you change as a parent with each successive kid, you change your family dynamic when you bring another unique individual into the mix. When Nate was a 7 month-old only child, he didn't take snail-paced walks around the neighborhood just to get out of the house during the witchy hours of the afternoon. True, I was working a bit and I spent time with friends regularly, etc. but the main focus of my attention was Nate. And though I love my sweet, chubby second-born son to pieces, and I give him all the attention I can, much of his life necessarily revolves around big brother.

How will this shape who Dexter becomes? Or even who Nate becomes? I know as an eldest child I probably thought the world revolved around me more so than my younger sibs, who sat through countless swim meets and... well, more swim meets.

It will probably be decades before I can actually see how these differences play out in each child's personality and growth. Just one more thing to talk with Jon about when we're sitting on the porch with our prune juice I guess!

No Means Yes

You know how there are certain lessons that you feel like you've had to learn over and over and over? Each time you learn it, you think "Ok, finally it has sunk in this time and I will never get myself into that situation again." I'm sure it's different for everyone, but the lesson I will probably need a lifetime to learn is this: One cannot, need not, and should not say YES to everything.

I think this is especially hard for me because for many years growing up I chose to say no to everything except swimming. No other sports, no student groups, no extracurriculars, barely even a non-swimming friend. I "retired" from the sport at age 20 and finally had the option of saying yes to other things. As you can imagine, I took it to the extreme. By my senior year of college I was in so many associations, student groups, volunteer corps, you name it, I literally didn't have 15 minutes of unscheduled time in my week. It was silly. Since then I have gone in cycles, sometimes beyond over-committed and other times strangely unscheduled. Becoming a mom added a new element, since now my yeses and nos have a profound impact, not only on my life, but on my children's lives.

The reason I am devoting a blog to this topic is that I recently found myself giving advice on the subject to another mom (who happens to be my mom). We were talking about how hard it is to say no to something, or even give something up, when you love it and find fulfillment in it. But the reality is that, much like a buffet diner, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. Everything looks so good! Pizza! Soup! Salad! Muffins! Pasta! Frozen yogurt! Now I know if I put all that on my tray at Souplantation there's no way I will be able to eat it all. And when it comes to eating dinner, this is not a big problem - just eat what you can and leave the rest. But when it comes to living out the Lord's plan for our lives, we need to hear His still small voice saying no... or not right now... or not anymore. There are things that I am good at, that I love to do, that God has given me the gifts to do, that I am not doing right now. Who knows what blessings I would miss if I had said yes to those things, when God asked me to say no? I'm sure I'll have to learn this at least three dozen more times this side of heaven, but right now I am enjoying the yeses that have come from saying no.

Urine Ballast Country

So I promised some "sunnier" thoughts after my last post, and you would have gotten those sunny thoughts had I posted on Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday. But today is Saturday and the theme of the day has been urine. Sunny in color, I guess, but otherwise not-so-sunny.

This morning began when Dexter woke up at 6:15 AM , which I can't complain too much about, since it was the first we'd heard out of him since 7 PM. By 6:30 all four of us were in the bed: a baby babbling, a toddler rough-housing, and two adults trying to sleep on 1/3 of a queen-sized bed.

The piddle-fest was kicked off by Nate, who managed to hold his pee all night, only to unleash it all over our master bathroom. To be fair, he did try to hit the toilet. Lots of power, no control. Dexter got in on the act a few minutes later when he peed all over our sheets and my pajamas. This was mostly my fault, since I'm the one who decided his undercarriage needed to breathe after 12 hours in the same diaper. Two hours and two glasses of milk later, Nate unleashed the fury in our hall bathroom - it felt like our entire morning was spent mopping up pee. And now, as I am writing this, Dexter has wet through the cloth diaper draped through his legs and pee is soaking into my pants. I am not making this up. Ok ok, it is my fault again for not putting a real diaper on the kid, but his poor little bum is raw and I thought to myself, what are the chances he'll do it AGAIN? Maybe I'll learn someday. For now, I'll go change my pants.

If Mama Aint Happy...

...aint nobody happy.

I've always interpreted this saying to be prescriptive in a way; that is, one should try to keep Mama happy so that everyone else will in turn be happy. But this week the saying has taken a decidedly descriptive nature.

I'm not sure what caused my current case of the "blahs." Maybe one glorious day of summer weather followed by three days of winter? Whatever the cause, I have been grumpy and it is contagious. My two-year-old seems particularly susceptible to Mommy-induced grumpiness, but even the baby has been fussy and off-kilter the past couple of days. I can't quite put my finger on why, and I am too muddled in the head to think much about it.

I wish the saying went more like this: "If Mama aint happy, BE HAPPY." Maybe then I could feed off the happiness around me, rather than wallow in the downward spiral... grumpy, made grumpier by the grumpiness of others, guilty because their grumpiness was sparked by mine, frustrated that their grumpiness made me grumpier even though it was my fault for being grumpy in the first place. Ugh.

Sunnier thoughts to follow (I hope).

Me Without You

When I created this blog a few days ago, I made an "About Me" section that appears at the bottom of the page. I wanted my potential (if improbable) readers to know the basics - my husband and kids' names and relevant dates. The next day when I pulled up my blog page, the irony struck me: the section that is labeled "About Me" is exclusively made up of information about other people.

At first I was kind of embarrassed by this. Shouldn't I have been able to come up with some interesting and important information about myself, besides the names of my husband & kids? But as I thought about it more, I decided that the section will stay just as it is. Is there something wrong with my husband and kids being the most pertinent pieces of information about me? Not at all. In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way. Sure there are other things I could tell people about myself, but what does the majority of my life revolve around? Loving these three people. Far from being embarrassed about that, I am proud of it.