Big # 5...

5 years ago on Monday July 11, I became a mother. Amos Matthew came into the world, and MY world was never the same. It was a hard and long labor and delivery and once he finally arrived, I looked at him strangely...he was almost like an alien. I think about it this way...imagine yourself getting married. Even though you can't picture what the wedding day will bring, you can imagine and picture the characters. You can see your future spouse in your mind's eye when you think of the day. When you give birth, you can imagine what it will be like, but you cannot imagine what that child will look like. You are never ready until it's right there before your eyes. I was trying to place him in my mind, and it was nothing like I had imagined. But quickly, my heart melted and I fell in love. He was perfect. A pretty baby. He was a little high maintenance. :) Who knows if it was because I didn't know what the heck I was doing, but he seemed hard to please for the first 12 weeks.
He asked me on the morning of his birthday, "mom, now that I am 5, can I be big?" Meaning, can I do the things I wasn't able to do when I was 4. He seemed bothered that he wasn't visibly taller. He was quite worked up on the way to his party when he found out he couldn't shoot webs like Spiderman. (I tried, not so successfully, to stifle my laughter)
He was the guinea pig child. He still is. As he grows, we are trying to navigate this parental world and figure out what we feel is right for him. Dan and I take our experiences and memories, our morals and values and tweak it all for him. Who knows if we are right, thank the Lord for his grace! And we love him the best that we know how. Some days, it is not so good. Some days I feel okay, or even great about how is growing. Physically, we are so thankful for his health and adorableness :) Intellectually, we are amazed at how his brain is growing and learning everyday. Emotionally, I am impressed with his learning some empathy as he goes through life with his little sisters and peers. He is still fairly dramatic, thanks to his first-born place in the family, and perhaps some personality mixed in there. Some days I joke that I have 2 girls and a first-born! Spiritually, we are progressing. We are learning about God and Jesus and what that whole thing means to him. Easter this year was full of discussions and questions about what Jesus did on the cross.
What a wonderful responsibility parenthood is. Some days I really wonder if I am up for the challenge. I guess I have to trust that the Lord is present through it all and covers up my mistakes with his grace.
Happy Birthday Amos!

Lonliness. Self-inflicted or created, or thrown upon you?

Community. The chance to truly jump into the mess of life. The chance to feel truly loved and accepted.

Am I willing to take the chance?

Alone. No mess. Control, order, predictability. No unmet expectations.

Community. The chance to show someone how valuable they are. How treasured they are. How important their life is in the big picture.

Hebrews 10:25...Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Gone - in the blink of an eye. Do I realize what I'm taking for granted? Do I know the treasure that I hold before me? Do I properly respect it? Do I show it the love that it's due? Do I fully realize the fragility? Do I know how much I will really miss it when it's gone?
I do find myself wishing away certain days. Some minutes I wish would pass quicker. Move on to an easier minute. To one without this conflict. But without the conflict, without the hardship....where does that leave me? Do I become the person I want to be? The lazy me wants to just fast-forward. But another side of me waits. It's a smaller part at the present time. I'm hoping it grows, matures and takes over the lazy part...

Happy 3rd birthday to my darling daughter Emelia! Hard to believe how time flies. Just thinking back to when she came. March was a good month for a baby. Just a bit before things warm up. Nice to be pregnant in winter and then soon you can be out with baby and not cooped up inside. She came easily, my most easy birth of all three. Starting contracting aroun 10am and she came by 8pm. Didn't really even start to hurt until about 6pm. She was round and roly. She was super alert and not much has changed :) She stayed up ALL night to nurse. She was my easiest baby as well. She seemed happy and content most of the time. Didn't like the car much, but none of my kids did. I would bring her outside in her carseat to sit in the backyard with Amos and I. Give her a toy and she would be happy. Maybe this contentment is why it took her 7 months to sit up, 9ish months to crawl and about 14 months before she walked. She was unsteady on her feet for a long while, and still is not too graceful :)
She makes me smile :) She is kind-hearted and doesn't like conflict. She is a peacemaker and loves to share. I'm in love with her sweet spirit and in no hurry for her to grow up. I want her to be naive and innocent for a little while longer before she finds out what Barbies are and what it means to 'act' grown up.
I think often about how to teach my girls what is important about being a woman. What things matter and what things don't. Don't want to sound cliche...but to know that it's what on the inside...
In short, I want them to have the self-esteem that I don't have. I want them to know that they are unconditionally loved. That they are perfect just the way they are. That they should first love others which will cause them to love themselves as well. I want them to walk into a room full of people and believe that everyone does or could like them instead of assume that everyone doesn't. I want them to have confidence and speak their minds. I want them to be humble and intuitive.
Day by day Father God...give me grace and wisdom.

There will always be a mess. No matter how clean the house gets, there will always be something else to do. I recently had an epiphany. In my head I've always thought that if I just worked hard enough, the house and my life would come into order and then everything would be okay. Life would somehow be suspended in this clean and tidy state. But that's just not true! No brainer to some, I know.
When I first got married is when my home should've been the cleanest right? It was probably the worst then, and I didn't even have the excuse I have now. Now, no matter how much I try, the mess follows me about the house in the forms of sticky fingers, toys strewn around the toy box. Creativity abounds in pieces of paper cut and dropped on the floor. I am always late. I try so hard and something beyond my control always seems to prevent me from going out the door at the time I wish I could. From the moment I wake up some days, I feel like I am pedaling backwards, catching every red light.
I'm slowly starting to realize that there is probably a purpose in this. What do they say...when you are squeezed, what's inside of you comes out? Some, or most days at this point, I don't so much like what comes out of me. I need work. No matter what I fix, there will always be something else to work on. God's grace abounds. There are some days now, where I get to the end and think that it wasn't so bad. Sometimes I don't regret anything that happened or anything I said or did with the children. Life is a marathon, not a race. I'm not so patient, but I'm working on that too.