Quote of the Day: Anne Voskamp

When Mikey was gone a couple weeks ago and I was caring for our children without him for a week and a half I think we did amazing well.  And during prayer one day I feel like God told me He was proud of me too. How amazing it was to sense that... thank you God!

But single parenting is hard hard stuff. But we had fun. And God gave me joy. And love. And energy. And patience, most of the time. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t have my moments. Moments when I may have gotten angry, frustrated and impatient. I may even have yelled. Okay, I did yell. More than once. And then later I’d ask my sweet offspring to forgive me for Mommy’s bad behavior and ask God to help me.

A friend shared is quote from Anne Voskamp with me awhile ago. And it was oh-so-appropriate…

Really?  I lay my head on the table.  Do I really smother my own joy because I believe anger achieves more than love?  That Satan's way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus' way?  Why else get angry?  Isn't it because I believe complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want?  When I choose - and it is a choice - to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness?  Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective - more expedient - than giving thanks? 

Oh man. So powerful. So true. And so relevant to lots of frustrations we can all experience in many areas of life.  I want to take the high road. I want to love. Anything other than that is Satan’s plan and why would I EVER want to do what he wants me to do?! Satan’s ways lead to destruction. Jesus, I want your way!

(Quote from One Thousand Gifts, p 126, by Ann Voskamp. Haven’t gotten my hand on this book yet, but want to!)

Sweet N and Two Pillows

In the past you’ve seen her sleeping with a row of babies and also sleeping in a pile of babies. But last night I went to check on my daughter and I found something new.

First, here are two necessary bits of information:

1. Sweet N has a special pillow case (that fits airline size pillows) that she always has on one pillow or another wherever we go.

2. Grammi made her a mini pillow to match her own pillow so her dollies could have a pillow too.

3. N often won’t let us lay her down at night because she won’t lay down herself until her dollies are taken care of.

So…

…last night I found one dolly all tucked in on top of the big pillow,

and sweet N asleep with her head on the teeny little dolly pillow.

Melt. My. Heart.

Living the Crazy Life

It’s Saturday night. And we are living the crazy life. Please let me show you our big plans.

Uh huh. BIG plans, eh?!

Dinner time. We were tuckered out from a regular-do-nothing-in-particular-kinda-day. We meaning Mike and I. The kids were however, NOT tuckered out. So we tried to pass a hour or two by parking them in front of Shrek II with dinner on their laps.

There ya have it. Saturday evening. One jetlagging snoozer and two parent-encouraged couch potato kiddos. (Possibly earning me another Mother of the Year award?) What did I do? I took some photos (duh), read The Better World Shopping Guide, ate a salad  (I’m already pre-grieving the loss of uber-cheap giant sized boxes of pre-washed organic baby spinach that we won’t have in Africa) and texted some peeps.  That about wraps it up.

We’re so crazy.

And really cute.

Really really cute.

What Could Have Been

I gathered my boy H to my side in December just after our surprise arrival back in the U.S. “I have a secret to tell you, okay?”

“Okay Mommy!” he said as he drew closer so I could whisper in his ear.

I held his sweet head in my hands and softly spoke “Mommy has a baby in her belly!”

“Yay yay yay!” He exclaimed! He jumped back excitedly and shrieked… “After you have this one, can you have this [holding up three or four more fingers] many more?”

I laughed. “I don’t know about more babies H, let’s just take it one baby at a time.”

“Okay!” he answered, excitedly skipping off down the stairs with a grin on his face. Later he got to be the one to share the little secret with his Uncle and Aunt.

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That was the day after our surprise arrival to the U.S. and the day we showed up at the grandparent’s homes and workplaces to surprise them one by one. You probably didn’t notice the little gift bag that was included in all the photos. The big kids had on Santa hats and the new baby’s Santa hat was in the bag with a note that said “Baby #3, in time for Christmas next year!”

Once the grandparents got over the shock of seeing us, they opened the bag and had another wonderful surprise to add to the celebration. Another grandbaby! It was a happy day.

Life went on and I was so thrilled that I was finally carrying around a little one again. I was mentally planning the rest of the pregnancy and excitedly dreaming of the the day when we would welcome our little summer baby. We were so happy.

But just as I was expecting the morning sickness to begin, bleeding began instead. The doctor advised us to go the hospital and we did. There was nothing that could be done. We were loosing the baby.

We were devastated.

I had plans to make a tiny little onesie with “Made in India” written on the front. I was all ready to watch my belly grow and to give H what he’s been asking for. I wanted to make Sweet N a mini-Mommy, armed with pacis to jam in lil’ summer baby’s mouth and stuffed animals to hand over for comfort when the little newborn cries started.

The holidays came and went and there wasn’t any sickness as I had expected. There was no more baby. Instead there were nights of crying into my husband’s arms because I thought I was supposed to have been puking by Christmas, but I didn’t feel sick. I was supposed to have a wee one growing inside, but my body wasn’t nurturing that special little life any longer.

If you ask my boy, he’ll tell you that Mommy’s next baby died. His precious big blue eyes welled up with tears when I told him. I explained that the baby is in heaven with Jesus and he understood me, but he looked at me with pleading eyes… “No Mama, I wanted that baby”.

We did too sweetheart, we did too.

I have written letters to each of my children as I learned of my pregnancies. I want them to grow up knowing of the joy and expectation we felt as they began to grow in my womb. Those letters have become the beginning pages of their baby books. Here I’ll post the letter that I wrote to my third baby. I do not want to forget that even though our baby lived a very short time, that his/her little life was cherished.

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Dear Sweet Little One,

We had a premonition that you were with us as we made the journey from our three months in Jordan back home to surprise our families for Christmas. You weren’t making your Mama puke yet so traveling with you was a breeze!

When we surprised our families with our arrival, we surprised them with you too! Your big brother and sister had on Santa hats and we put yours in a gift bag for your grandparents to open: “Baby #3, in time for Christmas next year!", I wrote on the note. Everyone loved it.

We’ve been hoping and praying for you for awhile so we’re thrilled that we’ll soon have you in our arms – to love you and hold you. Oh how you’ll add joy to our lives!

You’ve got a pretty special family to join. Your Daddy is incredible and your brother and sister are so so special! You’re going to be very well loved! H is SO excited that you’re on the way and even though N doesn’t quite understand yet, I am certain she’ll be your little Mama and love taking care of you.

I can’t wait to feel you grow inside me. You are loved so much already.

(A bouquet from my parents we received a couple weeks later… two yellow roses for our children we have in our lives and our arms and a white rose for the child we’ll meet in heaven.)

The Best Thing

Yesterday afternoon I drove this lil’ guy

and this lil’ girl

up this way…

To here! You can hardly see the white airport terminal because the sky was so gray itself. In fact, my boy said “Mom, I feel like we’re in Ohio.”

Which was true! We don’t get very many gray days here in Colorado. But I was shocked that he connected gray skies with Ohio. (To all my Ohio readers… sorry about that!  Move out west baby! The sun is a-shining!)

Aaaanyway…

The kiddos stood in the entry-hall for the longest time with their eyes peeled for their Daddy.

(When did he turn into a little man, might I ask?!)

The standing and watching didn’t last super long.

It quickly turned into wrestling and play pushing

and tickling.

And goofy faces.

And taking a rest on Mama’s leg.

And taking pictures.

And taking another rest on Mama’s legs.

More pictures.

More playing.

I realize most people would not let their children roll all over the floors at an airport. But seriously people. The floors in this airport were so stinking clean. I’ve seen me a lot of airport floors in a lot of places and these were so superior to MOST every other airport floor I have ever seen. I probably would have let them eat dinner off of it, it was so darn clean.

And then.

And then the best thing happened.

We spotted him!

Daaaadddddddyyyyyyy!

He’s home! And it’s so great. So so so great.

And that might just be the understatement of the year.

Headed Home

Mike’s third leg of his trip overseas was fruitful! He is carrying four passports with four visas to return to our home country in Africa! Hooray! It’s been a long time coming and we are thrilled to be making plans to return there in a bit over a month’s time. (It also makes taking care of his children for 17 days in his absence feel a bit more worthwhile, terrible as that sounds! Not that I've been counting though, remember...)

In the past, preparing to head back after such a wonderful time in the U.S. would be more challenging. More emotional. More bittersweet.

And it still is those things but to a lesser degree. Coming and going, while we never planned for it to happen so often, has become part of life. I guess I’m just becoming more accustomed to our lifestyle? Or maybe ‘settling’ my family in 16 or more places in 10 months is enough to make me long for my own lumpy cotton mattress in my own hot, dusty city? I don’t care if it’s sweaty or dusty… it’s MINE! (Oh wait. I suppose sometimes I do actually care that life over there is super sweaty and dusty. I care a lot. But at least we sweat and eat dust in one place instead of 16!) And of course it’s never never EVER fun to say goodbye to dear friends and family. Taking the grandbabies from their grandparents is probably one of the very hardest things about the whole deal. Maybe THEE hardest, let’s be honest. But I’m not gonna think about that yet…don’t say goodbye yet! We’re not boarding the plane for several weeks, okay? Okay!

As I look back on this season of sojourning that is drawing to a close, I remain so thankful for His grace that has covered us and even overflowed (at some points, but certainly not ALL… Lord knows NOT ALL! Ha!) I am thankful, too, that there is an end in sight to the wandering, at least for now.

Party in the Crib

This is my daughter sleeping the other night.

Can you even spot the real girlie in the middle of all the other babies?

Sweet N loves her babies. And her water cups. And her blankets. And her baby’s blankets. And her pillow. And her baby’s pillow. (The exact count that night was 7 dollies, 1 monkey, 2 pillows, 5 blankets, one corker, 2 water cups, one precious baby girl).

Anyway, I haven’t had the energy to limit her when she keeps adding them to the bed. “Whatever” I think. “As long as she falls asleep… I don’t care!” I’m choosing my battles, especially with Mikey gone for so long!

But I’d hate for her to roll over on top of baby #4, feel something uncomfortable under her back, wake up and cry! Then I would have to stumble in there and take care of the problem and waking up in the middle of the night really isn’t my thing.

So after she is good and zonked I re-locate the party to one consolidated corner of the bed. I don’t think anyone minded.