Taking My Me-Time

I had a post a while back where I wrote about how calm the house was and how great it felt in that moment. That's not this post.

This morning has been hectic. The energy has been high for everyone but me. I've decided that I just need to take 5 minutes (or 15) to myself and the ways that I achieve that goal have become less and less important as the morning has drug on. Speaking of drugs... no, just kidding, I didn't resort to drugging my children. This time. But I have taken our hyper puppy out to "potty" and put him in his kennel for a half an hour to "flippin' relax a bit!" to quote myself as I was locking the door behind him. I put PBS kids cartoons on the television in our bedroom and stuck my kids on the floor in there with a snack and told them not to move until Word World was over. And yes, we do have a tv in our bedroom even after seeing the Oprah show on how your sex life can suffer because of it. Right, like having a tv in the bedroom's got anything on the fact that we've got three kids.

So, here I sit. Taking my 15 minutes of "me time" to write about how hard it was to get the time in the first place. Welp, there it was. Snacks must be gone and Word World must be over. Time-in.

A Heart's Desire

I believe God gave every person he created special and unique desires. The desires of our heart are ours and ours alone. They are between us and God. No one can remove them, change them, or lessen the pain for us when we don't get them. No one except, of course, our maker who gave them to us in the first place.

I have always had a deep desire to adopt. For as long as I can remember it's been on my heart; like my heart was branded with this desire before I was even born. Over the years as I have grown up, married and started my family one might think (especially if you regularly read my blog) that there's no way I could desire for my house to be more full/explosive/busy/dirty than it already is, but I really feel that desires like the one I have don't simply fade away in the night... even if they sound crazy when they are whispered out loud.

When Carter was two and a half years old Jeff and I prayed (for 6 months) before deciding that it was time to start taking adoption/fostering classes to begin the adoption process. We took these classes, workshops, and did all the paperwork over the course of 4 months. When we were finally finished we had a pile of paperwork to fill out and send in and we were officially on our way (we were officially "starting")... Two weeks later we randomly (and completely unexpectedly) found out we were pregnant (with Jack). To say I was confused would be a huge understatement. Hadn't we prayed about it? Hadn't God placed this wonderful desire on my heart on purpose? Weren't we too close to seeing this dream to fruition?

We never sent the paperwork in. It was too overwhelming. I was too confused. Jeff wasn't. He saw this as God simply telling us that the timing wasn't right. Although I cried (a lot), I was torn. I didn't not want this baby that we were now expecting, but at the same time I wanted to adopt so very badly.

It's been two and half years since Jack was born. Obviously I wouldn't trade him for the world. Our life is crazy. Most days I feel like my head is going to explode, and yet it remains, tucked away but still there. Like a tattoo on my heart that has faded a bit over the years, but there nonetheless. The desire.

I don't know what the future holds. It's not my job to know, and I'm thankful for that. My heartstrings still feel tugged on every time I hear an adoption story (and especially when I think about my own), but right now I'm trusting God. Right now I'm loving on the three beautiful and amazing home-made children that I have the priveledge of parenting. I will simply continue to trust. I will trust in the God who formed my heart the way he did on purpose. The God who knows me more intimately that I even know myself because he is the God who created me. I will trust, and I will wait.

My Mondays

Mondays are generally cleaning days in our house. The only reason for this is because I'm a firm believer that weekends are for enjoying and I do not (repeat, DO NOT) enjoy cleaning. Mondays are the day that I recover from the weekend and try as hard as I can to cover up the fact that over the previous two days we had a great time. There are a few things in the "cleaning genre" (the definition of "genre" being: a kind of artistic work; so technically, I can pair it with cleaning) that I am particularly fond of.

The first is the fact that my husband stands over 6' 2'' tall. You might be wondering what this has to do with cleaning. Well, since he is so tall, his eyes are farther from the floor than mine are (by over a foot) so I assume he can't see what's on the floor as well as I can, thus making it possible for me to stretch the times between mopping farther apart. The second thing (in the cleaning genre) that I am fond of is the fact that my husband doesn't judge me when I look at the huge pile of laundry then walk away from it, heading straight to the store to buy him a pair of jeans instead of seperating out the laundry into darks/whites/towels/denim and being organized enough to know that I can have the denim section done by morning, like I probably should. Seriously though, isn't that why there's a "cold" option? For those of us who choose to just toss everything in together and call it good?

Because Mondays are cleaning days, they generally are not my favorite day. However, it is only because Mondays are cleaning days that I get to enjoy my clean, picked up, sparkling house on Monday evenings. With my husband. In his new jeans.

Jack's Coffee

One of my mad skills is looking back and (usually) being able to see where I went wrong in any given situation that turned sour on me. As this beautiful morning is unfolding, my two year old is throwing a temper tantrum like I haven't seen come from him, ever. He's literally throwing himself on the floor, screaming, and running off to stumble onto his bed in such a dramatic way that I feel like I should give him an award for it when he's done. Why, you ask, is he acting in such a two-year-old manner on a sunny Friday morning? Well, it is because he, of course, wants. . . coffee. As I scan my memory to past events that would have led up to the dramatic morning my little Jack is having, I fall upon last night and the happenings at our home.

We hosted a birthday party for our niece, Micah, and toward the end of the evening Jack was getting tired. I joked that he needed some coffee. Jack jumped on the idea and kept exclaiming, "Coffee! Coffee!" So, I did what I can only assume every parent would do, and I took his sippy cup to the coffee pot and pretended to put coffee in it. I wish it ended there. It should have. But, because I am who I am, and I usually don't know when to stop, I kept going. I poured a little creamer (the taste-good vanilla kind) into his milk and shook it up for him. I handed it back to him and said, "Here you go, babe. Coffee." Like I said before, I have mad skills when it comes to seeing where I went wrong. That was it; that is where I went wrong. That is the reason my son is at my feet as I write this, sobbing, sippy cup in hand, crocodile tears streaming down his face...vanilla-creamer-milk. Or, in Jack's words, "Coffee!"

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I remember being a kid and going outside with my Dad. Watching in awe as he would prune fruit trees, chop wood, water the garden, feed all the animals, move irrigation pipes, and a long list of other chores that are required of living on 40+ acres. Although I didn't realize it then, I now look back and know that I was blessed to live on a corner of heaven right here on earth. I loved watching my Dad work (and still do, actually). He seemed to do every task with amazing ease even though beads of sweat were running down his face. I can still remember the sound (and smell) of the chainsaw and what the flecks of wood looked like as they were rushing out from between the teeth into the air, at last landing on the ground all around him. I remember sitting on the top rail of a fence, swinging my feet back and forth asking a million questions met with thought out answers while he was repairing a broken gate. I remember him teaching me how to saddle my horse and then how to walk her up to a stump to hop on bareback for a quick ride. I remember being read to at night, all four of us kids sitting around the smallest room of the house by the wood stove, listening to Dad's voice read Bible stories out of a big worn out red book that had frayed edges and a soft cover.

I love that because of my Dad's love for the Native American culture, Carter is so intent on learning all there is to know about it and can't wait to sleep in Grandpa's teepee this summer. I love that the kids look forward to canoe trips with my Dad and doing the little things like looking for snakes under the tarps in the garden and getting to hold all the baby pigeons in the bird barn. I love that they like to go into the woods and "help" chop wood with Grandpa and I love that he always lets them carry the kindling and set it up to be lit in the wood stove. It's all of these little things that make this man so special. I'm honored to call him Dad and so very thankful that my children have the priveledge of calling him Grandpa.

Happy Birthday, Dad. You are loved more than words can say.

Lego Arms and Bath Boats

I am amazed at how losing the arm of a microscopic lego man can be so detrimental to a five year old boy. I am equally amazed at how long it takes him to get over this loss. His little world is disintegrating before him faster and faster the longer it takes him to find the missing appendage. I swear we've looked in every possible nook and cranny of our not-so-huge house and the arm has yet to raise a hand to it's wherabouts (hehe). My question is, how long is the appropriate length of time to look for something like a lego arm before you have the go-ahead (sans guilt, if it's possible) to stop looking and call it a loss?

The other day Carter lost his new boat he got for in the bathtub. I spent exactly 38 minutes looking for that boat before I found it. That's a long time when you've got 2 other kids, a dog, dinner and dishes to take care of. But I spent the time, I found it, and I was a hero. For about 5 minutes. Then he moved on to another toy. An old toy, nonetheless. I spent the next 38 minutes wondering if it had been worth it in the first place beings that the fun he had with it lasted a fraction of the time it took me to find it. Aaaaahhhhh, the joys of rhetorical questions. I doubt I will ever know the answer, as I have yet to recieve solid answers to most of my parenting questions thus leaving me in the dark (with a minimal amount of confidence) while making them. I am however, learning throughout the process and I have no doubt that I will be a parenting guru by the time my kids are grown and start having their own kids... and I'm sure my grown children will have grateful smiles on their faces as I (ever so humbly) dole out the parenting advice as they are enjoying the wonders of parenting as I did. Right?

A few things that make me happy

Alright. Since this week has been long and trying (for example: today I caught Jack trying to poke the puppy with a fork through the kennel door), I decided I needed a pick-me-up. So, here it is. A small list of things that make me happy. Just things that I need reminding of, because really it's the little things that it ends up all being about and I want it to be about the good little things, not the crazy "I swear if you do that one more time" little things.


~ the kids calling litter boxes "glitter boxes"

~fire burning in the fireplace

~going in to read the kids books before bed and coming out to realize that Jeff has done all the dishes from dinner and made the kids' lunches for the next day

~reading Romans

~the fact that I don't have to rewind dvds

~Jack folding his hands and bowing his head to pray, and then peeking to make sure Natalie and Carter are doing the same

~automatic garage doors

~Natalie being so excited to tryout for the talent show, even though the rules are... "no swear words, no lip syncing, and no Taylor Swift"

~Carter saluting me when I tell him (in a raised voice for the third time) to brush his teeth

~candles that smell like cinnamon

~how excited the kids get just to answer the phone

~going for a drive when it's cold out but the sun is shining right in the windows

~my husband *still* opening every door for me

~Fred Meyer playland

~walking in my bedroom after Jeff and the kids are gone in the morning to discover the bed already made

~my parents randomly stopping by "to see the kids" but knowing it's probably to make sure the kids are still alive

~my husband's huge smile when I drop by work just to say hello

~going for a run *outside*

~vacuum attachments that double as pretty much anything to two little boys

~vanilla flavored coffee made (automatically!) before I even wake up

~how driving down my parents driveway feels like "home" still. Every time.

~knowing without a doubt that I am saved by grace, through faith