Lifegiver stream of consciousness...

Young Thomas and His Mother by Mary Cassett

I'm doing a Bible study right now called Five Aspects of Woman by Barbara Mouser.  One of the aspects is Lifegiver and has much to do with motherhood.  It made me think of the little "rules" you develop over time as a mother.  As I started writing, I was surprised by some of what came to mind.  Some things are more obvious.  We will go to all sporting events, awards banquets, performances,..., because my parents went to all of my stuff, and it meant a lot to me.  Some of it is less obvious.  I am generous with band-aids (against my cheapskate grain) because I read something by Anne Lamott.  She decorated a shoebox with band-aids as a symbol of her childhood where her parents didn't have much money and were tight-fisted with them.  When my kids are in therapy someday, I don't want them decorating their shoeboxes with band-aids.  If I make a dessert for an event or a friend, I always make some for the boys because a friend told me about a childhood friend of hers who was hurt because his mom frequently made desserts for others and they could never have a piece.  Some of this has come from my parents, some from books (never turn down a freely offered gift from a child comes from Anne Shirley), some from the Bible, some from wise people.  The truly stunning nuggets of wisdom (like having an opinion about Star Wars vs. Power Rangers) come straight from me.

• Be generous with band-aids.
• Be gentle with rowdiness, emotional anger and accidents.
• Pounce like a she-cat on lying, disrespect and unkindness.
• Sympathy and a band-aid go a long way.
• Always stop what you're doing when someone wants a hug.
• In chaos, ask yourself, "What's the needful thing?"
• Send the boys out to the car so they don't become casualties of the running late rush.
• Read them good books.
• The joy of the Lord is your strength.
• Spend five minutes with a needy child first, then cook dinner.
• When you make a dessert for a friend or an event, set some aside for the boys.
• Take nightmares seriously.
• Don't try to talk them into cheering for the Aggies.
• Don't wrestle with them.  You're going to get hurt, and it'll piss you off.
• Wake up before them.  It's easier to be glad to see them when they're only interrupting kitchen chores.
• Stop a child, and offer him an out when you know he's about to lie.
• Tell them the things you love and respect about their father.
• A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
• When someone loses their temper, ask, "Is what you're doing right now helpful?"
• Exercise alleviates a lot of behavior problems.  An overloaded schedule exacerbates them.
• Love covers a multitude of sins.
• Remember boys are fragile, too.
• Ascribe optimistic motives and emotions to new baby siblings:  "Oh, look, he's crying because you're leaving."
• Foster their relationships with grandparents.
• Let your husband be that guy who decides they can have ice cream tonight.
• When asked who would win a fight between Star Wars and the Power Rangers, have an opinion.
• Be diligent in disciplining them.
• Have a nuclear option.
• When they whine, make it worse.
• Always give praise when they succeed in an area that's difficult for them.
• Never lie to them.
• Make sure they read the book before they watch the movie.
• Ask for the best nurse when someone has to get bloodwork.
• Be easy to impress.
• Don't force generosity.  Nudge and praise it.
• Ask, "Who are you thinking of right now?" when someone is being exceptionally selfish or exceptionally selfless.
• Always stop at lemonade stands.
• Always accept freely offered gifts.
• Praise them in front of their father.
• When the baby lays his head on your shoulder, hold him for awhile.
• Let them defend you from imaginary bad guys.  Look visibly relieved.
• Ask questions about Star Wars characters, lego creations and Power Ranger moves.
• Let them use the force to open grocery store doors.
• Be on their side when correcting them.  Don't condemn.
• Ask, "Why did God make you a big, strong boy?" when they hurt someone.  Help them answer, "Always to protect.  Never to hurt."
• When someone says, "He hurt me," ask, "What happened right before that?" before proceeding.
• Do not tolerate them ganging up on anyone, especially a brother.
• When they embarrass you in public, don't make it about you.
• When your husband says you're being harsh with the kids, listen.
• Running laps is sometimes a better solution than time out.
• Respect property rights in legos.
• Encourage lego generosity.
• Apologize when you should.
• Remember that no one else will mother them.
• Let young children help.
• An absent father cripples a child.  An absent mother unmakes him.
• Have some sort of discipline plan.  It gets ugly when you don't know how to respond.
• Remember Jacob was still a baby when Bryan was born.
• Remember that you expect a lot out of David.
• Listen to Bryan before he starts yelling.
• Hold Rand.
• Don't yell.
• You'll offer your children to the god you serve.
• Pray every morning.
• This is a good work.

Some of this is stuff I do.  Some of it is stuff I try to do.  Some of it is stuff I hope to do.  Peace, out.

Toilet tax and something serious...

I've been griping at the boys for the last year about the unflushed toilet situation around here. It's such an easy, low energy thing to flush a toilet, I've felt like surely I could appeal to their reason through the force of cold logic, okay, more like relentless nagging. I've been spectacularly unsuccessful until this week. On Monday I instituted the rule I've been threatening for several months - anytime I find an unflushed toilet, everyone loses a quarter from their allowance. They lost 75 cents Monday, another 25 cents on Tuesday, and nothing today. Unflushed toilets successfully shifted from my problem to theirs. All those episodes of Intervention have paid off.

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About once a week I hear " Mommy, come quick, it's something SERIOUS." I know what's awaiting me will be

1. Life threatening for one of the brothers h

2. Hugely annoying to me (mayhem and destruction) OR

3. Highly entertaining

Well, there were no screams with the urgent summons today, so I knew I was facing situation 2 or 3 and finished up the dishes before investigating. I found this.

I have no idea how or why, but he managed to buckle his upper body into the car seat and couldn't move. It's a testament to his sunny nature that he laughed and said yes when I asked if I could grab the camera and take a picture before freeing him. I think life is going to be easy on him in a way that it will not be on a couple of his brothers.  Although if he does this kind of stupid stuff without peer pressure, he'll have problems of his own.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I surrender a lot, but slowly and under duress...

When I started this motherhood gig, I was thrilled to begin this fulfilling, rewarding part of life.  There was this underlying assumption that it would be an amazing addition, like a favorite sweater you wear most of the day but can set aside at will when it gets uncomfortable. I didn't understand that it would change my life.  That it would be less in my control than I thought - more like skin than a sweater.

My first whispered hint that motherhood might be more than a life accessory came just a few weeks into my first pregnancy.  As I watched my sister-in-law with her newborn, I noticed that it was more time-consuming and invasive than I had imagined.  I couldn't have put it in so many words at the time.  It was more of a vague sense of uneasiness.

Because we lost that first sweet baby and the next, bringing home David was more of a stress-reliever than a reality check in terms of the demands of motherhood.  It wasn't until we brought Jacob home* that the realities of motherhood began to hit for me.  It felt like I was always on.  Someone needed me all the time.  I couldn't go to the doctor, get my haircut, work, ... without making arrangements that seemed more complex than arranging a U.N. summit.  It was hard to not have the freedom to just decide to do something and do it.  It made me feel like a sub-person.  Jacob was around 6 months old when I was struck in that clear and foreign way that I recognize as the leading of God - I was living for the times that they slept.  During my time with them, I was just running out the clock. Not that I never enjoyed them but that my posture was one of getting done.  Away from them, I could really be me and do important and enjoyable things.  That first surrender was to just be where I am - to enjoy the time with them, be present and stop fighting it.  To really accept that my life is different now and my time is no longer my own.

About 5 minutes after my post-Jacob epiphany, I got pregnant with Bryan.  Rand came a few years later and this first year of his life has been fraught with surrender.  Some of it has been spiritual.  I have long had angst about whether I really live out my faith.  "Shouldn't I be doing more for God?  How can I possibly be honoring God living as a comfortable suburban stay-at-home mom?  Surely I have to run some sort of ministry to be pleasing to God."  This is followed quickly by, "Holy crap.  How in the world am I going to do that.  I can't do the things I'm already obligated to do."  The response I got to that "God what do you want me to do?  What do you want me to do?  What do you want me to do???" was "You come to Me like I'm demanding."  It was what my pastor calls a thought bomb - a voice in your head that you know is not you.  It was the beginning of a shift for me.  What if what God wants is me and not the awesome stuff I can do?

Part of what has come out of it is a new way of looking at motherhood.  It's not something that interferes with my ability to serve God faithfully.  I'm called to live my current life in a way that honors God - in the way Jesus would had he been me.  Not someone else's life but mine.  My circumstances don't have to change first.  That's actually a very subtle and powerful lie.  So now I'm trying to transfer my emotional energy and thought life from angst and discontent to embracing and pouring myself into my current role - wife to Chris and mother to the brothers h.  And the thing is, God has sent meaningful opportunities apart from the household h - more I think than were there when I was devoting a lot of my waking hours to worrying about it.  So, the spiritual surrender has been to embrace wife and motherhood as a spiritual calling - an area where I can be pleasing to God.  Accepting that while it's not the only spiritual service for me right now, it's the main thing.

The next big surrender has been vocational.  I have had an awesome part time work situation since David was a baby.  I didn't realize how important the work was to my self-image and security until I had to give it up.  The decision wasn't hard and wasn't the place of surrender, but the aftermath has been unsettling.  It's hard to embrace a role of service in a culture that places such emphasis on material compensation and upward mobility and equates service with inferiority.  The surrender has been more in embracing the actual work I do every day as important and worthwhile alongside releasing the need to know what will come next for me or that if I do a good job, these guys will turn out the way I pray they will.  I want to find a place of doing motherhood with excellence but without demandingness.

Figuring out the territory to surrender, permanently or not, and the territory to defend is tough, and just as holding more territory than you can defend has dangers, surrender is dangerous - anger at what you've had to do, an expectation that you're owed something in return or giving up ground that you should defend.  Right now some of the "me territory" I'm defending is time alone, time for meaningful reading and learning to play the guitar.  So I'm praying for wisdom in determining the right ground to surrender and for an attitude not of earning but of God-honoring effort seasoned with grace.

Fourteen years ago, I had a detailed and controlled plan.  We would have two kids, 18 months apart.  I would take 2-3 years off work, then back to a fulfilling and rewarding career as a tenure-track professor at a research institution.  The reality of motherhood has been a wilder ride - more heart wrenching, unpredictable, demanding, gross**, laughter-inducing and thoroughly out of my control than I envisioned.  It's nearly torn my heart out in places, but it's a good work - worth the best of me.

 I can't end this little sketch without a word of thanks to...

...Chris who respects my need to go off by myself sometimes and talks me off the ledge.

...my parents and in-laws for taking over the parenting duties for us now and then.  I want to be like you for my kids someday.

...Amy who prays for me.

...My church ladies further down the mothering road who speak life-giving words about the importance and fleeting nature of this stage.

...George MacDonald for his writings on the dignity of God-honoring service.

...Dallas Willard for his writings on what it looks like to live as a disciple of Jesus.

...God who has been open-handed with me in the matter of babies. 

*Jacob was our easiest baby.  It was just the newborn/toddler combination that got me. 

**I have had to stick my hand in some nasty stuff.

Ten years never sounded so small...

I read this and was blown away:

"You have only ten years to be in your twenties and only ten years to be in your thirties.  You have only ten years when your child is one to ten.  Then childhood is gone forever."

Wow.  It's obvious, but when I read it, I felt an overwhelming sense of panic.  Remember all the time you spent worrying about your weight as a teenager or twenty-something?  Then you either turned thirty or got hugely pregnant and gained some perspective - "I was skinny and I didn't even know it.  What was I complaining about !?!"

We've just got a few more years of real childhood with David.  He'll stop pretending to be a Jedi soon.  I have a few more months to watch Rand crawl.  We have maybe one more year of Jacob's crazy made up games like Bollyball-bollyball.  Bryan will probably stop making up songs in another year or two.  Once it's gone, it's gone.

And a side of childhood I'm actually excited about leaving behind...

picking up various creepy crawlies.  The found salamanders on our nature walk.  Yuck.

When is she going to sing already?...

Scene from last weekend, past the hour when Chris and I expect to be done for the day with our adorable but exhausting children...

Jacob:  (crying) Bryan won't let me go to sleep.

Bryan: (crying)  Jacob hit me.

Jacob:  (crying and indignant)  I had to hit him because he wouldn't let me finish "The Beach Song."

Bryan:  (crying louder)  He won't listen to my joke.

Jacob:  (still crying)  He won't let me finish my song.  He's  calling me a fat lady.

Chris and me: (laughing) Seriously. Go to bed right now. We're going to think this is funny for like one more minute.

We don't always laugh at their various behavior problems.**  I just tend to blog more about those.  We're like little kids - we get to the giggly stage of tired.

In other news, Rand's infant skateboarding career was short lived.  He rocked out for about five minutes and was over it by the time I got the camera.

*We sang "To God Be the Glory" every night of our '09 beach trip.  It is now "The Beach Song" to the brothers h.

**Sometimes we flip out and occasionally we handle them maturely and seriously.

Free...

We met with our nature walk group a few weeks after Rand broke his leg.  Someone in the group asked what had happened.  I recited my attempt at a light-hearted version of the event.  She immediately zeroed in on the undercurrents of shame.

Friend:  There is no condemnation.

Me:  (nervous/embarrassed laugh, nodding head in surface agreement)

Friend:  No, I can see that you're still condemning yourself.  You're believing a lie.  There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Me:  (now really listening)  Thank you.

I had heard the same words from my husband, my mother, my sister-in-law, but for some reason, from the mouth of this virtual stranger, it felt as though it came directly from the heart of God.

The following Sunday a missionary spoke at church.  She told the story of a woman in the village where she worked.  The woman was extremely bitter.  The missionary later learned that the son of this woman had been imprisoned for 5 or 6 years and was still awaiting trial.  There was a local medicine man who would utter special incantations for $85.  These incantations were guaranteed to result in the speedy release of the prisoner.  This woman was ashamed of what she had done, presumably theft and prostitution, to raise the necessary funds.  When she delivered the cash, the medicine man insisted she sleep with him.  In desperation, she agreed.  Her son was not released.  She was eaten up with shame and bitterness.  Some of the local women shared with her the gospel - that there is forgiveness and grace and a different way of life available in Jesus.  She believed and is now a Follower of Jesus. 

Those words, "There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," jumped to my mind.  I feel a little silly comparing my suburban mama woes with this woman struggling for survival, but it's the same God who has freed us both.  Her son was released within a few days of her decision.

Enlightened?...

I like to think of myself as an enlightened person when it comes to kids' sports.  I'm definitely not one of THOSE parents.  I think there is a passive-aggressive soccer mom lurking beneath the surface, though.  David is really enjoying soccer.  His coach is great - laid back and seems to really know soccer.  David has learned a lot.  He's been practicing some at home and playing pseudo-games with Chris and me.  I've noticed that he's much less aggressive about going after the ball in his Upward games than he is with us.  Recent conversation...

Me:  David, I don't know much about soccer, but it seems to me that one of the most important things is to really go after the ball.
David:  My coach says that the most important thing is to have fun.
Me:  (laughing and shame-faced)  That's absolutely right, buddy.  Just listen to your coach.

Serendipity...

We read this very cool book that combines the story of the Japanese poet Issa with his poetry and beautiful illustrations by Kazuko Stone.

In got me in a haiku mood:

The baby won't cry

While he eats.  I hate to sweep.

Serendipity.

Just in case you're wondering if this is a pattern of slovenly mothering, here is a story from a few years back.  Bryan was about 18 months.  I had just thrown away a bag of stale chips.  While trying to do something (urgent, no doubt) on the computer, I heard the unmistakable sound of chips pouring on to the floor...

Me:  (internal monologue)  They're in a bag in the top of the trash so they aren't THAT dirty, and they should keep him busy for another five minutes or so.  (Five minutes later I go sweep up the chips, dump them into the trash can and return to the computer.  Fast forward another few minutes.)

Sound from hall:  Thunk, crumble.  (pause)  Thunk, crumble.  (pause)...

Enter Bryan carrying a kitchen trash can almost as tall as himself and occasionally dropping it to eat a few chips directly from the trash.  Awesome.

Would an outhouse violate our HOA?...

Chris and I sent the boys to bed with an admonishment to BE QUIET AND NOT WAKE THE BABY.  As we were discussing how and when we're going to repair the money pit that is our master bathroom,* we heard blood-curdling screams from the top of the stairs.  I rushed up the stairs and found Bryan soaking wet and screaming...

Bryan:  (screaming)  Mommy, I FELL DOWWWWN.
Me:  (confused)  Bryan, how did you get so wet?
Bryan:  (crying)  I swipped.
Me:  (confused)  Did you fall into the bathtub? (Walk to the bathroom and find an inch of water covering the floor.)  BRYAN DID YOU STOP UP THE SINK AND LET THE WATER POUR OUT?????
Bryan:  (scared)  Mommy, it's okay.  When the water runs out it makes a cool sound like this - shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Me:  (stifling laughter)  Go downstairs and tell Daddy what you just told me.  (yelling downstairs)  Chris, first remember that in twenty years you're going to think this is really funny.

As I was cleaning up the bathroom, Bryan came down the hall dragging an evening gown to help me soak up the water.

Here he is in one of his more angelic moments.  He fell asleep during lunch.

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In other news, I took this picture last night when the boys were playing a game called Kill David.  I think the rules are self-explanatory.

*The first time water started seeping through the living room ceiling was when I was barely pregnant with Jacob.  Since then, we've been paying a couple hundred dollars a year.  I'm seriously contemplating the advantages of life without indoor plumbing.

"Grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning"...

I'm turning into a Dallas Willard groupie.  I read The Great Omission and it rocked my world.  His main point is that as a church, we are not seriously pursuing discipleship - actually trying to do the things Jesus said we should do and thus become more like him.  We have shifted the focus from giving our lives over to Jesus and his leadership - his leadership in the things we do every day.  The focus is on our eternal destiny.  We "make converts and baptize into church membership."  Serious discipleship is optional.  It's for the super-Christian.  This adjusted version of Christianity results in believers (i.e., me)whose lives do not look appreciably different from non- or anti- Christians.  Willard connects this fact with the declining acceptance of the exclusivity of Christianity.  Why should people accept that Jesus is THE way when our lives don't look any different from the lives of people who don't follow him?  

At this point the Baptist girl and teacher's pet in me starts to freak out and jump into "frantic faithfulness"* mode.  How exactly are you supposed to pursue Christlikeness?  You cannot get at the fruits of the Spirit** directly.  (Have you tried?  It's a completely demoralizing exercise.)  A physicist at church used a gyroscope to demonstrate this.  To move a gyroscope straight forward, you push diagonally (I think).  To become patient you can't just grit your teeth and push forward.  So what do you do?  Well, we're not blazing a new trail here.  Others have gone before us.  Dallas Willard writes of the spiritual disciplines as "activities in our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort."

The overwhelming majority of things that pull me away from God are pretty mundane.  They don't seem like a big deal, but when I consider the impact they make in my life in terms of time, emotional energy and distraction, they're HUGE - food, TV, shopping, the way I speak to my children and about other people (Interesting aside - As I was typing this I realized that I basically never struggle over speaking poorly ABOUT my children or TO other grownups.  I like to brag about my kids and I don't want to offend other adults, at least not to their faces. What if I shifted my bragging energy toward other adults and my kind tone of voice toward my children.)  There are spiritual disciplines that address each of these hangups:  fasting, frugality, simplicity, silence and solitude.  It's not direct, and the specifics of how it works don't really make sense to me.  I know as a mom that I'm going to be gentler with my children if I wake up and have some quiet before they come hurling down the stairs.  I don't know why, but I know that I don't hear that quiet leading from God very often when I'm in a pattern of overeating.  I'm just taking baby steps here, but the living testimony of people like John Bunyan and Mother Teresa is that this stuff works.

Wow, this started as a book report and turned into a sermon/confessional.  Back to the subject at hand.  Willard also points out that grace is not only about the forgiveness of sins.  It is also about living life in a different way.  It takes A LOT of grace to seriously pursue Christlikeness. 

He challenges churches to consider how much of what we do is "futile ways received from our fathers" and be willing to omit anything, salvage nothing but what "brings ourselves and others to do whatsoever Jesus has commanded us." 

Here are some quotes from The Great Omission:

"The idea that following Jesus as a disciple is optional has slowly crept into church thinking.  Is that true?  On what do we base that idea?"

"Am I a disciple or just a Christian by current standards"

Speaking of solitude and silence

"Accept the grace of doing nothing.  Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming."

"Grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude.  Effort is an action."

"Character is formed through action, and it is transformed through action, including carefully planned and grace-sustained disciplines."

Concerning the good church member approach to following Jesus - "The problem of life is too radical for that to be the solution."

This was written to ministers, but I've adapted it for mothers.   "The most important thing happening at any moment, in the midst of all our [mothering] duties is the kind of persons we are becoming." 

*From Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster

**The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I have been able to recite these since the tender age of fifteen when I participated in a psychotic game at Baptist church camp (that was mostly not psychotic).  A handful of teenagers in a room of a couple hundred is taught the fruits of the Spirit.  It is their job to spread the word throughout the room.  Every couple of minutes a group of people "dies" based on a recognizable trait like eye color.  They get to go to "heaven" or are condemned to "hell" based on whether or not they can recite the fruits of the Spirit.  So, the downside is that I went to hell because I have green eyes.  The upside is that while they are psycho sometimes, the Baptists (among whom I count myself) can inspire memory work in a teenager like nobody's business.

Junior psychologist and a rowdy grammar lesson...

We read Noah's Ark by Peter Spier (which I highly recommend) this morning.  One of the illustrations shows Noah trying to pull a belligerent donkey into the ark...

David:  Why doesn't the donkey want to go into the ark? (He's particularly confused because a later picture shows animals outside the closed ark and wanting to get in.)

Me:  Donkeys are just that way.  Even if you try to get them to do something they like, they always fight it.

David:  Maybe he just wants to decide to go in for himself.

Me:  (Inner dialogue) You are your father's child.

A linking verbs lesson gone awry...

"Mommy is tooting thunderously loud."

"David's spanking was thunderously loud."

Just a shot of tequila helps the medicine go down...

So we had such a great time at the Kennedy Center last week, I decided to take the boys again Monday to see

"The cast of the national tour of Mary Poppins strut their high belting, energized, tap dancing stuff in an evening of song."

What comes to mind when you read that - a couple of songs from Mary Poppins, right?  Perhaps even a song from the original Supernanny herself?  Unfortunately, the description should have read:

"The minor cast of Mary Poppins, including four Jane Banks and zero Mary Poppins, sing random Broadway tunes, plus one guy tap dances."

They falsely advertised it so effectively that we were packed in there like cattle.  Have you experienced infant claustrophobia - where you are stuck with no escape in a public setting with a child who is about to lose it?  The worst case I've heard of involved my sister-in-law and her two oldest children.  They were flying on an old-school Southwest airplane with a row of rear facing seats at the front of the plane.  This was the only available row on the plane.  The boys were little, and the 13 month old had already missed his nap.  He was horrible on this flight - screaming, throwing his sippy cup (which hit another passenger), throwing his toys,...  My very sweet, very shy sister-in-law had to sit facing her irate fellow passengers through all of these shenanigans.  She swore she'd rather make the 700 mile drive by herself than ever do that again.

Well, my plan for this concert hinged on my ability to walk, or at least stand and bounce, with Rand on my back.  I brought a bagel and a bottle merely as a DEFCON 1 option.  Ten minutes into this show (that sucked) he had just about polished off the bagel, and I looked around and realized there was no escape.  There were people crammed in all around us.  I was stuck at this stupid concert with a child who was going to implode.

Well, he made it through the concert with only a few isolated screams.  A shot of tequila to help the stress go down would have been nice, though.

Positive reinforcement and the telephone...

Do you remember that experiment from Psych 101 where mice were trained to push a button?  One group is given no reward, and one group is given a consistent reward every time they push the button.  The last group is rewarded randomly.  On occasion they will receive a reward for pressing the button, but it is unpredictable.  When the rewards are removed, the button pushing habit persists the longest in the randomly rewarded group.

This phenomenon occurs in my house almost every time I am on the phone.  Suddenly everyone has an urgent request, and despite my frantic hand motions and stern looks, they are relentless.  The other day as I was asking them, "Why are you asking me that when you can see I'm on the phone?" The obvious answer occurred to me - because sometimes it works.  If they ask for something that normally is a low probability yes but isn't too unreasonable (i.e., 'Can I have some gum?' or 'Can I get the Play Doh out?') I will say yes just so I can finish my conversation in temporary peace.  It's a crapshoot, though.  If they get too ambitious ('Can I slide down the stairs in a pillowcase?' or 'Can we go to Chuck-E-Cheese?') or if I'm irritable, then they'll end up sitting in time out until I'm off the phone.

"Mommy can I go out to the car and get a magseen rite a yes or no in thees linse      |  |"  I love the detail of the instructions.

David developed a new tactic a few weeks ago.  At the time I thought, "Great - this is much less annoying.", but I remember my mom getting irritated with us "shoving notes in her face" while she was on the phone , so my guess is that this will eventually get annoying, too.

Art, music, a thunderstorm and boys...

When I decided to take the boys into D.C. today for a museum and a concert, I knew it would be an unforgettable day.  It remained to be seen why it would be unforgettable.  At the end of the day, would my inner monologue be this:

"Why, why, why do I have to learn the hard way.  Four small children in the city - what was I thinking???"

or this:

"I'm so glad I didn't stay home and catch up on laundry."

Well, the stars were perfectly aligned and it was a magical day.  After a pretty spastic search for parking, in which the cheapskate in me was relieved not to be tantalized by a metered parallel spot I had no hope of utilizing, we visited the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  One of our favorites was the pair  above, The Departure and The Return by Thomas Cole.  It shows a lord departing for battle with his knights and returning on his deathbed with a riderless horse.

The Chuck Close exhibit was the showstopper for us, though.  This is not the style of art that I naturally gravitate toward, but the boys were intrigued.  I took a closer than usual look and loved it.  His work is amazing - truly.  It's difficult to see here, but the black and white portrait is done in fingerprints.  Can you believe that level of detail using only fingerprints?  Another portrait was woven in a rug.  One was made from rolled cardboard and another from layered paper.

After the museum, we bought lunch at a hot dog stand and ate here during a thunderstorm.  We read one of our medieval tales and the boys played tag and soldiers.

Next we took the subway to the Kennedy Center.  Bryan fell asleep and was thoroughly unconscious for the entire experience, so we had to ride the subway one stop on the way back to the car because he needed to.

There is a free concert every night on the Millenium Stage at the Kennedy Center.  Tonight was the Navy band's jazz ensemble.  The boys' attention spans decreased at rates inversely proportional to their ages, but for a time, they were each enthralled.  I loved it - both the music and the spirit of the Millenium Stage project.  It feels like a bit of a miracle to walk up to a free concert with people who have all decided to listen to something beautiful today.

Things That Made Today Awesome:

• I didn't pay attention to how long it took to get to the Kennedy Center (stroller + subway + shuttle + rain + rush hour = a long time).  The boys didn't care how long it took because the subway is magical for them in the way the Millenium Stage is for me.
• Drizzle alone would have been annoying, but an all out thunderstorm 1) was cool and 2) gave us perspective.
• No one broke anything in the museum store even though I stayed at least ten minutes beyond the dictates of Wisdom.
• There is no reasonable explanation for it, but Rand had only two short naps and no major meltdown.
• I brought cameras for the boys to use at the art museum.  You are guaranteed approximately twenty minutes of intense interest in the arts when you bring cameras.  I now have about 200 blurry art photos on my phone.  This one came out well, though.  How does someone sculpt marble to look like a finely draped veil?
• There were a handful of older women who stopped me and said something kind about my children.  In each case, they could have chosen to notice something less praiseworthy, but instead they saw what was good and encouraged me.  I want to be like that when I grow up.

Truly, one of my favorite things in life is when I do something that's at a minimum ill-advised, and often more completely delusional, and it works - like taking the boys to a cabin for a week each summer by myself.  It does bite me in the butt sometimes, though.  Taking 3 children, two of whom must be carried, on a strenuous hike an hour and a half from home SUCKS!

I will not forget you...

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
       the Lord has forgotten me."
 "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
       and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
       Though she may forget,
       I will not forget you!
 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
       your walls are ever before me.
Isaiah 49:14-16

This passage was like water to my soul when we lost our babies.  It struck me in a new way when we brought David home and I adjusted to life with a nursing baby.  Suddenly even getting to the grocery store was complicated.  I had to plan my day with his needs in mind.  I couldn't be separated from him for more than two or three hours without significant planning.  In fact, as a nursing mother, it was physically painful to be away from him for more than a few hours.  Physically, I could not forget him.

A few months ago I wrote down everything I did for Rand in a day to more fully appreciate these words.

6:20  Feed and change Rand
6:40  Hold Rand
6:55  Put Rand on floor with toys
7:07  Hold Rand and do chores
7:15  Put Rand down to play
7:25  Fix Rand breaksfast
7:40  Put Rand in exersaucer
8:00 Hold Rand
8:15  Put Rand down for a nap
11:00 Feed Rand
11:15 Change Rand's diaper
11:20 Load Rand in car seat
11:45 Carry Rand in ergo for grocery store
12:40 Load Rand in car seat
1:00  Hold Rand
1:15 Rand in exersaucer
1:25 Hold Rand
1:35 Rock Rand and put him down for nap
3:30 Nurse Rand
3:45 Change Rand's diaper
3:50 Load Rand in car seat
4:00 Put Rand in exersaucer
4:30 Hold Rand
4:40 Put Rand in baby ergo for chores
5:20 Put Rand in car seat for errands
6:30 Nurse Rand
6:45 Fix Rand's dinner
6:50 Feed Rand dinner
7:10 Nurse Rand
7:20 Change Rand's diaper
7:25 Rock Rand and put him to bed

"Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"

Cheerios, strep and big boys...

Five of us are on amoxicillin for strep.  Last night two of my boys were really whiny and one said it hurt to swallow.  Chris and Rand had strep a couple weeks ago, so I was suspicious.  I hate taking them to the doctor for sick visits.  I worry that they won't really be sick but will just catch something there.  I also hate to risk letting it go when we're about to travel.  They woke up saying they felt fine.  I took them in.  The nurse took each of their temperatures - nothing.  I'm starting to feel "les incompetents."*  Then Bryan said, "I'm not even feeling like sick,"  and I start feeling like worse.  Then the test results come back and the nurse says, "They're all positive for strep."  A wiser woman would have felt sorry for her children or upset that the next few days might be rough.  I, however, felt like singing the hallelujah chorus.  YES - trip to the doctor justified.  Now I feel redeemed for the time I took Jacob in because I thought he had staff infection on his leg - there were black flecks around a bug bite.  The doctor said, "Hmmm, let's see what happens when I dab it."  It turns out that it was just dirt.  That's kind of okay to do when you have only one VERY young child.  As a mother of four, it was really humiliating.  The doctor was very gracious, but I know she was laughing at me on the inside.  

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This is why youngest children live in their parents' basements when they're forty.  He started feeding himself Cheerios.  Then his brothers thought it was cute, and a bit of an adrenaline rush to feed him (he has two teeth).  Now he just whines until someone walks by his highchair and feeds him a Cheerio.  I know I should shut it down, but it's just so cute - which is another reason...

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Bryan has the really annoying habit of pouring out the last few drops of a drink onto the table.  I'm mostly okay with purposeful messes (forts, pretend stores, etc), but random and senseless acts of destruction DRIVE ME INSANE.  Bryan poured out a few drops of a drink.  Because I'm his mother, I know that Bryan is vulnerable in the area of being considered little.  So as he is on his way to timeout, I said, "Oh, I thought you were big, Bryan, but you must be little."  Bryan responds in his speaker of truth tone, "I am big Mommy, just sometimes I act wittle."  Then I laughed and hugged  him because except on my very worst days, I'm only mean in snippets.

*From Home Alone - "You're what the French call 'les incompetents.'"

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

• I went to the doctor, and they forgot about me.  I had to wait an hour and a half.
• Rand was with me and he lasts a maximum of 45 minutes in this situation.  It was ugly.
• I had to feed the kids gas station food in the car on the way to VBS.  I chose poorly, and now my van is a crumbly blueberry muffin mess.
• When we got to VBS, I realized that Jacob was only wearing boxer briefs - WITH NO PANTS.  *&%$  

Why I'm not moving to Australia yet...

• I hit the sweet spot on the disorganization curve.  Had I been less disorganized, I would have been stuck with a child with no pants and no mildewed swimsuit on hand to put on him.  Had I been less disorganized I would have wasted valuable time searching at home for the boys' water bottles.  As it turned out, they left them at VBS yesterday, so I could just refill and use them today.  On the other hand, had I been more disorganized, I would have left one of the children at the gas station.
• Bryan saw a port-a-potty on the back of a truck on the way home.  It completely cracked him up.  He laughed that laugh of his that I love, and it brought me back.

Failed photo op...

I tried to get the boys' pictures taken today. I like to get a naked baby shot of each of mine when they can push themselves up but can't quite crawl. That I called it off when Rand was obviously not going to smile/stare neutrally ahead/do anything but cry is a sign that I have matured alot in seven years. Once I have decided to do something it is almost physically painful to me to have to change plans. I usually just wing it and push through, as evidenced by David's atrocious seven month old pictures that I actually paid money for just because I had decided that it would be done. That I thought Rand felt hot and was exceptionally cranky BEFORE I bathed and dressed four boys and rushed out the door to the studio, is a sign that I'm definitely a work in progress.