You May Remember When Your Shoes Felt A Little Too Big

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015Leave a comment

I see you in the back of our minivan. You are strapped into your carseat and you are trying so hard to crank your neck over the high back to join in on the conversation your two big brothers are having behind you. All the cranking and trying is frustrating for you because you are strapped in too tight and those big boys in the third row can’t seem to hear you anyway.

I see you there. The third brother but not the baby. The baby sister you hold dear is sitting on your right.

I see you sitting there with those light up Spiderman sandals. The ones I pulled out for you just a week ago. I know those sandals have seen two spring and summers before they have graced your feet. I know they are a whole size too big. But for now, you don’t seem to mind. I think of the pants you wear that are almost always worn down to their last threads around the knees. The pants that have reprised for the third time. The shirts that have been stained from years past. The hand-me-downs that are worn with grass stains and stories from previous summers.

I wondered today if you’ll ever grow up and think about why you almost never had a new pair of shoes or a new pair of pants. I wondered if you will remember when your shoes felt a little too big.

I was sad for you for a minute because I know how this kind of thing can develop in the story of a child and get tangled up in hurt and pain. I was sad because I know you never get first pick when it comes to Halloween Costumes or which movies we watch.

Being the third brother, I know, is tough. It is tough now and it will be tough as you grow into a boy and a man.

I think about you and those light up shoes that are one size too big, your pants with holes and your shirts with stains.

I hope when think of those shoes you will remember the hand-me-downs, you love those light up shoes. But I hope you won’t stop there. I hope that you will not measure your worth on the things you had that were brand new with stickers and tags versus the things that you had that came up from storage and were a reprise of you big brother’s last summer.

I want you to always know the big love that we all have for you. Even brand new shoes and pants off the rack could never express how much big love we have for the third brother with those light up shoes that feel just a little too big.

I want to give you the world. I want you to feel important and unique and worthy. I just don’t go about it by buying you new shoes or new clothes every season.

My love for you is deeper and richer than things.

My love is more deeper than shoes that are one size too big.

My love is richer than reprised pants.

My love sees you. My love sits with you when you are sad and laughs with you when you are happy. My love holds you when you are sick and carries you up the stairs every night.

My love will stay with you and never leave, even when your feet grow up and out of those little light up shoes and you move on to more new-to-you shoes and new-to-you seasons.

As you grow you will learn that these things are worth so much more than clothes with new tags or shoes fresh out of the box.

I’m not a third child so I don’t know what it is like to be stuck somewhere in the middle or towards the end with the shoes that are a little too big and the reprised pants. But I wondered today. I saw you today.

I saw that perfectly unique and special boy who sits right behind the passenger seat of my minivan. That special boy who gets to give new adventures to those shoes that are too big, new stains to the old shirts, and the one who gets to tear the hole all the way through on those reprised pants.

I see you. And you are deeply and richly loved. Much more than shiny new shoes or a fresh pair of pants.

Finding Fun

April 2, 2015April 3, 2015Leave a comment

Not too long ago I fretted over everything parenting.

When I was pregnant I fretted over the size of my baby, I fretted over labor and delivery, my mind overflowed with the all consuming role of motherhood as I felt my toes dangling over the edge of my expectant role, not quite ready to jump in.

During the newborn years I fretted over tummy time, sleep schedules, appropriate amounts of Baby Einstein, Your Baby Can Read and how many times I could get through the Jesus Storybook Bible so the redemptive story of Jesus would begin to grow in their little newborn minds.

When they were infants it was the screen time and the fretting to make it out the door on time for story time at the library. (I don’t think we made it on time a single stinkin’ week.)

When they were toddlers I fretted about delayed walking and delayed speech and my heart would race when they mixed up their “Nello Mello Peas” mid alphabet song.

In preschool it was my boys being unable to sit still and concerns that they needed to be coloring more and digging for worms less.

And the fretting over whether my sons would ever begin to use the toilet??? I can’t even talk about it. That was a dark, dark place for me.

Then something wonderful happened. I stopped fretting. I’m not completely recovered, I am a recovering fretter, the relapses are hard. But I have consciously made an effort to stop checking the milestone charts and have some more fun.

When I find myself fretting. I try to replace it with fun.

We sing and dance in the kitchen more, we take more impromptu trips to the donut shop on Saturday mornings and sometimes this mommy who said no wrestling would ever occur in her house will find herself wrestling with my three boys on our living room floor WWF Smack Down Style.

I have found a road to recovery from the fretting when spend more time beating my boys at Smash Brothers than thinking about whether they will survive kindergarten.

I believe recovery from living under the yoke of fretting is absolutely necessary for me as a mother. I could fret the days away and let them pass without ever finding fun.

I hope that I am not too late in this journey of finding fun and once my children are grown and gone they will remember how I was able to enjoy them, right where they were, wrestled on the floor or knee deep in the mud.

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So I’m recovering from fretting and reaching for fun.

As a step toward finding more fun this year I have been surprising my boys at the bus stop randomly in costume. This started innocently when my Halloween Costume, Queen Amidala, arrived fifteen minutes before the bus came one day in the fall. I tried the costume on and as the bus came up the road I figured it would be fun to meet my kindergartner in costume.

Then randomly in December I tried to ease into the idea of Bus Stop Dress Up by using a superhero mask.

In February I tried a Mario Brothers Hat because my preschooler had joined my kindergartener on the bus and my preschooler loves Mario.

On St. Patrick’s Day I began to build up a little more courage and tried a hat “costume” which was a little more risky but I need something green so I found a Yoda costume hat in the dress up trunk.

And the latest bus stop costume was the riskiest. I was in full costume. White hooded sweatshirt, black leggings, tall boots and a toy Boba Fett Blaster. I’m not even a Star Wars fan but I have three sons so I’ve had to learn the names of all these different battle weapons.

I left guns and lightsabers in the yard so they could shoot and slash back at me. This was a really fun one.

And I’m planning something really big for the last day of school.

I also have big plans for my third son once he starts riding the bus and I am saving all the princess costume ideas for when my daughter reaches kindergarten age four years from now.

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At first I fretted over this, what will the neighbors think? What will the bus driver think? What will my kids think? Will I traumatize them? But honestly, the neighbors laugh kindly and wave if they drive by, the bus driver and I have become good friends over this whole thing and my sons love it. It helps that they are the first drop off in the afternoon. They probably think everyone gets picked up by someone in costume.

And the fun cures the fretting. How could you not love shooting at your sons with toy guns when they get off the bus?

I fretted over the other stuff for too many years. And all my fretting was forward thinking. I was fretting forward instead of enjoying what I had right in my lap. I literally had a present in my lap and I was so busy fretting I forgot to have fun.

Hopefully fun can find me permanently and I can become completely recovered from the fretting.

Hopefully it’s not too late for me.

Family Bracket Challenge

March 15, 2015Leave a comment

Today is Selection Sunday and we are so excited to start making memories with our Family Bracket Challenge.

This year our kids will be six, four, three and one. They will all participate.

It is so easy now with Yahoo Sports all the little ones have to do is touch a team on the iPad. Last year when our three year old was two, he touched random teams without knowing a thing about College Basketball and beat us all.

The winner gets to pick where we go out to eat as a family at the end of the tournament. We actually want our youngest son to win anyway because he just wants to eat at McDonald’s. Our firstborn is hoping to win this year so we can all go out for crab legs.

I keep it simple and just make a bracket on our bay window with dry erase markers. It is a fun and easy way to keep track as we go.

We are hoping for a University of Kentucky win this year. Go Cats!

The Joy Of Making Memories

March 14, 2015March 14, 20152 Comments

Every day I have the opportunity to make memories with my children. Somedays with my little family can overwhelm me but then there are moments when I find myself stepping back and seeing a bigger picture.

Every day we are making memories.

It’s amazing to think that the task of creating childhood memories for four people is in my hands each day. Every day as I parent, I get the privilege of helping my children build the memories of their childhood. It is a privilege and a privilege I only have for a short time.

It brings me so much more joy to think about my days with my young kids this way. When I think about making memories for them it gives me a long term purpose for what I am building for them as their mother. When I think of making memories it gives me more joy than to look at an empty space of a day and think of tasks I can create to fill it up.

We make snow day memories, warm day memories, Friday night memories and Saturday morning memories. It is such a privilege to be involved in these moments that my children will one day talk to their children and grandchildren about.

Childhood doesn’t go on forever but the memories do.

I know because my grandmother still talks to me about the memories from her childhood.

When childhood ends, the memories will go on forever.

On Fridays we make movie night memories and pile the blankets and pillows all over the floor, sometimes we have pizza and popcorn on paper towels, sometimes cookies and apple juice.

When daddy is home from work my three sons make “man time” memories of swimming or going out to the park.

Some Saturday mornings we head to the doughnut shop in our pajamas.

“The doughnut shop in your pajamas with your brothers…this is what Saturday morning memories are made of.”

On Sundays after church we make memories to see who can race upstairs the fastest to put on their cozy clothes before lunch.

In the spring we make memories in the sand at the beach and in the summertime we make memories at my grandparent’s house on Lake George.

My favorite memories are the simple ones we make every morning when all my children pile up in my bed before we have to get moving for school. I sip my coffee and while they are all still little enough they all snuggle up close. I know these days will be over soon but what a privilege it is to make the memories while we can.

“My heart is full every morning to see my family wall snuggled up like this.”

I find so much more joy in my days with my children when I see the opportunity to make memories.

This day is the day we have to build the memories of childhood.

What a privilege we have as parents to help build the memories that will go on forever.

How I Began To Feel Free: Busyness

March 13, 2015March 13, 20152 Comments

I recently read the article, Busy Is A Sickness on Huffington Post Parents by Scott Dannemiller. As I read the article I can’t help but whisper the word “yes” aloud as I relate to every word.

I have the sickness too. It is the tendency of my heart to be discontent with just being.

Two years ago I attended a training and two women stood in front of the large group. One woman held her two hands into the air to illustrate the image of a small person trying to hold up a big world. She simply asked the question, “What happens when you let go?”

I gasped and externally processed the shocking truth of how I see myself. I replied in shock, “The world would fall on me. The world will crush me if I let go.”

It was in that moment that I heard out loud the way I view myself. I see myself as big. I see myself as the one who holds up the world.

I wasn’t able to feel free from the heavy yoke of busy until I realized I was small. Even when I let go of my world, it will still keep spinning. I was able to feel freedom from the weight of busyness when I finally recognized the simple truth: I don’t hold up the world.

So I put my hands down for an entire year. (How Saying No Is Leading Me To More Yes) I gave up the extras. I let the sign up sheet pass by when it was time to sign up for room mom and Sunday School teacher, small group leader, and hosting events.

It was hard to take a year and watch the world spin without me having my hands in the things I love but it was a great opportunity to reflect on my heart that is bent toward the busyness I control. When I was able to let go and put my hands down, the world did not fall apart. God brought in people even more talented than I could ever be to lead small groups, teach Sunday School and sign up to be classroom coordinator. When I put my hands down, God kept the world moving and God raised up stronger leaders.

When I realized the world would keep on moving without my name on the sign up list, I could breathe and for one year I just tried to focus on the very important things God has already given to me: my faith, my marriage and my children. In that year I was able to focus on the things that do in fact suffer when I am too busy to pay attention to them.

I went on more dates with my husband, I yelled the word “hurry” less and I just enjoyed my children without all the extras.

This year I have found my name back on the sign up list. I am teaching Sunday School, leading a small group and I am the classroom coordinator for my son’s kindergarten class. After a year of realizing I don’t hold up the world I have been able to come back and serve with a heart that sees myself with a proper lens: I am small. The year off has enabled me to hold onto the extras a little more loosely.

I am teaching Sunday School with two other amazing women.

I am leading a small group with a team of women.

I am a small classroom coordinator that hands out a sign up sheet for the other parents to lead the games, crafts and snacks at the class parties.

I am a small person inviting others into my life to come alongside and help me.

Busy Is a Sickness. I will always have it and I will always struggle with the pangs of busyness unless I fight to see myself with the proper lens.

Who holds up your world? Will you allow yourself to feel free?