A Week Off Toast: November 16, 2014

Good morning!  Thanks to all those who read my last post (definitely a record!) and said a few prayers for me.  If ever there was a mom who truly needed Clarence the Angel to show up and give her a George Bailey moment, it was me last week.  

Come to think of it, It's A Wonderful Life probably isn't a movie I should watch right now.  I get to the scene where Mary Bailey is doing something to the house (painting, putting up wallpaper, what was it exactly?) while her passel of very littles play passively and quietly at her feet and I wonder what I'm doing wrong.  My last hour involved a sprint around the house collecting baskets of very stinky laundry as Craig stood guard over the girls having Mowwker Time at the dinnertable (I LOVE how Melina says 'markers') and Devon stood by eviscerating an entire roll of scotch tape because Carrie's paper had a tiny rip.  Craig got up to carry a basket and I snapped "Don't move!" because if he had somebody would've been hitting someone and then comes the running with uncapped markers and, yes, then the screaming. 

 

 So, yeah, we're coping.  Some days better than others.  Devon's sleep issues that started with time change have smoothed out a bit, but not much.  He's still getting a good hour or two less a night than we think he needs, especially for a preschooler.  Putting him to bed early just confines the shenanigans to one room of the house.  Forty-five seconds of lying still and he'd be out, but instead he's changing his pajamas two or three times, rearranging his bed, or driving cars up and down the wedge pillows he's pilfered from Mommy and Daddy's room.

Devon: (forty-five minutes after bedtime) STOMP! STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
Mommy: Devon?  Is that you?  What is going on up there?
Devon: It's just me.  I'm marching around in circles.
Mommy: Why?
Devon: Because I have to!
Mommy: Why? (listening)
CD Player: The ants go marching one-by-one Hurrah! Hurrah!....
Mommy: Devon, GO TO BED!

 

 We've been very concerned about how this bender would affect his school behavior.  It's occasionally caused some pretty intense spells of wakeup and dropoff crankiness.  On the evening of the worst morning on record, the one where Daddy was a half hour late to work because it took two adults with advanced degrees forty-five minutes to double-team a four-year-old into putting on his socks, we got a kind email from his teacher stating that he had a wonderful day. 

 

To preserve our sanity we're picking our battles in a big way.  This week Mommy decided that she needed a week off toast, as serving it creates a million crumbs that get everywhere.  Nobody's really minded that we eat pancakes instead, and no twenty-five minute sweeping sessions because crumbs are Mommy's kryptonite.  

This would be right about where I should chime in with a reminder to disregard the mess and fully embrace the chaos of the small-kids-at-home years, but I'm not going to do that.  Keeping up with the housework takes all day anyway.  Failing to finish just means everything is disorganized and my job gets even harder and MORE frustrating.  I cope by knowing what I can reasonably accomplish in the time I choose to devote to housework and refusing to take anything on that will be more than that and therefore not get done.  My laundry isn't folded but at least it's in the drawer.  Dinner was canned soup but at least the dishes went right in the dishwasher.  And yes, I didn't serve bread with dinner because who needs it anyway? My time is at such a premium now, and if I devote any time to extras I miss the things I'd like to keep non-negotiable, like nightly book time.  

Devon: (pointing) Are those the green eggs, Mommy?

Mommy: Yes, they are.

Devon: But the ham is green too, Mommy!

Mommy: Yes, it is!

Devon: GRRRRR.  They should call this book Green Eggs and GREEN Ham.

Mommy: Big P, little p, what begins with p? Painting some pajamas pink, P...p...p.
Devon: Mommy, that is making an awful mess!  He should NOT paint his pajamas pink.  He should leave them the color that God made them!
Mommy: Yes, Devon, sounds good to me.
Devon: He is NOT following God's commandments.  I command him to STOP! 

I am so, so thankful for Devon's Sunday School teacher, who is the Anne Sullivan to my son's Helen Keller.  Devon is ready to have conversations about heaven, sin, and a relationship with Jesus.  It's such a blessing to have him blurt out things he knows that we haven't gotten around to teaching him yet. 

I am so, so thankful for church right now.  Don't the girls look big!  No matter what kind of morning it's been, just walking through the doors makes me feel like I've been granted asylum.  Even if it's only 8 in the morning and I'm so worn thin and ready to weep with discouragement, I'm not going to stay home.  If you're going to be a hot mess, I tell myself, go and be one in the house of the Lord.  He understands. 

Melina: Are you sad, Mommy?
Mommy: No, Melina, I'm happy.
Melina: Are you exhausted?
Mommy: Ummm...

It's a difficult thing for me right now.  I'm struggling with how to make my children feel cherished and not a burden when managing them for so many hours a day seven days a week pushes the limits of my physical and emotional breaking points.  I feel that lying to them and telling them I'm fine when really I'm wrecked harms their understanding of human weakness and our need for physical and mental rest.  So I usually confess to them that I'm really tired and need Jesus to speak to my heart and give me more energy because I am not feeling good.

Mommy: What's the matter, Melina?
Melina: (crying at bedtime) I just want to go to Chick-fil-A, Mommy.  But I'm exhausted!

At least they're learning the limits of their own strength by seeing that my strength has limits.  Sometimes, endearingly, they pray for me.  Other times, they are quiet in the car so I can listen to a song that makes me feel better.  Devon has even started singing songs from "song time", what he calls the part of the service that the kids attend before being dismissed to children's church:

Oh, God, you are my God,
and I will ever praise you....

Hearing those words come so sweetly from his mouth makes the rather gymnastic task of wrestling all three in half the service worth it. 

I look forward to the day when my kids will be able to show me compassion and amuse themselves during these times so I can take a nap.  Those days are not here, though.  Devon, especially, takes any moment of unsupervision as an opportunity for mischief.  Most recently, he waits for us to go hide during hide-and-go-seek and then opens the pantry door, climbs on the step stool, and eats marshmallows.  Just last week he outsmarted the safety locks on the windows and I'm constantly feeling a draft in our expensively propane-heated house and having to go lecture him. 

I'm so thankful for MOPS providing structured outings that give my kids opportunities for social interaction.  Here they are after the tour of the nearby Herr's Potato Chip Factory. 

Carrie's language skills have been the most fun of all three lately.

Mommy: Carrie, could you stop kicking the back of my chair?
Carrie: I'm not kicking, Mommy.  Your chair is stopping my foot.

Carrie:(on Facetime) Hello, Grammy, just what have you been up to lately?

Mommy: Do you want to go to the park?
Carrie: No, I'm not really up to it right now.

Carrie: I'm going up to the third floor, and Jesus is going with me.

Carrie borrows a lot of her language patterns and inflections from Mommy.  No pressure, haha!

Carrie: I am just DONE playing markers.  Done, done, done, done DONE!  Don't ask me to play markers ever again!  I am going to SpiderMan Park RIGHT NOW!  Get in the car and take me there!

One of our lifelines in the constant struggle to manage our exhaustion as parents are mornings or afternoons at the YMCA.  Without their drop-in childcare I'd never get in my ambitious but necessary five-days-a-week workout schedule.  I desperately need the endorphins and the ability to cancel out at least one of every day's multiple dietary indiscretions.  The kids also benefit greatly from one-on-one time with Mommy, an impossibility any other way.  This week we set a record and were there four times!  I don't know what else to do to give the kids enough exercise when preschool ends at 3 and it's dark before 5. 

We received the unexpected blessing of a CharlieBelle Box a few weeks ago.  One of Craig's aunts occasionally surprises us with a huge box of eclectic gifts that come in the mail and delight our unsuspecting children. 

 It's 3:48 in the afternoon and I'm trying to resign myself to Ally Kitty being the only member of our family to get a nap this afternoon.  This stage of the girls giving up naps is rooooooough.  Truly sorry to complain, and well aware that a toddler mom talking about being exhausted is just about the most unoriginal thing ever.  I look at the clock and mourn naps anew about two hundred times every afternoon.  Then I tell myself to stop beating a dead horse!

Ahem.... I am well aware that the horse is dead.  And that I'm still expecting it to take me somewhere.  And that it's yet another opportunity to depend on God and not outward circumstances for my very sanity.

I echo the words of Tim Keller quoting I'm-too-tired-to-remember-whom: Everything that God gives is necessary, and everything that he withholds is unnecessary.  If I can't get a nap, I guess I didn't need one.  So far it's been a constant struggle to not be so much in survival mode that I toss some very good things out of the lifeboat.  Like letting Busy Boy get out of bed and experience the first snowfall of the season, even though it would take us forty-five minutes to get him back into bed. 

Two nights ago was also a big night for our family, as we officially became an entirely diaper-free household.  I was about to open another case of nighttime diapers.  We decided that they were getting too big for 4's, so I counted off how many days until I could exchange them for a larger size.  Then we thought for a minute and realized what a huge hassle it was becoming to even have diapers still in our lives.  The girls were taking them off in the mornings and hiding them in obscure trash cans all around the house instead of putting them in the diaper genie.  We were forever unspooling them from pj pants in the hamper, picking them up off the girls' floor, or stepping in one while getting them dressed.  It also seemed like they weren't getting much nighttime action.  So far, the girls are doing pretty well with the transition, although time will tell.  The case of diapers is going back to Costco on Tuesday, and I'll spend the money on special new pj's and maybe something to eat in the food court.  Those of you who read my last post just paused to say another prayer for me.  Haha.  Thanks.

We leave for vacation on Thursday evening and will arrive in Nashville on Friday night.  We're hoping to take advantage of ten days at Mama and Papa's house and let Mommy and Daddy have some occasional rests.  Then Grammy and Grandpa will spend half of December with us, so rest and recovery are on the horizon...