May 31: Big Families Are an Acquired Taste...and It's Okay if You Don't Like Them

My kids have been outside since a little after 8am this morning "playing in the pool."

Why would I put something so straightforward in quotations, you ask? Because things that sound simple are anything but when you have a big family.

You see, by "playing in the pool," I mean yelling at each other to stay out of the pool until it's completely filled up.

I mean blowing the damn thing up again and again due to an undetectable hole. Inflating it with a shop vac. Before breakfast.

I mean screaming, "mom, watch!" as loud as humanly possible before taking a flying leap into the pool. This is alternated with shouting, "mom!!! He splashed me!!"

And at the risk of stating the obvious, I simply respond, "it's a pool filled with water. Water makes you wet."

"Playing in the pool" means someone crying about something every five minutes the entire day we're outside because someone hurt them, they hurt themselves, someone was making fun of them, or they stepped in dog poop. Again.

Intersperse the shrieks of joy and spectator requests with all the crying, and the loudness is pretty much at a constant tempo. To top it off, the 3-year-old just started running laps around the house screaming, "ambulance! ambulance!" with a look of such determination you would think there was actually an injured human desperately awaiting her assistance.

Wailing sirens have nothing on a preschooler with a hero complex.

By "playing in the pool," I mean the storm door slamming repeatedly because someone decides they no longer want to swim in the pool, only to come back outside, now fully clothed, to find everyone else still in the pool "having fun." So they go back inside to change again.

"Having fun" is in quotations because this phrase only applies to a single party within earshot, which would be the children.

Obviously.

I realized this holiday weekend that big families, with their loudness, tendency to overwhelm, and expertise in stealing sanity, are an acquired taste. Especially big families with boys. And it's okay if you don't like them.

Really, it is.

I know many of you don't want to sit by us in restaurants, which, truthfully, we don't tend to frequent, because--five kids.

I know you probably wince when you see us walk through the door at a party, especially if your walls are free of fingerprints and you value your breakables.

I know you probably groan a little internally when you see us show up at church on the week you're scheduled to teach Sunday school. A little row of Roberts' that will inevitably need to be separated.

I get it. We are a presence, and usually a very loud, ornery one, at that.

Do you want to know the truth?

Some days I don't like big families, either.

As crazy as you would imagine life with five children to be, I can guarantee you that it's even crazier. It's like a three-ring circus of ongoing chaos, unless they happen to be watching TV or reading for their mandatory 20 minutes. The requests for attention are constant, the bickering is often relentless, the laundry piles quickly in the hall, and the dishes stack up even quicker in the sink.

Some days despite the best of intentions, multiple cups of coffee, and time with Jesus, I'm unable to tame the monster of stress and want to run away from them all by 9am. The only difference between you and I on those days is that you have the ability to walk away.

Unless, of course, you're my neighbor. Sorry about that.

But if you're willing to give us big families a chance, you might also be able to see what I see:

Little people who, simply because of the sheer volume of them, need to learn early on how to extend some grace to each other. How to make room in life for other perfectly imperfect people. How to share and work things out when they're mad. How to look out for one another, help each other, and do even the most mundane of tasks with laughter. How to function as a team.

They learn how to love well, and they discover that siblings are the very best of friends in the long run because they're friends for life. Solidarity in the flesh.

Please remind me of that the next time they want to play in the pool, which will probably be tomorrow morning...

The Junkie Mom at the Park

{Originally written over the summer}

The sweltering day had tapered off into a shadowy, refreshing breeze. I love when the scale of the year tips winter-ward and the summer nights begin to cool off, teasing of autumn, and tonight was one of those perfect nights. After a late dinner ala fridge and close to bedtime, we decided to take advantage of the weather and walk to the park.

We rolled up the hill with the dog in tow, who insisted on tugging relentlessly at the hunter green leash and barking at every squirrel within a quarter mile, and I saw her sitting on a weathered wooden bench across the park. When we sat down on the opposite bench, she yelled, “how old is your little girl? She’s pretty!”

Then I thought she said that she loved her hair, too, so I reached over, stroking her blond, bouncy locks, smiled and said, “thank you!” But she quickly responded, “no, yours!”

Oh, okay. That was sweet.

People at the park will smile on occasion, but they aren’t normally too friendly in the city, just as a general rule. They tend to keep to themselves, although I try to initiate some conversation when I’m feeling like getting out of the hermit shell inside my head. So I was a little surprised by this anomaly.

I sized her up from my seat, noting her seemingly clean purple and white-stripped cardigan and jeans.

Hmmm… She looks about my size, I thought, and for a second, I reverted back to middle school and considered befriending her in an effort to swap clothing. Sharing wardrobes was a trademark BFF thing back in the day. Then I quickly remembered the prevalence of bedbugs and fleas and other pests in the city, so, coupled with the obvious creepiness on my part, I scratched that idea. She proceeded to have a cigarette, which further reaffirmed my decision.

Her two girls were chattering excitedly about the dog and how cute he was and how they wanted to pet him, and I hesitated for a moment, because sometimes he can be quite boisterous and scary, his bark being much bigger then his bite. He hasn’t, in fact, ever bitten anyone, but still, I was nervous. As they inched closer, he relaxed his ears and seemed to welcome them, so I gave them permission. They loved on him enthusiastically, despite his frequent kisses and horrid breath.

My son was playing with a tennis ball on the slide, rolling it down with the inherent problem of having climb down and retrieve it each time, but she picked up the ball, which practically rolled right to her, and tossed it back up. They played like that for a little as I watched, debating whether I should get up and take her place like a “good mom” or allow them to continue.

Her girls tired of the playground and wanted to swing, and though they were plenty old to push themselves, she readily got up and went to push them. They were laughing, legs intertwined and facing sideways into a banana split, and she pushed them back and forth as they squealed.

I didn’t suspect anything yet.

My kids wanted to swing now, too, of course, so I situated them in the bucket swings and gave them a push alongside the other mom. And that’s when I first caught a whiff of it drifting by on the wind. The smell of urine. I didn’t immediately connect it to them, but then I noticed it each time they were near.

As she swayed back and forth with each shove of the swing, she asked if we lived close by. She lived in walking distance, too. She talked about summer and the start of school, which is all in the realm of normal mommy conversation, but I began to notice a strangeness in her movements. A kind of jerky, twitchy, awkward thing. It was mirrored by her seemingly compulsive style of speech and lax personal boundaries.

And then I realized, although it was a cool evening in July, she was in a long-sleeved sweater, jeans, and shoes instead of sandals. Everyone else was comfortably dressed in summer attire from head to toe. It’s the addicts, thin or even emaciated from the poison coursing through their veins—the very thing that is psychologically necessary to sustain them is, in fact, stealing their very life out from under them—who dress for an imaginary winter nobody can feel but them.

As her girls grew bored, she hopped up off the bench and suggested a game of follow the leader, and the girls filed in line behind her. They invited my kids to play, too, but the only response they received was a few blank stares.

She started marching across the playground, climbing over the stairs and ducking under the slides before weaving through the swings and finishing off her turn by going round and round and round the few pine trees in the park before rescinding her role.

“You’re a better mom then I!” I relented to her as I sat on my bench and observed, feeling pregnant as could be after the week of a heat wave we experienced. But was she, I wondered?

On one hand I admired her willingness to jump right in and play with her kids. Playing isn’t really my thing, but I did my time thrusting the rubber bucket, while tiny feet dangled effortlessly in the evening breeze, and I tossed the tennis ball up the slide to my son more times then I really cared to. On the other hand, I wondered what the inside of one’s house must be like if everyone who lives there walks out the front door smelling like a middle school boys bathroom.

With kids there is an awesome type of filth that comes from a day spent outside under nothing but the blue sky in the summer. Knees grass-stained, fingernails grubby, little feet with a ring of dirt around the bottom, and head full of sand. I always wonder, when we go out in the evenings after a day like this, if the people we come in contact with will think my children are neglected. Frankly, I figure there’s no point in changing their filthy clothes until bath time, because it’s not just the clothes that are filthy. Maybe that’s just me.

But these poor girls… They were a different kind of filthy. The kind that doesn’t just have the spills and stains from today on pink shorts, but the grime from yesterday and the day before, too. Maybe even all week. The kind of dirty that has an accident in bed at night and doesn’t have a clean pair of clothes to change into. The kind of dirt and sweat on faces that has blended into what looks like a tan after probably days of not bathing.

When I was young and thought I was utterly invincible, I would ask people what drug they would do if they had to choose. I, of course, picked the riskiest one I could think of, which was heroin, despite my always-existent fear of needles. I know now that given the right cocktail of pain, loss, circumstance, anger and fear, people are capable of anything. In our soul of souls, I think we are all a lot worse then we would ever dare to imagine.

But even still, the pit of addiction is one that I don’t ever care to have to climb out of; so thus far, I haven’t been tempted to jump in. And heroin of all things—it leaves a trail of destruction and ruined lives in its wake. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’d never go there, because I think that type of ignorance is just foolish, and I’ll be the first one to admit that I enjoy me some wine. Sometimes a little too much. But that cross, that self-imposed thorn in my flesh, is not one I’d ever like to bear.

Yet, there she is in front of me. The product of those choices in the flesh. And I wonder how she does it—be a mom—day in and day out. Parenting is a bitch most of the time as it is, let alone with a layer of addiction on top. What you thought would be the icing on the cake, the sweet, melt-in-your-mouth escape from reality, ends up weighing you down, trapping you in the gooey muck that is now your mess of a life, and the once buttery richness has lost all its flavor. How do you survive there?

I guess part of me admires her for showing up. For swinging her kids with her twitching hands and awkward conversation, for ducking down and following them around the pine tree, again and again. For, when one daughter asked, after she had to be dizzy from all the spinning, “is this fun mom???”

And her saying enthusiastically, “Yes!”

When Facebook Becomes Your Default

I didn’t realize until I decided to give it up, to take a break for a while. 

Come evening when the world began slow and eyelids started to droop, I decided to put my phone DOWN. Enough is enough. 

And that’s when I noticed it. The quiet moments. The precious lulls in time I had rushed to Facebook to fill. 

As I lay in my bed that night, phone firmly placed on the nightstand instead of my palm, I honestly wondered to myself: well, now what do I do? What do I do with these slivers of time before sleep that are no longer spent staring into a 4.7in window?

Sad, but completely true.

And I began to wonder, if we are compulsively running to Facebook (or Twitter or Instagram or games or Netflix binges or anything else, for that matter) throughout the day…

When do we think?

When do we pray?

When do we listen to the still, small voice of God, if we give every quiet moment over to Facebook?

When do we read, something other then articles about the latest shooting or the 9 Signs You May Have a Leaky Gut or 5 Ways to Repurpose Baby Food Jars? I would read all those kinds of things, thinking I was informing myself and somehow improving my quality of life, but in reality, all I did was add to my already existent health anxiety and create more mental work for myself. 

Repurposing baby food jars? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Seriously.

When do we read, say, the Bible, or something that qualifies as real literature to enrich our lives?

When do we connect with our family without distractions?

When do we stop and listen to the tall tales of a two year old, however crazy sounding they may be, and get an uninterrupted glimpse into her creative little mind?

When do we roll down the window in the car on a summer drive and simply take in the smells of fresh cut grass and charcoal grills, notice the wildflowers, and feel the warm sun on our face, if we never look up?

When do we really talk with our husbands, after the kids are all asleep, so in ten years we still have a clue about the person sitting next to us on the couch?

Because if we're honest about it, there are things that steel our time—reinforce it, build it up, make it better and stronger and firmer, in the Lord and in relationship with others; encourage talents and gifts; help others—and there are things that steal our time—rob us of precious moments, productivity, and sleep that we can never get back.

We only have so much time here, so much time this day, and it’s so easy to waste it. It’s so easy to waste it without even wanting to because it’s become a bad habit.

Laundry that doesn’t get folded, craft supplies that never turn into gifts, books collected that never get finished. That’s just me, and that’s really just the beginning.

I know God is calling me to better things, more fruitful things. Things that I really do want to spend my time on, except I keep getting tripped up by the easy, the available. So Facebook will no longer be my default, and we are parting ways, at least for a time. I may deactivate my account sometime in the near future, but for right now it will just sit idle, collecting notifications.

Instead of checking Facebook at stoplights, waiting to turn left, I'll focus on the road and talk to my kids.

Instead of pulling out my phone in the evening or multitasking during Netflix, I'll look my husband in the eye and talk to him about things that matter.

Instead of plugging in during bath time, I'll sit and watch my kids play.

I'll sit on the front porch, enjoy the breeze, and marvel at the fact that everyone but the baby can ride a bike without training wheels now. I'll wonder where the time has gone and make sure from here on out that I'm not too distracted to notice it slip on by.

I'll stop looking so often at a small 4.7in screen that I fail to see the entire world right in front of my face.

I’ll still be here, though, rambling about my usual stuff and posting pictures, so you know where to find me if you need me. I’d love to connect with you all in the comments, through email, or better yet, in person!

I hope you have a great day, and if you want me to know what you had for lunch, what you’re doing with your kids today, or that you’re pissed off at your husband about something, you’ll have to text me, because otherwise, I won’t notice.

And that’s not such a bad thing.

For the Days Following Easter: Because Real Life Doesn't Look Like Your Perfect Family Photo

The photos started popping up around mid-morning Easter Sunday, as folks nationwide were making the journey to church. Apparently, Easter also has the lesser-known title of National Family Photo Day, second only to Christmas, just in case some of you missed the memo. No greeting cards necessary, however—a simple Facebook post will do.

“Easter with the family!” They say. #happyeaster #heisrisen #lovemyfamily #soblessed

And as I scrolled down the feed, gazing at the abundance of matching pastels, parents holding their babies, and smiles plastered on faces all around, I started to wonder. What if those pictures were instead a sheet of stickers, and I could reach out and peel back their faces to see what was really hidden underneath? What would I find behind the mom and her baby, the couple holding hands, or the smiling children lined up in a row?

Not-So-Happy Easter photo, followed by real life hashtags. #thismorningsucked #iyelledoverstupidthings #theonlyonethatlikesmenowisthebaby #smilingforthepicturewouldseemlikeajoke #butitsnotfunny #letsgotochurch #thankGodhe'srisen #reallyneedthattoday

On the way out the door, I snapped this one of my kids as we jumped in the car to head to church ourselves. Before I realized it was Family Photo Day, of course. I told them to “Smile! It’s Easter! Say Happy Easter!”

Why do we need to take a stupid picture when you can’t even see our outfits? My daughter protested.

Ya, Happy Easter, my son said, with sarcasm dripping from his lips. And their faces said it all.

Because the reality was, it had probably been anything but.

Oh, I tried. I really did. I did my best to have everything set out and ready ahead of time so we wouldn’t have to rush. I was up early and made every effort to be present with the kids and finish getting the house prepped. But within the first hour of being awake, I had to apologize more times then I had fingers on a fist to shake at them.

I lost it over spilled milk and bubbles, got frustrated with missing socks, failed to see the strides of obedience and helpfulness and focused on the mistakes instead. I asked forgiveness, but sometimes the hurt lingers, and so does the stress. It hangs in the air like the smog from a burnt dinner, and it’s hard to fan away the stench. Hours later even, it’s still noticeable.

The devil is in the details on Sunday mornings, and even more so on the Holy Days. He’s like a shark circling in the water, and he can smell the blood of desperate, wounded souls longing for their Savior. By time some of us make it to church, we are utterly exhausted from treading water, just trying to survive.

I dropped the kids off in class and then poked my head into the classroom across the room to see a dear friend sitting on the floor, caring for the little one in her charge.

How was your morning? I asked her.

It was…rough. Really rough. She replied with a nod as she brushed the hair behind her ear, her head hanging now from the weight of the guilt.

I know. Mine too.

Sometimes it’s all you can do to make it there in one piece.

As I stood in the back of the sanctuary, soaking in the worship and doing my best not to burst into tears on the spot, I wondered to myself, almost aloud, why don’t we talk about it??

Amid the toddlers pulled right out of a magazine ad, the delicious-looking family meals and the color-coded ducks in a row, why doesn’t someone say that even Easter Sunday, particularly Easter Sunday, is hard? Any mention of this thing called "real life" seems to be mysteriously absent from all the festivities.

Don’t get me wrong—its not that family shouldn’t be celebrated on Easter—heck, it’s probably one of the few times a year that everyone is dressed up, coordinated, and early enough to pause for a rare moment together. A memory that you will look back on and probably treasure for years to come. I totally get it and even tried to pull it off myself. "Tried" being the operative word there.

And not that there shouldn’t be joy and celebration, worship and praise—our Savior has risen from the dead! But I wonder, as the world looks at our lives—at our photos—if they think they have to be polished and pristine to darken the door of a church. That only perfect looking, color-coordinated, pretty people go there. The ones who have it all together. The ones with all their kids in a row, smiling, and a picture to prove it.

And with the weight of that image on my chest, I was finding it hard to breathe. I for one don’t measure up, but that, my friends, is the beauty of the Resurrection. Because I don’t have to. Christ came down to earth, lived a sinless life, and died a horrible death on a cross for me because of his great love. Not because I did anything for him or because I deserved it or because I showed up at church on Easter Sunday in my best dress.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:6-8

So I guess I’m here to tell you that it’s okay.

It’s okay to have an Easter Sunday, or any Sunday for that matter, that totally sucks by 9:00am. The kind of day where you’d rather just crawl back into bed then face another minute. And it’s okay to talk about it. You don’t have to feel guilty about it, or ungrateful, or hypocritical, or like a total jerk of a Christian.

You're not. You just simply suffer from something they call "being human." We all do.

In fact, if you were to peel back the stickers and peek under the smiles in those perfect family photos, I imagine that you’d find many a crappy Sunday morning hiding there. 

"Worn"

Tenth Avenue North

I’m Tired I’m worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I’ve made mistakes

I’ve let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest

So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

For When You Wanted Christmas to be Perfect and It's Really Just a Mess

It had a been a busy week at our house, trying to fit birthday party planning in with the normal holiday craziness and schoolwork and life. When the days are full and I literally run from one thing to the next, I get this tightness in my chest that I can't seem to shake. The apprehension of things to come, the anxiety of fitting it all in, the worrying that it won't. It's like the busyness weighs on me and makes it hard to breathe. Hard to think. Impossible to write.

I don't do well with weeks like that. I get impatient and cranky. I hurry, rush and stress. Or at least I feel like I am all the time. And you know those days when you're so cranky you can't even stand being around your own self? Yeah.

Come Wednesday I'd had enough of myself and all the running. I wanted to breathe again and not be so frustrated with the kids all the time.

As I turned right off of our street and drove down the road to pick up the kids from school, I whispered a brief, quiet prayer to God…

I can't do this anymore. I'm sick of the hurrying and the hurting and the crankiness. I don't want to have another night like the ones we've had this week, and I know I can't do it myself. But you can. Please help me to somehow love my kids well, be slow to anger, and find joy in the mess.

We arrived at the school, and the kids ran up and piled into the van, relieved to be out of the cold. We went home and had snacks and worked on homework and I got dinner ready and on the table in record time, which never usually happens around here. My husband got home from work a little early and we all sat around the table and talked about our highs and lows.

After the table was cleared, my son sat down with my husband to do his nightly reading. I was across the room loading the dishwasher and listening to him give the characters in the story different voices and sound effects. Smiling and chuckling to myself, I put another fork and knife into the silverware basket.

Then it hit me.

I haven't yelled. I haven't been frustrated by things that would normally drive me nuts. I've smiled at my kids and even found joy in the chaos that is our after-school-homework-completing-sit-down-and-keep-your-hands-to-yourself-family-dinner craziness that is our weekday life.

I stood quietly and marveled at that small miracle, gratitude filling my heart. All it took was an invitation, and God showed up and did His thing. So seamlessly that I hadn't even noticed until it was already in motion.

Isn't it funny that all around you life can be a mess, yourself included, and all it takes is an invitation, a simple surrender, to usher in the presence of a Holy God. 

Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.
And Mary said,
Yes, I see it all now:
I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.
Let it be with me
just as you say.
Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:37-38 {MSG}

Jesus wasn't haphazardly born into a messy stable surrounded by stinky farm animals and dirty shepherds--He chose that very place on purpose and for His glory. Nothing about that very first Christmas, that Holy Night, would strike us as perfect. In fact, we would probably say it was far from ideal. An unplanned trip about 70 miles to Bethleham on the back of a donkey, nine months pregnant and exhausted? Finally arriving after dark to find that there is absolutely nowhere to stay, not one room?

Perfect situation? Ideal circumstances? Not so much.

The one and only perfect thing about that very first Christmas was Jesus Himself. And that's still true today. Jesus thrives in the mess. He can be glorified in the mess. All it takes is an invitation.