Adding Up the Years, Part 2

Again I am counting as I remember the past 22 years of parenting.

1,2,3.. Today I counted to 47,000.
Diapers changed in this household.
Over 22 years...
47,000, give or take a few.

As you gag in awe and disgust, I would like to offer an honorable mention to my life partner who, among all of his other wonderful traits, has hardly ever missed a chance to change a diaper.

I'm serious.
 
Ladies, take it from me, if you are going to choose a life partner, along with all the traits currently on your list, add  happily changes diapers. Even if you don't have a monstrous family like mine, you'll be glad you did!

 Add "   Happily changes diapers"  to your list of admirable traits when looking for a potential mate.

But I digress. Some numbers are astounding.  Like 12 years and 4 months of pregnancy. In those years, by the time I would nurse the newest baby, I would be having another.

I know. I'm not complaining, mind you. Just reminiscing.
I read a great “what people don't tell you about pregnancy" website the other day that said, “When it comes to getting your body back to your pre-pregnant state,  it’s best to think nine months on, nine months off.”  Pondering this, I laughed hysterically (some might say maniacally). 

My mantra might be, “At least nine and a half months on and 4-7 sleepless months off. Repeat."… For those of you who are really counting, just know that, in some random twist of fate..er...  that is..planned–for-my-growth design, I am the only person you know who has gone weeks overdue with twelve pregnancies.

Nursing. I think we’re talking at least fourteen cumulative years involved in that lovely activity.
And speaking of feeding children, three times a day for 22 years is 24,090 meals for an ever-increasing number of tummies pulled up around my table in varying sizes and appetites.

Laundry... oh please! Let's not talk loads. Let's just add up the mountains and let it go at that.

Then there are the books and songs. I probably shouldn’t even calculate how many times I’ve read the classic “Apple, Ducks, Block” or sung the “Rocking Chair Prayer” to a sleepy child.

Or a whole rocker full of children. I can fit four or five if I don’t need to turn the pages.

 Much more than can be added...

Of course, these are just statistics, and as such they are intrinsically deceiving.  In recent years, for instance, my kids have changed an awful lot (emphasis on awful) of diapers for their younger siblings and prepared many, many meals.  But parenting has been deeper and broader than these numbers suggest, thank the Lord.

As I look back, I am reminded of this one irrefutable fact. 

God has been faithful to my family. (Here circa 2004)
 

 Ooh, I am gonna hear about this one! Humility, children! Since we're counting, consider all the humiliation you've brought me... But seriously...

Our Creator has provided everything we needed to do what we’ve done. He has provided nice clothing, abundant good quality food, and more good books to read than we have room for. 

Our family has never lacked good friends of similar heart with whom to share the journey, support from creative, generous grandparents, and opportunities to let God’s love flow through us to and from others.

Our kids enjoyed the blessing of tree swings and trampolines in a large shady yard, the gift of cousins of similar ages to play with, and the chance to learn discipline through daily chores and yard work. 

They’ve gotten the home school advantage of independence and resourcefulness, and the depth of character-building from participating in sports teams.

And our Lord has provided all.

Looking back on the amazing journey only makes me more excited for the road ahead, 

even when I cannot see around the bend in the road.

God can be trusted. Think about it.

If you never trust Him, you’ll never know how cool life can be.
Adding up the numbers, to me they equal the sum of JOY!

Adding Up the Years

"It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge."  Phyllis Diller

Today I am celebrating parenthood. This is the 22^nd anniversary of my foray into the job.  

A friend suggested adding it all up, like they do for lawyer’s ads. Parenting each child gives me an astounding 161 years of experience. Together, hubby and I can put (2, carry the one) 322 years of parenting experience on our shingle! 

Now I remember why people always do a double-take when they hear our lucky number 13!

Every parent soon realizes parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever love.

 Parenting is the hardest job you'll ever love

Everyone commiserates that the pay is lousy, but we sometimes forget the benefits are outrageous. Carrying thirteen babies, one at a time over a span of 20 years, first in my heart, my body, then my arms, my home, my car, and finally my prayers has changed much more than the size of my waist and the amount in my bank account.

When that tiny baby looked up at me with wonder for the first time, my heart and life were irrevocably changed. The logic and reason I had before that point were destroyed in an explosion of overwhelming maternal compassion and protection.

So were my eardrums, but that’s another matter.

I believe everyone should have babies and teenagers at the same time. That way, when the teen rolls his eyes and slams into his room, the baby will look up at you with this adoring smile that says, “My world is complete!” and you have a spark of hope for another day.

 Everyone should have babies and teenagers at the same time...

Conversely, when you have spent the day shushing a crying baby and wiping spit-up off your shoulder, the teenager can take a turn patting and pacing and have a real adult conversation as he does.

As for having a large family, I highly recommend it. Adaptability keeps us young. Many of the folks with whom we started out having children are now rattling around in their empty houses. When they lay down a book, that book inexplicably stays in exactly the same spot until they pick it up again a week later. It does not migrate behind the couch or under the toddler’s bed. They wake every morning to silence and the sound of birdsong, not screaming. 

I certainly don't envy them.

Granted, we don’t have the energy we once did, but we are still happily in the full circle of busy parenting. Every day is filled with the learning and wonder of childhood… multiplied, of course, by the myriad of experiences. 

Keturah is potty training, Ezra is learning to tie his shoes, and Faith is memorizing her multiplication tables. Hannah is playing basketball, while Micah just got his first job. Our capacity for variety and change is continually challenged, and there is no end in sight. 

At the age when our schoolmates are facing the empty nest, we are learning and growing instead of settling in. 

This suits me. I’m not ready to be old.

Years ago, I had a vision of two gardens. The first one was in a tiny back yard. It consisted of a few ruler-straight rows of vegetables carefully tended so there was not a weed in sight.  A few modest vegetables were growing on the stalks. It looked good and virtuous and proper.

The other garden was an imposing sight to behold. A huge mass of plant material sprang from the ground in every configuration imaginable. Flowers were entwined with vegetables and fruit in a wild mass of growth. Weeds grew all around the garden, and even in it there were a few. But what drew my attention was the fruit. In this wild chaos of a garden grew this luscious, massive produce. The fruit and flowers were everywhere in great abundance. 

 What drew my attention was the fruit

I felt in that moment that God was showing me the choice I could make with my life. In attempting to control my parenting, I could have a beautifully managed garden with some genuine fruit. Or, I could give up control and let the garden grow in God’s way. 

I would risk the scrutiny of others and the lack of showmanship, but I could have the big healthy fruit.

I chose fruit.

Take it from my considerable years of experience. The fruit is incredibly sweet!

Hannah's Plan

Our Hannah started public school today. This experience is a bit unique to us, despite the number of kiddos we have. She has been rather dreading her first day as a sophomore, when she has to leave the freedom and security of life at home and go into windowless classrooms full of bored and hurting teens.

Our other kids her age and ability have started early college, but God has Hannah on a different track. She’s a bit of an athletic star, and as such has the privilege of playing basketball for the high school. Last year she played JV as a freshman and learned a ton. All the other girls had played together on special teams since they were in fifth grade. But this group let her in. It was a bit of a miracle in itself for the typically insecure group of public school girls to be nice to a former home –schooler they didn’t know, especially one who might take their position.

We talked on the way this morning about goals for the year. She has been praying for a friend with whom to share the battle. She knows she is there to make a difference. In this situation, you can hardly go in preaching on a soapbox and be effective. So the goals are:

1) Strive to succeed in everything you do. God may continue to grace your abilities and favor you, I reminded her, because when others respect you it gives you a platform for the gospel.

2) Plan now to put something into everyone you meet, even if it is a smile, a listening ear, a companionable acceptance of who God made them to be.

3) Look for the honest occasional opportunity to mention Jesus in your general conversation, so that people will understand why you are so giving, happy, and successful. (This part isn’t preaching, but just dropping a hint so the questioners will have an answer.) And

4) Pray for each person in your new environment, that God will stir up the circumstances in their lives so that their “field” will be tilled and ready for the seed you can plant. Ask God for a specific strategy for each person, and insight into their need beyond the school façade.

Even though I know the Lord made it clear this was His plan for Hannah, I had a moment of overwhelming sadness as I dropped her off. Watching the kids enter the building, it was hard to leave her there in that environment where students and teachers seem godless, bored, and beaten down. Her experiences last year (though full of blessings and victories) were a daily battle against the idea that being who you are is not good enough, as the prevailing attitude is often ridicule of joy and creativity.

I’m reminded that she is not mine, but the Lord's, and I raised her to be the person who challenges the status quo and fights that battle which is never against flesh and blood. I'm glad she goes forward on the offensive, praying and planting, knowing who she is and prepared to be a beacon in a very dark world.

When I picked Hannah up after school, she was all aglow. A few lockers down from hers, she made a new acquaintance her age who had been praying all summer for a Christian friend. What a joy that they can work the plan this year together!

Read Aloud Blues

Once upon a time, a mother sat down to read a book to her four month old baby. Twenty years later, she still reads the same book to another four month old. No, not her grandchild. Her own. And in between those two times wer an infinite number of other times just like them, stretching all the way between like an intricate web of words and learning.
Quiz: What’s the single most important factor in a child’s reading ability and therefore, his success in school? Yup! You guessed it. Parents who read aloud to their kids give them a huge head start on all language and reading skills which are often never surpassed by any other learning exercise. As the mother of thirteen who just today celebrated 20 years of parenting with the birthday of my eldest child, I had an epiphany:
Reading aloud to my children has irrevocably damaged my brain.
Sure, I began reading when they were babies and all of my children were early talkers and readers. But this scary thought occurred to me tonight as I was blithely rhyming my way through Apple Pigs which I couldn’t really see due to the three children on my lap and one leaning over the side of the rocker. Ezra kept pointing out his favorite parts of the book over and over again so it sounded like “Once in our garden there stood an old tree (quiwo! quiwo!- which is squirrel in two year old in case you were wondering.) No blossoms, no leaves, no fruit for me,” (birdie! birdie!). As I pressed on, my thought was, “He’ll get through this stage. I remember Jerusha was a big one for doing that when she was a little over a year. Every day we would read the little book about the Bible, and she would point out the kitty on every page. I used to wonder if she would think the Bible was about kitties.”
And then it hit me. Though that time seems like yesterday, Jerusha is currently seventeen years old!
I have been reading the very same books repeatedly many times a day for 20 years! Now I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t a big deal. But let me remind you that these books are not literary classics. I’m not reading Ben Hur(although I have gone through the Little House Series three times now with each successive age group) or books that can be reasonably plumbed to their ultimate depths in 20 years of re-reading. I’m reading Dr. Seuss and board books with entrancing titles like “Apple, Ducks, Block” Incidentally, that particular book is a true classic in its own right because it has managed to make it through thirteen babies and still be readable, or at least gummable.. It meets the criteria for excellent board book in my mind because it has clear pictures of every day objects in a child’s world, one simple word on each page, and it made it through the one-year-old Elijah demolition cyclone intact.
Seriously, folks. Its not a wonder that my children start college at 15 and 16. The wonder is that their mother is still a relatively sane human being who can carry on a fairly decent conversation. Give me another year and I’ll crack. This is how it’ll sound...

Neighbor getting mail: “Good morning, Leah!”
Me (bemused) “... Get up! It’s day! The sun is up! Day is not a time for sleep. Now all the dogs get up! Go dogs go!”
Neighbor backing away, “Go?? Okay! See you tomorrow!”
Me (still muttering on the way into the house) ...”If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk...and if you give him the milk....”

At the store...
Me :“A a A a What begins with A?”
Produce guy: “Asparagus? Apples?”
Me: “Aunt Annie’s Alligator, A a A”
Cashier: “That’ll be $167.42”
Me: “Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight mighty nice.”
Cashier:” Debit... Please enter your PIN Number...”
Me: “Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick, sick, sick!”
Kids: “Mom, what are we having for dinner??”
Me: “Jam on bread. We like that. When its sticky and it lingers, we can lick it off our fingers.”

The rhyming is catchy. That’s what makes it maddeningly easy to learn. Ask anyone who pens jingles for a living why they write the way they do and the answer will have nothing to do with creative license and innovation. It has everything to do with stickiness, or the way the concept sticks with you. Have you ever said, “I just can’t get that stupid song out of my head?” THAT is why we have Dr. Seuss! Of course, little children LOVE repetition more than they love peanut butter sandwiches. It helps them learn. And, God help me, I am a sucker for a learning child. It just never gets old. I love to see their responses, see them thinking and developing language. I may have read “Apple Ducks Block” a conservative 140,000 times in my life, but to Keturah, it’s brand new. And so for me, its also brand new every time I share it with her.
I have a feeling that as my strength and agility give way to old age, the only thoughts left in my poor confused brain will be these bits of my “Mommy Mantra.” After all, its not my amazing sparks of insight that take up most of my days, not my wisdom gleaned over 30 years of teaching children, not even the Bible verses I memorized which have made the deepest grooves in my grey matter..It’s little snatches of literary fluff that have formed shocking crevasses in my cerebellum from the sheer repetition of them. No brainwashed POW has anything on me. After all, I did it voluntarily. I made my mouth form the words “Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake Baker’s Man” and “Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill” more often than any other phrases over a two decade span, and this includes the ever maternally popular “Did you make your bed?” and “Don’t put the cat in the toilet!” I’ve spoken the tongue-twisting rhymes or ploddingly mundane labels over and over , more often than anything besides diaper changing, and you don’t want to know what THAT”S done to my psyche.
I’ve stated these phrases in my sleep, especially the restless sleep with a new baby and a sick toddler. I’ve even found interesting deep parapsychology in them at times that seems to fade with morning light. I’ve repeatedly the seemingly innocuous words until they had a life of their own, a sort of family culture that binds my children to each other through the shared experience base. We all replayed the Amelia Bedelia predicament with misunderstanding words of double entendre’. We’ve laughed at the Stupids, thrilled at the independence of the Boxcar Children and solved mysteries with Encyclopedia Brown.
“Once upon a time,” begins the most magical time I know, parental brain damage notwithstanding.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
THE END

Keturah Rose

Keturah
Keturah
Pure breath of Heaven
(her name is fragrant rose)
She wriggles.
breathes tiny gurgles
against my cheek
Her dimpled hands,
conducting their own
symphony
Bright eyes gazing solemnly
in her doll face,
tawny wisps of hair
and palest petal skin
Cherub round smile blossoms
Fresh-from-the bath sonnet
of lavender and talc
envelops us
as we rock
our tryst in silent morning
Her name means fragrant rose

Beware The Borrowers

The Borrowers
You have to know me. I am the home school mom who shuns the Little Mermaid and Dragon Tales. We turn off Sesame Street in my house if they start talking about witches or sorcerers. But there’s one set of fantasy characters I can’t help believing in with all my heart. In fact, as the mom of thirteen, my faith has grown over the years. I believe in the Borrowers.
You probably read the books as a child. You know, the supposedly fictitious little people who lived under the floorboards of the English country house and later lived in a shoe in the country. Long before Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the Borrowers were doing what they do best, making a living unseen by human eyes by borrowing items we humans thought we had misplaced.
In our first house, my husband and I didn’t have any Borrowers. It was small, and at first there were just the two of us. When I set down a book I was reading, for instance, it would remain in the same place, bookmark unmoved, until I picked it up again. In those days, I never paid a library fine, never spent any time looking for a pencil or a safety pin. My dishes did not migrate around the house. I never found a fork under the computer table, for instance.
But I digress. As a young mom, I had little trouble with the Borrowers. Occasionally they would pop up to take some significant item. The Borrowers in that house really only liked infant socks and an occasional toddler shoe. Oh, and sometimes they enjoyed sifting through my bills and papers when I wasn’t looking. Everything else was carefully managed by one energetic and well-meaning neurotic mother…me. They couldn’t get much past me. I was vigilant. I wanted to set out traps, but when my husband looked at me like I was… inhumane? I gave up the idea, albeit a bit resentfully.
Those missing socks got me though. Every time I would dress the baby he would be missing a sock. The cheeky critters were bold enough to assault my little ones whenever they were out of my sight. Every day I would feed socks two by two into the washer, and every day I would fold the dryer load and find that some were missing. I knew the Borrowers lived somewhere behind the washer and dryer, but I never understood how they got in there and back out safely, what with all the spinning and hot water and such. And what did they do with little socks and shoes?? I had fantasies of moving the washer to find them, wearing completely mismatched shirts and hats Homily had cut and sewn out of infant socks, using the toddler shoe as a child’s bed, perhaps? I often wondered if that missing Christmas card from Aunt Lou was the wallpaper in their makeshift home. I guess now I’ll never know.
That early batch of Borrowers were lightweights compared to the ones who now infest our house. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that our current home is completely inundated with little people who take whatever they want whenever they want. Like a hoard of greedy mice, they live in every crack and corner, ready to pounce on anything that is ever out of our sight, if only for a second. Though these Borrowers still have a penchant for baby shoes and socks, nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) is now safe from their thievery. If anyone in the family lays down a book for any amount of time, for instance, that book immediately disappears. Apparently the Borrowers in this present house are avid readers, because the books usually reappear in the oddest places, such as under the bed, on the porch swing, in the cereal cupboard, or on the trampoline the day after it rains. On more than one memorable occasion, stolen items have been found in our fifteen passenger van in the trash bins or out in the garage. How they do it, I’ll never know, but these Borrowers display creativity that belies their appetite for Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. I hate to admit it, but library fees are common in our household. In fact we now consider fines the price we have to pay for allowing the Borrowers to remain un-confronted for so long. Vigilance is out the window. We now live to make peace with the Borrowers.
Its cowardly I know, but as an older mom with only so much energy, I have to pick which battles I choose to fight. In fact, my current goal is to purchase enough pacifiers, pencils, earrings, socks, and paper clips that the house actually has a saturation point. Drop a pacifier and can’t find it? No matter. You’ll probably find one the Borrowers are finished with under the couch cushion. It takes all my power of denial to keep from asking where it’s been. In our house, when it comes to the Borrowers, the rule is “Don’t Ask; Don’t tell.” And I would add: “Try not to imagine.”
I used to ask questions when, as vigilant Mom, I felt it was my role to interrogate the last person to see the missing items. Such interrogation was always pointless. Even in those simpler days when less was going on and possessions were fewer, I quickly realized all questioning was essentially futile. My children, of course, were then and continue to be, careful and conscientious about these matters. They consistently put things away where they belong without prompting except in the occasional instance when I happen to be in the room and watching them. At those times, they might forget, and I would remind. But all other times out of my sight they are independently perfectionists about their possessions. Just ask them.
In fact, to hear my honest and trustworthy children tell it, the Borrowers we began to harbor were a dangerous lot, indeed. These aggressive Borrowers have even taken perfectly sharpened pencils out of my dutiful students’ hands as they are working on assignments at the kitchen table. But since I have taken to buying the thousand-pack at Costco, my students only have minor inconvenience in sharpening another from the drawer. Since the stories began to rival the stuff of nightmares, I stopped asking. And I’m a much happier woman for having done so.
I’ve taken to offering a bounty for missing items we need, say a penny for a pencil. In this way, we’ve managed to wrest a few items away from the tiny robbers. But the majority of small possessions remain lost to us forever, or at least until the Borrowers are done with them. The only problem with offering pennies is that the Borrowers are especially fond of taking those also when they get out into circulation. The Borrowers are particularly mean to little children when it comes to pennies, often taking them out of pockets and even hands.
Although I live to make peace with them, the Borrowers still make my family’s life much harder than it needs to be. Many a college homework assignment has disappeared when it was almost finished, and had to be redone in a late-night scurry. Besides library fines, there is the inevitable financial drain they impose. I still hate the thought that I am supporting such a large army of remorseless wastrels, but what else can I do? If only I had the time and courage to call in the fumigators.
Sometimes, I am amazed at the Borrowers’ daring and ingenuity. How do they get inside the refrigerator to eat the half of brownie I brought home from the restaurant? While don’t they eat the leftover chili instead? I can imagine the feast they have, the little buggers, but still it fascinates to think they got in and out without being seen or trapped inside.
These days the sock question is a complete loss. In my house, a person is lucky to have any clean laundry, and two socks that fit (sort-of) even if they are your big brother’s and you found them under the bed. Matching is completely immaterial… and overrated.
And there are still some things I can’t imagine any Borrower would value. What do they do with all the silverware, for instance? Ten years ago, my husband bought me three sets of nice silverware in a pattern I chose. I was so thrilled. But today, I have ten forks, all mismatched, that I picked up from Goodwill. I figure what’s the use having nice things when the Borrowers will take them in a wink? And why do they like forks and spoons best? Every one knows knives are more useful. When we have company or the boys come home from college, somebody has to use plastic, but I don’t care. I draw the line at buying nice silverware if it’s only to be used for weapons and catapults and such and never seen by human eyes again.
And what do they do with earrings? Why do they like the pearls I got for birthdays and anniversary best? Is there some currency in their simple society or are they used as marbles for a child’s game? Who do they call on the cell phone before they return it to my coat pocket or under my chair? These questions could drive me crazy if I let them. Soccer shin guards and jerseys seem to be Borrower favorites, along with brushes and ponytail holders. As the mom of eight daughters, I have spent enough on ponytail holders to shoot a Borrower to the moon. I hope he likes it up there.
I end this confession to get ready for church. You’ll recognize me there. I’m the one with mismatched socks, one earring, and a van load of happy kids.

The Wheels on the Bus...

We went to Salem's Gilbert Discovery Village and Portland's OMSI on the same day Saturday to give Tony time at home to work on his sermon, as he filled in for our pastor today. I'm not sure how I thought it was going to work, but we had a terrific time. That was even despite Jewel-Anne not feeling well and crying at many new junctures. When she looked at the water room, she started sobbing, "Oh, no! I can't get wet!!!" She is a bit of a drama queen, and as I said, not feeling well, so we administered Tylenol and took it all in stride.
We were able to meet our Ferrier cousins at Gilbert House for a rousing game of hide-and-seek in the play area, and then on to OMSI, where we became really glad we had purchased our membership down south. (It was cheaper to do it that way, too.)There were about 75 people jamming the entrance hall, waiting in a line that didn't seem to be moving. We were able to walk right into the exhibit hall, which is two floors of special displays about Leonardo DaVinci, including actual working tools made according to DaVinci's designs and prepared for the exhibit in Italy with authentic period materials. The children worked the ball bearings, mechanical wings, and archimedes screw for themselves, and learned quite a bit about the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper.
My favorite at OMSI is the younger children's area, as it is so well designed and fun. There is a sand area, a water/bubbles area, and a place to play with balls and pipes and air pressure, among many other activities. I never tire of watching the light-bulb moment in learning, and places like OMSI give so many opportunities for our kids to grow their brains. I love it! It never gets old.
Aside from the 45 minute wait for AAA on the way home when we ran out of gas just north of Salem's Market Street exit, it was an exciting and adventurous day for Mama and the crew. That particular part got a bit unnerving when Keturah had had enough of all the stimulus and wailed for a while. We sang songs to pass the time, just like we used to do on the bus to day camp when I was a kid. Come to think of it,I guess I've got my own bus full of day campers.
We paid dearly for our long fun day when the time change saw us dragging the entire family out of the house in time for first service at what used to be 7AM. Ouch! But the sermon was great and a dear Sunday School Mommy brought us breakfast, so we got through it with much grace.

Flood, Mud, Crud

I have had one of those days. People never believe me that every day is not one of them. I guess its hard to imagine that someone with eleven children at home and two others off into the world (but close enough to pop in needing help with their taxes) would actually love her life. I do.
No really, I do.
Most days.
But today I was ready to change course and become... what?? a nun? a Mongolian sheep-herder? Either would do as long as the new profession involved silence and rest.
For starters, I haven't been feelimg well. The baby is two months old and I can only remember three days during that time when I have had no pain. I was in a car accident, then had trauma-induced pancreatitis, and now I have residual nerve pain which must have been exacerbated by giving birth. The specialist I saw yesterday who was supposed to have some answers said, essentially, that the pain was here to stay, and she offered no remedy. It was discouraging.
And then two year old Ezra woke up ready to challenge the status quo. He went in to the bathroom when no one was looking and by the time we heard him he had filled the sink with water, and soaked a roll of toilet paper in the toilet and another in the sink. I opened the door to find the bathroom floor under a half inch of water and both sink and toilet plugged. He smiled at me and said "Mama, I'm wet!" It took every towel we could find to soak up the water.
Our laundry system has been backed up all week and this was a resounding blow to our forces of maintenance in the "Mom's our of commission survival mode" we've all been managing.
We got a new dog. His name is Rusty and he's a 2 year old purebred golden retriever that our friends were not able to keep. He's so smart he figured out immediately how to get out of our fenced yard.
He's also a mud-magnet.
While he's been exploring the new neighborhood, he comes back soaked to the bone and spreads mud everywhere. We already used all of our junk towels and many of our good ones drying him off the last two days whenever he goes out and comes back in. I know there was some reason we wanted a new dog, but when I look at the extra mess, I can't seem to remember what it was.
So then 15 year old Micah, who before now has never been sick in his life, and yet has spent a week and a half lying on the couch with a fever, woke today to announce he was having trouble taking a deep breath. He was better yesterday, and now can't breathe? My Mommy radar went off, so I drove him to urgent care.
He really didn't want to go, came up with excuses, thought I was overreacting. We waited an hour to see the doctor, during which Keturah was hungry. I knew better than to nurse her, because I'm having to give her a bottle or she gets colic since I've been detoxing. But she was fussy, so I nursed her to keep her quiet while Micah went to get the bottle. And then she really began to scream. I ended up spending the waiting time doing the colic dance up and down the sidewalk outside while she screamed. Did I mention I'm not feeling well?
So when they didn't hear anything in his lungs, Micah gave me the look that said "I knew you were a hypochondriac, Mom." But then the X-ray showed his left lung is half full of fluid.
He has pneumonia.
Our routine has been disturbed again.
I realized tonight that part of why we're having so much trouble with Ezra is that Micah is always connecting with him, watching him, encouraging and helping him. He feels cared for and gets immediate accountability for his actions. But since Micah and Mom are sick, he is feeling at loose ends and bored, perhaps a bit neglected, a bad combination unless you're trying to grow rebellion.
Something I did not know as a young mom was that it takes more than vigilance to create a happy obedient child. Unless there is the reinforcement of good behavior, punishing bad behavior will create a sullen obstinance, and a determination to get away with the behavior as soon as Mom's back is turned.
So I had Ezra "Help" make dinner when we got home from the doctor. He got me a spoon, cutting board and boullion, washed the celery, put the veggie pieces into the soup pot. And all the while I praised him for being such a big helper. Then he emptied all the wastebaskets into the large trash can in the kitchen, with constant direction and praise. This is his usual job in the morning, but it has been hit and miss lately.
We had a nice family dinner, with plenty of laughter, and I tried to help him be his most polite self with constant positive feedback. Daddy tickled and wrestled him tonight before bed. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better than today.
Days like today I need a time out to remember and be grateful. What an amazing big brother Micah is, for instance, and what a difference he makes in our endeavor to care for so many little people.
My parents come on Wednesdays, and that is something for which I am so grateful. Grandma Mary teaches preschool with the little ones, and Grandpa John teaches catechism with the older five. What would our family do without their constant encouragement and support? And today my Dad cleared the stopped up sink and toilet for me. What a blessing that was!!
I got to talk with my friend Jazz today. She always listens and understands. God has given me a priceless treasure in her faithful camaraderie for 25 years since we were college roommates. She genuinely cares, and she always points me to Jesus.
Another thing for which to be grateful is the song that's been stuck in my head all day. I sang it to Keturah when we were doing the colic dance:

Oh, how I love You, Jesus,
I know You love me too
I love Your Word that tells me
To You I belong
When I am weak, You make me strong
Your hands so strong they carry me
True You love me so much
True, You love me so
True You love me so much
My heart just overflows!

I guess I'm a bit like Micah. I tend to be skeptical in tough times that God knows what is best and I don't.
Maybe I'm also a lot like Ezra. I need some praise and encouragement to keep me on the right path, especially when things get harder than usual.