I Was There

Today was the fourth and final celebration of Madeline's fifth birthday: the school party. You must know that Madeline's school is militant about what kinds of foods parents are allowed to bring to a party.  They pass out a supplemental nutrition form in the beginning of the year, which parents must turn in and receive approval for at least a week in advance.  Foods with any amount of fat or sugar get the axe.  Cupcakes and ice cream need not apply.

This is an actual excerpt from the "suggested food for a birthday party" list:

Small deli wraps or sandwiches Whole grain or fruit muffins Vegetable sticks with dip Sugar-free Jello snacks Sugar-free Angel Food Cake with fruit Yogurt Milk

Thanks a lot, Michelle Obama.

I was requesting permission to bring in little bags of 99% fat free Kettle Corn and cups of mandarin oranges when I found a note in Madeline's folder which read:

We will be having our Christmas party on Monday, December 17.  If you would like to bring something for the class, feel free to do so.  This is one of the few days a year that we are allowed to have sweets.  We have 10 boys and 7 girls in our class.

You better believe I wrote a note to the teacher and hitched Madeline's shindig to that party faster than you can say "cupcakes."

(Although, I was not allowed to MAKE CUPCAKES without going through 14,596 miles of red tape.  I had to buy cupcakes that had a list of ingredients on the package, which is incidentally less healthy, more expensive, and also tastes gross - but whatever.)

Things got interesting when, 45 minutes before I had to BE at school, I impulsively decided to make cupcake toppers.  These were not just Christmas party cupcakes, these were "Celebrating Madeline Who, Five Years Ago, Was Born With Sparkle In Her Veins" cupcakes, and I could not have them getting lumped in with the Cheetos and Christmas cookies.

Nevermind that I hadn't showered or eaten, and, like Sam, was still in my pajamas.   Where there's a will there's a way, and I have nothing if I don't have will.

I parked Sam in his high chair munching a piece of toast and watching Veggie Tales Christmas movies and got busy.

I traced lumpy circles around my pepper shaker with a broken red crayon.  I cut out my circles, hot glued toothpicks to the backs of them, and then tried to write on the fronts with a Crayola marker - over the toothpick bumps.  So classy.

 

 

I am so sorry for the people that had to witness me running into Madeline's school in the nick of time.  Picture this:

A very large pregnant woman who has not showered or brushed her hair in two days and is not wearing even the tiniest smidge of makeup.  She is wearing the same outfit that she has been wearing for the last two, now three, days (and this is not an exaggeration).  She has shoved two containers of store-bought cupcakes sideways into a bag which is slung over her shoulder, smashing all the icing, and she is carrying a baby on one hip.  The baby and the cupcakes are bumping along as she runs, panting, through the rain without an umbrella.

And so - I arrived to Madeline's Christmas/Birthday party looking like a drowned rat.  A very pregnant drowned rat.

But I was there.

And when I walked in, my baby girl lit up and shouted, "MOM!!!!"

In that moment I felt no shame, no embarrassment, and no regret because I chose what mattered; I chose to be there.  I chose last-minute cupcake toppers over makeup.  I chose being on time over being late, and I'd do it a hundred times over.  This is what ultimately matters to our kids, this is what they'll remember, whether or not we were there.

I am not a perfect mother, but I am a present mother, and at Madeline's class Christmas party - I was there.

I would be happy if today were exactly how Madeline remembered me forever:  big, tired, a total mess, but there for her - on time and with cupcakes.

 

Sam

I've never written out a love letter to Sam, not in the way I've done for Madeline in the past. The reason is, I was afraid that it would seem like he is my favorite.  I was afraid that if I was honest about how much I love him, it would make everyone question the love I have for my husband, for Madeline, for Jesus.

The thing is, when I think about how much I love Sam, the only words I can access are "favorite," and "best." If there were better words, words that could somehow simultaneously express how much I love Jesus and Dan and Madeline, I would use those words.  But I can't think of any.

And today I decided that it would be an absolute shame, disgrace, failure in parenting if I never articulated how much I love my son just because it would sound too outlandish.  The love I have for him IS outlandish, and he should know that.  When I die, whenever that may be, I want him to have a written record, along with a giant box full of pictures, to remind him of just how madly and crazily in love with him I was.

So this is my love letter to my second child, my first son, Sam.

 

Sam, you are my best.

I tell you a hundred times every day, "You are it for me.  You have ruined me.  I am done."

Sam, you changed everything.

You changed how I feel about having boys.  I wasn't sure about boys.  I'd heard rumors about how much they love their mothers, how they are easier.  But I also know boys.  I know wild, rough and tumble, off-the-wall, uncontainable, uncontrollable boys that make babysitters call parents who are out on dates and say, "YOU HAVE TO COME GET THIS BOY."   And, to be honest, I was nervous about changing diapers and circumcision and everything happening down there.

But you changed everything.  You ruined me.  Now I want only boys, boys forever.  But that's not even true - I want only Sams, Sams forever.  I've wanted to freeze you at every stage of life, so that I could keep infant Sam, 4-month-Sam, 7-month, 10-month, and 14-month Sams.  You have always been perfect, and I cannot let you go.

You are the dangerous kind of baby, the kind of baby that makes me think that I could have a dozen more babies without batting an eyelash.  But it's a gamble, because the next one might not be so easy.  Exhibit A: Your Sister.  She is also my favorite person and makes me crazy with love, but she is the most spirited creature I've ever been in contact with.  Wild mustangs are a distant second.  Gamble is not the right word, because if we have another Madeline, we win - but in the event that your little brother inherits her spirited gene, I'm going to need more coffee.

The precious thing is, she loves you will all of that spirit.  She cheers for you, loudly, every day.  "SAM LEARNED HOW TO SAY BYEEEEE!!!!! YAAAAAYYYYY SAMMMM!!!!"  She laughs at you and disobeys me constantly to do dangerous and unmannerly things that make you laugh.  She, too, is addicted to your giggle.  She, too, would do anything for it.  Anything for you.  She kisses you every night and tells you that she loves you.  Last night you leaned out of my arms into a very impressive back-bend and giggled as she kissed you all over your face and head.  You laughed and laughed together; she told how how cute you were, and you leaned further and further back for more kisses.

You changed how I feel about staying at home.  I want to be around you all the time; I have to tear myself away from you.  You are my best buddy.  Not my "buddy" as a term of endearment, but my buddy as in the person I want to be around the most.  We understand each other.  There is a knowing between us - a secret language.  We laugh together, like friends. I think that you have an old soul, and that our souls have been friends who love each other for a long time.

You are so affectionate it slays me.  You toddle up to me and lay your head on my knee, wrap your arms around my thigh, and pat me - a little Sam-hug.  You do this a couple times an hour, like you notice me sitting there and want to remind me every 20 minutes that you love me and that you're my best.  You climb up into my lap a lot, because you'd prefer to be there than anywhere else.  I know that this will change, I've heard it does, as you become more adventurous, and that's why I want to freeze you.  Because I might actually die inside the day you stop climbing into my lap for no reason.

I cannot keep my hands off of you.  I can't stop combing your hair, squishing your arms, grabbing your fingers.  I can't stop stroking your cheek and your back.  I can't stop munching your toes and nibbling your ear lobes.  I can't stop tickling you or hugging you or kissing you.  You are the softest, sweetest, most beautiful boy that has ever been. I cannot have you falling in love with another woman.  I absolutely cannot have it.  I am going to have to pray really hard about this for a lot of years in order to make peace with it.  But not yet.  I can't even pray about it yet.  Maybe next year, but probably not then either.

I have dozens and dozens of pictures of the two of us with our faces smashed up against each other.  None of them are particularly flattering, because I take them with my phone, but it's the closest thing I have to freezing you.  I'm very serious about this freezing thing.

 

I can't remember ever having loved ANYTHING this much, ever.  I know I must have, because I love Jesus more than anything, and I love your Daddy so much it's made me do more than a few crazy things in my life, and your sister - your sister made me a mommy and I have letter after letter about how desperately I love her.  But when I'm around you, I can't love anything more than I love you.  You are a heart-stealer.

You are my buddy.  My darling.  My best.

You are it for me.  My favorite person.

I am so, so, so, so, so thankful that I had a boy. I am so, so, so, so, so thankful that I had a Sam.

I love you with my whole heart, forever.  I will never stop loving you. Mom

The Stereotypical Writing Day

I wrote this last week, and am sharing it today.  Because that's how long it takes me to get around to uploading pictures.  Actually, picture, singular.  Don't hate. Today was a writing day.

Today was the most stereotypical writing day, ever.

It went something like this:

Grad student arrived on time to babysit Sam.  I was still in my pajamas.  I left an hour later.

I arrived at my super-secret writing location and got busy - eating breakfast.  It is the most important meal of the day, I've heard.

Next I opened my project to "edit."  By this I mean I read through with an unimpressed look on my face and switched dashes for semi colons.

Then I texted my mom - while I checked Twitter.  Because Facebook is a waste of time, but Twitter is networking, which has the word "work" in it, so it's allowed.

Then I updated my blog.  Because when you are writing a book, suddenly blogging becomes very important.  You will notice that there are five posts up from this week alone (now six).  This is because I've been working so hard on my book.

By then it was lunch time, so I ate.  Because it's good for my blood sugar and my brain power and the baby.

After lunch I realized I'd made no progress whatsoever on my book.

I questioned the entire project.  I considered calling my agent and saying that I was obviously in no shape to write a book, and that even if I WAS in any shape to write a book, this is not the right book because, given four uninterrupted, child-free, well-fed and caffeinated hours, I still cannot string together a single relevant sentence.

I decided to take a walk before doing anything rash.  After all, writing is a very sedentary activity and movement  jostles the brain cells.  I took a walk - to the kitchen - to get a cookie.  (They were left-over and I couldn't have them going to waste.)

After my walk, I decided to close the computer; it was clearly getting me nowhere.  I decided to brainstorm.  Yes!  Brainstorming is the answer!  I grabbed my notebook and came up with this:

Then I fell asleep on my notebook.

I woke up some unknown amount of time later and realized that, so far, I'd paid a grad student very well so that I could eat cookies and nap.

Utterly hopeless and dejected, I jotted an absent-minded note in the margin of my notebook. Then another right below it. Then the next thought, just so I wouldn't loose the train. Then down, down, down the margin of the page they came - then back up the other side - then back down the middle in furious, illegible shorthand.

And suddenly, miraculously, there is a skeleton.  A fragile little skeleton of a chapter.

I celebrated by taking another walk down to the kitchen for some M&Ms.

I ended the day by typing my note-skeleton into the computer.  Typing is the equivalent to Vitamin D (or that Sally Fields osteoporosis drug) for my chapter skeleton.  It is much easier to pick up the work tomorrow when it is on the screen.  Screen feels like progress, paper feels like emotion.  Both are necessary, but you can't write today off of yesterday's emotion; you need to write off of yesterday's progress.

And so it is true, what everyone says about writing.  The secret is to stay in the room.  As Anne Lamott puts it, "keep your fabulous behind in the chair."  Sometimes this process takes days, weeks, months - today was but a microcosm.  And I'm grateful for that, because 2 pregnancies in 2 years have not been kind to this body of mine and I can't spare a month for napping and cookie-eating.

In fact, I should be doing push-ups now that the kids have gone to bed - because of the lunch and the cookies and the M&Ms, but instead I'm writing about my stereotypical writing day.  Maybe I'll work out in the morning.  But probably not, because I'll probably be up late sitting sedentarily in my chair writing about writing.

And that is why writers are fat.

The End.

 

Live Second, Day 4: "Addiction"

Day 4 of Kate’s Live Second journey. Sign up to follow as Kate and 14 other bloggers dare to Live Second for 60-Days-of-Second. Start your own journey and get the Live Second book in stores December 9. I have an addiction. Like all addictions, it's ugly.  When I write it you're going to make some judgments about me, no matter how hard you try not to.  No matter how hard you try to remember that we all have our baggage and that Christ died to save me, when I say,

"I am addicted to having and wanting expensive things,"

some presumptions are going to force their way into your minds.

You might presume that I grew up in privilege, and in a sense, you'd be right.  I've learned that "privilege" is enormously subjective, but I've also learned that the suburb in north Raleigh where I grew up places me in the very upper echelon of global society.  Maybe even American society.

I got a car when I turned 16, and my parents paid for it.  When I crashed it the following year I got another car.  I traveled a lot; I went to France on an exchange trip when I was in the 7th grade and to the Bahamas for a family wedding when I was in the 11th.  I had nice prom dresses that I didn't pay for, and, while I still have a sizeable student loan, my parents paid for three-quarters of my private 4-year college education.  This was absolutely the norm in the community where I grew up.  My family was not wealthier than my friends' families - in fact, we had a lot less than some of them.

I've never struggled with anger, alcohol, unhealthy relationships, substance abuse, gossip, or eating disorders, but I struggle against materialism and consumerism still.

After five years in full-time ministry.  After five over-seas mission trips which exposed me to third-world poverty.  Three years after God gave me an enormous burden for cross-cultural missions.  After three years of moving towards minimalism, three years of deliberately increasing my giving.  After years of living meagerly on one income with 2 kids (and one on the way), it's lurking under there - in my sinful parts like a dark, dirty cancer.

A.W. Tozer wrote this about sin, specifically materialism and greed:

"The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple."

This is true of all sin, and it is at once terribly depressing and wonderfully encouraging.

It's depressing because it hurts.  It's depressing because it's exhausting.  It's depressing because we don't ever get to stop fighting.  It's depressing because we might never stop wanting whatever terrible thing it is that we want.  (What is it for you?)

But it's wonderful because we are not alone.  This addiction, this struggle, this desire that will. not. go. away. is what Paul was talking about when he wrote, "I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

It's wonderful because Paul is a pillar of the Christian faith; he wrote 13 books of the Bible.  He served God so fearlessly and faithfully that when we read accounts of his life and faith he almost sounds superhuman.  It's wonderful because, as Doug writes in Live Second, "The mark of a follower of Jesus, of one who lives Second, is not perfection (though that will come in the end); it is the fight, the struggle to turn the tides of our desires toward the Maker of our souls."

I recently wrote a post about how much I LOVE living in a teeny, tiny house - how it is one of my new favorite things.  There are a lot of surprising, magical reasons, but upon further reflection, I think one I didn't list in my post was that it keeps me fighting.  It's not a bloody, battle-weary kind of fighting; it's a peaceful, joyful, falling-in-love-with-my-cozy-home kind of fighting.  The tiny house forces me to do that which I know I SHOULD BE DOING anyway, and they payoff for the fight is nothing short of miraculous.  Deep, abiding contentment.  I love this little home more than any other place we've ever lived.

I'm at peace today, despite my dirty little longing for fancy clothes and a new car.  I have peace because God is huge and vast and omnipotent and His selflessness and generosity in me is enough to conquer the selfishness hiding there a million times over.

His forgiveness is complete, perfect, enough (for my addiction, and for yours). He's on my side.  He's for me.  He's with me (and you). He's my shield and my sword and my portion in the fight.  And His grace is sufficient, Hallelujah.

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Read Live Second, Day 1 here. Read Live Second, Day 2 here. Read Live Second, Day 3 here.