Everyday Life: The Whispers that Get You Through

He's a wildcard.

Sneaky, charming and cute, determined -- that's our spunky 3 year old.

I can barely take my eyes away from him before he's off and into something new, and every time we think he's grown just a little bit out of his wily ways, he brings us back into the moment, the reality in which we live.

And that reality is that he is predictably unpredictable, a wildcard in the truest sense.

Saturday afternoon, my boys were outside clearing out the garage with John, and I was running out the door, bordering on being late to an appointment.

Bordering on being rushed but not yet frazzled.

Bordering on making a quick, hurried exit.

But Saturday was my sabbath rest day, so I resisted the urge to jet out the door, jump into the car and take off, waving to my boys.

I climbed into the driver's seat as I was saying goodbye to John, put my keys in the ignition when a small whisper prompted me to ask, "Honey, where's E?"

We looked around, and he was nowhere in easy sight.

I almost shut the car door and left, hand on the key, ready to turn when another whisper said, "Find him first."

We began walking past the cars toward the edge of the driveway when my friend, who was leaving at the same time, said to us just as we reached the back of my Highlander and looked down, "There's a baby under your car."

And there he was -- our youngest, our baby -- hands under his grinning chin nestled under my car, body pressed against the driveway.

Heart pounding, I scooped him from beneath the car and scolded him for playing somewhere so dangerous before refocusing and audibly giving praise.

Audibly thanking God, dozens and dozens and dozens of times, for that small, soft Voice in my brain.

And for the ears to hear.

And for answering the heart cry I pleaded Friday, totally not knowing what I was actually praying for but somehow knew was needed.

And for allowing this lesson about how rushing never makes life better to sink into my thick, hard head.

And for the Whispers quietly spoken that graciously get us through.

Living Healthfully: When Food Proves It Matters

The heat spread across my face breaks apart and flees the moment the cold wind rushes into me.

I am sweating bullets, and I am grinning like an idiot, riding out the door of a doctor's visit on a windy gale of hope and astonishment, high above the ground I walked in on.

During 3-year-old E's evaluation, she'd said much of what we suspected was happening inside our youngest's body: poor digestion, inflammation, candida overgrowth in the gut suppressing his immune system -- much of which can be helped holistically and through simple remedies like taking digestive enzymes to help break down proteins.

It's good news, yes, that he can be treated well without strong herbs or medications or, gosh, that he can be treated in any way other than just following a life sentence strict elimination diet, avoiding those key foods that seem to irritate those of us whose digestive tracts are far more sensitive than most.

So I'm riding high on that hope, but I'm also thanking God for what has been sewn into our youngest's small body: real, nourishing food.

Little ones with such weak digestion normally have various, plentiful nutritional deficiencies that delay their growth and development; E, our little lineman, is pretty nutritionally rich.

Some parents say that they try to feed their kids healthy food, the doctor says after scanning his body, but you two actually have.

Wait what? We have? Despite the no broccoli and his desire to eat only pasta-esque dishes? Really?

These are exactly the words needed for parents who have been scrupulously trying to help heal a visibly and invisibly ailing little body in any ways they can -- avoiding gluten {his sensitivity} like it's rat poison, making foods from scratch the majority of meals*, sneakily pureeing vegetables into any sauces or meatloaf or homemade breads that promises to hide even the vaguest shade of green.

These are exactly the words needed for parents who have begun suspecting more and more that the list of ailments from which our children, from which we suffer are consider "normal" are rooted deeply in nutrition or lack thereof.

That by the vast grace of God of all the messages that are broadcast constantly about health and healthy food, we heard, amid all the noise, the ones about what it takes to build a healthy body from the inside out, from the cell level.

So I'm riding high and the nervousness bound up and wound tightly in my stomach has unraveled and come apart at the sharing of the words from our crazy-smart doctor:

we are not crazy.

We are not crazy for fighting the school-snack fight with our oldest.

We are not crazy for having a food budget that is almost double that of what it used to be

And we are not crazy for having been so invested -- time, money, energy-wise -- in what our family has been eating.

There is something to this whole food journey we've been wildly trying to navigate that is finally, finally, finally showing itself true and well and alive in a little boy who could be much worse for the wear had he been on the Standard American Diet his mother and father and brother have been weaning off for the past three years since his birth.

I take those words home with me, hold them close as I offer praise to God for E's body and the ability He gave it to heal itself through the foods He intended for us to eat.

I take those words home with me, hold them close as I begin to wonder how I can possibly even begin to share {without sounding like a broken record or uppity or preachy or judgey} how food has been proving it matters in my life, E's life

because I desperately and passionately desire for it to prove it matters in, well, all of our lives.

And I finally feeling a little braver and beginning to think I might not be crazy for it.

{Just keeping it real: we don't eat perfectly all of the time; we just simply strive to eat well 80 percent of the time. My kids would swim in a vat of mac n cheese if we let them, and they can list at least six menu items on the Culvers **shudder** menu from having gone there on non-mommy endorsed dates.}

Everyday Life: So We Eat Cake

He's looking out the floor-length glass windows at tracks as a commuter train sleekly brakes to a halt and then swooshes off toward the city, as if to say that a quick exchange of passengers was merely just a blip in its day.

And I guess that's why we are here, eating lunch together just the two of us, though I don't completely know it until the moment the train jets into the distance, E's small hands pressed against the glass, his blue eyes still glued to the end car that's almost out of sight -- I don't want to be that train.

That's been my whole week, flying off from one destination to the next, slowing only enough to stop for quick pick ups and drop offs and pauses, kisses exchanged deftly before the engine again revs and roars.

But not today.

Not today especially.

He'll be newly three just before bedtime, and I want to linger in two for just a little while longer.

We wander back to our table in the quiet cafe, and soon we are talking about our lunch as we indulge.

There are meetings and there is work looming in the near hours, and I want to throw my phone with its clock and schedule across the room to shatter into a thousand pieces but instead just tuck it away into the depths of my shoulder bag telling myself that truly this schedule won't last long. And truly, we will find ourselves back in the beautiful grooves of tracks that run long, slow freight cars.

I sing happy birthday a few times to his delighted ears and he tells me about light sabers and birthdays in broken sentences while I just eat him up.

I can't resist capturing him still in a few photos, and he looks at me and commands through giggles "no more peetures, mom!"

I sense that it's time to pack up our lunch date and head to the next destination.

But he says "birfday cake on E's birfday?"

There are a dozen reasons not to.

And then there's him.

So we meander up to the counter, pick the perfect slice of lemon and almond polenta cake and return to our seats.

A fork in his hand, he takes a big bite and then scoops one for me.

"You too, mom?"



There are dozens of reasons not to {including not having had anything with more than a hint of sugar here and there for months}.

And then there's him.

So we eat cake

together

train stalled out on the tracks, amid the horns honking, people waiting, giving pause to our runs as the world rushes by around us

and we are better for it.

Everyday Life: The Sweetest Song

He perches his small, solid body atop my lap, a songbird newly gifted with lyrical song.

Lips press against my flushed cheeks before he sings a few notes to the thoughts I’m sure have been swirling and lingering in his mind for weeks stretched out into months.

Maiii mommmeeee, he exclaims with passion. Cars?  he asks and zooms one across a long stretch of highway, covering the skin from my fingers to my shoulder.

His music in my melody-starved ears drowns the noise of chaos and busy, schedules and to-do lists, musts and wants.

In this time-space continuum, I am the song-entranced fan in his opera of life.



His hands navigate a blue Hotwheels convertible across my legs, and I’m reminded that before there were words, there were signs conducted rhythmically by chubby baby-turned-toddler hands, telling me the story of please or more or want.



And before there were hands moving to the beat of desire and need, there were the bluest of eyes, oceans of emotion deep swelling with cadences of life-love beneath the longest of dark lashes.



His baby blues have forever been singing me stories while his baby body was pressed tightly, heart-to-heart against my chest, following me through the day’s tasks of laundry and play and dishes and dinner.



I linger in the swelling of sweet-song-sung-past before he’s up and singing another verse, this one laced with lyrics both known and unknown. 


And 


I am thankful for all of the melody and harmony sung in the native tongue of mother-baby love as well as the crescendo of lyrics giving language to a new scene.


We made a big announcement over at Bigger Picture Blogs today, and it's very near and dear to my heart! In an effort to grow our skill as writers and foster creativity, we're rolling out a brand-new program called Writing Cirlces!

It's virtual, it's free, and it's been amazing. 


This piece above was written after being inspired by a prompt from one of our Writing Circles sessions. It was then read aloud to the group, praised and critiqued and finally edited before being published.


Want in on the next Writing Circle? Be sure to check it out!

Everyday Life: This is why

the upstairs is a disaster, I haven't showered, the garden is again vying for attention, the boys are still trying to wear shorts in 50-degree weather and my reader is overflowing

{but, oh, the cuteness of the ever-exploring and always-moving toddler.}

Bigger Picture Moment: Black Holes and Socks

My youngest, my just turned two year old, is playing intently just a few feet away from me as I sort laundry into piles.

I am wondering where the time has gone since my oldest was wearing the 2T clothing his younger brother now sports.

It's the first day* of every-day school for G, and I'm wallowing in the reality that black holes eat more than our socks -- they seem to have sucked away the past four years of our life together.

Underwear go in one pile, socks in another.

And speaking of socks -- uugh!

Socks!

How is it already time for the weather to mandate we wear socks?!

It's only September ... ohmygosh, it's already September.

Where did this year go, I bemoan in my head.

I hear an uprising of babble emerge from my little one; he's lining up his older brother's stuffed animals along the couch while making them talk and move and interact.

As I match the seems of a blue-striped shirt, I realize that E isn't just doing his normal play of line 'em up only to knock 'em off their feet.

He's play-playing -- with imagination and passion.

I abandoned my laundry ambitions, and I watch him babble away speaking his E-ese, as we call it, totally focusing 100 percent on what's unfolding before my eyes instead of intently focusing on the review-mirror glimpses of days past while folding clothes.

As I emerge from the black hole of time and socks, I see it.

I see time standing still before me, and realize the clock is offering me moments to just soak up my small boy, my not-so-baby baby.

This is the time to know E better, to gobble up who he is.

It is here. It is now. And it is fleeting if I think it away with thoughts of the past.

So I'm taking in every moment of it while it's here at my feet.

Every Thursday, we share the harvest of of intentional living by capturing a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment. Our link up is at Alita's this week. Won't you join us?

{*This moment happened last Wednesday.}

Everyday Life: Big Baby

We still lovingly call him Big Baby {because Big Baby of Toy Story 3 is very much his twinsie}.

But truth be told, there really hasn't been anything baby about him for months.

His gait is much more of a steady-on-my-own-feet toddle, completely void of wobbly, unsure steps.

His banter is complex, though he still speaks a language we have yet to understand.

His play mirrors his four-year-old brothers, as he zooms cars along the amber wooden hallways and builds skyscraper towers out of bright Duplos atop of living room carpet.

Today brings E's second birthday, and with it the realization that all the lingering pieces of his sweet babyness have completely faded into the curiosity, silliness and intensity of toddlerhood laced with affectionate kisses and strong-arm hugs.



I won't lie -- I squeeze tightly the memory of his wide blue eyes and his easy, open-mouth, gummy smiles of days passed, long passed. I am his mother after all, and mothers do well at remembering small babes pressed gently against the skin stretched across our hearts.

But, also, I celebrate the emergence of who he is



the bigness of his heart worn on his two-year-old sleeve when he hugs my neck so so tight or runs to his daddy full force only to land on his face lips first, intent on smothering him with kisses.

the infectious belly laugh that comes so easily as he runs wildly around the house with his older brother

the intensity of his determination while scaling furniture as though it were mountainous cliffs waiting to be conquered and spiked with a flag of triumph

the wildness of his little boy heart exploding with zeal and curiosity for all things new.

And I remember -- I wrap my tender mommy heart in the blanket-bandages of comfort as I embrace the marking of another year passed since he came rushing into our arms*, holding ever true to his style of his entrance by saying aloud that he was created to morph from a small wild heart embed with passion and fearlessness and love to a large one intended to forge into a world who needs exactly who he's growing to be.



Happy second birthday, my blue-eyed boy. May the One who knit you together in my womb continue to weave together the boy you're becoming.

{E was born at home after one wildly fast and unexpected evening of labor. Here's his homebirth story.}

Bigger Picture Moments: The Smallest Jobs

"Do small things with great love."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"Mommmmmyyyy!" my 3 year old cries. "He's doing it again!"

I drop the dishes into the sink and run into the dining room only to find a grinning nearly 20 month old dancing atop of the dining room table.

I thought we'd broken this habit several months ago.

But, oh, dear God, he's at it again.

And with such determination; it seems that every time anyone leaves the dining room abandoned for a moment, E. climbs back onto the table and begins executing his sweet toddler dance moves, sans any audible music.

But he grooves so happily, so intentionally that I swear he's hearing the beats, the melodies of songs in his heart.

I put on my I-mean-business-mommy face before gathering his excited body into my arms and escorting him off of the table.

"E.," I say sternly, staring into his big blue smiling eyes, "we do NOT dance on the table."

He keeps smiling.

And the next time I leave the room, G's hollering again that his little brother's back on the table dancing his heart out like it's his job or something.

And, kind of, it is -- a toddler's main job in life is to explore, connect the dots, put things together.

I mean, really, the kid has no idea that tables aren't meant for dancing.

So he keeps climbing back on top and getting down with his small self because he loves it.

He just loves dancing on the tables, and it's vividly clear, this passion of his.

Honestly, he loves just about everything he does, entering into each activity with open palms, open heart, open eyes.

I look at myself in all of my adultness and think about how I set about doing my own work.

I think about how I scoff at folding the trillions of socks overflowing from the laundry basket without so much as giving thanks for the small feet that fill them.

I think about how I quickly wipe down finger-printed windows, never really appreciating that there are finger prints on there from two little blessings.

I think about how I become slightly irritated by the dozen or so sippy cups scattered around the house, never feeling grateful for the hands that hold them, the mouths that drink from them.

And I think about how I miss the wonder in the small parts of my job. And how I see things only for what they are sometimes and miss altogether the meaning behind them, making it impossible to really grasp the joy, dance my heart out in adoration of the tasks at hand.

Maybe I've just placed too many sanctions on too many things to really find the joy enveloping them. Maybe I don't really see what's laid out before me.

Maybe table tops really are meant for dancing.

Have you found the Bigger Picture through a Simple Moment? Link with Sarah!

Live. Capture. Share Encourage.

{Originally written but never posted in April 2011.}

Bigger Picture Moments: Loud and Clear

I call his name.

He doesn't look up from hammering his blocks into the spaces they fit.

Though my voice is filled with intent, uncertainty fills my heart, sits heavy in my throat.

I call him again.

He doesn't even flinch at the sound of my voice.

He's 16 months old, and he's barely uttered the sounds mmmm and aaaahhh together.

And I wonder, I wonder, if he's really heard me all the months of his life.

Or if he's been navigating in the silence, watching moving pictures with no sound.

****
We try simple tests, my husband and me.

We try sneaking up on him and making a loud sound to see if he snaps his head toward commotion.

Once or twice he does. Other times he doesn't. Mostly, he doesn't.

At 17 months, I wonder, again, if I've totally neglected a hearing loss in my youngest.

Is that why he's not talking? Can he just not hear us? How could I have missed something like that?

I chide myself for not having his hearing tested as a newborn, wonder what exactly he's been missing his whole life.

****

My mother in law, a speech pathologist, wonders, too, when he approaches almost 18 months and has said nary of a word and made very few vocalizations, if he's taking his time or if there's something we've missed in the hearing realm.

She suggests an audiology screening.

****

During the threes weeks until E's test, I ponder in my heart the implications of him, perhaps, being different.

The possiblity of never actually hearing music and feeling it in the deepest places of his soul.

The reality of being labled as impaired or disabled.

The complications a hearing loss could have on his life, his confidence, his opportunities.

John reminds me of a few of my favorite family members on his side of the family who have hearing loss and who are all {honestly} brilliant and successful and perfectly imperfect.

Perfectly imperfect.

I let the phrase roll around in my heart, like a seed tossed in spring wind.

It finds soil, takes root, begins to grow.

We're all perfectly imperfect.

Hearing or lack of hearing is just a detail of life. It's not THE detail of life.

Be it a hearing loss or being uncomfortable in crowds or being unable to walk or whatever -- we've all got something that could be considered a confidence drain, a hinderance for success.

But those perfectly imperfect details are not what define our lives. Rather, what defines our lives is how we take our building blocks and stack them -- what the building blocks look like just give character or style to the architecture.

{I won't even go into how our perceived weaknesses can actually morph into strengths.}

****
It's the morning of the audiology test.

I determine in my mind, my heart that if E cannot hear, if he has a hearing loss, he hasn't been missing something his whole life. I resign that if he's unable to hear or hear well, his life will be no less full -- of joy or understanding or opportunity or enjoyment.

That no matter the results of the hearing test or, well, really anything, he has always been and always will be perfectly imperfect.

Just like all of us.

{For those of you who are wondering, E doesn't have any hearing loss that's detectable at this point. He's just a master at focusing and ignoring the "noise" around him. Though, we will have to monitor the way his eardrum allows for movement as that could, for periods of time during fluid build up, affect the quality of what he hears.}

Every Thursday, we share the harvest of intentional living by capturing the bigger picture through a simple moment {or series of simple moments.}

Visit Alita, to share your own or read others.