Motherhood: On Those Nights I Felt Trapped

Tonight he fell asleep by himself.

I remember days that feel like forever ago and yesterday all at once, when I spent every evening trapped beneath a small demanding body who only found comfort in his mother's arms. I prayed hard and steady those nights that I wouldn't fall asleep with him so I could get up and do something, anything other than rock, snuggle, rock. Rock, snuggle, rock. Sleep. Most nights, I would fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night, cranky that I'd wasted whatever free time I could have enjoyed.

He's five and a half now, and I don't have any idea where all those long nights went; I just know that they've all rolled into short years where his pants just have kept getting shorter and shorter even though they've stayed the same size.

He grows, my first baby, and I grow, and we grow

and I like who we're all becoming

but part of my heart twinges for the baby I once held.

Before I left the room tonight, I laid next to him as he prayed, snuggled beneath his warm arm draped over my stomach, waited for him to cue me for my turn to pray. And when I prayed tonight, I prayed thanksgiving for the blessings ... and silently I pleaded for the time to linger long in these moments where I was still snuggling an ever-growing boy.

When his breathing slowed into sleep breaths, his little brother also fast asleep on my other side, I began to unbind myself from blankets. But he he stirred and asked where I was going.

I said I was going to read my Bible and pray.

"Will you be back in a little bit?"

Absolutely, I promised.

Five minutes later my promised lured me back to that oldest boy of mine, and I thought if he wanted me with him right then that I would be there, so I creeped back into his room ...  and found him fast asleep.

I placed my lips on his forehead for a kiss and he mumbled, "I'm OK, mom; you can go and pray and read your Bible."

I whispered my love to him.

"I love you, too, mom."

And I can't help but to think how the desperate prayers I uttered all those nights I spent pleading that I would get something more done than rock, snuggle, rock, sleep have been answered.

On those nights, I didn't just lay down with my boy and fall asleep. No. On those nights, I laid down foundations of love.

Bigger Picture Moments: Love, Already

I can almost hear it when I still myself in silence and close my eyes.

A heartbeat disguised in the sound of galloping horses.

It's perfect, you know -- that a tiny babe in the womb's heartbeat sounds like horses full speed galloping along a path -- one that leads straight to a heart that gushes love, already.

I can almost hear it, and I pray the wait won't be much longer until that sweet sound is flooding my ears.

Twice now we've had to reschedule the appointment with my midwife, and I'm praying everyone in my house regains health enough to keep our Saturday appointment.

I can't help but wonder if that's been grace actually in disguise.

Because with every passing day, the likelihood that we'll hear the strong fast thudding of a heartbeat increases every week after 10.

I'll be 12 weeks Saturday, we think. But we're not totally certain.

The only thing I actually know for certain is that

this little one is loved

already.

Link your moment HERE!

Just Write: Hands

I've become very well acquainted with the couch these past two months.

It seems like longer. Between first-trimester ailments and three rounds of illness, my energy levels have been nonexistent; and so has any work that doesn't involve simply typing on the computer or keeping the children alive and sometimes fed. 

It's in these brackets of time and space, where I begin to fathom the incredible love from the people in my life and their hearts for serving. 

It's the little-big things that stop me in my tracks, have me giving thanks. 

My sister offers to cook dinner for us the day we arrive home from Florida because she knows we've been awake since 5 a.m. and our fridge is pretty much void of most food. 

Friends who've been staying at our house while they were looking for a new home during the time we were away vacuum the floors and line the beds with clean sheets topping the pillows with mints, fresh for our arrival home. 

John's dad picks us up from the airport early in the morning complete with after-flight snacks.

My grandma does our laundry and cooks dinner almost every single night we're with her and my grandpa at their condo. 

Friends whisper prayers, send cards and emails and flowers for my birthday or just to encourage my heart. Or blend juice lemon and ginger and bring it to our meetings so I can find relief from morning sickness. 

John does double duty with kids and work -- with a smile {and house and food prep}.

It just doesn't stop -- the pouring out of love and the generosity of time and the service of hands. 

And my hands in this season -- all I can do is fold them in prayer, offering thanks

and humbly receive the love that's been freely and generously given. 

Bigger Picture Moments: I See it in His Face

When we first were married, no one ever asked him for his ID when he'd order a beer.

But they always asked for mine.

At freshly 22, I'd tease him that I was his young wife, gladly wearing smooth skin and pre-baby curves as I joked.

And he'd look at me adoringly, smile a wide grin, and agree even though I'm actually only two months and some change younger.

It's been seven and a half years, one mortgage, one business, two little boys, two angel babies and now another baby on the way since we said I do, and when we go out now and order a drink neither of us are asked to prove we're of legal age ...

That's what living long days and learning hard into what life gives and clinging fiercely to God while together weathering storms does to our bodies -- it ages us in ways we've not only felt but in ways we can see.

Gray hairs bright and shiny amid my copper-brown locks and small smile lines surrounding eyes and body swelled and stretched in motherly ways.

But John -- he's only a little grayer in the hair and it blends seamlessly in with his short, blonde hair and the smile lines around his eyes are barely noticeable and he's seven pounds lighter and leaner.

It's when I take this good look at my own reflection and then his that I see it in his face.

There is love spread over it in ways I didn't before know or see or recognize.

And I'm thankful for the way we wear our age

reminders of the love we've sown and grown and harvested along the way.

Link your moment at Brook's

Everyday Life: Hands

His hands are warm, and I don't expect it.

Not amid the cold of a chilly November day. 

Not within the four walls of this pale room. 

His hands, they are warm, and his grip, it is still strong despite the frailty of the rest of his body. 

They betray his poor prognosis and leave me hopeful that his strong will and determination will carry him through, leave him steady and standing, walking tall until the end. 

These hands

they say something different than does the gauntness of his face

the whimpers of his lips

the doctors' reports.

At first I can't find my voice to tell him what I intended

that he is loved

and that he is Loved. 

That I appreciate him

and those strong hands that 

fought for our country

built a business

bound together a marriage 

a marriage that made a family

a family that grew my father

a father who helped grow me. 

The words -- when the room empties of family and falls silent and still washes over the bed and his body quiets into a sounder sleep -- they come crashing out of my mouth, loud as they do when I'm talking over the  building and echoing voices of my boys. 

He responds not in words 

but in firm squeezes 

his hand to mine 

in a language he's been speaking for I suppose his entire life

one I'm just now beginning to understand. 

Hope: A Story You Should Hear

It's not my story to tell, so I'll let my words be few.

Last year, our good friends -- John's best friend from college, Jamey, and his wife, Kaila, -- excitedly stood in our kitchen as we cooked dinner and shared that they were expecting a baby.

Life, however, didn't go as planned.

We prayed for miracles.

And, though we didn't get the one for which we had hoped, for which we had pleaded, He continues to allow our fingers to unwrap unexpected ones.

This isn't just a story of grief, a story of loss, though both are interwoven into its threads.

But, rather, overarchingly, it's one of hope

and it's one of what God can do with willing hearts and resolves to trust that even when life doesn't make sense to our minds, God can redeem the seemingly senseless.

Mugford Story - Stereo Final Web from cedarcreek.tv production on Vimeo.

I hope baby Sam's life and story blesses your life in the way it's blessed ours.

Everyday Life: Writing Books

"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."
-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

A small, newly-found voice emerges from the top of the stairs at 7:52 p.m., 30 minutes past bedtime. He jabbers away as he one-foot-two-foots down the stairs, mixing up his conversation with words we recognize as well as ones we don't yet know.

His feet runrunthumpthumprunthump across the wooden floor until he reaches the space in which I'm perched trying to write away the day and the thoughts and the growth I've been feeling stretch out across my bones.

Maaameeee! he exclaims and throws his body atop of the couch cushions like a surfer mounts his board. In seconds, I am the wave beneath his body.

He presses his forehead against my own and gently smooshes my cheeks in between his toddler hands.

"Oh, hello," I say. "Isn't it bedtime?"

I silently think about everything that's left to be done, including a book chapter that needs to be written, before I can go to bed and am tempted to scoot him right back to my husband.

He kisses my mouth and says, "O, halllo!" before snuggling his little rear next to my own and finally pressing his body into the curves of my own all while making the time that was my own into ours.

I only try to type for about 30 seconds before I abandon writing my life out loud and shut the lid to my computer instead choosing to write a few words on his heart.

I snuggle him as we talk, deeply converse about the pressing issues of the moment.

No, we're not having a snack.

Sack, he echoes as he shakes his head no.

But we can read a book.

Book, he says crisp, staccato like a short note struck against keys.

We talk a bit more until he begins rubbing his eyes; it's then that I send him back to daddy for good-night snuggles.

He won't remember what we talked about tonight; he is only two and a half.

I probably won't either, and I'm 29.

But I hope that those few sentences translated themselves into the message that I'm trying {oh, God, help me to write well} to continually etch onto his and his brother and his father's hearts --

that they -- these eternal souls -- are the most worthy recipients of my time, my love, my care

and

that the story of this family

is the most important book I'll ever write* during this assignment from the Great Editor and Chief.

*Sally Clarkson gave these words to a roomful of hungry ears during a conference breakout session at Relevant '11, and her words have deeply impressed my heart.

Everyday Life: Little Reminders

In the predawn darkness of 6 a.m. the kitchen lights leave the lillies he bought me for Valentine's Day aglow.



A week later, they've blossomed, bloomed and stretched wide open as we've gone about our everyday life, likely, from the tender care my grandparents have suggested and put forth in cutting the stems and replacing the water and clearing the decaying leaves.

As I wipe sleep from my eyes, the flowers whisper of love that transcends time zones and continents and the oceans that are in between my physical heart and my husband's.

And, too,  they remind me that love in all of it's flourishing beauty, like the lillies, doesn't always just blossom and glow; it's result of the tender care I sometimes brush to the wayside in favor of the immediate demands of life.

Today, I decide in the early morning hours of the day, I'll favor the delicate care.

Bigger Picture Moments: More

After we'd walked the Sanibel shoreline for about an hour, waves cascading and breaking at our feet, E settled into a soft sandy stretch of beach and began sifting the fine white sand through his fingers over and over again.

I sat just inches from my baby boy, watching him, my heart overflowing with love as he enjoyed the beauty, the softness of creation.

I needed this day -- I needed the waves to soothe my mind.

The warm sun to melt the tension I've been trying to let go.

The sand to softly exfoliate the worry that sticks to my heart, trying to cling to it.

In that moment, as sand slipped from his small fingers, my body relaxed. I felt a distinct, direct whisper penetrate my heart.



I love you more.


More than you love him. 


More than all the sand on the beach. 


More than you could ever know. 


More. 

Jesus prayed:

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17 20-23

Oh, how He loves us.

And, oh, how He whispers that love to my heart through the simple, the beautiful creation He spoke into being.

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with LOVE in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Bigger Picture Moments: Love in Little Moments

The sun had long hidden itself behind clouds in the horizon. 

E was squawking in the backseat, totally discontented with having been carseat-bound for five hours and G, although moderately contented, kept hollering that he was car sick {which means he's sick of being the car and not the notorious threat it often means when a poor soul utters it from the back seat}. 

My grandfather was at the helm driving us through the dark hills of  Tennesssee, I thought the last of our sanity might slip through our fingers when after we'd already stopped twice in about ten minutes G announced:

"Mommy! I have to poop."

At that moment in time, I admit, I was totally thinking of my kids as inconveniences to be managed: I was tired of being in the car, tired of fielding questions, tired of crazy drivers swerving over the lines, tired of E crying out in agony every time his cup was emptied of bunnies. I was just plain and simple tired. And their needs were just piling up into a heap of overwhelming my tired brain. 

In that moment in time, too, my grandpa looked over at me, equally tired of all the above, and let out a long "oooooohhhh myyyyy" before bursting into a nonsensical grin and laughing. 

Despite my best tired intentions, I couldn't hold back my own goofy smiling and giggles began slipping out of my mouth until I was full out laughing at the absolute insanity of making another stop in so little time. 

"What?!" What's funny?" G asked. "Poop is NOT funny! We don't do potty talk and laugh about potty words!"

As we laughed, he started giggling, too, until we were all laughing as we pulled into yet another rest stop.

Because despite G's preschool rules of "no potty talk and laughing at potty words" that we've adopted as a family guideline, in that moment, on that night, not only was the potty talk funny,  it was desperately needed to bring us back to that place of love and away from the downward spiral of frustration.

{Today we're making the last leg of our journey to Fort Myers from Valdosta, GA. If you think of us, please lift us up to the Father for continued travel safety and finding the humor in needing to poop.}

Each Thursday, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment.  And to spice it up a little, during the month of FEBRUARY, we'll be reflecting upon the simple yet lovely gifts that are sprinkled throughout our lives. 

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with LOVE in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week HERE! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Five-Minute Friday: Real

I reluctantly give words to the wounds open-bare spread across my heart,

speak the truth

in as much love as I can muster

through the hurt.

There is prayer for safety

in the net of

honest love.

And a 29-year-in-the-making epiphany

that part of being real

often requires confession.

Everyday Life: On Grace through Green Macaroni

All is quiet upstairs now.

He's gone to bed hungry after refusing to eat his dinner tonight. There was a storm of angry tears and frustration first, though, along with a sinking-stomach feeling settled deep in my body.

We're no longer caving to all his wants for food that isn't delivering him the nutrition he really needs.

Three long days of torture for the mother-heart, I tell you.

This trying to do what is right, what will nourish and heal his body instead of allowing his cravings and desires to infiltrate reality as needs.

It feels like a battle of epic proportions, taking on the 2 year old and his food preferences for only carbohydrates, meat and dairy. Nothing green goes in unless its been finely shredded and mixed in with another food. And that's only a recent development.

I cling to it, and I cling to His feet.

This is about so much more than whether our toddler eats green beans.


And yet, it is exactly about our toddler eating green beans, too.

Because like with anything else in life, the mind and the will directly relate to the health and the strength of the body and both the heart and metaphorical heart.

This battle is mind/will and strength/body combined in a doozie of a saga.

I know what his food preferences lead to -- they lead to catching every cold that comes his way as well as long-term illnesses parents pray their children will never face.

This sugar-loving, acidity-forming, antioxidant-lacking diet doesn't lead us down paths we want to tread.

Try explaining that to a two year old who knows the wonders of cheddar bunnies, though, on his tongue.

We must grow, though. Him in his tastes and me in me ability to determine how to best help him make healthy choices.

And all the while be sure that enough grace is laced into the hardballs life naturally throws in our faces; I must keep reminding myself that we parents don't really have to teach our kids the hardness of life. Life teaches that on its own.

But grace.

Grace must be lived out, shown with flesh on.

So while there will still be the movement toward healthier eating for sure; we'll probably never repeat him going to bed hungry again.

I know; one missed meal won't hurt his body. It's true. He will learn to eat his dinner if we continue to tow the hard line. But maybe the line can be towed without the fast-forward jerkiness that comes from my desire to teach him to eat well and eat what's served nownownow.

I don't know if I know what that looks like in real practice, in real life. Maybe love, maybe grace while still standing firm looks like the green macaroni we had for lunch today -- when I blended spinach into the cheese and milk and made a green cheese sauce for his quinoa/kamut/amaranth/durum noodles.

I really just don't know.

But I do know this -- neither his belly nor his heart are overflowing with anything but anger and emptiness tonight.

And, when thinking, that's not a place I'm willing to go again.

Bigger Picture Moments: Sparkly

He bounds, all feet beneath a four-year-old body, out of the classroom with a huge grin spread thick across his dusting of freckles like peanut butter smeared heavy across a satisfied mouth.

An invitation to mommy night at preschool in his hand and a new song about being a mom bursting from his lips means we are counting down the days to our date night like we do Advent before Christmas.

****

"You'll need to wear a really really reaaaaaly fancy dress, mom," he says the afternoon before our big date night. "This is a serious date."

We pick out one together; luckily, he selects the black wrap dress that still fits and is gracious to fall naturally around an ever-changing body.

He then scurries to his room to dress himself in his best: his tuxedo with a white tie {NOT the red one tonight, daddy} and his fire boots.

A picture or five and we're off.

We don't want to be late.

"And, mommy, I'll carry your sparkly shoes," he says as I slip on warm wool socks and boots over nylons. "Your hands are too full."

****

He shows me his world in live, bright colors -- a world I only see glimpses of through his crafts and papers, his selective conversation and peeks during school drop off and pick up.



I marvel at my handsome, animated date, who still longs to holds my hand and presses his small fingers in between my own.



He gifts me his full attention and drinks up my undivided gaze and nodding smiles.

My heart sparkle-shimmers in adoration for the boy who made me a mother and a star of royalty for an evening.

As he shows me his magic shrinker tool, I glimpse his fire boots and my mind flutters back to a different date, long ago, years removed where I felt much like I do here in this classroom -- then a princess holding a much-larger-than-my-own hand, standing in the safe shadows of a taller, stockier, older version of my son at the fireman's picnic.



There is a blinkflutterblinkblink of my eyes and I see him moving and leading me to another space to unravel and explore together.

The night is a mixture of giggles and soaking up moments that will soon enough pass.

We end with the little ones singing us The Mom Song, and he asks me to take a picture.

I flip on the record switch but can barely keep him in focus through the lens of my phone because I'm simply too focused on capturing through my own eyes this boy -- live, in vivid, animated color -- burn here and now into my forever-memory.

The song ends and he collapses into my arms. I breathe in his soft scent and roll around in the newness of memories made, him and I together.



I whisper gratitude to God for a lost memory recovered of my late father, the man my young eyes saw as king, simply just another gift from the boy who has deemed me queen for an hour {and maybe queen of his heart, if I can manage such fortune, for a few more years}.

As my son picks up my sparkly shoes at night's end, I, too, offer thanks for too-full hands and a filled-to-the-brim heart.

 

Each Thursday {Friday for me this week!}, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment.  


Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Sarah's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Scenes from Life: How I Met Your ...

Thick ropes drape from one side of the descending, rocky staircase to the other, making a skimpy barrier across the private part of the history that's been unearthed.

And she, in a boldness that stretches beyond the sliver ring encasing her lip and fiery red streaks running through dark hair – she bounds toward the unbeaten path with spirit soaring, freedom brimming, adventure beckoning.

The girl with the lip ring, he thinks, had originally come across as kind of scatterbrained and flaky; after all, she'd  ...

I'm guest posting over at Emily's today, writing one of my very own vivid Scenes from Life. Yes, this story is totally my very own God-ordained love story. Head over to share a moment of my life I'll always remember as one of God being the author of our stories -- even and especially the love ones.