Scenes from a Weekend: Repair

The thing about life is this -- even in the midst of grieving our baby, the human heart can still swim deep into joy.

This weekend there have been tears. Oh, yes. Enough tears to soak several tissue boxes and make you think that maybe I might have fallen into a rabbit hole of despair.

But instead this weekend, I fell face first into repair, despite, well, myself.



These days have heard lots of laughter, starting first thing in the morning with a 3-year-old boy bounding into my bedroom bellowing "Goo morning, mommy. How you sleep las nigh?" while I was still, um, sleeping.



And ending in fits of giggles after John and the boys were Irish jigging and a certain long-legged husband accidentally kicked a certain oldest son in the head ... knocking him off of his feet and sending him into a hysterical laughter at daddy's attempt at traditional Irish dance.

There's been a slow-coming surrender in remembering to turn my shaking palms back up and open the closed-knuckle grasp with which I keep trying to squeeze everything I've deemed as mine ...

and in mustering the courage and trust to actually begin such a movement to let go. Again.



This weekend afforded John and I three hours alone with each other to talk and process and sort and cry and question ... and then finally acknowledge that our ways are not God's ways and our thoughts are not God's thoughts

while giving Him thanks for that hard bit of dessert manna to swallow.



And this weekend was sprinkled with warm, sweet coffee, sipped slowly and steadily while taking in the moments that unfolded and seemed to promise renewal that, too, would come slowly and steadily.

Join us at Bigger Picture Blogs as we capture Scenes from our Weekend

Scenes from a Weekend: Bookends

Thank God for the bookends of this weekend.

Because Saturday this was my view pretty much all day long:



That's my pillow and nightstand, in case it's not obvious. I lingered there until about 3 p.m. Saturday before finally venturing downstairs; Saturday morning was when I really got hit with the hardest part of the boys' stomach virus. Friday I thought I escaped it after feeling sort of terrible all day Thursday.

I'm glad for that because it afforded me a rare opportunity of going on a sister date. We left our kiddos with our hubbys, went to fun restaurant in a nearby downtown area and had great conversation. It was just what I needed after being quarantined with two sick little boys for six days.

Sunday I nearly jumped out of bed singing hallelujah at how much better I felt from Saturday, and I determined that it would be a day of renewal.

We went to church, I went to prenatal yoga, I sat in the bright, warm sunlight for 20 minutes, cried a river to John about today's {yet again rescheduled} appointment with our midwife and then ventured out to a little cafe for dinner with the boys in the last of Sunday's lingering sun.



And you know what?

I *do* feel better after all of that. But it was really the culmination of it all this morning that's brought the serenity I feel as I type.

This morning before my midwife called to reschedule my appointment to hear baby's heartbeat {FIFTH reschedule -- not her fault!} because she was racing off to help an expecting mother birth a sweet new baby, a Chris Tomlin song played on repeat in my head. {video below}

That song has been with me for weeks now, and yesterday we sang it in church before our pastor spoke about what it means to find comfort and strength in as we wait on God.

And I knew it was meant for my heart.

So much so that when my midwife called to reschedule this morning, I couldn't help but honestly laugh out loud at the situation, surrender and say to God that I got it: He's in control no matter what, and because of that I can wait calmly and patiently in His strength.

So I wait some more.

But wrapped in increasing peace.




We're sharing Scenes from a Weekend at Bigger Picture Blogs today, focusing on rejuvenation for the month of March! Join us!

Dear Diary: On Hysterical Laughter

Dear Diary*,

It began normally enough.

I'd made Friday night plans to linger at a long dinner with two friends -- Melissa and Brook -- here in Lake County the night before we ventured into downtown Chicago for the Social Rev Up Brands and Bloggers Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel. I envisioned relaxation, as Melissa and I had just engaged in five days of backyard summer camp with 11 kids seven and younger all week.




But because I no longer had any clothes that fit and were appropriate for anywhere other than the gym we found ourselves at the mall, the mecca of Friday nights in suburbia for teenagers and desperate-for-clothes moms everywhere.

That's where the actual madness of the weekend began -- specifically in a dressing room: I got trapped in a carnivorous dress.

No, really -- the thing wouldn't let me out, and I had to be extracted from it by Brook, who firmly and appropriately directed my panicked self to reach my arms into the air, take a deep breath and stand up straight while she yanked it over it my shoulders.

Needless to say, I settled on a beautiful white flowy dress that held not even a remote chance of trying to devour me.

But it did require us to run through the mall like mad women at five minutes before closing time in order to make it to Victoria's Secret before the gates slammed shut so I could fix an imminent underwear emergency: apparently it's frowned upon for one to wear pink and black flower printed under garments beneath white linen dresses.


While we were breathlessly explaining to the sales associate #underwearER12 as she was shutting the gates, another employee ran up to the front of the store yelling "they stole our underwear!"


My heart began racing thinking that she had misunderstood what we were saying about an underwear emergency, thinking we'd actually five-finger discounted some thongs, but then the security guards made a dash for a group of teenagers who'd just exited the store. 


As my pulse began to slow from both the excitement of being almost completely consumed by a woman-eating dress and then the thought of being sprung from jail by my husband after wrongly being accused of shoplifting underwear, Melissa marched us back to the dressing rooms, white-linen-dress-appropriate underwear in hand. 


Luckily, the shoplifting excitement didn't deter Melissa from our mission and she generously gave me a strapless-bra-wearing demonstration atop of her clothing in the middle of the dressing room; with her direction and guidance, the underwear emergency was doused. 


Somehow, in spite of the adrenaline rush keeping all of us awake, we all made it out the door by 7:10 a.m. the next morning and were swinging through the Starbucks drive through by 7:12 a.m.


But by then we were in the thick of  #CoffeeEmergency12, as Melissa's husband had run out of java and was expected to keep the children all day and night and work a midnight shift from home. 


So we did what any loving wife and friends of wife would do during such an emergency while trying to remain on time. 


We did a drive-by caffeination mission, quite literally heaving a few-pound bag of coffee out the window of our moving car and into the front lawn, completely shocking Melissa's unsuspecting neighbor who was quietly watering his flowers when the coffee bag thunked into the grass. 





We did arrive appropriately clothed and caffeinated at the conference despite our potential setbacks, thankfully.

Which is good because we wouldn't have wanted to miss any of the content or the panels or educating me in '80s pop culture by watching St. Elmo's Fire until the wee hours of the morning or the chance to take a thousand different Prince tribute pictures in our hotel room mirrors before leaving the Artist's floor to find coffee and food and then head home bright and early Sunday morning. 





And I certainly wouldn't have wanted to miss trading in my standard mom outfit of yoga pants and a tank top to play dress up and don feather earrings and run around with my girlfriends like giggly teenagers for an entire 24 hours. 





Because sometimes a mom needs to laugh hysterically at something other than preschooler knock-knock jokes, poop talk and the insanity of living with a bunch of light-saber wielding, plank-walking manic boys that often prompts the *other* kind of hysterical laughter. 


You know?


XOXO,
Me

*As you know, I normally don't write Dear Diary esque posts, but I thought it necessary since I spent the weekend drawing out my inner school girl. ;-)