To My Can Man on your 4th birthday

Sometimes I sit back watching you play with your brothers and think to myself, “This kid is the most unique individual I think I’ll ever meet.”

  

It’s true… You are the greatest mix of personality the world will encounter. Your daddy and I laugh all the time at how you simply cannot just go with the flow. There’s no convincing you to leave your shirt on if you get a drop of water on it or to settle down from a major temper tantrum right before preschool every week, for any given reason.

One of my favorite things about you is the fact that you cannot keep a reward to yourself. You have it in your heart to always share with Silas whether it’s a special treat daddy gives you or a treasure prize at preschool. There are so many times you’ve asked your teacher to save an extra goody for your brother. Whenever good news is heard, you always run to tell Silas first. I love your heart!

 You are so particular about the little things in life. For example: no long pants to bed because you don’t like the feeling of them riding up when you get in bed… your socks have to be put on exactly right so that you (God forbid) don’t step on the ‘dot’ (where the stitching comes together near the front of the sock.) You find only one out of your seven sweatshirts acceptable to wear and you will only put on ‘soccer socks’ cheerfully, everything else is a battle. You cannot handle being up in front of people for any kind of group presentation… you will cry the whole time while everyone else is singing. Once you lose it, there is no retrieving any kind of sanity until you spend good quality time with your blanket (and by blanket I mean your bundle of yarn that's been loved on really, REALLY hard) in your room, by yourself.

I went to pick you up early from the children’s church today and I peeked through the little door window and our eyes met. Everyone was bouncing a beach ball up in the air, laughing and yelling... and there you were standing perfectly still just smiling your adorable sweet smile, with your head cocked to one side just gazing at me with all the love in your heart. Everyone was running circles around you and you just didn’t care. You just stayed staring and smiling for a minute or two. I’m going to hold onto that moment forever. This moment really does epitomize who you are. You don’t go with the flow, you hold your own and you don’t care who’s watching…you love your mama! Then...

and now...

 Maybe because you were so colicky and I was the only one that held you for the first few months of your life, but your love for me and my love for you is something fierce. A bond that cannot be broken.

Even at children’s church when everyone was in the middle of dancing and having a blast, you turn to me and say, “MOM! When are we getting outta here?!” LOL. You crack me up. Even when there is a fun day planned with grandma and it’s time to say goodbye to me, you always want to just stay with me. Even when bribed with all the ice cream, parks and bounce houses out there, you always want me to be there with you. Truth be told, I eat this up! Every mama needs a sweet-as-pie baby boy like you.

There are so many things I love about you, it’s impossible to pin point them all. You are my deep voiced, bug smashing, best bear-huggin', secret animal lovin’, Reeve-guardin', home lovin', Mama snugglin’, non-button down shirt wearin', use-your-fry-as-a-ketchup-spoon kind of kid. 

I know your strong-willed yet tender heart will bring you places even I can’t imagine. Your special combination of tough and kind are just what this world needs. Even though there are times I don’t know how to handle your outbursts and irrational thinking, we're growing together. God has taught me more through you than any living soul on this planet. You remind me how much I need a Savior. I thank God for you Cannon because you were designed especially for me to mother and your daddy to father. You are exactly what this world needs to be a better place. At the end of the day when you’re in bed sleeping I think about the little boy you are, your quirks, your sweet and loving ways and your determination and I am certain I wouldn’t want to change a thing about you. I’m a better Mama because of you. Here’s a hug and a kiss and a punch and a five from me to you baby. Happy 4^th birthday to my bronze-skinned, blonde haired, absolutely beautiful, handsome-as-all-get-out baby boy! I love you!!!

Love,

Mama  

The Simple Life

I stumbled upon this stunning blog the other day. Really, it took my breath away. My eyes welled up with tears while listening to the background music dance with the poetic way this mom expressed her beautiful thoughts. The way she portrayed her ‘simple life’ just struck a chord with me. Obviously she lived on a farm because everyone who lives the simple life lives on a farm, right? Her magazine worthy pictures on the site just oozed with family love and camaraderie. There is one shot of one out of her six children giving the baby calf a bottle of milk. It just melted my heart. I sighed to myself and thought, “Ah… the simple life.” When I clicked out of the site, the music stopped and I was met with the whaling of little ones tugging on my pant leg asking for milk, a snack and another piece of my sanity.

After feeling a bit discontented with my own non-farming life, I asked myself, “What does it even mean to live ‘the simple life?’” Do I have to live on a farm to claim this highly desirable yet seemingly unattainable status? Do I have to home school, have five, six or seven children or make my own bread from scratch? Is there room for my not-so-large yet messier-than-most family to live such a life?

Truth is, the simple life can also mean something different than a lovely family with six home-schooled children living on a farm. Lest we be dismayed, discouraged and feeling inadequate, I believe the simple life can indeed be attainable to anyone anywhere- whether living on a farm or right in the middle of a bustling metropolitan. I’ve come to realize that the simple life has little to do with possessions, circumstances, or number of children and everything to do with our inner thoughts, perspective and our individual and unique lens we filter life through, everyday.

The simple life is a way of thinking. It’s letting those thoughts change your life so you can say ‘yes’ to the important and ‘no’ to the distractions. It’s figuring out what to value and what to just let go. It’s about contentment, avoiding comparisons like the plague, and being unexpectedly gracious and kind. It’s being genuine, down-to-earth and letting your guard down. It’s identifying with people and moving closer to relationships and further away from superficiality. It’s finding humor in the things you could fall apart over. It’s being true to yourself when there’s an opportunity to stand up for what’s right, even if it’s unpopular. It’s having it fresh in our mind that today is a gift, a special opportunity to pour into another’s life whether that someone is our own child or a total stranger. It’s looking our hardships square in the face and shouting, “I’m blessed, I’m blessed, I’m blessed!” It’s seeing the big picture when life so often is only pointing at a tiny piece of it. It’s bringing others up when it seems everyone is hurting, fighting an impossible battle. It’s forgiving when mercy isn’t warranted and remembering life is but a breath. Make it count…. bring something beautiful to it that only you can give.

To me, this is the ultimate simple life; keeping first things first, and not sweating the small stuff. It’s constantly remembering we are not the center of the universe and letting that reality drive us to be part of the larger community where we have something to give rather than only looking to see what we can receive. It’s letting technology aid these efforts, not hinder them. It’s choosing to be the victor and not the victim in any given circumstance.

Recently an old high school acquaintance 'friend requested' me over social media. He wrote me an unexpected message telling me that he had a horrible time in high school and wanted to let me know, thirteen years later, that I was one of the few that brightened his day. He thanked me for ‘always having a smile for him.’ I had absolutely no idea that I was contributing anything to him or anyone else. In my own eyes I didn’t do anything seemingly special... but to him it was what helped him get through high school. I was floored and so grateful I was able to bring light to his life all those years ago. It was a gift to him I didn’t even know I was giving. Getting this message from an old friend reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Marianne Williamson.

Maybe all you did was stay in your pajamas all day, didn’t even brush your teeth… but you nursed that little baby from sun up to sun down. You’ve nourished another. Find peace and pleasure in such a gift. This is the simple life. Maybe you’ve not met your quota at work but during lunch break you listened to another tell her story, and you were there, present, connecting, enabling her to feel heard, important. This rare gift of attention- this is the simple life. Maybe you’ve reached the end of your rope emotionally and physically and are just about ready to collapse when you hear the baby crying, again. Somehow when there’s nothing left to give, there you are giving, again and again. This, my precious friend, is the face of raw sacrificial love, the greatest gift of all. That smile at a stranger, that undeserved gesture of kindness, that moment in time, this is the simple life.

Perfection is an illusion. The simple life is not necessarily living like the Amish as much as living like yourself, in your own mess- except with a new lens that sees and yearns to live out gratitude in spite of the circumstances, not because of it. Go ahead, go live the simple life, right smack in the middle of your very busy non-farming kind of life. As you live it out you unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

How to not meet the status quo- and be thankful for it

Easter morning was chaotic. I should have been prepared with the clothes laid out and pressed with matching accessories and shoes but I didn’t. Three quarters of the clothes were in the laundry, wash or clean but wrinkled in a heaping pile on the laundry room floor. I woke up late and rushed around finding button-down shirts and some sort of khaki bottoms for everyone. Although looking like my life depended on it, I was unable to find matching socks in the whole house- for anyone. How does anyone have 18 socks with no matches? I felt like Murphy’s Law was at work at this point. So, with no matching socks I had them put on socks from the day before. Obviously not the ideal solution, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

Suppressing the disappointment and guilt I inevitably felt, I finally got all the pieces of everyone’s outfits together and told them to put it on. Tears and tantrums were the immediate response. As the time was ticking I started to give the evil eye and curl my lip in frustration. Still more whining and running all around. Anger started to rise and my voice was rising along with my blood. Why can’t they just listen? Why of all days are they fighting me with this? A button-down shirt isn’t too much to ask, is it? Well, in my house it was too much. At my wits end, weighing getting to church super late or disciplining properly I resorted to bargaining and bribes. 

I walked into the kitchen to see my husband dressed like he was going to play baseball. I’m like, “IT’S EASTER! Can you put on something a little more… dressy/nice?”  He looks at what I’m wearing and grunts, “Oh” with an, ‘I guess you’re right but I’m still annoyed’ kind of look. We had about 5 minutes to get in the car and no one had eaten breakfast yet. I tossed some eggs on a few plates and every other word I uttered was, “Come on, hurry up, let’s go, we’re going to be late, stop screaming, stop messing around, come on, hurry up…”

This is highly ironic since it’s a known fact for anyone that’s known me more than five seconds that I’m always late and just about everything I do is slow. But today it was everyone else’s problem that we were running late (so it was in my mind anyway… ) Plus, pointing fingers is so much easier than taking responsibility, right?

I just wanted so badly to be that picture perfect family dressed to the nines with darling smiles on, holding hands and being adorable. Instead I was the mean Mama barking orders at everyone while mopey kids and disgruntled husband shot non-verbal insults my way. Was that button-down shirt worth all this? Why did I care about such superficial things?

Of course we were late. Of course we all were miserable. On the way to church I kept wondering how many other families had the same morning as us. How many didn’t? What could I have done differently? From someone whose motto is “Don’t sweat the small stuff” all I was doing was sweating the small stuff.

I wish I would have woken up earlier. I wish I would have prayed that morning and asked God to help me remember what it was I was going to church for. I wish I would have let them pick out their own outfits. I wish I wouldn’t have been influenced by what culture says is “Easter outfits.” I wish I would have spoken sweetly to them and given out more words of love and encouragement then of judgment and hostility. I wish I would have said, “You want to wear your Spiderman shirt? Okay Baby, I love that shirt too.” I wish I would have looked at my husband’s casual outfit and said, “You look so handsome- I love you no matter what you wear! (because he did and because I do)” As I sat there in the car wishing my morning away and rethinking my attitude, I started thinking about Easter. I thought about why we’re even going to this church building. I should have been praying for souls to be reached, for God to move in the hearts of those attending, for God to heal my broken way of thinking, for Him to touch people’s lives through the worship and message. I should have cared about different things.  

After all my apologies and after the service was over and we came home, everyone ripped out of their clothes not one minute after stepping into the house. I immediately thought, “Well all that fighting was totally not worth it.” I didn’t get one picture of us… instead I got a lesson learned. The best lessons learned are the ones where you can look back on your mistakes and say, “Wow, that was dumb… I’m not doing that again.” Later that day as all the Easter Facebook pictures popped up on my news feed I just smiled and thought, ‘We missed that picturesque moment, but I learned a timely lesson that I wouldn’t trade for all the pastel pants and Chaps shirts in the world.’ Next Easter I’ll concentrate on things that matter. I’ll think about Jesus instead of fancy clothes. We’ll more than likely be the family dressed like we’re going to a sports event. Maybe some of us will be wearing clean socks, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll have our shirts tucked in, maybe we won’t. One thing is for sure, I’m not going to sweat the small stuff. No one will be spoken to harshly and we’ll be wearing the only thing that really matters… a thankful heart for Jesus.