parenting & the determined

everyone tried to warn me. tried to articulate the extreme tensions & intense emotional spasms that were on my horizon when i first got pregnant. 'don't worry' they said. 'don't worry. you may never wear anything but pajamma pants for the rest of your life but you'll survive'. but i wouldn't listen. i thought they were all neigh-sayers & negative nellies trying to rob the most glorious fairy tale that the experience would be for me.

they weren't wrong. but they weren't right either.

parenting is not for the faint of heart nor the weak of will. it is the most difficult thing i will ever cultivate in my life. it is so intrinsically apart of me now that i cannot separate when it ends & i begin.

initially, with my flippantly, overconfident first-timer attitude, parenting was something i wore on the outside. a mostly exterior experience that fit into a neat & tidy compartment. something i did & was, just by rights of having a child. something i could still idealize with, flaunt & control. and then i had the twins & parenting tried to creep into the deepest of depths of my soul. it found things in there that i didn't even know existed. it started messing with all my emotions & leaking all over my leg in seepy, soiled diapers, darkened the bags under my eyes. it came skulking for me in the night.  taunting me sometimes all day & all night with the need for change. and then the utter chaos of parenting overtook me entirely with the birth of my last cherished babe.

they weren't wrong to warn me. but they weren't right either. i will not be merely a survivor of parenting like the rest of the lot. the long days & dark night aren't just there to survive... they are there as a gift of growth. like a spur in my tender side, they are there to train & test me into thriving, not just as a parent, but as a great many things. for what is parenting but pursuing transformation & change in the heart of every untouched, hidden emotion & motivation. it has been the greatest audit & inventory i have ever know.

never has there been such a universal experience that so adamently demands the brand of patience made out of wrought iron and holiness produced from so much flesh purging. but i am resolute that the gut wrenching contraction upon contraction of excruciatingly monotony of everyday pandemonium in familial life will give birth to something in me. i am nothing that i thought i was at the start. i fall short everyday of the woman i want to be. the woman i can & will be one day. but that is what why the determined will see the fruit of their labours.

it's like panning for gold. scatter amount the debri of everyday chaos is sprinkled gold dust. hidden in the burnt boiled egg dinner disaster is a little treasure of who i am & who they are becoming.

and i wouldn't miss that adventure for the world. :)

before the curse.

i was folding just one of the small baskets of laundry that had avalanched down the stairs from the mighty mountaintop of camping laundry that awaited me at the top of the stairs, when i had a thought.

there was absolutely no laundry before the curse. adam & eve were butt-naked. there wasn't a single matchless sock in the garden of eden. not a loincloth. no coconut bra in sight. nothing. which logically one would deduce that laundry then is absolutely either a result of the curse or the very curse itself. i believe the latter. ;)

my children love to be naked. it's a nice perk of not living in the city anymore that they can run free & wild & naked. i actually mandated their partial nudity after i found them soaked up to their necks in pond muck while wearing their very expensive school uniforms. i said, no more clothes! only undies shall be sacrificed to the pond yuck. and a small nudist colony has emerged as a result.

after a subsequent conversation with kai, while explaining the societal expectation to remain fully clothed while in public,  he asked me if we would have to wear clothes in heaven. and i thought, i have no idea but i will find out!

and then, in my wanderings to answer such an awesome question, i found this gem...

" eve's curse: in relation to her husband, her "desire will be to" him, an unusual hebrewism that means an ambition to control, manipulate and possess someone (in it's occurrence in genesis 4:7). this is having led her husband into sin, she must now live with a continuing urge to subordinate him to her wish and will. his reaction will be not only to resist this takeover but to use his greater strength to rule her. male domination is the inevitable result of this struggle for supremacy of wills. in genesis 3:16 lies the real explanation for the centuries of exploitation and suppression of women, against which feminism is validly protesting. 

incidentally, it also means that a husband that is hen-pecked has chosen to capitulate, usually for the sake of domestic peace. the advent of rule to describe marriage was not the introduction of subordination but the exaggeration of it (in much the same way as pain in childbearing was increased). responsibility for direction in the male became reaction into domination. the male-directed garden is now a male-dominated jungle. each sex sees the other as an object (rather than a subject) to serve its own purposes. 

this situation can be remedied only by Divine grace, by redemption rather than by legislation or revolution. God's strategy is to plant on earth a community of men and women who live as adam and eve did, in his creational order (except for nudity, which will never reoccur, even in heaven)." 

~ david pawson

wow. both kai & i were a little disappointed about the last line of that one. but the beginning & middle, magnificent. i feel like my whole life, society & culture has been illuminated, dissected & explained to me. how incredible is God's plan for redeeming marriage... not sure what His plan is for redeeming laundry but i'm sure He has one. He redeems all things. ;)

p.s. i eased kai's disappointment by reassuring him that although he may not be naked in heaven, he could likely ride a shark while eating chocolate chips well past bedtime instead ;) we conclusively decided that a bathing suit might be a good idea anyways whence riding a shark on the riptides of heaven with a handful of chocolate chips. a little less squeaky, squeaky. ;)

p.s.s. this must be the most random blog post you've ever read. they are but the desperate ramblings of a procrastinating woman about to take the plunge into a neck high laundry swamp for an 18 hour shift of folding. and they were naked no more...

she sings to me...

i am prone to anger. if there were one emotion that i found it difficult to not be overtaken by it would be that one.

and when i get frustrated, i get so angry it boils over & fills the house like a terrifying roar.

i have been frustrated for long time now. it had all seemingly stemmed out of some of the post-partum struggles i had written about. and then just crept in & taken over my garden like a vicious weed sometime after that.  i had tried to fight the urge to explode but if i kept my mouth shut it steamed out my eye sockets! there just didn't seem to be a victorious way to control my temper. and with four little-ing, one whopping lifestyle change with mounds & mounds of unearth-able stress on top, there has been no shortage of legitimate reasons to spontaneously combust.

and then after a shameful incident, i couldn't ignore it anymore. i wasn't trying to ignore it before. i just didn't know what to do or how to stop yelling. i just looked into my youngest eyes & she was frightened & i broke into a million pieces that felt like they could never go back together again. how did i get here? i asked myself. i am an overwhelmed, overworked mother of four youngsters who cannot keep her voice under control. and my hopelessness swelled.

and so i prayed because there had been nothing else to help. i had read the books. locked myself in the bathroom for timeouts. counted to ten. tried to talk in whispers & i just couldn't control myself. and so i prayed a tearful prayer of repentance & i broke it open before the Lord & asked him to help me.

and then i picked myself off the floor, didn't even bother to wipe the tears from my cheeks & walked down the hall to see to the screaming balls of children at the end of the hall. i silently separated them onto their beds & decided to try to reflect on what to do next while repairing eva's closet doors which wouldn't stay in their tracks properly. i think my silence scarred the kids more than if i had yelled for some reason. and eva who had been placed on her bed, was listening to my deep, deep sighs as i fiddled with the broken hardware of her closet door & she just started singing. she said, she knew just the song to make me feel better & sang away! and i felt the mounds of pent up pressure inside fizzle out & peace drift in. it was a sweet little song about how much Jesus loves me & how i don't have to be frustrated because He's so wonderful. it was slightly off tune & ranged from a soft whisper to a starling howl but it was anointed.

she does it all the time now. sings. often when she thinks i'm frustrated (even if she mistakes hard work for frustration... i don't mind), she just start belting it out. and i can't help but smile & let go of whatever emotion is all tangled up inside... exhaustion, anxiety, worry, frustration... all gone at the sound of that little voice offering her praise to up to Jesus.

it was & is a supernatural answer to my prayer. i can't even really explain why it has helped so much. it just has.

now i carry that song with me, even when she is not. :)
"i love Jesus because He don't get frustrated with me!"

playing with your food

they say the best way to get your kids to eat healthy is to eat healthy yourself. and that has been a challenge for my choco-cheese-aholic self. i usually manage to just not eat in front of them.  between running kids to the potty, repeatedly asking them to sit on their bums & cleaning up spilt milk, i don't usually have a free hand or mouth to eat anyways.

i'm not sure if it's the different stages they are at currently but dinnertime is fight. they're not usually big evening eaters anyhow but lately just getting the two-bite minimum has been a challenge. and so i have resorted to playing with our food. i know, not the best table manners but when a spear of asparagus suddenly into junior the asparagus, an entire bunch of asparagus vanishes! or when a pomegranate transforms into ruby pirate treasure & daddy-pirate wants his treasure back, suddenly all the rubies are safely hidden in their tummies. and when daddy-bear smells that they've been eating salmon, well, a bear chases almost always ensues. :)

i think dinnertime, for us anyways, has been a challenge for more than just the 'what's-for-dinner' reason. i think we're all tired. all ready for bed & hungry to boot. the kids have been busy. we've been busy all day & then we all come home & collide for dinner. so when dinnertime becomes playtime, we all have a much more peaceful, fun-filled evening. it gives the kids the nutrition they need to stay healthy & the much needed time with mum & dad & each other.  i am shocked at some of the things they've tried 'accidentally' while playing & have now grown to love & demand at dinnertime.

and even the mummy occasionally gets drawn into eating my veggies too.

10 things every mom needs to know

this made me laugh cry. a very weird emotion where i both laugh & cry at the exact same time. usually when i'm tired & usually when i really need to. :)

just take 3 minutes to be reminded of how awesome you are. :)

the law of 'losing it'

this year has been rough year, for many reasons. some that were totally foreseeable & others, a complete surprise. i'm not sure which i prefer. some things are better when you just don't see them coming.

one of the more predictable challenges this year has presented us with, has been the everyday challenge that 4 little-lings all at bustling stages. our life at the moment is bursting at the seams with potential. the potential for joy & fulfilment as well as the potential for distress & complete chaos.

with such demand for discipline & direction, i must say with the other added obstacles this year has provided, i have not always responded as the most consistent or patient disciplinarian at times. it often happens with the "bulk effect". it's what rachel jankovic calls the combined crazy that only a room full of children together could achieve. like when the twins or little livi where added to the fam, it

wasn't 1+2 or 3+1, the effect was exponential, like 1 to the power of 2 because of all the added dynamics.  like child one can't sit next to child two becasue child one will cause a ruckus. and don't put socks on child three because they'll flush them down the toilet but must leave the bathroom door open with light on or child one will be too scared go on the potty & wet their pants. those kinda dynamics. complicated. i know. and it used to paralyze me until i met rachel jankovic. wise woman she is.

" the 'bulk effect' is what happens when there are a lot of children, and it will happen from time to time. individually, there is nothing to worry about. as a group it feels as though we are careening toward destruction. if you have a bunch of little kids (or even a few), you will need to not only be aware of this fact of life but build up your immunity to it. you will need to see it happening & get the grace for it in advance. you will need to develop some skills for coping with it that do not involve blaming your children." {rachel jankovic, the little years}

anyways, the bulk effect isn't what i had set out to talk about in this post. but i have long used the "bulk effect" without realizing, as my excuse to blow up, boil over... explode! afterall, just how much crying & diapers & spilt milk can one individual handle in any given moment?! it's only fair to allow myself to let some steam off, right? after all i am only human. wrong. i am a mother. which i am learning is one high calling. don't get me wrong. i think we've all been there, done that as far as exploding under the immense pressure of mothering. but when i start feeling entitled to those moments, i'm starting down a slippery slope.

 "the [bulk effect] is not a sin. it is merely the combined effect of a lot of people. and just becasue you can pin down one sin in the batch does not mean that child is responsible for the situation. your children are not a situation. they are individuals. disciplining an individual for a collective situation is a great way to alienate your children...." {rachel jankovic, the little years}

the thing is, once you've allowed yourself to explode at a situation that might merit a reaction of a 10 then you begin to allow or justify the same response at situations that might only merit an 8 or 6 until before you know it, you're reacting at a 10 for a situation that may only really justify a 2 or 3. it's a slippery slope & before you know it you lose it. you lose control of you.

and with multi-fauceted, multi-dimensional clashes of character & drama swirling around one tired mummy, you can bet it's a recipe for disaster. you can get lost in all the conflict & clashing & begin to believe there's no hope. you'll never be the calm, cool, collected mom you've always aspired to be.  it's cyclical. the kids swirling, the anger boiling, & then the inevitable blow up leading to mountains of shame, leaving you feeling powerless to change your hollering ways, leading to blaming the kids which leads to ... you get the picture.
the problem isn't just the sound of my screaming for all to hear but the feeling it creates inside. absolute helplessness. loss of control. anger & contempt... for myself.

"you take that shred of guilt and then harness onto it the stress of the whole situation. you make your child into a scapegoat. a way for you to release all of your tension and stress onto someone who you feel deserved it. he did, after all, disobey. your massive over reaction was just, because disobeying is wrong. so this neat little trick is happening in your head - the consequences for his sin go way up, and the consequences for yours go way down. it simply a classic shifting of the blame. the situation is crazy but you are the person responsible to get the grace to deal with it... [it's like saying] i will vent on you instead of dealing with myself." {rachel jankovic, the little years}

this year has been a challenge. a challenge to own my own stuff. my own emotions & reactions. my own atmosphere. because when it comes right down to it, i'm in charge of me not the rest of the universe. and for me, it is often just an issue of self-control & pushing myself to find the grace to deal with whatever i am facing. it's not that the kids are menacing or i'm a terrible monster. it's just exercising that self-control muscle a little more often than i'm used to.

the bible says "a soft answer turns away wrath". i used to think that meant responding to someone who is angry softly would soften them, which may be true but i think it also means by having the self control to answer softly while angry, diminishes your own wrath.

and so, i am constantly reminding myself to take courage, take heart & take control of me. 

little fellows & their fellowship

sharing is perhaps one of the biggest issues of a little person's life. the why, the what, the whom & how they share are much of what i spend my day sorting out at the moment. with four fellows four & under, most of the toys in this house are communal, which has lead to some inevitable conflict. it is rarely the brand new race car or the latest newfangled trinket, but rather the old broken purse strap
that they love to chase the dog with or some old bottle cap tucked conspicuously in someone's shirt pocket that causes murderous rage to erupt between them. silly things possess children to do silly things. who knew a trike could be welded as a weapon? who knew a flashlight could be like catnip to a little sinner? who knew a bubble wand could set off WWIII?
needless to say, we have tried regulating & implementing sharing policies so fair is fair which has only made us all into legalists. we have tried making the punishment fit the crime, which has lead to an un-ending conveyer belt of timeouts. we've tried toy jail & chocolate chip bribery, sticker charts & sharing magnets & total toy isolation. we have tried just about every parenting strategy out there to prevent sibling rivalry from raising it's ugly head but nothing has been as effective as getting to the heart of the matter.

"now every time your children have a conflict about a toy, they are breaking fellowship. if you step in and redistribute the toy but don't address the unkindness or selfishness or envy, you allow that to stay between them. it is sort of like trying to get rid of a dandelion by shaking the seeds all over you garden. there we go. solved that problem. until this afternoon.

it is a lot harder to work through grabby heart problems than the grabby hands, even though they usually travel together. if this part of parenting were only about toy distribution, then we should just be setting timers & keeping tally sheets. but teaching them about dealing well with each other, looking to their own hearts, and staying in fellowship is hugely important if they are ever going to get on without you." 

{rachel jankovic, loving the little years}

i know they are little fellows at the moment but i very much value their relationship with their siblings & i want them to too. people are always more important than toys. more important than anything that could possibly come between them, i tell them. and when the wild rumpus starts to rage in the other room, it doesn't matter who started it or how, they are both in the wrong. absolutely nothing i can think of necessitates a lord of the flies savage outbreak. they both have the ability to communicate. and if the other wasn't listening to their plea, that's when they should have grabbed me to come help, matthew 28 style. but wild rumpus is never ok, no matter what. i want them to learn the lessons i am still learning, that no matter what, we can always walk through a dispute in fellowship with one another. no matter what, i can still love my brothers & my sisters regardless of the sinful nature they have just manifested towards me. and then, once we agree the we love each other & that this is worth working out together, we get down to the heart of the matter. 

"remember that the house rules for the toys are foundational social laws to your child. they will take these lessons with them for life. so think through what your rules communicate to your children.

do your kids know that if they grab they want & cry mom will make their brother give it to them in a minute? do you try to pacify them by offering them things & trying to persuade them that it is better, rather than deal just deal with envy?

it is the hearts that are the problem. only sorting out what they may grab & when does not deal with the actual situation because it does not address the engine of the situation - their hearts. nobody profits from this kind of a system, but everyone learns how to work it to their advantage.

it's important to stick to principles, teach principles & then sort out the details in light of them." 

{rachel jankovic, loving the little years}

it is hard to see our precious little one's in true light sometimes. to see them chose to use their wallop instead of their words. to see them clobber instead of communicate. and it is definitely difficult to see such big, ugly emotions come out of such teeny hearts. but they are there whether we want to recognize it or not. envy is still envy, even if i choose to call it 'spirit-ly concerned for the welfare of all toys everywhere'. selfishness is still selfishness, even if i choose to call it personality. we put names to the big, ugly emotions, we call them like they are, & then we work through those emotions in repentance & replace them with the true feelings of fellowship, like it had never been broken. 

i'm not saying that every time there is an altercation between children i run through all of this, but i most definitely set it as a goal to talk about the heart of the matter later if there isn't time or if space to deal with it right there & then. stories help too. the story of the brave knight who fought dragons all day protecting the castle & then came home & walloped the princess over getting the blue plate has convicted each of my own brave knights at some point & the same with the beautiful princess with glass slippers & a regal tiara who went around calling the boys poopy heads. for some reason they always know what the right thing to do is when there is a brave knight or a princess involved. :)

motherhood in the trenches

happy belated mother's day! this is my fifth official mother's day. five years since i was belly round with my first child & my, how things have changed. my, how i have changed. little did i know on that first mother's day how i was jumping head long into the steepest learning curve i'd ever experience in my life. i am transformed. so much learned & yet still so much left to learn.

i have been reluctant to share my own parenting journey, especially with the blog-o-sphere. it's kind of like those who have perfect children please go first. i am very aware that i am no where near the perfect example of a mother but i am in a committed, continuing process of becoming perfected into the likeness of Him & i have collected a few gems along my way. from my own experiences but also from many brave & courageous women who have walked before me & have shared their own treasure chest of wisdom with me, full of the precious stones that they have mined out of the trenches of motherhood.

although i can't entirely take credit for all of these treasures, it is such a beautiful grace to get to share & experience the prize of long fought for wisdom with each other. and so, i thought i'd start a little blog feature called 'motherhood in the trenches' to help me remember the priceless journey i'm on & perhaps encourage others on the same journey.

and so, here's to motherhood in the trenches & loving the little years! (*also the title of an awesome book that has become just such a treasure to me, couldn't recommend it more!)