Chubby hands throw rocks unsteadily into the cold river water. Each rock is an adventure, how big is the splash? How far will it go? Eli could throw these rocks far longer than my patience will last, until the sun has set behind the mountain. He does this because he likes to see the effect he has on the water, what his strength can do.

Today as he was busily picking up rocks far too heavy for him to throw, I realized that we are all still throwing rocks. We are all giant, unsteady toddlers throwing our talent, ideas and heart out to the world and waiting to see the affect. Will we be strong enough? Will we make a big enough splash?

Sometimes we don’t throw ourselves into anything at all because we are afraid it won’t be enough, it won’t matter to the world. We hide the talent God gave us under a familiar blanket of self doubt.

Recently I realized that it doesn’t matter if I’m not the next big thing. I don’t have to be best at anything, I just have to be me. Flawed, wrinkled and without doubt, wholly mortal.

In the water’s reflection I see his blonde hair curling up around his elfish baby ears. I know that some day he won’t be content to just sit and throw rocks but instead he will be wondering if he can make the team, get the girl or earn the corner office. Wining is great, being the best at one thing must be an amazing feeling. I hope he gets to experience it.

However, more than anything I just can’t wait to see his impact on the world, even if it is just our small one down by this river.

I’ve been on a vacation from writing.

It was sort of a self-imposed vacation.

Then I realized that every little thing happening to me was processed in the form of a blog post in my head. I just can’t not write.

It doesn’t matter anymore if it is popular.

It doesn’t matter if people think I’m weird because I blog and I say the stuff that maybe they were thinking but wouldn’t say out loud.

I wouldn’t be me if I weren’t occasionally putting my foot in my mouth.

A friend recently told me that she can always call me for advice because she knows I’ve been there. It got me thinking… I have “been there”. Nothing extraordinary happens to me. However, a lot of the normal every day crap happens to me all of the time and I was meant to share it. If nothing else maybe I can make you feel better about yourself when you read this because I am sure you handle the situations better than I did – for instance, you probably haven’t called your toddler an asshole out loud recently because of his crazy devil child behavior. Feel better? You’re welcome.

So, this website has a renewed vigor and purpose. I will be my ordinary everyday self and you can come here to laugh at me or with me. You chose. This life isn’t getting any longer and for whatever reason, I experience it best in the form of words on virtual paper.

PS – Yes I did call my toddler a bad name. I felt terrible, blamed it on 3 days of sleep deprivation and immediately scooped him up and covered him with kisses. Sometimes, you just have to get it out of your head to realize you don’t really mean it.

My oldest child wants to argue about everything.

Everything.

He is only six, and already refuses to take direction without a complete run down of why he must complete said requirement and  by the way, might he suggest a different way to accomplish it? I cannot imagine how incredible his debate skills will be by the teen years. If I’m not careful, his father and I will be the ones with a curfew and Isaac will have taken over the master bedroom. After that, look out law school, Isaac is coming and you better have your student handbook in order, otherwise the Captain is going to find the loopholes.

I often have to tell Isaac to just.stop.talking. No, just stop. Nothing more, child, cease speaking. After 32 “buts” this mama starts to loose patience with my little arguer. He is smart, I will give him that. He sees the holes in my logic and hones in on the weakness like an eagle on its’ prey. I can’t even start to give him direction unless I make sure I know the answers to his inevitable follow up questions. Dealing with him is not unlike a game of chess, if I’m not thinking a few steps ahead…I will loose. I am not sure what happened to my little, precious baby boy but he has officially been replaced with a pint sized scholar, with an attitude. For example:

Isaac: Mom, are Storm Troopers good or bad?

Me: Bad, they work for Darth Vader.

Isaac: No, you are wrong.

Me: Isaac, I have seen Star Wars a few more times than you…

Isaac: Well tell that to my Leapster, the Star Wars game let’s me be a good Storm Trooper.

Me: Okay smarty pants, then why did you ask me if you knew the answer?

Isaac: To see what you knew.

I am proud to be Isaac’s mom. I am ecstatic that God gave him such a bright and engaged brain with which to turn the world upside down and around while he searches for flaws in logic and ways to challenge the world. But he drives me batty with this character trait as well. Sometimes I can see in his eyes that he just wants to be the boss, to give direction and be in charge because he thinks he knows it all. Some days, he even seems to get stressed out over the details, as though his brain is years ahead of his 6 year old heart.

Damn.

Isaac gets it from me. The arguing, the quest for justice and logic and fairness in everything. The desire to grow up too fast, to be the boss, to be in charge. All.from.me.

Now that I am the grown up, I am in charge, I wish I could go back. Be a kid, enjoy not having to know the details behind all the decisions. I think my job as Isaac’s mom is to keep him a kid as long as possible. To let him ask all the questions but to also let him know there are limits and that he is not the boss.

Seeing your weaknesses displayed on your children is painful. I know that Isaac’s strong personality and his quick mind will serve him well but it will also bring challenges. Challenges that I have faced and life lessons that I know come with grief.

I am 33 years old and I am just now really beginning to understand and accept the flaws in my personality. I am just now learning when to shut my mouth. How do I teach my child these life lessons, pass down my “wisdom” when I am still learning the lessons myself?

After a blissful weekend with the family, I approached Monday with cautious optimism. Sunday had been filled with sun and celebration of my mom’s birthday. I had even managed to get all three children to take a nap at the same time. I got to lay out on my deck, ocean in plain view and a margarita in my hand. Sunday was nice. You can see why I thought that Monday was going to be okay, I was going to not only survive the first day of my work week…I might actually have a good day. (insert maniacal laughter here)

Getting ready this morning, Kevin and I were having yet another lively discussion about disaster preparedness. I explained that Jesus could take me at any moment now because my closet was actually clean. Any of you who remember my shopping post last year, know that my closet being clean and organized is as sure as sign as any that the apocalypse is forthcoming. In fact, pretty sure that the Bible mentions it in Revelations. Right after the giant cosmic battle for the world begins and right before Jesus shows up on a horse.

Jesus rides a horse? Girl what Bible you reading?

Look, you are missing the point. My closet is clean. It wasn’t until the closet was in a lesser state of chaos that I noticed one of the overhead lights was out and one of the sliding doors wasn’t sliding anymore. After mentioning my to-do list to Kevin,  he gets out of the shower, wraps a towel around himself and walks over to my closet to inspect the situation. His main job description, aside from Disaster Planner, is Fixer Man. Oh and Trash Man. I don’t do trash. People, it is pretty glorious being married to me. Like really, awesome.

As he is inspecting the slow rolling door situation, he looks up at the overhead light. This is how “distractable” people do things, halfway into one problem, investigate other tangent. Apparently I am a “distractable” writer…..So, then he decides the light situation is more pressing and removes the plastic casing in front of the light. That’s when things go black. Black Monday. Here is the scene of the crime:

I am blow drying my hair (this is a theme these days) and hear a little girl scream. A little 6’4″ 190 lb girl. As I start to laugh, thinking that Kevin must have encountered a spider in this little adventure.

Oh no, so much worse than that.

Remember the part of the story where I say that Kevin was only wearing a towel? Well, as he is removing the plastic, a rat fell upon him. NOT a small one. NOT a live one.

A.BIG.DEAD.RAT.

Oh, you think I’m kidding?

This object, formerly known as Rat, was nearly petrified. It had been sitting in that casing for so long that it was probably the reason the light burned out in the first place. Clearly the light in the picture above leads to crawl space access  so it is not an unlikely scenario that this rat would end up there. However, what I want to know is who endured the smell of this rat carcass decaying? When this guy went to the big rat heaven in the sky, the scent, made worse by the fluorescent light he was cooking under, couldn’t have been pleasant. What in the world landlord – really? It isn’t like our house was empty for any long period of time before we moved in so someone had to wonder what was “cooking” in that bathroom.

After the rat and the screaming and the almost puking were all completed. I cautiously got ready for the rest of my day. A day that just really couldn’t get any worse right? I mean when your day starts with petrified rats falling from the sky, clearly things can only get better?

Yeah, then I got a parking ticket at work. Seriously.

If this week keeps going in this direction, I am pretty sure the disaster preparedness will be fully necessary. Those zombies just might show up after all. Well, at least my closet is clean, and as of now, rat free.

The post below is an entry for a contest to win a trip for two to a conference by Donald Miller. If you have been around here for a while, you know I am a big fan of his. As I wrote this entry, I realized I’ve never really wanted something more than this. I think that is a good sign that it is the right place to start.

I can feel the constriction from any given point in my day. It is like a belt that tightens around my heart, my dreams for tomorrow.

The voice that says: “You could go to law school!” is always answered by the voice that says “But we have too much debt already.”

Again the optimist says: “We could give to that ministry!” is again followed by the “We have to pay our debt first.”

The second voice isn’t mean, just practical. The problem is, the practical has squashed the dreamer, the optimist, almost to the point of extinction. In considering entering this contest, I realized I was in pretty bad shape because I couldn’t identify what story I wanted to live. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about that because my eyes are fixated on the here and now. The future isn’t something I can afford to consider.

Our story isn’t different than many others in this economy, we lived beyond our means for a time when things were good. Then jobs changed, the market changed, we had another child and…..well now we have enough consumer debt that we feel a little strangled on most days. All of the big ideas, the good ideas, the God ideas, get shelved.

The dreaming. gets. shelved.

It is squashing my spirit, pulling in tight around the corners and making me feel less alive. So what is the better story? What am I hoping to do? My hope is that by writing about this, talking about it out loud, my commitment to changing it will be forged into solid, granite determination to rid ourselves of debt. That the ideas for changing it will flow like water out of a refreshed soul.

God’s Word is clear about debt.  It takes away our freedom to think big, to live the story that attracts and promotes joy.

So my plan is this:

I love to write and I have had a blog for a long time now. I would like to find a way to make money doing something that I love so that I can help pay down our debt. Debt that I had a big hand in accumulating (thanks Banana Republic!). In order to make any decent contribution to this debt, I am going to need some help with networking my blog and advertising on my site. I admittedly don’t know where to start with this but there are people who do. There are also people who need writers for contract work and here I am, raising my hand, saying I’m up for it.

I know that everyone with a blog thinks they can make money with it and a few posts into blogging they quickly realize they most likely won’t. I’ve been doing this for years and have no illusions about what it would take. I also know that I have the talent, the determination and the desire to make it happen. I want to use the passion God gave me for writing and help my family dig out of debt so that we can live a better story together. So that we can dream big together. I want my boys, all three of them, to experience freedom of heart. I want to give them that gift, the gift of a good example.

Going to this seminar, I expect to have the fire of imagination and future planning lit. I need your help to do it.

Here is the video Don posted about the conference, check it out:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

*UPDATE*: I am not even kidding that I received this email from my husband in response to this post:

You’re still not taking this as seriously as you should. No worries, I will prepare our family and let you enjoy the benefit of survival.

And then, this morning I receive this email at work:

                             Disaster Preparedness

 

                                1200-1300 

 

                    Director of the Naval Postgraduate School’s

                     Center for Homeland Defense and Security

 

                             ALL are INVITED. 

 

  Along with the presentation, there will be a table with preparedness materials for staff.

 

 

Holy crap. Between these conversations and the article today on CNN that high heels are bad for your feet, I am pretty sure we are going to be dealing with flesh eating zombies soon. And not the friendly kind.

The following conversation occured this morning while I was innocently blow drying my hair:

Husband (wanders in, coffee in hand): We need to have a disaster plan.

Me: um, okay? What’s up?

Husband: Well we need to be prepared as a family in the event of a disaster, you know a solar flare or nuclear fall out situation.

Me: ? Are you serious right now? You know I haven’t had any coffee yet, right? New rule, no talking about nuclear ANYTHING before I’ve had coffee.

Husband: I was just thinking that we need a plan, you know for food, water and the like. We don’t want to have to go to the store and face the anarchy that will be going on.

Me: ANARCHY? First amendment to rule, no talking about anarchy before coffee either. What have you been reading this morning? I thought you were upstairs doing your Bible study???? Were you reading Revelations or something? You know that after reading the Left Behind series I fully believe we will be raptured before all the bad stuff goes down – I mean LaHaye said so.

Husband (ignoring me completely): Well, we have the gun we just need food and a water filtration system. And a meeting point. Maybe the Big Sur Mountains?

Me: I am thinking of nothing but the movie Red Dawn. I can almost see myself hiding in the mountains with a can of beans, fighting the Soviet Army.

Husband: You aren’t taking me seriously. I’m going upstairs.

Me: WOLVERINES!

If you are a male, particularly a male family member of mine, no need to read further – this post is for the ladies only, do you feel me girls? Amen!

Okay so for roughly 22 years now, I have a certain predictable event happen every month. You would think that by now, I would know the signs, be able to ward off unsuspecting town folk from the tyrant queen storming around the castle for the week. However, every month inevitably I find myself in tears, in a rage or inside of a bag of potato chips wondering “what is wrong with me? should I see someone for this?”

Then POOF, two days later a certain Aunt Flow shows up and I’m all “oh yeah, PMS!” What? How do I not know the signs by know?

Two decades of experience with this hormonal matter should tell me that when any of the following happen, it is time to check a calendar and lock myself in my bedroom for the near term:

- the intense desire to put frosting on any/all immobile objects

- the sudden belief that ANYONE driving in front of me is missing a temporal lobe

- the brilliant idea to part my hair on the other side (just for kicks) and then cry uncontrollably at monster that suddenly appeared in the mirror

- crazy ideas about new outfit pairings in my closet ( you know what I’m saying here….its the “hey what if I put this plaid jacket with these green pants that never really fit right when I bought them” scenario ) only to once again be reduced to tears when the monster in the mirror mocks me

- random explosions of emotion at my husband for not spending enough time with me  that alternate evenly with angry “why don’t you just LEAVE ME ALONE FOR ONCE” statements

Any and all of these signs are harbingers of every girls monthly dilemma, it isn’t rocket science. So why does it catch me off guard every month? Will I ever learn? Maybe I should laminate the list above and put it on the refrigerator as a reminder, an intervention if you will.

I think that would be a great idea…up and until I am actually engaged in PMS and then I would read it, and promptly proclaim that the fridge just called me “fat.”

What’s a girl to do?

*UPDATE: Husband requested I change the title of this post, said it gives him bad mental images. I say…mission accomplished!

*UPDATE #2: New title – “Stop or I’ll Frost You”

*UPDATE #3: Did someone say frosting? That reminds me……

Last night I participated in a live “facebook” viewing of the Bachelorettte. People, it just doesn’t get more 21st century than what went on in my living room last night (and living rooms around the state). We all came together, with a common love: ridiculous amazing reality television. We were a rag-tag team of ne’er do wells and made our dream of finding someone to watch the Bacherlorette with a reality. Sure our husbands were rolling their eyes and wondering what in the world we were laughing at but we didn’t care! It takes a village my friends to truly experience reality television in the best form.

It all started with a comment about how psycho Frank is. What happened after that was FB history. I don’t know about you my friends but I went to bed with a smile on my face even though Ali is a shmuck for keeping Frank. In case you missed it, I present to you our awesome Facebook moment (names have been blacked out to protect the innocent and comments were cut off at #22 because I didn’t have room for more):

I found my glasses! My Dad got a job! Monday is almost over! YEAH!!!!!

I have been so down lately I decided I must report tout suite  on the good news. (NOTE TO SELF: must celebrate awesome french bilingual-ness) There is GOOD NEWS in the world today! I know that most of what I have been complaining about falls squarely into what people refer to as  ”white people problems” and they are more just annoyances. But tonight, oh tonight, the hubby is getting home early (BEFORE 7PM!) and we are barbecuing and the sun is out and my children are healthy and I JUST MIGHT BREAK INTO SONG!

I will stop now before this starts to sound less like a positive diatribe and more like a psychotic “break”. Which it most certainly is not because my mental illness diagnosis is not even remotely at the level of “severe.” I promise.  Wait a minute, that is MORE GOOD NEWS! Not entirely crazy, just partially, HOORAH for ME!

It has become a joke at our house that I don’t got to bed at night. I lay down for a series of short “naps.” I am not sure what is in the water but my kids are not big fans of sleeping all night. There is one awakening after another involving, breast milk (infant), potty( 3 year old) and bad dreams (6 year old). I am basically tag teamed by three boys every night, which isn’t as awesome as it sounds…..

Kevin, God love him, tries his best to help out and on some occasions is victorious. Mostly however, the little creatures want “Mommy” and are willing to scream until I stutter “okay, okay, I’m up, I’m up.” I wander up the stairs and to the bedroom of the needy child and attempt to quiet him before he wakes up any combination of his brothers. Elijah is really the one that gets me, he wakes up at least 4 times on most nights. It is not always to eat, sometimes it is to blow raspberries into the monitor so loud that I eventually wake up and plug his little motor boating mouth with a binky.

What I don’t understand is the waking up to eat. I mean for goodness sake he is 8 months old.  He eats solid foods and drinks bottles all day long. Both Joshua and Isaac were sleeping 10-12 hours a night at this point. Little Eli never makes it more than 3 without needing something. He is still exclusively breast fed and part of me wonders if this is the “problem.” The other two boys had some combination of breast milk and formula by this point and it makes me think that is why they were better sleepers. Eli’s tummy is far too sensitive for formula thus far so I don’t really have a choice – it is either wake up to nurse him or wake up and comfort him while he screams like a wild turkey because the formula is peeling the lining off of his intestinal tract. The funny thing is – when he was 3 months old, I actually used to be concerned that he slept too much. Silly, silly mama. He would sleep 10 hours at a time and I brought my stupid, stupid concern to the pediatrician. I was afraid something was wrong with him. Oh, the irony. Less than a month later, the game of “wake up every few minutes and see if we can make mommy a crazy person” began with a vengeance.

I don’t know what advice you experienced Mama’s have for me. I am so very tired and I have tried just putting Eli in bed with us – he still wakes up. Granted I don’t have to huff up stairs to go get  him when he does but I also don’t sleep as well with him right next to me. I am committed to nursing him until he is 1, but there has to be a better way. We both need more rest. I am not all that into the cry-it-out phenom, not sure that it is really best but maybe I need to consider it. All I know is that something has got to change because there isn’t enough coffee on the planet to keep me awake during the day and my night naps just aren’t cutting it.