8 letting beauty in

Keeping the bad out of our lives is a full time job. Rejecting judgmental censure from others. Rejecting the stuff someone might try to dump on you from their bad day. Rejecting the stress of your child's poor choice and letting them suffer a consequence instead. Theres's a ton of bad out there bumping into us from every side but it's not all that there is.

There's also good. There's something marvelous about letting beauty in. Letting people bless you with a sincere compliment. Letting your husband prop his chin on your head and squeeze you half to death. Letting your child rub your tummy because they love to. Letting your heart explode admiring the moon or the mountains or a sunset. Letting a thrill go through you as you anticipate something new. Letting Gods word rest in your heart each morning. The good needs in but we have to let it. 

It's something I was reading about in my Boundaries book and it settled into my heart. 

7 Fill my cup

Do you ever reach out of your comfort zone? Ask for God to enlarge your territory? It's a very scary thing at first, especially if there's demons nipping at your heels. About the time Dad died, I begged God to give it some kind of purpose or value for who he wanted me to grow into. I remember about a month after he was gone and I was so shell shocked from his agony, I was trying to piece together sanity and went to a doctor to ask for anything I could take to try to keep it all together. She told me I just needed time. I suppose I didn't articulate my struggles well to her. I was losing it and it hadn't started with Dads illness, it had slowly built ever since I got pregnant with Hazel. My beautiful little Hazel's conception was when Satan saw me weak with inadequacy and lack of self confidence and he made a home in some corner of my soul and started to wreck havoc with my mind. You have to understand Jody and I were coming through an incredible struggle of job loss, moving three times in two years, losing tens of thousands of dollars on a bad real estate investment, a cancer diagnosis and two surgeries and had just beat the Insurance company on a $33,000 medical bill they didn't want to pay. We had been face first in the mud and were literally just getting up on our knees and moving into a rental that actually accommodated our family. I was so overwhelmed with these cares of the world I simply could not imagine how I could be a good enough mom to four kids. Iwould not normally have responded that way to a pregnancy and never had before. I had a very wobbly path after that slowly slipping a little further as time went by, but Dads death tipped me over the edge. Sometimes I was morose, sometimes screaming irrationally at Jody while sobbing so hard I was hoarse, sometimes verbally talking myself out of severe paranoia thinking people hated me or judged me. I had insomnia often sleeping only a couple hours at night. I had several panic attacks but those weren't new, I'd been having them since my pregnancy. Nick was failing in school, always writing about his Poppy for assignments. When the doctor turned me down for drugs I realized I needed to find my way out. I remember sitting in a restaraunt with my friend Jenn and asking her if she thought I was demonically oppressed. I was actually hopeful she would say yes because I know demons can be cast out but she just smiled and said she was sure I was just a little low from losing dad. Another time, I sent Jenny a text and asked her if she thought I could be bipolar. She thought I was joking and told me bipolar people never wonder that. I googled it and she was right. I realized nobody was going to bail me out. I had to do it myself. I started taking vitamins and began reading the gospels. They helped so much. Jesus was real to me again. I thought about him constantly and examined his motives and hidden messages and basked in his love. I happened onto a novel about Mary Magdelane who had seven demons cast out by Jesus and she and her deliverance came alive to me. I was getting better but still stuck. I joined a Bible Study that sounded like it was about being like Jesus. It turned out to be a long standing group of ladies battling codependency. I wasn't familiar with the term so I bought the book on it. As I read the book, my off kilter world began to right itself. I was able to identify problems in my life. All along Jenn kept talking about the healing prayer ministry. After deciding I was codependent, I realized I had no pride. I called Glenda with the healing prayer ministry at Jenns church and scheduled my first session. I had no idea what to expect but it was the most amazing experience of my life. Glenda asked me why I was there and I told her I just wanted joy back. I used to be so happy and it had been years since I'd had that. She told me that joy would be a result of healing in time, not an instant gratification. To have a time where someone was actually helping me connect my broken self to God and strip away all that was impairing my relationship with him was amazing. I was allowed to have this time to talk about all of my problems and ask the Holy Spirit where they came from and get answers. Glenda and Jenn pulled away the cobwebs and led me straight to Jesus and asked him to heal my hurts. There's no other way to describe what happened. They were so confident he was going to do it that I never doubted it myself. I went three times and every time I was restored a little more. There's been things in my personality I could never master like my temper. What I've learned this year is that no I never could have, but by Gods grace I can let Him master it day by day and the relief of this realization is just beyond profound. In healing prayer we found the roots of my feelings of inadequacy to raise four kids and denounced Satans lies, we broke the lines to my anger at family members, we found the roots of my codependency and broke Satans power there. We denounced his lies that I'm a bad friend to people which has been crippling me for years. I don't know what all we did through the work of the Holy Spirit but it felt so good and right and true. Now, I recognize Satans lies immediately. 

Friday I will be taking a two day healing prayer training. I'm so excited for this opportunity to learn more about Gods power and feel that he sent it to me as he leads me on a very exciting journey. Anyway, I'm getting more joyful. 😄

6 a roll of blue tape

Yes, this roll of blue tape is blog worthy. It symbolizes the exquisite agony of parenting toddlers. All toddlers. Not just extra interesting toddlers like Hazel who owns attacking pajommies that she attacks people in.

 

 This roll of blue tape was happily stored on a shelf in the basement ever since our last painting project. Yesterday I heard a thump thump thump coming up from the basement. Finally Hazel arrived with this roll of tape around her ankle. The victory of keeping it on was celebrated by unceremoniously dumping it in the floor and walking away. This is the mind numbing adorableness that is toddlers. You want to scream and laugh second by second. It makes you feel like you must be manic or something. I pointed at the blue tape and told Jody that's why the house always looks like a tornado blew through. It's not just toys they drag out and it's never less than a hundred "things" a day.

Awhile later I saw Stella chewing the tape. Now my painting tape has holes in it which will surely be a thrill the next time I pull it out.

There's also food. Encouraging kids to eat healthily in moderation without wasting is in itself a full time job with four kids. Hazel is not trained yet so we are still doing exercises like saving a pear with a little nibble eaten all the way around it and trimming it to serve again a few days later. This is a thankless task that requires self discipline. At .99 per pound just how far should I take this you know? My fridge is littered with half eaten yogurts with plastic wrap on them. My pantry has little baggies of pretzels and nuts never finished. My counter always seems to have a cup of milk, a cup of water and a cup of juice scattered across it. My jeans are straining under the pressure of 5 extra pounds which I'd like to blame her for as well. 

As you can see, Hazel has reached the age of unnaturally bright smiles when you produce a camera. This is also a conundrum of parenting. Do I sneak around with a camera to try to capture natural moments? Embrace the blinding smiles with tilted heads and puffed chests and take pics calling it part of the journey? Do I hold it all in until I explode begging her to stop being fake and scarring her for life?

And that's all just Hazel. The complexity of parenting the other three quite eclipses her but it's not quite as funny and mundane all at once. It seems like trying to write a drama series rather than a comedy which makes me tired just thinking about it. This was a lot of fun though! I took Eden to Jenny for a hair makeover. 

Here's before:

In process:

And after!!!

5 Love is all the same

You love your spouse, you love your kids, your sisters, brothers, parents, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces, nephews... Who did I forget? But why? We all love to call love a choice but do we really fall back on that when we don't feel loving towards someone? Nope. We fall back on the warm fuzzies, the memories of love, laughing, inside jokes, affection, promises, gifts, time, pranks, special songs, favorite foods, idiosyncrasies, declarations and moments of realization. Here's some pictures of people I love. They love me too and it gives me warm fuzzies. Sadly, one well placed jab, bit of impatience, insecurity or anger can completely derail the love flow that ebbs like warm honey. The one's I love who are in heaven give me a bit of insight into this. All that they left for me when they departed were the warm fuzzies. The conflicts, hurts, offenses and struggles seem inconsequential and easily bearable if they only would come back. I wish that were in the front of my mind when I hurt people I love and they hurt me. If only we could all accept that there are few absolutes in conflict, imperfection is beauty and many perspectives exist but all pales in the light of love.

4 joy is

Singing lullabys to my little girl that my dad sang to me.

Playing silly games and having champagne toasts with yogurt drinks over and over and giggling each time.

Bursting into laughter when my oldest announces our family is definitely funny enough for our own reality show after another Hazel escapade.

Watching my kids haphazardly train their puppy and seeing her roll over for them.

Watching a table full of toddlers happily munch muffins I completely forgot to put sugar in.

Laying in bed watching junk tv with my honey.

Going for a walk on a crisp morning and watching my puppy lope clumsily across a field while thinking that my dad would laugh just looking at her. 

Having a leisurely chat on the phone with a dear one.

Blow drying my daughters beautiful hair and looking at her in the mirror marveling at the beauty God created and shared with me.

Rustling the blue and orange covers on a Broncos bed and seeing a head with sparkling blue eyes pop up to greet me in the morning almost as if he'd been awake and waiting.

Watching snow drift lazily with a warm cup of tea.

Feeling the squish of a hug. 

Praying over each of them and feeling the peace that only the Holy Spirit can give.

3 count it all joy

Jody and I have our own way of saying "count it all joy" we say "par for the course" or "of course". Then we laugh and start listing off the latest series of dominoes. 

Perhaps it all started when Kait and Hazel spilled flour all over the kitchen, or maybe it started the days Jody and I were born, I can't be sure but I do know that not every day is perfect, as a matter of fact so few are even close that counting it all joy is a sanity tactic. As Kaitlyn breathed her way through roughly cleaning up the flour and starting her cookie recipe over again, she spilled the melted butter then she dumped the brown sugar. The kitchen looked like the Tasmanian devil had just spun his way through. She was hopelessly over her head and was trying valiantly to orchestrate a tea party in Hazels bedroom. I longsufferingly bailed her out and cleaned up and saved cookies from burning while Hazel knocked a crystal lowball into the sink and shattered it. Kait hung in there but my mood had taken all it could bear. I did not attend the tea party but I heard it was quite nice. 

The rest of the day was spent preparing for the next day. Eden and Jody would ski while I squired the younger three around sledding and shopping in the mountains. Unfortunately, the prep stalled when we found that three pairs of mittens were missing their mates. As a family I would say we searched for the better part of an hour but they were never to be found. Jody and I went through cycles of frustration, anger, blame and despair with lectures for the kids in each tone followed by a rally cry to keep searching. We crossed paths uttering things like "never knew how frustrating parenting would be" or "par for the course" or "let's

 quit." 

Finally we had made lunches and muffins and water bottles and heaped mountains of winter accouterments in the office. The next morning we got up at 6 and gathered all of our trappings and squished everyone in the car. 

We saw this amazing sunrise.

A mile from home the check engine light came on. Five miles from home the dog puked over the back seat into a seat belt receptacle missing Nicks shoulder by a hair. We stopped for gas in Thornton and came home. I marveled to Jody at how philosophically the kids took the disappointment. He gave a bitter chuckle and said they're just used to it. I think it's interesting how some of us see things one way and others differently. Usually those people get married. Jody was sitting there frustrated that it always seems to go this way and I was sitting there wishing I hadn't ruined a fun ski trip and trying to see the bright side. It might be interesting to note here that at about this point I was able to sit down and write a funny blog about Hazels antics completely unphased by our horrible luck. It was to be the only profitable part of the day aside from church.

We went to church and since we got up at 6 we were on time. Silver lining. 

After church I saw the sandsiches in the fridge and mentioned we should go have a picnic. Jody gave me a "look" and tried to slink into our room for a nap. I pummeled him and bit his ears until he he gave in. I had hope but a niggling fear that I was pushing luck. 

Jody and the big kids rode bikes and I drove Hazel and Stella in the car because it was windy. Halfway there I let Nick in the car. He had two flat tires from goatheads. Jody looked at me wryly and said "of course". When we got there the wind whipped up and we were barely able to eat. It was a bust but we made one last ditch effort and tried to walk around the lake. The wind gusted so hard that Hazel fell down. We abandoned the walk and I looked at Jody hopelessly and said "let's just quit and do nothing but watch tv the rest of the day." He laughed. It was a weekend to remember.

I can't help but think if I really counted it all joy my synopsis of my weekend would be "kids had a tea party, beautiful weekend, stunning sunrise, great church service and so fun to feed bread to the geese."

2 Hazel

Hazel got the memo that she is not my leach... Well during the day that is. At night she still worms her way into my bed at about three am. It doesn't dissuade her to navigate a flight of stairs and my closed bedroom door. In she comes to turn my bed into a wrestling mat. By day she has become independent and a tyrant by turns. 

It's a lazy Friday night and Hazel marches into the living room with kiddie scissors and announces that she will now cut her hair. I counter that we do not cut our own hair, Jenny Thompson does. She hunches her shoulders forward, juts her chin out and says "no, last year the monsters cut the friends hair." Jody backs me up and tells her not to cut her hair and go put the scissors away. She stands stubbornly right in front of me continuing to explain about the monsters which means nothing to me so I bury my nose back in my book. Suddenly Edens voice rings across the room "HAZEL WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I lift my chin and a clump of Hazels hair is missing. Jody yells, she crumples and runs to her bedroom. We see her come back out with her new canvas laundry hamper over her. She blindly walks for the stairs and plunges head first down them. We hear a muffled howl as the hamper slowly slides down the stairs. At the landing she turns and continues down in a more sedate fashion finally placing herself conspicuously in the middle of the house. 

Yes that's her tule skirt peeping out. 

It was the same day she darted into the parking lot at Target while I got my purse out of the car and independently left Ulta to go find Jody at Old Navy in direct disobedience to me only to be cornered outside by an Ulta employee while radioing the store to locate me. 

Last night she traced a triangle around my nose and told me it wasn't a cheek and it wasn't a nose, it was my trink. She then went to each family member showing them their trinks. She pinched her thigh and told me it was something I forgot but I wish I could remember. 

One day she marched up to me and said. "Mom, you are dirty, you need a bath." I looked at her skeptically and asked if this was a ploy to get me away from the pizza dough do she could steal it. Her eyes twinkled and darted to the side but she tried to maintain her assertive demeanor and simply said yes in a firm voice.

Last night we heard a familiar Hazel howl. There she was with her head stuck in the spindles on the stairs. I know I'm rotten to take pics but she will need proof for when she's a mom and remembers being "perfect."

Yes she still has a climbing problem. I bust her regularly and yes she still considers the knife drawer her tool box.