Author: amylynw

In My Head

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Yesterday, Elsie came down to the kitchen with a coonskin hat on her head, and a silky pink polka-dot cape around her neck.  In a very serious voice she asked me what I too have been wondering lately:  Mom, is it going to rain every day?  We’ve been caught in so many deluges the past two weeks!  I’ve hung up clothes, only for them to be washed a dozen times in the rain before finally bringing them inside to the spin cycle and clothes dryer, because I really needed that shirt.  I’ve gotten showered while running to move the car.  Finally, today I was able to bond with the dirt once again and discovered my first daisy!  Zucchini growing, flowers planted from seed, now blooming.  It does my soul good.

On Wednesday we made out with a huge bin of K’nex for $5 from a used sale.  Elijah has been skipping breakfast for the past two days in order to build this amazing contraption.

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He often leaves me notes on my phone, can fix bikes, and loves anything electronic.

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He also loves apricot jelly.  When he was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself he saw me about to say something and interjected: I know, I know.  No more jelly.  That’s what you always say when there’s an inch of jelly on my bread.

I have a knack at going grocery shopping either dangerously close to lunch time, or at midnight.  This particular time it was right around noon.  Everyone was hungry.  As Elsie remarked, her tummy felt backwards. To make up for it, I let the kids pick out a few special items to eat, and we had a spontaneous picnic at the splash park.  As we sat on the grass, eating, Elijah looked at me with his orange fingers and said, The one thing that makes me think I’m dreaming is that you would never say yes to Doritos.  He grinned and licked his fingers.

Matthew’s youngest brother just graduated from highschool.  I’ve known him since he was three years old, which makes me feel very old.  What a wonderful young man Jacob has become.

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The other day Elsie asked me: Does God hear you when you talk in your head?  It’s a wonderful thing that He does, because most of my talking to Him is done that way!  While wrestling wet babies out of the kiddie pool.  While putting certain children on time-out steps and wondering what on earth to do next.  While wiping tables, bottoms, and countertops.  While slicing onions and running through a few recipes in my head.  While picking up again and again and again.  While driving with the background noise at a deafening level.  While running a few city blocks in silence.  While peeking in on sleeping cherubs in their beds.  While doubting, fearing, rejoicing, and giving thanks.  He hears our silent prayers.

The past week it seems like our kids have fallen asleep in the weirdest places.  While watching a movie, the boys fell asleep like this:

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The other night Elsie fell out of bed and kept right on sleeping.  I couldn’t lift her back onto her bed, and thought Matthew would before we went to bed.  He forgot, and the next morning Elsie informed me that she slept on the floor all night.  I felt bad, but it didn’t seem to bother her!  Then, one night Jack was determined to wait up until Matthew and I came in from the front porch where we were talking.  When I came inside to get something, I almost tripped over his sleeping body.
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Both Elijah and Jack had the privilege of going to work with their Daddy one day the past week.  Jack created a few things out of scrap wood.  Here he is, holding his “Goliath Sword”.DSC_1271-001
Besides all of the usual keep-the-house-clean-feed-the-bellies-do-laundry-pull-weeds-kind-of-days, I’ve been burning the midnight oil and writing papers to finish up my doula recertification.  I am one credit away from mailing in all my paperwork that I’ve been working on for the past three years.  I am so excited to check it off my list and delve into school planning for next year.  I sold all of my books which we used the past two years, and am excited for our new ones to arrive next week!  I am hoping to plan out the bulk of the year before truly relaxing for a couple of months.    Matthew has been an incredible support for me as I have pursued my dreams and goals.  We are enjoying doing cross-fit together and eating 100% paleo!  More on that another time!  I do just want to say how incredible Matthew’s health has been since zeroing in on his diet.  I have finally come alongside him in eating a disciplined diet and it’s such a blessing to be united in this area.  God is teaching us many things as we wait on Him and trust Him with our unknowns.  When He says, This is the way, walk in it… we have no choice but to obey.  It might just mean eating more vegetables.  It might mean how we do school.  It might mean staying put.  It might mean moving forward.
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Shore House Weekend

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Memorial Day weekend found us down near the shore and in our favorite shoebox full of memories.  Every year the bikes are the same.  The flags are the same.  The picnic table is the same.  Yet every year everyone has changed.

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The boys can ride the big bikes now and ride to 711 for a donut.
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The other day, Elijah and I were watching something pretty nasty (I thought) about nature and some guy touching snakes and whatnot.  Elijah said to me, I think it’s amazing how ladies can get so grossed out.  Mom, this is you: “Eeeeew!  Aaaah!  This guy is so whacked out!”  He likes to impersonate me and scare me on purpose.  I like to give him the I-really-think-you’re-funny-but-I’m-not-going-to-show-it glare.DSC_0356-001
Betty was all about Daddy feeding her at supper.
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Steaming corn on the cob around the full table.
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Yes, even roasted marshmallows on the potty.
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A walk to the bay.
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The love of my life.  We still make out, eleven years later.
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Iced tea, watermelon and my camera.  A few of my favorite things.  Thankful for much.

May Highlights

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May went so fast that when June came around, it took me until the evening to realize it.  It was full of a weekend hiking trip with friends, imaginative creations, monopoly games, parks, picnics, doctor visits, grocery trips, reading, bacon, walks and more.  Here is a condensed collage from my phone pictures from May:

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I have a lot of words, but they’re all stuck in my brain.  Our hike was amazing, despite the rain that started about a mile from our camp site.

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If you were perhaps feeling sleepy right now, you might want to curl up in bed after seeing these:

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The older two pretty much sleep in one of two positions every night, all night long.

 

Stopping to Smell & Remember

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As busy as it is around here, I always stop to smell the roses.  Every day.  They’re the old-fashioned, smell-divine variety.  Taking in its beauty both in sight and fragrance, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes, spoken by the One who holds all things together:

Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more than clothing?  [Yes.]  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  [YES!]

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  [None of us.]

And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

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But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith?  Therefore… [because you know these things to be true] do not be anxious…

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Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  

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-Matthew 6:25-34, selected

 

Just A Spoonful Of Sugar

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The other day I was gardening with the short crowd and went inside for one minute.  When I came back, they were covered in mud.  I took a deep inhale of special Stay Cool air (it’s available wherever oxygen is) and let them have some fun.  A few smears later, the boys seemed to smell the mud and came running outside.  Then it became this:

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The cold shower they got was in hopes they would not be enticed to do it again for a very long time.  There are only so many mud baths this mama can take.

Have you ever given a pig a pancake?  Well, if you have, then you will recognize that today’s events unfolded a lot like that book.

If you give this mommy a hot cup of tea, I will only be able to sit down a drink half of it before remembering I  must do a load of laundry.   Sticking my warm mug of tea on the window sill until I’m finished, I leave it there, forgotten.  Off I go and clean the carpets, because I’ve been wanting to do that for a few weeks now, and I’m tired of leaving that task unchecked.  An hour later, I finish the job.  Surveying the clean living room, I notice where someone pulled down the curtain and it’s been hanging lopsided for two days.  Instead of just fixing it, I decide to pull down all the curtains and wash them.  Into the washing machine they go, and I turn around to see my mug sitting nice and cold on the window sill.  I grab it and put it into the microwave.  Then I notice how grimy the turntable is from a few spills this week.  I put it in anyway, but take the turntable out and fill up my sink with soapy water.  May as well wash the lunch dishes from three hours ago.  In the middle of that, a herd of small elephants thunders down the stairs to tell me something.  I’m not sure if it’s exciting, tragic or upsetting, so they each get a turn to talk.  I send Elijah up to the attic to photograph the crime scene and bring me some evidence.  My feet hurt, my back hurts, and I’m tired.  The word tea floats in and then out of my head.  Down he comes with the phone, and I talk to my wonderful husband who just happened to call right then.  SO, after hanging up, I take a look at the photographic evidence.  I sigh inwardly.  This is not the first grand scale mess of my week.  After much begging for me to “see it in person”, I trudge upstairs.  I admit there is an “element of cool” to the gigantic spider web, woven across the entire attic.

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Nadine wasn’t convinced by my reaction.  See, guys?  I told you she’d have a fit.  I told her to please notice how calm I was being.  She then perceptively countered, Well, I bet you’re having a fit on the inside!  To this I had to clap my hand over my mouth and laugh.

Back downstairs the wind is blowing through the open windows so the carpets can dry.  It’s not a picturesque day to spring clean.  I had put out a notice to Mary Poppins but she bailed again.  Something about taking too long to get here from another continent.  I had to find my own supercalifragilisticexpealidotious and special bag of tricks.  It’s mostly called, in layman’s terms:  just doing it.  My favorite trick to getting a job done is a reward.  On this cold and rainy day, it is a spoonful of sugar with a cup of hot tea to go with it.

By Nine O’Clock I Was Wrong

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Around six o’clock I fight the urge to stay in bed.  As I tip-toe past the girls’ room, I get my morning chuckle at how Elsie might be sleeping: sometimes backwards, sideways, or maybe one leg hanging off the bed.  By six-thirty I notice every creaky step as I go downstairs.  Sometimes in the morning I set my mug down on the table and it seems to wake someone up.  My first sip of quiet flows into a river of constant movement and noise.  By seven-thirty, someone patters downstairs to join me.  By eight o’clock, an entire bowl of rice krispies has been spilled.  By nine o’clock a bloody nose has been had, laundry has been washed and hung, and breakfast is cleaned up eighty-percent of the way.  By ten o’clock bellies are being refilled and the hose has been used multiple times.  By eleven o’clock, bikes have been ridden, imaginations have exploded, and knees have been scraped.  By twelve o’clock, bellies rumble again.  By one o’clock, number five takes a long afternoon nap, and lunch is cleaned up fifty-percent of the way.  By two o’clock books are read.  By three o’clock, my name has been said three hundred and forty-seven times.  By four o’clock the trampoline has been jumped on and tricks are played.

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By five o’clock the laundry comes off the line.  By six o’clock, somehow dinner is made.  By seven o’clock I’m thinking about bedtime.  The kitchen gets cleaned ninety-percent of the way… which means it is never really clean, because it seems to get dirty behind my back whenever I leave it for a few minutes.  By eight o’clock everyone is settling.  By nine o’clock, I was wrong.  Now everyone is settling.  By nine-thirty, tears tumble down my exhausted cheeks that haven’t laughed enough for the day.  I sneak into bedrooms to see those precious faces, so peaceful as they chase their dreams.  By ten o’clock I finally sit side-by-side in bed and talk for a few minutes with my lover.  By ten-o-five, he is asleep, I turn over to read, then flip off the light.

Then, tomorrow it starts all over again.  Sometimes I fight the spirit inside that wants to throw in the towel, put in my ear-plugs or hide under my bed.  I know I’ve been called to be, to love, to empty.  To be myself, to be still, to be in the moment.  To love hard, love until it hurts, to love without expecting anything in return.  To empty my mind of negative thoughts, to empty my schedule of my own agenda, to empty myself of me so I can be full of Jesus.  Only then can I truly love.
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Epiphany

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This weekend I grasped a simple and striking reality when He talked to me.  I was doing something I often wish I could do, but is most generally impossible to do in this stage of life.  I was lying in the middle of a dandelion-covered field, on a sheet, in the sunshine.  Alone.  It was warm, and the vitamin D felt like it was pumping through my body as strongly as any intravenous solution might.  I felt as if the world was so huge, and I was so small… yet, I could imagine God looking down at the world, then zooming in right to me, just like those satellites do in the movies.  Quickly, I went from being an impossibly small obscurity in a big world, to an actual specific person.  He saw me lying on my stomach, in that field, jotting down my insecurities on a piece of notebook paper.

I went out there to pray, but couldn’t find the words.  I was so wrapped up in comparisons, insecurities, and wonderings about who I am and why.  I wrote them down, then flipped over onto my back and just waited.  I had to hear from Him.  Like the Jacob of Genesis, I told the Lord I would not let Him go or leave that spot, until He blessed me and spoke to me.  The sun warmed my skin and the voices from my paper kept intruding.  Then all of a sudden, His strong voice broke through and overpowered it all.

It was so clear.  He said, Amy, I love you for all those things.  Startled, I brought up another doubt and He said, I love that about you!  I would say yet another thing I find uncomfortable or awkward about myself and He would clearly cover over the negative with the healing words: I love that you are just that way.  You are absolutely a perfect you.  Exactly what I fashioned, exactly how I wanted you to turn out.  I love you, I love you, I love you.

The peace that passes understanding took up firm guard around my heart and mind during those moments.  As the tears flowed and the sun shone, His words burned deep impressions into my soul.   He doesn’t love us in spite of our quirks or what we tend to call mistakes in our makeups… He loves us for all those specific things.  He loves everything about you.  The color of your hair.  The formation of your jaw.  The size of your feet.  The length of your eyelashes.  The width of your hips.  The tone of your skin.  The way you laugh.  The special way you tilt your head or twist your fingers together.  Your sense of humor.  Your ability or inability to sing.  The amazing way you have with children.  Where you were born.  Who you look like.  What your style is.  When you like to go to bed.  Why your nose is the way it is.  He loves how your emotions work.  He loves how you think and what makes you tick.  He loves your smile, your taste, your mind.  He loves how you can cook.  He loves your organizational skills or lack thereof.  He loves your sanguine, your choleric, your melancholy, or your phlegmatic personality.  He loves your creativity.  Your love of colors.  Your love of black and white.  Your need of space.  Your need of community.  Your punctuality.  Your lateness.  Your eyes, your hands, your ears, your heart.  He loves you.

The only thing I can think of that He doesn’t love, is our sin.  Yes, even though He hates sin, He loves you and me, the sinner.  So often when we mess up, we beat ourselves up and forget His love which forgives.  We may feel like our face is the last thing He wants to see or think about.  Sometimes our sin is believing the lie which says we are just messed up works of clay.  Not just cracked, but severely unusable and unable to be loved.  Yet, that crack down your side is exactly where He placed it, and He loves you for it.  So if your heart is beaten and bruised by lies and insecurities, know the truth: the God who made you, loves you.  He is waiting for you to lie down in green pastures, perhaps even filled with dandelions, so He can restore your soul.

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Accidental Gardener

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Mommy keeps getting up, Mommy never sits do-own, Elsie is singing in her little sing-song voice, as I make pancakes, flip pancakes, and feed ravenous children.  Feels true most days.  That girl is pretty perceptive.  She is also reading whole books.  She is what I call an accidental learner.  Didn’t really try to teach her, but somehow it happened.  All of a sudden she went from cat and dot, to Funny funny Jane went down with her yellow boat… or something like that.

I’m what I like to call an accidental gardener.  I tend to toss seeds in the ground, convince myself I’ll remember what I planted, and promptly forget.  I also re-potted some zucchini… or yellow squash… not sure which.  Guess we’ll find out in a couple of months!  Into the ground they went.  The tee-pee village is planted with beans, or peas, or something that climbs!  I just forget which is where.  I think I’ve mentioned before that I like surprises!

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Some surprises I don’t like in particular are those of the check-engine-light variety.  This week we’ve been stuck at home while the van was in the shop.  Then we were given the word we really expected to receive years ago: Your van is not worth fixing.  It just might crumble if they fix the list of things that need attention.  It wasn’t really a surprise, I guess.  It’s like thinking spring will never come, just because it feels like winter will never end.  Yet spring surprises us every year.  So even though it felt like our van would never die, its retirement was guaranteed.  Sixteen years old, almost 240,000 miles… it’s seen the birth of three kids and experienced the growth of five… traveled cross-country, up north, south, and west many times, and in general gets good use.  We couldn’t be more thankful.  We shopped for it when we lived in Honduras, and prayed for no one to buy it when we found it online.  Awesome story of how God provided it.  He obviously had it marked out specially for us.  And He can do that again.

After writing all of the above, life happened!  Not wanting to be known as the mommy who never sits down, today I sat down.  Not mindlessly, and not to give in to the melancholy that was swiftly setting in from anxious thoughts rising to the forefront of my mind.  I sat in the sunshine, red mug in hand, Bible open. IMG_0656

Yes, I had a chattering shadow, but I’m learning how “quiet time” in my heart doesn’t necessarily  mean it’s quiet all around me.  My eyes fell to the page, heart aching to be filled.  Hungry, like it’s been awhile since a good meal.  Colossians 3:15 filled me up: Let the peace of God rule in your hearts…and  be thankful.  A two-fold, sturdy step for my anxious heart to take hold.  First, I had to ask myself:  What else is ruling?  Myself?  Worry?  Anger?  Usually what’s in charge is the first thing that is evident to those around you and to yourself.  I knew peace was not ruling.  It felt a little bit more like uncertainty and a swiftly beating heart was ruling, every time I looked out the window at our sad, sad van.  Saying He will provide, to others, is much easier than telling it to myself.

Let the peace of God rule.  Allow it, invite it to permeate every inch of my heart.  Spread it around like flower seeds and watch it grow.  It will produce more peace every time.

Be thankful.  Oy, that’s a hard one, when all I want to do is complain, compare, and covet.  It’s non-negotiable, though.  As any grammar freak knows, this is not a question, nor a statement, nor an exclamation, but a command.  With all commands, we can choose to obey or not.  The consequences of not obeying result in all the things we fight against: complaining, comparing, and coveting.   Thankfulness brings Christ right into focus, fading out what doesn’t matter.

So, as we step into the unknown, I am reminded: my God is the God-Who-Provides.  He is never accidental in what He does.

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Up-Cycling My Day

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I took a big girl pill yesterday and cleaned. my. room.  When I say clean, what I also mean is… you guessed is… rearrange!  As I was working in the kitchen last night I grinned when Matthew yelled down the stairs to me, You’re crazy!  Elijah, always overhearing things said,  Mom?  Did Dad just say you’re crazy?  Yes, son, he did.  That is how I clean.  I must move things.  I even got brave and threw away half of my old cassette tapes.  What are those, you ask?  Take a look see:

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When I was just a bit older than my daughter, I used to record Odyssey episodes from the radio onto cassettes.  Then I labeled them, lined them up in order and made a spread sheet of my collection.  Hand-written, of course.  See, there is a bit of organization deep within me somewhere that hasn’t been zapped by five child-births and the accumulation of clothing, food, and dishes we now produce each day.  I’m always on a quest for better organization, more purging, and up-cycling whatever has lived out its original purpose.

I went to bed on a sort of cleaning high.  Then, this morning started off with crying and fighting and pee on the floor.  My clean room was quickly forgotten and I stormed around like an angry elephant.  My tea was warmed up too many times.  I got INTERRUPTED while I tried to read my Bible.  Imagine.  Then before you know it, the mayhem began again at lunchtime.  But tucked in these harrowed time slots are moments of joy and beauty within the mess.  Jack read me an entire book.  This is huge.  So proud of him!

While someone annoyed someone else, I kept my voice down, sat the culprit on the step, then we calmly discussed how the situation could have been handled better.  This too is huge.  Inside I’m a door-slammer and a foot-stomper, so when the outside stays calm, this is a huge victory that I praise God for strengthening me to do!

Betty, though potty-trained for a few months now, had been pooping in her pants a lot.  The past few days it’s gone into the potty, not the panties, and she chatters about the treat she will get after she’s done.  Two chocolate chips were never better earned!  Saving wipes and mommy’s sanity is indeed something to celebrate!

So, though every moment is to be celebrated because we’re alive to breathe it, we often don’t.  I think about Boston, and how a few runners were just about to the finish line, on the biggest high of their day, when everything erupted into chaos and horror.  Life does that to us.  We don’t know what our next moment will bring.  We can not act surprised, though when things get dirty and horrible and messed up.  In this life, you will have trouble.  But take heart, I have overcome the world!  (John 16:33)  This means that trouble is guaranteed.  But something else is for certain as well: Jesus has overcome the world by His death on the cross!  He has… it’s already done.  Since it’s a finished work, we don’t have to wallow in the darkness, sorrow, and disappointment that comes our way.  He is there to calm our voices, steady our minds, and lighten our hearts.

When a day is all wrong and we want a new one, we have to remember we’re only given today.  Through Christ, we can have courage and victory, because He already has.

Life Unedited

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Today as I went to make our bed, I turned down the sheets to discover a small baby doll with lots of purple corn chips scattered around her.  She lay quietly in the sheets and I could tell she didn’t want anyone to know about the chips.  I had to choose a smile over a bubbling up annoyance.  I wonder what was going through that little mind while they ate chips in Daddy & Mommy’s bed.  I also wonder what my reaction would have been had I climbed into bed tonight in the dark and felt those things crunch beneath me.  I’d say their pain level upon contact with skin is akin to legos.

Elsie learned how to ride a two-wheeler all by herself this weekend.  One push, and she was off.  Someone generously gave her their old hand-me-down which fits her perfectly, and now she is cruising around the block like she’s always known how.  In a dress, no less.
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She also has her first loose tooth.  She is full of her typical, inquisitive conversation.  Today she chattered with me the entire time I buried 78 bricks around our side garden.  Or it might have been 104.  Or 42.  The number kept changing as she kept count.  I didn’t keep track of her questions and observations because my hands were covered in dirt and couldn’t write anything down, but I know I chuckled a lot.
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Spaghetti and Daddy rhyme when they come out of Betty’s mouth.  Both bring excitement.  Other things make her excited too.  Playing hide-and-seek… which by the way happens in her world whenever she sees anyone.  She will almost always yell, Got you! whenever someone walks into a room.  She is learning the fine art of not always getting what she wants.  I think we all deal with disappointment each day, but Betty likes to show it in full: crocodile tears and all.  Either that, or The Slanted Eyes Look.  Actually, as I type this paragraph (this afternoon) the world is crumbling at the fact she can. not. have. a. banana. right. now.
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Our egg carton seedlings are growing well, and we’ve been making all sorts of fun things outside in the garden.  Once things start to grow, I’ll put some before and after photos!  Stay tuned for June and July garden pictures!   Right now the tulips are blooming.  Some unedited shots of those beauties:
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One of our many garden projects includes vertical gardens!  Matthew created some fabulous palette garden beds and they’re in the midst of getting filled with dirt and seeds.  Soon we’ll be making some honeymoon salad: lettuce alone.
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Speaking of being alone, that doesn’t happen very often around here.  I even caught myself yelling from the shower today, You don’t need me!  If there isn’t blood, you don’t need me!  Talk to me after I get out of the shower!  No joke, the aforementioned caller hadn’t needed me for the previous hour.  It was only the moment the warm water hit my aching head that the urgency struck them like a bad bladder.  Nope.  Didn’t need me.  I have actual footage I took of Betty sliding things under the bathroom door, saying, Mommy… Mommy… Mommy… while I tried to get five minutes peace.

Matthew also chopped down three trees that were overtaking the electrical wires, and he will be building a shed to house the bikes and mower and outside toys.  The same day our trampoline ripped from side to side.  Twenty-four hours later, our Heavenly Father, who knows just how much our kids live and breathe on our trampoline, replaced it for free tonight!  It’s even bigger and nicer than our old one.  He’s a wonderful Dad, who knows our desires and loves to give us good gifts.
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When the boys were playing hockey last week I ran out on the rink to take pictures.  Elijah said, There’s a fan on the court… She’s a big fan of Matthew Weldon.  You got that right, buddy!  The other night we ate our supper after the kids went to bed, outside in front of the fire-pit.  I am a really big fan of him.
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On Sunday, Jack turned seven!  What a hunk of love.
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April 20131

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He built the Eiffel Tower all by himself.  All day today he had the perfect tuft of bed head going on, making me smile.  He is a conscientious little guy who likes to pack his own bag, make things straight, and color inside the lines.  He loves hard and deeply.  His heart aches for those who are sick.  He is loyal, seeks justice, and loves gifts.  His metabolism is always burning full steam ahead and he eats more apples and carrots in one day than most people do in one week.  He longs for Heaven.  We love you, Jack!
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