A couple weeks ago Raychel fell out of her bed. I have no idea how, but I heard a loud thud followed by a delayed cry. Any mom knows this is one of THE worst sounds to hear. I rushed in and found her, confused and face down on the ground. She immediately reached her chubby little arms out in complete expectation that I would pick her up. I did, of course, and I could not do it fast enough. I wrapped my precious little girl into me and reassured her that she was okay and Momma was here while she sobbed hot, scared tears into my chest.

And for the last few days she's been sick. Very sick. She has been a mess of phlegm and coughs and whiney confusion. She even reached my hippie fever ceiling and got some Tylenol. When I walk into her room in the morning or after a nap instead of her usual sudden rising, she lays there with outstretched arms and a pouty lip for me to pick her up. I hate seeing her so miserable. But you know what I love? I love cuddling with her. I love soothing her and telling her she is doing so well. I love the opportunity to fill this little girl up with reassurances and affection. We have spent a lot of time just sitting together and it has been good.

I am so honored to be her Mommy. {She calls me that sometimes now. Or "Momma." Or just, "Mom."} She knows she can depend on me. When she hurts herself she knows I'll be there and when her body is turning against her she knows where to look for help. So.honored. I always knew I wanted to do this... But how could I have known how rewarding it would be to have a 19 month old rub snot on you for 3 days? ♥

An Attitude Adjustment

On Sunday Brent Harris delivered a great message on love. He even sang a line of the Beatles.

As he talked about what real love looks like he mentioned that while we can't control our feelings toward someone, we need to align our attitudes and our actions with what is true. No matter what kind of person we are dealing with, they are loved by God and deserve from us the same grace we were given undeserved from the Father.

That dichotomy began to itch me: feelings vs. attitude. When I was a kid my dad would warn whiney or pouty me to "Fix the attitude." He would never say, "Fix your feelings," but he seemed to think I had some control over my perception of the situation. Of course I did because the fear of a spanking was, to me, worth what it took to get over myself in the moment.

Trust me, when she's teething, the Gremlin has a terrible attitude.

Daughters Grow

There is a simple tension with Mothers and Daughters. It's sweet and complicated. Raychel is at an age of admiration and pushing boundaries, but someday she'll try to break through some of those boundaries and she will probably think I truly don't understand what she is going through as she navigates heavy emotions and scary changes.

She will have fights with her best friends and she won't understand why her sibling's chewing makes her want to scream. She will be scared and feel lonely and sometimes she may even take it out on me. She'll question everything we've taught her and when she learns to disagree she'll wonder what else I'm wrong about. She'll feel confined in a small space as she tries to spread those wings she'll be growing. And as the most prominent woman in her life, she'll both emulate and resent at least some of who I am while she tries to figure out who she is.

And someday when her pudgy little hand becomes slender and coordinated I'll have to let it go and though I'm excited for her to be a Woman, that thought breaks my heart.

But then I remember: after her perspective gets a little broader and she starts to reflect (when she has things to reflect) she'll grab my hand for the parts of Womanhood that require a Mother. 

When she meets the man she wants to serve for the rest of her life or she finds a passion she's meant to pursue and she needs a nudge out of the nest I'll encourage her to take the leap.

When she's newly married and she needs the calm assurance of decades I'll pray over her and remind her who she is in Christ and how that looks as a wife.

When she has children and wrestles with her new role I'll wipe her tears and tell her that she's doing a wonderful job. 

And when I miss her in the everydays I'll remember pots and pans in the living room and surprise kisses in bed. In some sense she'll always be this little girl who lights up our home and in some sense she is already the beautiful woman who will send sparks into the world.

"Children are brave!"

Yes, I watch The View. Moving on.

I don't know that I have heard such a clear and honest articulation of childhood. Children are brave. Any mother who has watched her baby take those first trepidatious steps can attest to his fortitude. Determined with his shaky, unreliable feet he fixes his attention, puts his fear behind him and walks. Falls. And invariably, at some point, tries again. Adults don't usually have that courage. Children are on their own in a big and mysterious world.

I love watching RJ explore. She takes delight in things that to me have lost their luster. This morning she was dancing and laughing at her wire hanger percussion and I was blessed with a peek into Wonder. That is just one of the gifts she gives me daily. Because she is an Explorer. On par with Lewis & Clark, she is discovering a completely unknown land. She has adventures in kitchen hideaways and toilet bowls. She scales mountains of armchairs and pillows. She boldly approaches the Wild Beast with an unreasonable hope that he will, for the first time, enjoy her company as much as she enjoys his. She is a Pioneer. She is charting territory for her future brothers and sisters (and I think she will be a great Expedition Leader).

And one day she will leave. I also love Jamie Lee's declaration of independence for our children. Our culture is so intent on keeping the young young that so often parents fail to raise adults. And she is so right: if we do our jobs, separation will be mutually beneficial and anticipated. As much as I thoroughly enjoy every second we get to spend with her, RJ is somebody's wife in the making. She is in her education for motherhood.

I expect to be heartbroken when she moves away and starts her family (or does something else as the Lord wills), but in the best possible way. A shifting paradigm is never a smooth ordeal, but I so look forward to watching her use all we are able to teach her and learn from her as she navigates this life with her own RJ flair. I pray and trust {well, working on the trust} that she will not depart from the Truth. That: my children loving God when they are out of my nest, will be my deepest joy in parenthood.

And I will not shield my brave little ones from this: it will take courage.

Mom Moments

When RJ is snug in her bed and the night is winding down, I have the honor of putting our well loved home back in order. I pick up her brightly colored toys and stack them neatly near the wall. I clear the sink and sweep the crumbs from the counters. I toss and fluff throw pillows to their homes on the couches and I grab bits of garbage or laundry during my final walk through.

I love the thought of RJ hearing me wash dishes. I can remember my mom doing her gifts of service every night; it made me feel comfortable and safe. I would wake up to a cleared kitchen and folded laundry. The floors would be clean and ready for another day of wear. No matter what transpired the day before, our home was a clean slate every morning. 

It makes me think of that verse:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

 As RJ grows I hope to relay that character trait of God to her. I hope to give her the grace He so generously gives me and let her rest in the home He allows me to make for her. A home of mercy. I hope that my patience and love for my children is new every morning and that I will remember constantly to enjoy these little blessings while they are still young.

And I hope that I will take joy every evening, when my babies are snug and the night is quieting, in picking up the brightly colored reminders of God's favor and wiping off remnants of His abundance from the countertops.

Five Minute Fridays | Change

 Five Minute Friday is a really fun way to release the preoccupation with propriety and practice sharing our hearts with our words rather than our expertise. Five minutes of writing without overthinking it. That means you get the ooey gooey stuff that usually stays down deep. :) Try it out!! And the biggest rule Lisa-Jo has is that we encourage one another! So click the link, read some of the authors' posts and have a go yourself!

GO

 Because things can't stay the same forever. New opportunities would be foolish to pass up. Tastes shift and the rug I thought was rich and warm is now just the wrong shade of boring. Heating bills are far too high to reasonably stay in the same house. Moving trucks pull away bits of your heart and leave you with a bittersweet - heavy on the bitter when your everydays are emptier.

But it isn't always so bad.

She crashed into our lives like a tidal wave and we will never be the same. She has broken us and glued us into new shapes. Now I lament for the days I didn't know her. Now I am grateful for the ways in which this life is ripped apart. Without those bitter tears would I have ever known my girl? It hurts sometimes, but so did labor.

It isn't always so bad.

STOP

Five Minute Fridays | Stretch

 5 Minute Fridays are this thing I do with a bunch of other women over at www.lisajobaker.com where we write for 5 minutes straight with little to no editing and no overthinking. It's a chance to do some mental yoga and practice writing from the heart without caring too much about how it turns out. Please join in!!

GO

I want another baby. We both do, actually. So the negative pregnancy tests kind of suck. I enjoyed pregnancy and birth (well, birth in retrospect only) and I thoroughly enjoy having RJ here. I waited a long time to be able to conceive again and now that it's here I have to wait some more.

--

I thought that we could never open our home up and be constantly surrounded by people. I'm somewhat of an introvert and it actually, legitimately scared me to think of an open door. But now we are here and God has used my uncomfortable compromise to enrich our lives more than I can express.

Sometimes I have to wait. I have to let my patience be tried and give up my idea of a perfect life. Because if I'm not content with where I am now, with what we have, with who we know, I won't be content if my ideal is achieved.

STOP

Grr! ;)

Earlier today I saw this on facebook:

My apologies: I don't normally post photos without credit (or that aren't copyrighted to me, for that matter),
but I don't know where this came from. It was just on facebook. If you know the owner, let me know so I can
credit him. :) 

I have written here before on beauty and body image and this picture struck such a chord with me. As the mother of a daughter I feel a dense responsibility to combat the lies and distortions that war outside our little bubble of a home. I feel on the defense; armed and angry at the prospect of my sweet girl's innocence being shot with a million poisoned arrows of some stranger's vague preference. 

And these "preferences" are distortions. We can see this as shallowly as the ladies' poses above. The Victoria's Secret women are twisting their bodies in flattering poses, well aware of every inch of their position - make no mistake that their elbows are precisely where they want them to be and their pinky toes are doing just what they want. The women in the Dove photo are still posing, but are much less concerned with their position. I don't know the context of either of these photos (or if they are even actual photos), but I know that the one in which the women are bending to our culture's demands would be considered more beautiful by the vast majority of this society. 

And maybe that is the heart of our issue. We are worshipping the opinion of Them. This culture has become a god unto itself. The way it makes women feel about their bodies is only one very small byproduct of it's disturbing core. There is a latent fear of rejection from Them. A subtle, heavy chain clinking as we shuffle through life hoping to be patted on the head by our master. 

Not in this home. 

Not only will I do all I can to reinforce that true beauty comes from a gentle, loving heart, but in our home Christ is King. And His chains set us free from bondage. In this home we do not measure worth by pant sizes. We do not look to a mirror for our standing before our God. Nor do we take comfort in our bank account or our the things by which we are surrounded. In this home we serve a King worth serving. A proven warrior, a steadfast love, a humble ruler. In this home we fight behind our King the ever-beckoning Them. We push back against the offensive onslaught of the status quo.  

Folk Tales | Birth Control

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

I was a teenager when I married Gabe. About a month from my 19th birthday, I was more interested in getting to see my boyfriend every day than having a baby. My new husband was busy in the Army and was even more opposed to the idea. We were young, we had time, we wanted to focus on "us" for a while. And to boot, you know how everyone has an opinion about this stuff (and insists on giving it to you)? Well, almost all of them included some version of "For Heaven's sake don't get pregnant."There was a whole list of various reasons to pick from: education, immaturity, financial insecurity, getting to know each other first... It made sense to us and seemed like wise counsel.

Now we've repented for our foolishness. Let me explain.

A Love Story

I read them with indulgent envy. How I would love to dive into their worlds and become a heroic queen in the 1500s or a simple farmer in the 1850s. How I would don the calico and live for harvest season. How I would restore virtue to a desolate land. How I would be painted with colorful language, intimate details recorded with skill and prose. My life made official. Etched in minds and hearts the way only a great story can be.

5 Minute Friday | See

My vision is kind of fuzzy when I first open my eyes. Before the covers pull back, before I wobble to her room, before I rub my eyes. It takes them a while to adjust. They take in a furry ball attached to a chubby body - she looks like a doll I would have played with as a girl. Good thing my feet know where to step in the dimly lit living area as I carry my little gremlin back to my bed to nurse.
I stare at her in the cool light of a morning trying hard to break past my curtains. Every morning: gazing at the most precious sight... Fuzzy and all. She is stubborn (like me) and she holds those heavy eyelids up to look at her mother. We lay there silent, her sucking, me gazing. My eyes never had it so good.

Folk Tales | Sleep

There are certain things that mothers around the country - probably around the world - argue about.

Vaccines.

Education.

Co-sleeping.

Organic food.

Television.

{In comprising this list, I realized that these are very affluent issues. I'm guessing mothers in the Australian bush argue about very different things.}

One of those controversial topics is the issue of purposely letting a child cry, or the "cry-it-out" method. I have heard extremes on this issue. Mostly on the "no" side. One mother condemned other moms for letting their babies cry even when they are driving. She advised pulling over and doing... whatever they want you to do I guess. I'm not sure how that would play out if you were, say, in LA style traffic on the freeway. I think the extreme on the "yes" side would be a mentally unwell mother who never held her children or attended to their needs. We can all agree that that is not healthy.

Folk Tales | Placenta

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

So when I consider all the things we do and the way we must be perceived, this topic probably tops my list of Crazy.

Pain in Childbearing

Giving birth is daunting.

"To the woman he said, 'I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.'" {Genesis 3:16}

It was physically the most exhausting work I have ever endured. It was the most emotionally draining. It was the least pleasurable experience of my life. It was by far the most painful.

Yet here she is. "In pain you shall bring forth children." In pain you shall bring forth Raychel Joye. For all intents and purposes, God told me well ahead of time that the daughter I so desired would not come to be without suffering.

I suffered. She is worth it.

Folk Tales | Shaklee

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

I have a lot of memories of a baby monitor gently filling the room with familiar lullabies while Beth and I picked up blocks and knick knacks and wiped counters down with a particular earth-friendly cleaner. The bottle it came in is still comforting to me. :)

This post is about Shaklee because I have a certain fondness for their products as a result of the aforementioned retrospect. I was first introduced to it in the Ball household as a kid-safe, "green" cleaning agent. I always thought that when we had kids I would want to switch to something safer than the seriously toxic chemicals I used on a daily basis. {Killing my own brain cells is one thing...}

Folk Tales | Moby

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

Few things are quite so wonderful as your very own baby nuzzled up against you sleeping peacefully. Few things as lovely, few things as appreciated. The reason I absolutely love my Moby Wrap is that it provides a way for me to enjoy that while also doing life. And I don't just mean talking on the phone or doing make up. I have hiked, cleaned, traveled {by foot}, been to meetings... I do a lot with it. There are 2 downsides, though: it takes so stinkin' long to put on. And it has to touch the ground. So when RJ is a mess because she just wants to be held it's super annoying that I can't put it on quicker - or even hold her while I put it on. And when I'm out where the ground isn't clean enough I have to finagle it even more.

But it's a lifesaver. And once it's on, it's on. It is great on my back, soft and comfortable {no straps or clips} and the cotton is very breathable. Basically, I love the thing.

Folk Tales | Cloth Diapers

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

RJ's very 1st diaper. When the planning met reality. ;)

Like many of the things we do that land on the more... eccentric side of things, Gabe is the one who really came up with the idea of cloth diapering. We always liked the idea, but it wasn't until we were pregnant that we really started looking into it. It was completely overwhelming for the longest time and if you, dear reader, are considering it, let me just say: it is not as complicated as it seems to be.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's Day RJ and I decided to make our special someones super awesome V-Day cards! And instead of a Farside cartoon or a political parody, we wanted our cards to have pictures that would mean something to the recipients.

{Enter: mini-photo-shoot!}

Why So Serious?

Okay, forgive the title. I... don't even remember what happens in The Dark Night {or Knight?}.


I do however wonder why the proverbial "we" still treat that hormonal dip after giving birth as a huge taboo. Women don't talk about it, but most of us experience at least mild depression. It happens. Let's be okay with that already!

I Can See Clearly Now

RJ as a newborn! She's always been the cutest baby!

If it hasn't become noticeable already, I love RJ. She makes life better in so many ways and I truly cannot imagine life without her anymore. :)

But I remember when that was not the case. I remember feeling numb, feeling scared, feeling like I wanted to run away. I remember not wanting to wake up, not wanting to nurse, not wanting to look at the baby that I couldn't connect to. I remember wishing I could feel so in love again and being absolutely horrified all the time because I did not believe I ever would.

Now, I bask.