Valentine's Day, 2014:

I did NOT . . .

• decorate the house with red balloons while the family slept
• make pink heart shaped pancakes with sprinkles
• make heart shaped sandwiches
• make heart shaped pizza
• make heart shaped brownies
• make homemade Valentines cards
• buy Valentines cards
• buy Valentines gifts
• shower

Instead I . . .

• got a special treat with Little Girl - Rise n Roll donuts from the local gas station
• talked to her about who loves her
• thanked Jesus for His love
• danced, sang, and ran around with my daughter
• let her nap in mommy & daddy's bed
• fell asleep next to her and slept right through her getting up, going downstairs, and getting into a bag of pretzel m & m's
• woke up in a panic to discover her downstairs entertaining my in-laws who had arrived to babysit for the evening  (GULP!!!)
• hid out upstairs mortified until hubby got home from work
• cried most of the way to dinner
• was encouraged by my husband, calmed down, laughed, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and an entire hour meandering around Target - ok, maybe the free wine samples at dinner helped too!

That's just the reality of my day.  We see so much of the Super Mom portrayed out there on the Interwebs, but that's not always the reality.  We Instagram the perfect pictures, not the mistakes.  I didn't want Catherine's chocolate covered face and shirt photo documented for all eternity (or until my hard drive crashes); I just wanted to wipe it up as quickly as possible as if it never happened.  We share our awesome moments but of course not our failures.  So when we inevitably fail, we feel it.  We feel it bad.  I told Josh I was feeling like a zero on a scale of 1 to 10.  Not only did my in-laws have to let themselves in to my house (fail) and find their granddaughter by herself (fail), in need of a diaper change (fail) and covered in melted red and green candy coating (fail), but they also saw an unkempt house (fail) and an unkempt daughter-in-law (fail).

I felt like a big pile of failures.

But not making heart shaped pancakes doesn't mean I'm a failure.  Not making heart shaped pancakes doesn't mean I don't love my child.  I can show love to my husband and daughter without heart shaped pancakes.

My love isn't measured in heart shaped pancakes.

Heart shaped pancakes are fleeting.


I know making heart shaped pancakes might be a fun memory making activity for your family, but I hope my love for my daughter can be felt with meaningful conversations and time spent together. 

Do I have anything against heart shaped pancakes or those who make them?  Absolutely not.  I love pancakes, and I'd gladly eat heart shaped ones.  Maybe someday I'll even try making them.  But I'm not going to let myself feel mom guilt for not measuring up to somebody else's ways of showing love to their family.

I really didn't plan on sharing all about today's failures; in fact, it's quite embarrassing.  But I need reminders that it's okay to have those tough days with the failing moments and the non-heart-shaped donuts.  And maybe, just maybe, you need that reminder as badly as I do.

I decided it would probably be a good thing to write another post since I'm participating in this Forgotten February writing challenge.

I'm writing on the topic of siblings today.


I want to tell you about my brother Andrew.  We are close in age (16 months apart), close in geography (24 miles apart), and close in friendship.  I even followed him out to California to live with him for awhile.

We're both back in the Midwest now and try to get together every couple weeks or so.  Sometimes more often.

It's been a long time though since he and I have hung out as just the two of us.  Now there's more people in the mix - his wife Jen, their two kids, my husband Josh, and our daughter.

 
He's never more than a phone call away.  I can and do call him frequently needing help with some random thing - often related to technology.  In fact, I was able to make that "Just Show Up" graphic at the end of my last post thanks to his help over the phone - shout-out!

When Andy and I both worked downtown, we'd periodically meet up for lunch during the business day.  When the weather was nice (hard to even imagine right now...grumble, grumble), we'd walk, meet half-way, dine, and talk talk talk.  We're good at that.

He's always good for a laugh, always good for an answer, always good for advice and discussing, and always good for a guessing game.  "Hey, guess who I saw at Target today."  And then we'll proceed with a bunch of yes-or-no questions until the correct guess is made.  We both do this, and I think our respective spouses are just perplexed by how much we enjoy this.  Hey, we had to do something to pass the time during long family road trips as kids!

I've always said about my brother "When we get along, we get along really well.  But when we fight, we fight really well."  And our spouses can attest to that as well, as I'm sure can our parents.

We learned quickly while living together in Burbank that adult siblings don't make the best roommates.

But we have a great relationship now that we're not living together anymore!


The second thing I want to write about in regards to the topic of siblings is our daughter.


Our plans were certainly for Catherine to have a sibling or two or three.  But this hasn't happened yet.  It's been an extreme roller coaster of emotions for both Josh and me.  We always knew we wanted at least two children.  And perhaps as many as four.  I've always loved big families.  And though I don't go out of my way to tell them this, I feel very bad for my friends who don't have siblings.  Josh's and my plans were that we'd have two and then re-address the situation.

Well . . .  that hasn't happened yet.  And it's been hard.  The thing that complicates it more is how my last pregnancy ended, how I ended up on bedrest and then admitted to the hospital, then having a C-section and then a really horrible recovery.  It's incredibly hard for me to think of going through that again.  Just being real.

So these conflicting desires make the whole thing quite challenging.  I often remind myself that God knows what is best for us.  But it's still hard to accept sometimes.
I am grateful though that Catherine has cousins who are close by and close in age, and I hope they can continue to grow up together!

Photo by House of Harkless

So, we keep getting snow, snow, and more snow.  And the snow just keeps building up.  Most years we get snow, and then it melts.  This year has had  ridiculously high amounts of snowfall and ridiculously low temps.

Josh has had NINE snow days already!  It's been incredibly disrupting to reschedule so many things in his work life and our personal lives.

Anybody who knows me knows I do not like this kind of weather.  But, stay with me; I promise this is more than just another rambling rant against winter.

Last weekend we were out of town.  Josh had a work event all day Saturday.  I tend to go a bit too crazy when my weekend is too similar to my weekday (IE, just hanging out at home with a two year old).  So I planned to hang at my folks a couple towns over.  When Josh returned to us, the weather was lousy, and he didn't want to have to do anymore driving, so we stayed there.  We ended up going to the nearby church that I grew up in and we married in (fun trip down memory lane!) and then hanging around for the Super Bowl.

Meanwhile it kept snowing.

When we finally returned home 50-some hours later, we could barely make it into our driveway.  Then when we made it over the large mound of snow that had been plowed off the street onto the end of our drive, we got stuck in the driveway.  I lamented about it on facebook including the cherry on top of our return home - discovering that our furnace had stopped working at some point while we gone, brrrr!

The next day Josh dug himself out in order to get to work.  But I knew Catherine and I weren't going anywhere.

Later that afternoon after I put Catherine down for her nap and got comfy in a cozy chair in the front room, I soon saw a truck with a plow attacking the huge snow bank at the end of our driveway.  Before long it ran the entire length of our driveway multiple times.

I was shocked and delighted and slightly confused.  And grateful and humbled and blessed.

Our new friend from church who plows the church parking lot apparently decided to just show up and plow our driveway too.

No explanation.
No charge.
No expectations.
No warning.
No strings attached.

He just showed up. 

He knew what we needed and just showed up.

He just showed up and blessed us.

Blessed us with his resources and his talents. And then went on his way.

There was no calling ahead and offering help.  There was no "Let me know if you need anything."

He just showed up.

I never would have asked for his help.  But boy was I grateful when he offered it so selflessly.

A couple years ago a friend needed us.  He wasn't going to ask for our help or anyone else's.  But it was clear to me that he needed someone to show up and be with him.  We went.  No strings attached.  We just showed up.  He talked.  We listened.  We were there for him.  After an hour or so we prayed with him and left.  It was the right thing to do.

This poor guy Job in the Bible went through unbelievable loss in his life.  Lost his family, his possessions, almost everything.  And Job 2:11-13 tell us that when his three friends heard about his situation, they went to him.  They just showed up.  They didn't wait for an invitation.  They didn't offer a half-hearted "Let me know if you need anything."  They didn't even say anything to him.  They wept with him and sat with him.

They just showed up and let God guide them in anything else.

Think about that the next time you know someone who is hurting and needing something.

Don't wait for them to ask you for help.  Don't offer your help.

Just show up.

My new friend Helen has declared February the Month of Forgotten Hobbies.

As a mom, I feel like forgotten is a great word for me.

In many ways.

Have you heard of "Mommy Brain"?  Or "Pregnancy Brain"?  Having a child does something to you that makes you forget things.

Sept. 2011

But maybe that's a good thing.  Or at least an okay thing.

Maybe it's God's way of preparing you for motherhood.

Because as a mother you are constantly having to forget your own wants - and needs - to care for your child.

I remember when we came home from the hospital and for the first couple weeks, Josh and I barely ate.  And of course for the first couple months we barely slept.  Food and rest are things that most people would say are necessities.  But when you have someone so little and so dependent on you, you instinctively put their needs above your own.

Being a mother can also make you feel like everything you were before motherhood has been forgotten.

Since I spend 24/7 with my daughter, it is easy to have my identity become so fully focused on being her mother that I forget who I am outside of that one aspect.

This topic is a bit too tough on my tender spirit right now, but maybe someday I'll allow myself to contemplate it more deeply.

Feb. 2009

Poor February.  It gets a lot of hate.  Probably related to the weather.

But I LOVE February!  It's the month of love - Valentine's Day!  I don't view Valentine's Day as some day made up by the greeting card industry (is there a "greeting card industry"?).  Instead I see it as a beautiful time to be grateful for those I love.

And loving others is always a good thing.

In addition to February having a celebration of love, it also holds a celebration of me!  Oh yes, it's my birthday month!  For the last few years I've felt awkward about throwing myself a party to celebrate my birthday, but I've come to the realization that planning parties is something I enjoy doing, so it only makes sense to do something I enjoy to celebrate my birthday.  Right?

Aug. 2007

I've never been good at daily blogging.  But I've also never claimed to be.  I can't commit to daily writing.  But maybe I can commit to remembering.