Pearls and Swine and Who I Really Am

Okay, so I haven't blogged in a while. Or a long while. What gives?

I've taken a bit of time off to think about what I put "out there." In general I'm a completely open book. (I would be terrible in politics!) But I never really thought about the negative side of my openness until it was brought to my attention via my least favorite way to learn: pain. I put some things out there, someone judged me, my feelings were hurt.

But I love blogging. It keeps me writing. It keeps me thinking. It provides a fabulous record of my kids' babyhood at a time when writing in a baby book can seem overwhelming.

So, as my dear friend Charity reminds me on a regular basis, "What other people think of you is none of your business."

I shall blog on. I have many beautiful blessings to share!

Musings of a First-Time Mom

I spoke to someone who asked a lot of questions tonight about becoming a parent. I find that when I'm honest about it, it sounds kind of scary. Which is sad and halfway inaccurate, but it's so hard to describe parenting accurately!

This person, who is planning to become a parent at some point if I don't inadvertently talk her out of it, asked hard questions and got honest answers. It's scary to speak truth about parenting because it's like walking onto a mine field: you're allowed to say it's hard but you're not really allowed to give specifics without inviting judgment from all sides. And you have to immediately get misty-eyed and say how it's all worth it.

I thought of posting my honest answers here, for instance, but I've already been burned in the past by people reading my blog entries and imagining that they know me or my life better than they do. So I'm just going to tell you what I want to say to new moms in general. What advice would I give? Well, it's not logistical. I won't say breastfeeding or babywearing or getting them on a schedule or teaching them sign language.

Here's what I will say:

• Do whatever it takes to avoid judging yourself or being around others who judge you. There is nothing more difficult than dealing with judgment in addition to lack of sleep and everything else, so if you catch a look of contempt or superiority from a mommy friend every time you give your baby formula (or nurse in public, or talk "baby talk" to your baby, or whatever you're doing!), lose the friend and find some people who can let stuff go. Everybody does things differently and most of our babies do just fine. If you love your baby and are doing your very best, that's all you can ask for!
• Take care of your body and your marriage. You need sleep and good food, and you need to continue to nurture your marriage. No matter what. Prioritize these things. BTW, sometimes taking care of your marriage means making waves, telling your spouse that something isn't working for you, etc. Resentment is a cancer that will take your marriage. Better to rock the boat with a little honesty than sink it with years of built up resentment!
• Don't miss it! Every phase with an infant goes so fast. Be present and healthy enough to experience it with your baby.

Hope these things help some new mom out there somewhere! I wish I had known them a little better when I started this journey, but I'm getting my "sea legs" now and loving it!

Easter

Haven't had much time to blog lately with tons of wonderful company, but I thought I should at least post a few pics of Easter! It was such a blessing to have my parents here for Easter. So fun to see their relationship with Lilia build. They have all kinds of fun together! And this year we started what is certain to become a family tradition -- the egg hunt at Schnepf Farms. Such a great experience!

Other fun stuff: Lilia is having a "communication explosion." She is saying and signing things we've never seen her do before! It's so wonderful to see her delight when she asks for something and gets it -- the joy of communication! She's saying and signing up, down, grandpa, tree, leaf, "Baby Signing Time," banana, eat, milk, water, thank you, and many more things. It's really a blast.

Bibliophily and Illness

I come from a family of book lovers. We read often, quickly, out loud, everything. We recommend books to each other (although we each have distinct taste, it overlaps) and passionately discuss them. If you get either one of my parents to talk for any length of time about education you will discover that they are big believers in self-educating and I'll bet a lot of money that the words, "Just read books!" will escape their lips at least once.

My family of origin has also always been really... dorky and embarrassing in a lot of ways (please, nobody find any pictures from the 80's or 90's!) but I was never, ever ashamed of our book habit. Nothing in me has ever thought, "I just wish my family didn't read so much!" I love it. And, especially in the years since Jeff and I killed our TV, I carry on the family tradition with gusto. And my influence is spreading. Jeff is reading Harry Potter and many, many days Lilia wakes up signing "book" and saying, "BUH! BUH!!!" over and over until we give her one or read her one or both. Mwahahahaha.

Poor little Miss Lilia has been a little under the weather for most of the week, and I have hated to watch her not feel good. But imagine my joy when her relaxation of choice was to sit with Mommy and read a book! She got her own little spot and her own little book and seriously and very quietly turned the pages, just like me. Oh Lord, please let me bottle just a little bit of this and keep it forever!




For books I love and can't get enough of myself, please see the list to the right of the blog.

Balance

Balance is a big thing for a lot of people. For parents of small children, I think it's one of the most important things in the world. And one of the hardest.

We're constantly balancing: nutrition, budget, personal care, fun, sleep, routines, the list goes on and on. Mostly I think what we're doing is trying to be sure that every member of our family is healthy and cared for -- spiritually, emotionally, physically, etc. Before you have children, a lot of building your family consists of learning to recognize and care for your own needs and your spouse's needs. But when children come, the balancing act begins! Everyone needs sleep, everyone needs fun, everyone needs independent time and interaction and good food and a prayer life and exercise. Everyone needs to feel loved and cared for. The kids are important, the parents are important, the marriage is important.

We've found that the vast majority of parenting advice/literature falls into two categories: ignoring the children's needs in favor of the parents or ignoring the parents' needs in favor of the children! It's hard out there for a family that wants to walk a middle ground and recognize that everyone is important.

This last month has been difficult in terms of balance, and we kind of hit bottom before we started to change our ways. We've been struggling to get ready for baby #2 while balancing the needs of baby #1, a pregnant mommy, and a daddy who is having to take up a lot of slack at home while holding down a job with 10-hour shifts. Here are a few things that are working for us right now:

• Putting first things (literally) first. I've been doing whatever it takes to start my day by eating a good breakfast, reading my Bible and putting Pandora worship on first thing in the morning. Changing my life.
• Talking. Jeff and I frequently ask each other, "How are you doing? What do you need right now?" and even, "What can I do that will make you feel loved?" It helps so much to stay on the same page and feel like real partners.
• Setting aside time to do nothing. Doing nothing was really missing in our lives. We were constantly going. It almost killed us. Now rather than waiting until everything is finished in order to relax, we're just setting aside time without everything being done. Because it will never all be done!
• Changing scenery. We've found a little money here and there to go grab dinner as a family at Costco, or just time to leave the house for a while. It's really nice.
• Investing in long-term time savings. This is a hard thing to fit in and I'm not sure we've got it right, but we've been thinking of ways to simplify things longer term. Getting an in-house water filtration system so we don't have to keep going to buy water at the store, cooking for the freezer in large quantities so we don't have to make dinner every night, organizing things so they're easier to get to, use, put away properly.
  

What's working for you? Let's share ideas! Here's to balancing and nurturing everyone in our families!

Valentine's Day

Well, it's Valentine's Day. I wish I could say that I hate Valentine's Day so I don't care that we don't get to be together, but I love Valentine's Day! I'm really sad that I can't be with my beloved hubbie today, but I'm so proud of him that he's doing such a great job in his "new" career.

I hate it when people say that they don't like Valentine's Day because you should celebrate your love every day. Of course you should celebrate your love every day, but you should also give thanks every day, appreciate your family every day, etc. and that doesn't stop us from having holidays that celebrate these things! We work very hard to keep our holidays and family events "especially special" and to make traditions in our family that are significant. We believe that traditions are an important part of family life because they provide rhythm and richness to our lives.

Anyway, off my soapbox. Now I just want to say that I can't believe how blessed I am to spend every day with the most amazing person I know, and the only person I could ever imagine myself partnering with to build a life. Sometimes it feels like we're little working ants just slogging away, trying to be faithful and build the life God has for us, but when I step back I really appreciate our situation. Jeff came home recently and said, "What we have is so rare." I couldn't agree more and I appreciate every single day of it.

Thank you, Babe, for the best adventure I could have imagined. I would rather hang out with you than anyone else in the world and I couldn't be happier to build this family with you.

She Walks!

Lilia has been walking really well holding onto fingers, furniture, etc. for some time now. But, having very unfortunately inherited her mother's overly cautious spirit, she would NOT let go of those fingers for all the tea in China. True to form, however, our friend Jaime was able to get her to let go of the training wheels on Sunday and take a few steps out there on her own! It was lovely to have so many of our adopted Phoenix family members there, but a bummer that Daddy had to work. We're working to get her to walk in front of him now. :)

I can't believe how fast this all goes. This is my little bitty bean, the little darling who used to just stare into my eyes or sleep on my chest and cuddle. And that was pretty much all she did! It's so wonderful to see her personality start to come out and to see her develop and grow. But it's so painful to let go of each one of these precious phases as they go by without me ever being quite ready to loosen my grip. I could bottle this and drink it in for the rest of my life.

One Two Three JUMP

No, it's not a reference to Lilia. It's a reference to me, actually.

I have decided to start a small business website! I'm so scared to put that in writing, but I'm doing it and I really am excited about the whole thing. It's not going to happen overnight, but I'm working diligently and should be up and running with the basics within a few weeks or a month.

I have found a great company that not only helps you to make a website but also teaches you how to build a business out of it. It gives you great tracks to run on, as well as brainstorming software and TONS of research tools so you can learn how marketable your idea is, how profitable it might be with Google Adsense, how many other web pages compete with it, etc. I am a follow-the-instructions kind of person, so this company is right up my alley!

As I've been researching the options this week I came across something that really affected me and pushed me to "get out there." A woman who trains people to start web pages for profit said, "I understand the fear of losing money. But just the fear that no one will look at your website? You can't have that! You have to fail some if you want to succeed." And I realized that I was really held back by just a fear of failure. Not losing a financial investment or anything similar, but just the fear that I might fail. But somehow her description made me look at failure differently, as a step to success rather than an "alternative ending" to a successful story.

I could probably use that thinking in a lot of areas of my life.

ONE

I can't believe that you're a whole year old. I regularly ask you who told you you could grow up this fast, but you just giggle at me.

There are so many, many things I love about you. I love your chubby baby legs and your perfect feet and toes, I love your now-curly strawberry blonde hair, I love the excited way you say, "Daddy!" when you first see him in the morning, I love your little baby kisses and how you play peek-a-boo with anything we give you that's like a blanket.

I hope that I can always remember your smiles and giggles from this year. You are the most open-hearted person I know. You are happy to be fast friends with anyone, playing and smiling and giggling. (Unless you're in the church nursery.)

You play slowly and carefully with your toys. It's like you're examining fine art. You turn them around, you put them in your mouth, you shake them and bang them together to make music. You LOVE music. You will make anything a musical instrument! This afternoon I listened to you singing in your crib when you woke up from your nap. I was just listening in the monitor and enjoying every minute of your little song.

You walk really well, but you're very cautious and won't let go of at least one finger when you're doing it. But practicing walking is probably your favorite thing to do right now. You got a Radio Flyer push toy for Christmas and you've spent many evenings just pushing it back and forth across the living room over and over again.

You also love animals. Your first word was "dog" and you signed it at the same time! It was right when we were getting up in the morning and you were really excited to see our dog Rosco first thing. You signed it and said it over and over again with a great big smile on your face.

I think my favorite thing to watch this year has been your relationship with your dad. You are so crazy about each other! It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever been privileged to witness. I know some daddies don't like to put little girl outfits together or do day-to-day life with their babies, but not your daddy! He knows all of your routines and when you need milk and when you need dinner and when you need a nap, he changes your diaper (and washes them sometimes!) and gives you baths and reads you stories and sits on the floor to play with you. He even lets you ride on his back in the Ergo when he's cooking sometimes, which you love. Do you know why he does all of those things? Because he's crazy about you! And you're crazy about him too. Most babies go through a long time where they only want their mamas, but I think you only did that for one week of this whole year. You love being with either of us, and your favorite thing is when all three of us are together playing.

I don't know if you'll ever know what a blessing you've been to Daddy and me, or how much we love you, even though we tell you every single day. I just can't imagine our family without you in it.

If they lined up all the one-year-olds in all the world, I would choose you every time. Because you are my favorite one-year-old. I love you because you're mine.

Marriage Mysteries

A friend of mine recently sent me a very interesting review from the New Yorker about Elizabeth Gilbert's (Eat, Pray Love) new memoir, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. It was a lot to chew on and this blog has been rolling around in my head since I read it.

Marriage is a tough issue for someone like me, who often walks a narrow way between various party lines. I'm an egalitarian, a Christian, a thinker, a hopeless romantic, an independent woman, a stay-at-home mom. Things like marriage can be difficult to reconcile because, although I want desperately to believe in it, marriage has a lot of strikes against it. The article I referenced does a great job of outlining them: First there's its less-than-romantic history as a business deal along the lines of the slave trade. Then there's the "Marriage Benefit Imbalance." That's the worst part for me. Here's a quote from Gilbert's book included in the article:

Married men live longer than single men; . . . married men accumulate more wealth than single men; married men are far less likely to die a violent death than single men; married men report themselves to be much happier than single men; and married men suffer less from alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression than do single men.

And a summary of the female side of the equation:

Yet married women are more likely to suffer from depression than single women are. According to Gilbert, married women are not as successful in their careers as single women. Married women are arguably less healthy than single women. Married women, until recently, were more likely to die a violent death than single women—usually, at the hands of their own husbands.

Well, that's cheery for us married girls. Less happy, less successful, more likely to be depressed, less healthy, more likely to be murdered....

Is there any hope for the institution of marriage? I believe there is. I think the crux of the issue is when and how you think marriage began. Is it, in fact "a relic from a time when we needed an arrangement to manage property and reproduction and, crucially, to establish kinships for purposes of defense: safety in numbers."? I believe the history of marriage is older and richer than that. And I believe that it predates sexism. I believe marriage is as old as humanity, was intended to reflect God Himself, and has become as corrupt as all of humankind.

It is error both on the side of feminists and traditionalists to believe that marriage is intended to make women less and men more. I feel strongly that God intended marriage to be freeing, mysterious and even humbling to both parties involved. In my study of the subject I have come to discover that God meant marriage to overcome our desire to control one another, and instead to learn to inspire one another, support one another, lift each other up and even serve one another. I've often heard the argument that "every ship has to have a captain," but I believe marriage was intended to prove that idea wrong in itself -- to help us understand that we don't have to be the captain of the ship! That every game need not have a winner and a loser, but that we can raise each other up to great heights when we let go of our need to be in charge of each other, or to know who has the final say.

I was speaking with my sister, who is getting married this year, about losing your trump card. You give a person a lot of power in your life when you relinquish the power to leave them and choose another. And I agree wholeheartedly that that power is often abused to the detriment of women. But it can also be the beginning of something beautiful: of loving someone because you want to, and not out of fear that they will leave or choose someone else.

My own marriage has been one of the most profound learning experiences of my life. As Jeff and I have come to enter each other's private worlds as no one has before, we have discovered a depth of trust that we've never achieved with anyone else. No one has ever been on my side the way Jeff is. He loves me and challenges me and inspires me and serves me even when he has nothing to gain at all, not even under the threat of losing me. It's a profound love that walks through the mundane with a person day after day. And if we never learn to walk beside each other without "taking charge," we miss the entire point.

What Are You Doing?

I've recently been reminded of an interview I saw years ago. It was before I had Lilia, but it has a major impact on me as a mother. The interview was with Maria Shriver and she was talking about her parents. She talked about how her father, Sargent Shriver, had asked all his children frequently, "What are you doing?" By that he meant, "What are you doing for the world? How are you improving it?" And he took that quite seriously, making great strides in all kinds of charities. His wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, had a deep and lasting impact in the world on behalf of disabled people and others. Maria recalled that Eunice would put pictures on the wall of children who were disabled so that her own children would think about them often and think of ways to help them. She also served cereal for dinner each Thursday night and explained to her children that she was sending the money they saved to those less fortunate than themselves.

Now that is doing something! Changing the world as a person and inspiring your children as a parent at the same time. What a wonderful example.

Lately I've been seeing nothing but pictures of Haiti on news websites and reading stories of those who have been impacted by their earthquake. I can't get the voice out of my head that says, "What are you doing?"

A Successful Trip!

We just got back from a road trip to California that was far more successful than it had any right to be. I was a little worried, to be honest, because the last time we went was pretty rough. Lilia was just NOT up for it and basically clung to me the entire time. But this time she was great! She spent her time entertaining everyone and just generally enjoying all the attention. We stayed with Jeff's folks and also got to see about a million friends and family members.

Kudos to my mom for being the first to actually upload her photos so I'll start with those! Hopefully I'll get mine done soon and also get the ones from other family members. A good time was had by all.



Love this one of Meme and Lilia!!!!



Lilia had an early first birthday party with my side, shared with Grandpa Brooks. Not his first birthday.... :)
Loving cake.


Daddy cleaning her up after cake. I love this one! As usual, she got it in her hair.

I can't believe she's almost a year old. We are so blessed by her every single day. I just pray, "Lord let me be an arrow that points my kids right to Your grace and love."

Chores and Other Challenges

Today was a really hard day for me. First, I wanted to get things done which, to be honest, is never a good way for me to start my day. If I get things done then great, but on Jeff's work days it's better for me to just focus on being a parent and taking care of myself and Lilia. Making a to-do list is setting myself up for failure!

Anyway, I had one of those days where everything is difficult and nothing goes as planned and I'm tired and frustrated. But the great news is that I called a friend and was able to talk it all out and felt much better about all of it.

Now I have to pack for our big road trip on Wednesday! Thank God Jeff's home tomorrow.

Mom Encouragement

Some things about being a mom I knew about before. Some I sort of guessed. And some I did not see coming.

One thing that falls into that last category is the lack of respect from the culture as a whole for parents, and especially mothers, and the work they do. It comes out in lots of ways but the big two that I see are minimizing the work of stay-at-home parents (are you just a stay-at-home parent? Don't you have a degree or a profession? Don't you want to get out of the house? etc.) and criticizing other people's parenting choices or styles (What are you feeding him???? Don't you have her on a schedule yet? You are a slave to that schedule, lighten up! You stopped nursing? You don't hold him enough! You hold him too much, he'll be spoiled....).

So in the end it's very easy for a new mom to get a one-two punch of a message that can take the wind out of her sails in two seconds flat: What you do is totally unimportant, and you're doing it wrong. How's that for validation and encouragement in the most difficult and important job you'll ever do in your life?

So many moms just need someone to say Wow, you're doing a great job and changing your child's life forever. Thank you! So here I go.

• I know of few professions that require so many separate skills and tasks from one person as being a stay-at-home parent. You need to become an expert in nutrition, psychology, education and time-management, to name a few. It's not a no-brainer!
  
• Being a parent is more physically taxing than any job I've ever had. There are no sick days or vacation time, and you can't go into a room by yourself or slow down when you're having a bad day. You have to do this important work at your best and your worst.
• The greatest necessity in most careers is skill. You learn how to drill or make certain decisions or whatever you do. But to be a parent the greatest necessity is character. You must show your child an example every day, again no matter how you feel on that given day, and you must love them with your actions all the time. Character is much, much harder to develop than skill.
  
• Most jobs have at least a few "quick wins." You get a review or a raise, complete a project, etc., and you feel great. Parenting has nearly none. You invest, and invest, and invest. And then later on you see how you did. It's like a 20-year project!
• Study after study shows that no matter how we complain about the influence of poor schools, peer pressure and television there is no one in the world who impacts a child more than his/her parents. Children who age out of foster care (who have no parents or whose parents are too dysfunctional to raise them) are significantly less likely to graduate from high school and college and significantly more likely to need public assistance, have children outside of marriage, have marital problems, commit crimes, be victims of crimes, live in poverty and have mental health problems. That is the difference a parent makes.
  

I'll have more to say on this in another post, I'm sure. But for now let me say to all the parents out there that what you do is exceedingly important. You may not know how important for years, but you are building something to really last. Thank you.

What I Don't Want to Forget

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The other night I was sitting with Lilia on the little love seat in her room, snuggled up and reading her a story. As I read it I was running my fingers through her hair. I felt a sudden rush that was equal parts gratitude and grief as it suddenly occurred to me that this was one of those moments in life that sneaks up on you and changes your soul a little. An everyday moment that is suddenly life changing. Soon she will have big-girl hair rather than the silky, spun gold that she has now and I think I might grieve her baby hair for the rest of my life.

Her hair is perfect. I mean, really perfect. It's flawlessly soft and smooth and there are at least three colors in it, which change in sunlight. Last week our pastor was admiring her and said, "Oh look, her hair has some strawberry blonde in it! Does she get that from you?" Well I died. I think it was the first time anyone has ever asked if she gets anything from me (The majority of her perfection comes from her amazing father), and it was her hair! Her beautiful hair that I am tempted to worship almost as much as I am her toes.

Tonight it occurs to me that there are pictures I can't take because they aren't sights, they're feelings. And I'm driven to write them down.

• Each day and night we start her bedtime and naptime routines by literally saying goodnight to every living thing in our house. That means Mommy, Daddy, fishies, doggie, kitty, and occasionally calling Grandma. Lilia sits contentedly on my (or Daddy's) hip and carefully opens and closes her hand to waive goodnight. And she says "nigh nigh" in a sweet soft voice over and over again.
  
• The worst thing you can do to Lilia is somehow give her the impression you're going to pick her up and then walk away from her instead. Of course we never do this on purpose, but if you forget the bottle or the doorbell rings or you were actually walking to the thing next to her, prepare to feel major pangs of regret. Her little broken heart spreads to her face in the form of the most tragic and beautiful expression you can imagine. Et tu, brute? It melts us every time.
• When she wants to communicate but can't tell you, she purses her little lips, opens her eyes as widely as she can and makes a very insistent, drawn out cross between a grunt and a hum. Sort of the way an adult would purposefully clear her throat to imply something that wasn't said.
• She is becoming far too busy and important to be held in our laps on the couch for any period of time now. When we try to snuggle her she very discreetly finds one of our fingers with each hand and then arches her back and squirms until she's standing on the floor with our help. This leaves her in the perfect position for her favorite activity: walking with Mommy or Daddy! She beams with pride as she tromps all over the house.

There are so many more that I will have to do these posts regularly. Again I'm reminded that we are so, so, so blessed.