lessons i've learned from my kids #1

Around the time Emma was born, we gave Addie a doll. She hadn't taken much interest in them before, but with a new baby around the house, a doll seemed more fun. By 21 months old (Emma was 3 months at this point), Addie really loved to take care of her baby doll. Which she called "baby." Or sometimes "Emma." Now, it's just "baby."

She drags her around by the arm. Sometimes she holds her tightly, sways, and says in her "singing" voice Gee-gis (Jesus), mimicking how I sing "Jesus loves me" to her before she goes to sleep. She likes to push her baby in Emma's swing, buckle her in Emma's carseat, wash her with pretend soap, feed her a pretend bottle, and push her around in the stroller.

But, when she pushes baby in the swing, she'll push as fast and hard as high as it goes.
She'll buckle baby in the carseat upside down, straps twisted, and with only half the buckle closed.
Once in a while, as we're getting ready for bed, we'll let her put her baby to bed too. So, she'll pick up the baby, bring the baby to the baby's bed, and sing. "Gee-gis loves me i know know the Bible tells me sooo's" [she always makes 'so' plural] :) Rocking back and forth. Then, she'll say "night night baby" or "luh-you baby..."

and drop the baby on it's head, and walk away.

It's so hard not to laugh.
And yet she's trying.
She thinks she's doing what we do to take care of Emma.

It's easy to poke fun and see how she's missing the mark... I mean, her baby is naked all day, buckled upside down in the carseat, and then dropped on her head to go night night.

But, isn't this kind of how we parent too? We go to great effort to mimic how God, our heavenly father, loves and parents us. How to discipline and how to give grace. How to love unconditionally but not enable. How to train up a child. How to how to how to... And we work hard at this, hoping to produce Jesus-loving, world-changing little people. Yet, at the end of the day, we often miss the mark. And compared to our perfect heavenly Father, we proverbially (hopefully not literally), drop our kids on their heads and say "night night."

But there is grace.
and He has chosen you for your children. 
and so, with God's help, we love, and discipline, and train, and engage, and teach...
and we try not to drop our kids on their heads.
and then we trust Him with the results.

A new year.

Oh hi there.
Is it funny that my last post, 3 months ago, was about writing every day in October?
It might not be funny, but at the very least, it's ironic.

On one hand, I've missed writing. Articulating the thoughts mulling around all day as I listen to my toddler verbally vomit every thought that comes to mind. (Wonder where she gets that from.)
Sharing thoughts with people I don't usually get a chance to connect with.
Spelling things out that I'm too shy to say in person.
Getting to share something that wouldn't necessarily come up were we to sit down one on one.
Plus, I like to have a record for record's sake. I've always been a journaler. I love looking back years later and remembering - what were we doing? how were we feeling? Let's be honest, we tend to reminisce with either an ultra negative, or ultra positive filter. Mine leans towards the ultra positive. Take for example, child birth. [Didn't see me going there did you?] My husband and I have an ongoing joke that I forget childbirth is hard. I'm always like, "oh it wasn't that bad."
He's like, "yes, it was. You were in a lot of pain. There were a lot of tears. A lot. And I had to leave the room. And then I came back. And we didn't eat. And we were tired. And you've blocked it out you crazy lady."
And I'm all like, "whhhattt? No, it was fine. Okay maybe it was slightly difficult."

But that's a different story.

Back to writing.
So here I am again. A new year. I love a new year - a fresh start, a chance to evaluate, to resolve, to think.

Speaking of which, why the break? It's been a mix of two things, that are maybe really one thing.

Purpose + parenting

Sometime in between when Emma was born and now, I had to do some evaluating. A lot of people had said jumping from one to two kiddos was hard. And it didn't initially feel hard in the sense that I expected - I still felt able to keep everyone fed & clothed, and I even figured out how to get to walmart with 2 under 2. #winning

But the thing that I did notice was, a surprising redefining of purpose. Suddenly, my day couldn't just be about my plan and my agenda. With one little tot running around, I could kinda easily (though it didn't feel like it at the time), drag my kid around with me, keep her relatively entertained, while I did a lot of what I wanted.

Once Emma was born, there truly just wasn't enough time or energy in my day to do everything I was used to doing. At first, I figured we'd 'adjust' and 'get the hang of it' and life as we had known it would resume. So, I waited. Through the summer, and the fall, thinking that any day now, I would magically have more time for myself and what I wanted.

Meanwhile, I'm reading through My Utmost for His Highest, and good old Oswald Chambers hits me over the head like a ton of bricks: "If you seek great things for yourself - God has called me for this and that; you are putting a barrier to God's use of you. As long as you have a personal interest in your own character, or any set ambition, you cannot get through into identification with God's interest. You can only get there by losing for ever any idea of yourself, and by letting God take you right out into His purpose for the world... I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine... When I stop telling God what I want, He can catch me up for what he wants without let or hindrance."

As I read this, the Lord whispered in a voice as clear as a voice can be without being audible, "my life is not my own."

Almost instantly, life with 2 seemed to make sense.
My life is not my own.
There may or may not have been a brief period of internal, figurative kicking and screaming. But honestly, it was short-lived. In a way, this realization was the cure for so much frustration.

Any previous illusion that my life was my own was, well, just that, an illusion.
But now, it had been clearly spoken to me - my life was and is not my own. [By the way, this falls under the category of I-heard-it-100-times-in-church-before-but-one-day-it-made-sense-to-me-in-a-new-and-personal-way.]

I could stop being frustrated on days when I didn't get time for what I wanted.
I could stop being annoyed if my kids' naps interfered with my to-do list.
I could stop being annoyed if my toddler was a toddler, and I don't know, wanted my attention every time I sat down to write an email, or took every ounce of my energy when I'd been up with a sick baby, or spilled her oatmeal 3 times in one meal. [Oatmeal is so hard to clean up, by the way.]

And so, we've adjusted.
Or rather, I've adjusted.
Isn't it funny that often when you want everyone else around you to change and get with your own program, God is like, "nope, I'm going to change you and get you on my program."

Now, maybe you're tracking with me or maybe you're thinking, "why the heck are you telling me this and what the heck does it have to do with writing on this blog?"

The other, more practical, side of this whole my life is not my own business is - on a day to day basis, what am I going to spend my very limited "free" time on. Maybe a better way to ask the question is: How does my daily life fit into God's purpose?

That question led to some other questions:
Am I fully present with my children when they're awake? (Or do I prioritize my iPhone?)
Do I have mental energy to engage in conversation with my husband after our kids go to bed?
Do I put others first?
Am I investing in the community of people around me?
And, as it relates more specifically to blogging, does writing fit into what God has asked of me and called me to right now?

And, in these questions, I've kinda come full circle on this post. Back to a combination of purpose + parenting.

While waiting for answers and direction, I needed a break from writing. A break to allow more time to listen. To redirect. To learn how to love and parent and attend to my children. How to love and engage my husband and our family and friends. To learn how to turn off and unplug and rest again. And to see if there was any time left over for writing. To wait and see if it fits in my new purpose - the purpose of a life that isn't my own. The purpose that is the general laying down of your own life as you take up God's agenda.

And not that I have figured out all those things by any means, but I do feel like I'm in a place of renewal. Of having adjusted and gotten some of those questions answered in a way that allows me to write. And maybe sometime I'll share the answers. Or maybe not. But in the meantime, I'm hoping 2015 brings more time for doing a few things well.

Including writing.
But my life is not my own, so, we'll see.

Happy New Year, friends.

when you fail before you start

So, the other night, I was telling my husband how I've noticed some people in blog world do this "31-days" thing where they pick a topic and write on it for 31 days. I explained that I don't really spend much time these days reading blogs and didn't care very much about being a part of that 31-days-community, but that it seemed like a good challenge for me. I love writing, and though it's hard to find the time, maybe the goal of writing 31 days in a row about something would be good. I had been thinking about it for much of September, and even written a couple posts to jump start, assuming I wouldn't actually have time to write something 31 days in a row. (Does that defeat the purpose? I don't know. Probably. #imakemyownrules)

So, my sweet husband listened intently as I went on to describe my chosen topic along with my first few posts in more detail than he might have cared for. (He is a VERY good listener. Actually, he is a great listener. And he has patiently taught me how to be a better listener over the past 4.3 years. I didn't even know I was a bad listener before, but I was. Let's call my current listening skill level mediocre. #workinprogress)

Anyway, he was listening intently as I described my topic. He laughed, responded, encouraged me, threw out a few more ideas and then he said, "But it's already October 2."

WHAT!?

It's October?????

[Aside: I almost never know what the date is. As a former public school teacher, who wrote and/or saw the date 283 times every day, I can't tell you what a weird feeling it is to go to write a check (yes, I write checks sometimes), and then wonder what day it is, only to find it is is 3 plus or minus days away from the date I thought it was.]

And so, just like that, I had failed before I started.

31 days was a nice idea. But, it'll have to wait until next October. Or possibly October of 2024 2074, when I am certain that I will not have any small children to care for (at least on a minute-by-minute basis).

Until then, I've already written 2 of the posts. (Yeah, I got a huge jump start...)
And I'll publish those this week. And maybe I'll write a few others on that topic this month. Maybe not.

By the way, have you ever failed before you started? Don't leave me hangin' here...
"I'm never going to speak like that to my kids again..."
"I'm going to eat paleo..."
"I'm not going to use that credit card again..."
"I'm going to read my bible every morning..."

or, wait for it

"I'm going to work out 3 times a week."

Yeah, me too.
But, did you know there is grace for that.
We will never be able to do perfectly what we set out to do.
And so, there is grace.
Grace to start anew and grace to make it through the mundane and the ordinary, grace to achieve your goals, and grace to accomplish something great.

There is a lot of grace available.
Give yourself grace.
Start over.
And if you again fail before you start... grace.

Turns out we're pretty different.

Almost exactly 5 years ago, Ben told me he loved me.
I said, "what do you mean?"

Yep, you heard it.
Ben: I love you, Renee
Me: What do you mean by 'love?'

(Ladies, just let me know if you need any other romantic advice...)

This was our first picture together. It was blurry. Kind of like the next few months before we decided to get married :)

But seriously, we were babies.

(Speaking of babies, we got married so quickly people joked about a baby. That is an awkward joke by the way. Don't say that to people.)

Fast forward 5 years.

I'm sitting in church the other day. As the sermon is ending, I glance over at Ben's notes and I have a revelation: all of our differences are evidenced in the way we take notes at church.

His notes: 2 sentences, scribbled at the top of the church bulletin in black ball point pen.
My notes: 4 pages of cursive and arrows and brackets in pink ink, written in my notebook that I bring every Sunday and then will add to the box of all the notebooks from all the years of church notes.

He processes internally and then verbalizes one sentence that sums up everything neatly and comprehensibly.
I process out loud and after 3 hours of talking about all the angles and what-ifs and details, I try to articulate something coherent and simple. And usually can't.

He sees something he likes and decides, "yes."
I see something I like, research all the possible alternatives, and then wait for Ben to tell me to just choose already.

He looks at the menu for 1 minute, picks what sounds good, and closes it.
I read every entree description, ask the waiter for a couple more minutes (5 times), go back and forth between 2 or 3 or 4 options, ask Ben which I want, tentatively decide, ask the waiter his opinion, and then change my mind at the last minute.

He drinks 2 cups of coffee every morning. Quickly, efficiently, and in one sitting.
I drink half my cup slowly, and just keep refilling it over the course of several hours.

He likes to be on time. No... early.
I think time is flexible.

His car is neat. I recently commented on how I like how clean his car is and I wish I could have mine as clean. He responded, "well, I just take out everything I bring into it." (so simple, and yet so difficult.) There are cheerios all over my car. and coffee cups and gum wrappers and those green things from starbucks that are supposed to prevent spilling. And somehow there are also coffee stains.

The house is a different story. I like everything in its place. [I'm learning to cope with letting this go in our current season of tornadoes babies.] Laundry in the laundry basket. Toothbrushes in the tooth brush jar. Pillows neatly arranged on the couch. Toys in the toy cabinet. Ben likes the laundry on the floor, and the toothbrushes on the counter, and the pillows haphazardly thrown to the side, and the toys wherever Addie left them. [I should mention that he often puts things away because I like it that way, and that is one of the 4,239,388 reasons I love him.]

Needless to say, we are very different.
But, he loves me well.
And in 4 (ish) years of marriage, we have learned a lot about how to navigate our differences and how to love and serve each other. Mostly though, we've learned that there is more to learn about each other and about true love than we ever even realized.

It is hard and tiring and surprising... and yet fun and hilarious and awesome. 

And I'm so happy I married this man.

disclaimer: please do not judge us in this picture. it had been a long day of driving 500 miles with 2 under 2. after a beautiful (but tiring) wedding weekend. where 3 of the 4 of us stood up in it. and i was nursing. and we did the drive twice in 4 days. celebratory frozen pizza and wine were in order. and showers. we needed showers at this point. clearly :) 

hospitality and pinterest

let's talk about pinterest. i have a love-hate relationship with pinterest. on one hand, i like the pretty pictures. i like the way it helps me easily keep track of recipes from all over the internet in one place. i like vegging out and scrolling. i like that it's like a free magazine subscription.

on the other hand, i think it easily tricks me.

tricks me into thinking i need to throw an extravagantly themed party for my two year old instead of just inviting everyone over to hang out and eat cake.

tricks me into thinking my kitchen should look like this

or a play room like this

now this isn't pinterest's fault. and extravagant parties and beautiful kitchens and organized playrooms aren't bad. but, they don't equal great hospitality.

Let's not confuse hospitality with a nice looking house or beautiful decorations. 

Hospitality says you before me.
Hospitality is sacrificial and serving.
Hospitality gives what you have, whether it's a lot or a little.
Hospitality helps people in need.
Hospitality welcomes all, even to a mess or a less-than-perfect house.

I have been on the receiving end of some great hospitality. People who've opened up their homes (big or small), and their hearts to say- you. are. welcome. here. just as you are. 

Something about their attitude and demeanor and presence that made me feel welcome.

And that is what I want people to feel in my home.

you are welcome here, just as you are.

So, I'll still browse and scroll, and click and pin. And my pinterest boards will probably be brimming with ideas and pretty pictures and recipes galore. But, they won't be dictating my hospitality.

Because even if it's just home-made Folgers coffee
in hodge-podge mugs
sitting on our craigslist couches
surrounded by toys  
laying on a floor that hasn't been vacuumed for an unmentionable amount of time,

you are welcome here, just as you are. 
So, come on over!

my heart in cambridge

We moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts almost exactly a year ago. [That was true when I started writing this post 4 weeks ago! Ahhh, babies!]

view from path along the Charles River

When we were getting ready to move, we were anticipating a vacation of sorts. [Insert hysterical now-we-know-better laughter.]
Ben was attending a 1-year program, and while we were open to him finding a job there afterwards, we figured we would likely be moving again after the school year. He was leaving a Phd program, where he did research and attended classes, so for some strange reason, we thought a masters program (at Harvard) would be easier and less time consuming. We pictured traveling around New England on weekends, exploring the sites, evenings in Boston.

[more hysterical you-people-are-delusional laughter ensues.]

Move-in day.

Ben's dad had driven with him in our moving truck from Omaha to Cambridge. My dad flew in on moving day to help with the unloading. (Somehow they got our sectional couch up 3 flights of stairs.) I was supposed to fly with my dad but accidentally booked a flight for a day later. Woops. Coincidentally, it was the same flight as my mom. So, she and Addie and I arrived after everything was already in the apartment. I highly suggest making that mistake for future moves...

I remember opening the little airplane window as we flew in over Boston. It was beautiful. Ben's dad's flight out was not long after we landed, so we crossed paths in the airport, said thank you and goodbye.

When we got there, the apartment was bigger than we'd pictured it, very comfortable for the 3 of us.

Addie was at a great age - she could sit and play happily, but not move.

We had 2 weeks to get settled and explore before Ben started his program, so we hit all the tourist sites.

Seafood on the water.

 Boston Common "Frog Pond." (Huge little wading pool with a fountain in the park. So fun.) 

Canolis

Otto's Pizza in Harvard Square

We got tired of dragging our huge stroller everywhere, so we bought an Ergo Carrier and a fancy umbrella stroller. (We bought both used for $80 total. 2 of the best baby-item purchases ever, by the way. I wish I would have known about both of these products sooner.)

And we bought bikes. Everything we read said don't have a car in Cambridge. (Bikes were fun, but they were a mistake. We should have just brought our car out from the beginning. Live and learn.) 

Those first couple months were so fun. Let's call this the 'honeymoon phase.' 

We thought we could stay in Cambridge forever. We really loved it. 

The honeymoon phase lasted through most of the fall. 

Ben's program started and he was in his element. Programming and coding all day. Interesting classes. Brilliant professors. Surrounded by nerds. It was awesome. Meanwhile, on the home-front, I was setting up our new apartment, taking Addie on walks, exploring new places, meeting neighbors. And then a few people decided to come visit - we had friends or family in town 4 weekends in a row. Not to mention, New England in the fall is as beautiful as they say it is.

So the honeymoon continued.

During one of those friends' visits, I felt really nauseous one night. My friend made a joke about being pregnant. I was a couple days late, but didn't think too much of it. I thought it was the seafood. The next morning, though, SURPRISE! Pregnant. [I've written more about this here, including a 'disclaimer' about the whole you're-talking-about-a-surprise-pregnancy-on-the-internet-while-some-people-are-walking-through-infertility thing.] 

After our last weekend of visitors sometime in October, I would say the honeymoon phase finally wore off. I often felt tired. I was tired of small talk, and craving close friends. Ben had schoolwork looming over his head every waking hour. Not to mention, it was a bit of an MAJOR adjustment becoming a full time, stay-at-home-mom. So little adult interaction. So many tears. (Hers and mine.) So much work for seemingly no progress or results. This feeling of, what the heck am I doing? Not to mention, I was getting larger by the week. 

October, November, and December were hard. 

We were eager to see family. Eager to feel like we had a home. 

Many mornings (and afternoons, and evenings), I prayed in tears.
Sometimes I cried out loud. Sometimes they were silent.

But, the Lord heard. 

He heard every prayer, and collected every tear. 

He drew near to me on the hard days. He rejoiced with me on the good days. He comforted me in the loneliness. He brought me friends. He gave us grace in our marriage, and taught us more about each other and Himself in 6 months than we might have learned in 6 "normal" years. (Whatever "normal" means.) 

He asked me to trust Him to provide in every area... 

to provide the energy, strength, consistency & discipline I needed to be a good mom.  

to provide the connection, balance, and time we were trying to find for each other. 

to provide deeper friendships. 

to provide a job for Ben at the end of the school year.

and on and on. 

So I did. (Not perfectly, but Jesus never asked for perfect faith. I believe his exact words were, "If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,' and it would obey you!") (Luke 17:6)  

Well, we made it to December.

Our church gave out free Christmas trees. [This is how I know my husband loves me - he dragged it upstairs and set it up with me even though we were leaving town a week before Christmas and he'd have to drag it back downstairs to the trash 2 weeks later.] 

We went out for a celebratory brunch when the semester ended.

Ben passed his classes.
We were halfway done with the year, and headed home for the holidays. Hallelujah.

But something supernatural happened, ironically, while we were back in the midwest.

I started to miss "home." And by home, I mean Cambridge.
Cambridge had become home.
Looking back, I can see more clearly - not much had changed circumstantially by December. Our life was very much the same.

But, God's answer to my request for a changed circumstance was a changed heart.

While we were back in the midwest, I realized had gotten to know some other moms better than I'd thought, and I missed those friends. I missed our little apartment. I missed our neighbors.

Cambridge had become home.

So, when we began the 3 day & 8 state road trip back to Cambridge, I was excited.
Excited to be going home.
And that was supernatural.
That was the Lord. He knew that what I really wanted was to feel like we were home there. And he provided for my heart in a way I didn't even know to ask for.

Enter the winter. (Winter in Boston actually does last a really long time. It still felt like winter when we moved in May.) We were refreshed and ready to tackle second semester. A lot went down from January through May, but here's the bottom line:

God.is.faithful.

He provided everything He said He would and more.
More than we could have thought, asked for, or imagined. Just as he promised.
Ben and I learned how to connect with each other in refreshing ways.
I learned how not to be crabby about Ben's long hours with school work.
He strengthened us for the work that is parenting a toddler. [Holy cow. It is hard work, people.]
He strengthened my increasingly pregnant body to be able to climb 3 flights of stairs every day. [A definite feat.]
He helped us feel connected at our church.
He grew our relationship with our neighbors.
And, He again provided me with life long friends.

Fast forward to May. I wrote more about it here and here, but long story short, we decided to move back to Omaha. Ben took a job at Hudl, we rented a house, had a baby, and here we are.

One year later.
In a similar position as were one year ago, (albeit, closer to family), but starting over in a lot of other ways.
New things to be adjusted to.
New friends to be made.
New church to connect at.
New neighbors to know.
New job to figure out.
New baby added.
New season to be journeyed through.

Some people have asked - how's it going? Are you settling in?
I usually smile and nod, but the answer is more than that.
It's yes, and it's no.
Yes, we're embracing what's new, loving all the time with family, and settling in. Bits and pieces of life feel like home is here now. And I know the Lord will stitch my heart into the fabric of our new life that is in Omaha.

But part of my heart is in Cambridge. In Cambridge, where we ventured away from family. Where I became a stay at home mom. Where my baby learned to walk and talk and became a toddler. Where we had neighbors that became dear friends. Where other moms opened their hearts and lives to me so quickly and deeply. Where we had the most wonderful play group. Where it seemed like it'd never be home and then all of the sudden I was sad to leave.

And maybe part of it always will be. 

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