Day 3 - Happy anniversary?

Cockeysville, Maryland

Yesterday was our 9th anniversary! And, true to form, it was unusual. June 2 has fallen during our "month off" as college teachers for every year of our marriage. Our first anniversary was spent changing a flat tire on a road in Michigan while the Amish drove by in their trusty buggy. Every other year has followed suit.

This year was no different, but actually worse. We would have celebrated a mere flat tire I think.

The year has been an especially intense one, with the baby twins, a huge job search, my own part-time work, and OH - John working long, long hours getting finishing school and landing a job. Much to be thankful for, but possibly the most challenging year that either of us have ever lived.

All was to become easier this summer, when we left on a two month road trip vacation last weekend. We hoped and planned in spare moments for relaxed time together as a family... So we left, and the fun lasted, oh, an hour. Starting with the boys no longer sleeping well (in the car in particular), and continuing with an exhausting house hunt in a new city, our first week out of town has been quite rotten.

Enter June 2. The boys kept me up nearly all night, again. The morning was an all out scramble for the 5th day in a row to get out the door and see rental options. Tag team, feed, fuss, drive, run into a house, back out, discuss, repeat. No spare minutes for the gift basket he thought about having delivered, the champagne I was going to buy, or even a card. Just surviving.

And yet somehow it turned sweet. Abby made us a card. That had a wedding cake with a big "MD" on it for both Mom and Dad and Maryland. It said "You are both nice. You met nine years ago! On this day you got married. Happy Annivinsery. Love, Abby"

Our hotel was serving free dinner. The first cookout of the season, so free burgers, kebabs, hot dogs, all the fixings and cake for dessert. For free. When we felt like it. Right outside our front door.

We took a walk afterwards. Through the parking lots next door. Rachel pushed her brothers around, and we talked in baby free peace, discussing all our housing options and moving towards a decision. You have to understand that such peace was a near miracle after the week we've been having.

The kids all went to bed calmly. An hour earlier than all week. Silence descended on all four of them at once, and we were free to again talk through our week behind the door in the lighted bathroom (hotel, remember!), then fall asleep without the sound of anyone crying. (side note - which is not to say that the boys slept well for the rest of the night!)

At the end of the day, we were together, and most importantly at peace and happy together. A card from a six year old, a hotel dinner, a walk through a commercial district, and four kids sleeping in our room. We felt loved and celebrated in the oddest and yet best ways possible.

Thank you God for finding just the ways to "happ-ify" our day, for helping us through this year, and for taking us into another one.

(But maybe we could just try "normal" next year?!)

Knowing when to do (a lot!) less. One of Mom's best lessons.

My mom was a hard core homemaker. (Not to mention her mom, who majored in Home Ec at a prestigious California school back in the day. Imagine!) She cooked dinner every night, clipped coupons and made detailed shopping lists, breastfed, baked from scratch, sewed her kids clothes, used cloth diapers, shopped ONLY on sale, you get the picture. Not only did she do all that, but she taught each of us kids to do the same - brother included! And we all enjoy it all to this day...

Today though, as I sat feeding my own babies, I realized that one the lessons I've thought of most that I learned from my mother flies in the face of ALL that I just listed. I doubt if either of us knew just how profound of a lesson it would be at the time.

Mom was also sick for a long time, fighting cancer. Her last summer, when I was 16, I was gone for most of the summer on a mission trip. While I was gone, my spendthrift homemaking mother went in her wheelchair to a higher end department store and bought me two entire outfits at full price. You have to understand that such a thing had NEVER been done before or since in our family. She knew I desperately needed some new clothes, and she knew that she could do almost nothing about it. So she gave up so many of her "principles" and blew me away. She had all these great skills and yet had the wisdom and courage to not use them. (Or maybe she didn't, she just had no choice?) Whatever the motive, she might just have saved my sanity by her example of doing less.

If Mom had never been sick, never been forced to do less, I'd probably never have known that it's OK to give up all those admirable attributes of thrift, creativity, and self-sufficiency that she had. She hired help to clean the house. She let my brother cook entire family meals in the microwave. She didn't shop around for deals, just used the ones at one store. I wonder if she felt like a failure when she did those things. I probably would have.

But today the memory of her "doing less" sets me free every day of my currently crazy life to serve frozen pizza for dinner, hire cleaners and babysitters, sew only every three years, buy stuff not even just at regular price but OVERPRICED at Walgreens, to breastfeed my babies while supplementing with plenty of formula.

Thanks Mom.

A note to myself and any other wonderful mom that stops by here - let's be less than we can be today. Our kids will thank us. Both today, and a long time from now.

Just a couple of quick pics...

Pictured below, four of the brightest spots in my days. Too much going on to even start to write... The boys turned 3 months on Monday, wow! The girls are celebrating half-birthdays this month too, six and a half and three and a half. Time is flying!

(Their first smiling together picture, today - I just adore them in their overalls... Jimmy on the left, Danny on the right. Not quite Danny's best smile, but Jimmy's ultra-mega-open-mouth makes up for it I guess.)

"Blessed is this life and I'm going to celebrate being alive!"

Stealing my lyrics from a hand-me-down song from my sister (credit to Brett Dennen)...

I had plans to indulge in a few minutes of reflecting on turning 30! today. Turns out I already reflected on the treadmill today, I celebrated with my four kiddos around the dinner table, and now I'm ready to indulge in a few extra minutes of sleep instead of writing :).

As I thought back over the past ten years, I have little to say except that it has been blessed. I have spent every year of those ten with my dearest friend/husband, I've given birth to four healthy children, I've finished grad school and launched a career (both out of the house and of course at home with all those kids!), I've visited 40-something states, I have sent my husband out on an interview for a college faculty job, I've kept some sort of conversation with God going (or rather He with me!) and I still sweat with the best of them at the gym. Any or all of those might sound like drudgery to you, but to me they are big accomplishments and causes for celebration!!!

It's a road I've rarely traveled alone and all those who have come along side of me should join in the celebration too.

So here's to celebrating being alive - for thirty whole years, and hopefully another sixty or so great ones yet to go! A couple of extraordinarily great moments below...

Two quick quotes

"If you can't be content with what you have, you'll never be content with what you want." (author unknown)

That one stopped me, because there is plenty that I want.

Completely unrelated, this is one that my sister passed along to me last month - "All things in moderation, even moderation." Learned this morning that that was from Julia Child. I guess being a middle of the road people pleaser isn't always the best. Gotta let loose and live a little sometimes! (Which is what sisters are good for bringing out of you, I guess.)

Love you Danielle! The twins are two and a half months old now!

Whispers. Worries. Worship. REPEAT.

Whispers. Worries. Worship. REPEAT.

That pretty much describes how my life of trying to believe God. I'd like to think that I had some great increase in faith over the last year, watching my baby boys be formed and born perfect. But no, not really, I'm still just a fairly faithless human being! I think all I've gained is a signpost to look at as I continue to bumble along through life. Here's how it went this time.

With these babies, I heard supernatural whispers that God is good and gives good. A glimpse in my mind of me holding a healthy baby boy in my arms. A friend who bravely shared a whisper she heard that my babies would be healthy, even a redemption and gift in place of the baby we lost years ago. I read in a psalm just weeks before the babies were born - "God makes his people strong, God gives his people peace." It stuck with me, though I wasn't sure if it was because of me or God.

Following all of those whispers, I worried and doubted. Am I hearing from God, or my own made up thoughts? Am I reading into the words, or are they divinely inspired for ME? God doesn't have to do good, will he in this situation? Will the good that he does fit my definition of good? And in the meantime, what do I say to him?

And then, in spite of my worries, God gave me something perfect and good, two healthy baby boys, born by a strengthened and at peace mama. The whispers were true. For at least a day, it was easy to go to church and worship God, (something I experienced very clearly when Rachel was born too). Standing there holding a tangible answer to many prayers and promises, I clutched my baby and sang "You are worthy of all our praises" and had no question marks attached.

Truth is, my faith in God is still pretty much pathetically puny, and always will be. But I've gained two little signposts (aka Daniel and James!) to look at that will point me back to the fact that God is GOOD and that I've experienced that.

They'll be coming with me, literally never far from my side as we start the cycle over again, looking for a new job and a new city!

God, help me listen for your whispers and give me faith to believe them. When I worry, remind me of your past goodness - especially through my kids. And when each adventure ends, let me never forget to say boldly say "thank you", full of confidence in you, if only for a fleeting moment of bigger-than-usual faith.

Takin' things one twin at a time...

Danny and Jimmy, Thanksgiving Day

Lesson learned during week 1 of parenting twins:

Take care of the one who is crying loudest COMPLETELY before moving on to the next. Do not shortcut the feeding or swaddling, or you will soon have not one but two hungry and unwrapped babies howling.

And having two hands does not equal having the ability to care for two fussy babies at once!

As a chronic multi-tasker, my babies in general have always slowed me down and made me focus a bit more on the task at hand. That much more with these little guys.

And it's not just the babies that do best when they get their full 20 minutes of glorious individual attention, but also dad, big sisters, aunt, even me!

Take a few minutes for the task at hand, ignore the background fussing of all other demands, and I can do at least one thing well AND move on to the next. Multi-task, multiply the problems and the stress and leave possibly nothing done well...

It's a lesson I will be re-learning every day for a long time I think!