Saturday, August 20, 2016

Jeremy has been wondering about the new Sky Zone trampoline park in town.  For an adventure he made a plan for us to take SJ for an hour to check it out!  Aaron was in a war machine tournament, so Jessica and the kids joined us for kicks and giggles (literally).  The kids had a blast.  Poor Satie had to play in the toddler zone in order for us to have all three of them in one place, but she didn’t seem to mind.  She had a blast.

Here we are waiting for 10 minutes until our scheduled hour of play. It’s impossible to get somebody to smile for the camera.

Here’s the pre-play excitement.  You can feel it in the air…

sky zone 1

It was hilarious watching her just run like a crazy person across all of the trampolines, only stopping periodically to make sure no one was having more (or at least a different kind of) fun than she was having.

sky zone 2

We slowed down after about 45 minutes and found a chair to claim while watching the action.

I think we’ll be going there again…

Thursday, August 18, 2016

I mentioned that Jeremy’s spent quite a bit of time this week at the house to facilitate the installation of new appliances.  One of the men Lowe’s sent to the house recognized the address because he actually built the front porch and the stone fireplace for the previous owner.  He happened to have this pic on his phone.  Isn’t that CRAZY??

Here’s the house we bought by comparison….

I just think the renovation is really remarkable.

Selah Juney rode with Mommy to school this morning because Daddy went into work super early so that he could be back at the house for the Lowe’s people. I just couldn’t stand the cuteness in the back seat.

She was in a super silly mood.  Here she is messing with me by speaking so softly you cannot make out what in the world she is saying.

quiet

After school, we took a nap and then spent some time on the front porch because it was absolutely beautiful outside.  The light was catching her hair so perfectly, I just had to take a picture.

And then I noticed that little hand on her hip. She’s just surveying her land….waiting for Buddy the Cat to make a late afternoon appearance.

We made an impromptu plan for dinner with Grammy and Grandpa – soups, sandwiches, and salads at Panera before ice-cream.  Selah June was a fan of the plan.  Here she is telling us exactly what she wants.

grandpa’s house

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

She is getting sooooo communicative. While in the car, she tells me to put my seatbelt on, to go to Grandpa’s house, to get her French fries, to look at the motorcycle, to take her to play with Satie, and so on and so on. She kicks my seat with her “stinky feet.” She tells me about her boogers and says they’re “yummy” to gross me out.

And we talk about our day.  I ask if she’s ready to go see the kids, and she talks about the park. We cover what was packed for lunch and whether she ate all of it.  And she thinks through what we’re going to do after we wake up from nap time.

It’s really hard to be content with the short mornings preparing for our day and the afternoon naps that bleed into moody evenings.  I know that some of her best hours are being spent at St. Luke’s, and it makes me sad.  It’s a blessing that she really enjoys it.  And the schedule has been much more manageable.  But the guilt is still there.  Jeremy’s feeling a bit of the work/life balance crunch this week because Lowe’s has been coming to the house for days running to install appliances. It’s hard to claim a full day’s work when you’re only on site for 5 hours of the day.

Grammy’s doing okay.  The recovery is taking a long time.  She is tired of doing the same thing every single day. And Dad is wearing out.  She was able to get to 90 degrees at physical therapy, but it wasn’t pretty.

One day at a time…

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

I got her to wear some shoes that I bought her a while ago because I thought they were so super cute.  By the end of the day, they had given her some little emerging blisters.  Great day at school, but a little testy with Daddy at home.  Mommy had a dinner with department chairs and was gone most of the evening.  She didn’t particularly care for the change in routine.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Jeremy realized just how much SJ gets excited about going to play at Satie’s house and that she has been mostly taking naps while there because of our new schedule.  So he really wanted to let her play for a while after her nap with Satie and Sebastian before scooping her up to bring her home.  Jess was generous enough to feed our whole clan even though her night already included feeding Dan.

The girls had a ton of fun playing together, even though little Satie wasn’t feeling so great.

Satie and Selah June

August 14, 2016

Today we took communion at church.  This was Wade’s first Lord’s Supper at East Brent, and he integrated it into the morning service instead of the evening service.  He also completely changed his delivery style to foster a time of reflection. After giving the congregation a few moments of silence, he sang a song to further focus us on the significance of the ritual among Christians.

It was interesting to me that my quiet time, alone in my head, focused on prayer, was completely blank.  It was as if somebody had hit the pause button on my brain and not changed out the soundtrack. There was far too little time set aside in the service for me to ever “catch up,” but it left me a little unnerved…enough to occupy my thinking this afternoon and evening.

And the longer I chewed on it, the more and more I became terribly aware that my word – the one that sums up where I need to be and am not anywhere near – surrendered.

I have serious control issues. I think that I spin my wheels every single day trying to capture each of SJ’s giggles and new phrases, her cuteness and her developmental milestones because I can’t control them.  They are fleeting, and I know it. I think about how things could be better if only…  If only she would be nicer to me right now, if only she had less screen time, if only she threw fewer tantrums, if only I didn’t work… I see all the bad food we feed her, and I heap loads of guilt on myself for not putting up more of a nutritional fight. I cringe when people don’t call her by her name, and I chastise myself for being so petty.

And then there’s my house… I only see the mess. I see the dishes in the sink, the dirt on the floor, the magazine pages on the porch, the mildew in the closet, and the hair in the shower. I see the easy things that could’ve been done on the way from point A to point B, and I harbor resentment that Jeremy doesn’t see it too.

And then there’s my day job (the one for which I get paid)… I start off with a list, and then I lose control of the steering wheel.  I end up exhausted by distractions and frustrated at my inability to do a good job on the things I ultimately see as a priority. I get mad when people don’t listen to me and do what I tell them to do.

I get mad when I don’t have a handle on what and when we’re eating dinner.  I get mad when dinner is “ruined” by life. I get mad when people don’t pay attention to me, and I get mad when time together isn’t all I think it might have been.

They more out of control I feel, the more judgmental I become.  In the worst of mental spaces, I clean until I can find words appropriate to say to others.

I think more than anything I’m learning how little I actually can control and how unproductive and often mean it is for me to constantly try. What would it look like for me to worry with one thing at a time?  What would it look like for me to care about others, accepting them exactly as they are, loving them regardless of what it does for me, and trusting that everything is okay even if it is completely out of my control. What would it look like for me to face every negative thought with awareness and immediately autocorrect towards genuine humility? I don’t want Selah June to see her mother as critical and guilt-stricken. I don’t want her to think that my love for her is conditional. She doesn’t have to want to be with me or want to hug me or say nice things to me for me to love her. That is there regardless of her behavior.

And I don’t want to spin my wheels living out the life I think others expect me to live only to miss the life right here under my nose. Look at this!  One week into school, and she’s rocking it like a champ!

We had such a good day yesterday. We found our awesome new Selah June car. We took it out even at the park and played in it all around the parking lot.

We kept it in the backseat next to us on the drive home and held onto it so it wouldn’t fall down.

Then we got it out at home and drove it all around the living room. It gave us an awesome drive in experience for watching Daniel Tiger, Chuggington, Curious George, and Paw Patrol.

It has a cup holder so we can take our milk with us anywhere we go, and we can even drive it while eating (Mommy’s) snacks!!

This morning we woke up excited to jump back behind the wheel.  She’s got a thing for this toy. It’s definitely a huge favorite right now.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

I realized in the car today that my love runs far deeper than it did just two years ago.  That sounds horrible to admit, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t absolutely true.  After a typical morning of Selah June shunning me for her father’s affection, crying desperately after a toy in a store, and stymieing my every effort to take a picture of her cuteness, I found myself mesmerized by her eyes.  I couldn’t stop looking into them.  I’d turn and face forward in my passenger seat only to turn back around two seconds later.

She’s used to me staring at her, and she often waves me away.  But I realize every day how precious time is with her.  This week the pains of that finitude were particularly poignant.

She started “school” this week.  She’s not even two years old.  I’m a monster.

No amount of “processing” helps to rationalize that gut feeling away. And the constant tug-of-war between my personal and my professional lives, the external guilt and sadness over the situation, and the stupefying speed of our daily routines all come together to make me too volatile for my liking. One minute I’m feeling so blessed, so undeserving, and so thankful for the beautiful life I’ve been given.  The next minute I’m feeling lonely and tired and sad by the harsh reality of being a parent who works full-time outside of the home.  I didn’t grow up with this model of parenting.  I don’t know what’s to be expected of me and us as a family.  I don’t know whether it will all turn out okay….and I’m not aiming for okay!  I’m aiming for the best life I can possibly give my family. Everything I’ve ever been told is that not spending every waking hour with your child, not having perfect dinner each night around the table, not engaging each other constantly with learning opportunities or interpersonal intimacy is unfortunate.  It’s a sad loss.

So I think it’s accurate to say I feel loss and I feel lost.

That doesn’t mean I’m not filled with joy and awe every day.  I am. It’s just really tender and confusing for me at the moment.

All I know is that this journey has been terribly hard and unbelievably worth it. I love Selah Juney, and I love the life Jeremy and I have together with her. There will be time for reflection and communication and rest. It won’t always feel this undone. Each day will continue to be a blessing.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Selah Juney and I had a snack after school.  I pulled out the grapes for her and a delicious red plum for me. Of course she wouldn’t let me have a grape, but she totally wanted to try my plum.

“Ion’t like it…”

And, yes, it sounds like it looks. It’s her new reaction to new foods.  Just happened this week.  She’s had a funny scrunchy face that she’s made when eating new foods, but now she has the words to express herself pretty precisely.

When Daddy got home, she wanted to go outside and blow bubbles.  She wants to be the one who blows the bubbles, but she can’t seem to get the technique down quite right.  She pretty much insists on putting right against her lips and then blowing.  The bubble liquid takes like soap, so it just makes her intensely frustrated — fun and not fun at the same time.

Here’s my yard looking magical with bubble accents.

Dinner was yummy yummy meatloaf, but Mommy distracted Selah Juney with a little stirofoam container of granola from our CSA basket for the week.  She DOES like this awesome trail mix with pretzels, and dried fruit, and m&m’s, and little crispies.

We couldn’t really get her to focus on the rest of her dinner, but she did a pretty good job of sitting at the table for a while.

We snuggled after dinner, watching Daniel Tiger in Mommy and Daddy’s big bed. I could spend my life enjoying little kid snuggled.  Daniel Tiger would get old, but I think it would be worth it.

There are a few things we’ve done that haven’t made their way into posts.  Before I get too far away from them, I want to take a quick moment to archive them here.

Friday, August 5, 2016

I enjoyed another day of leave, and we played with stickers!!!!  We LOVE stickers.  And we think everything should be covered in them. When they lose their sticky, it makes us really upset.

We met Satie and Sebastian at Grammy and Grandpa’s house to swim in the pool.  This marks the first time Grammy was able to hold a grandbaby in her lap post-surgery. She and Selah Juney sang Bible songs, while Satie sat close by and vicariously listened while reading.

Precious…

Snickelfrit somehow convinced Grandpa to get in the hammock with her. (It didn’t take too much convincing.)

She patted his belly for a while….which really cracked her up.

Then she decided she needed a little sleep.

Just kidding!  Stinky feet!!!!

Monday, August 8, 2016

Selah June had her very first day of school today (daycare, but I hate that word as much as everybody else). She is going to St. Luke’s pre-school Monday through Friday , and she can be there anytime between 8:00am and 2:00pm.  Those are extended hours.  Yes, pause and reflect for just a moment….  Those are EXTENDED hours.  How is a girl to work these days making an honest living??  j/k n/r

Jeremy was much more nervous yesterday and today than I was.  I grappled with fear a few weeks ago and had a spiritual reckoning about it.  Once I knew that it really was in God’s hands and that He loves every member of my family, it was easy to let go (a bit). Jeremy had the fun experience of packing her into the car to make the drop-off before work, taking her into an unfamiliar place and hoping she wouldn’t be too upset, and driving away knowing that he had chosen work over spending time with her.  It’s NOT fun.  I wouldn’t recommend it.

I had the joy of picking her up and hearing about her day.  You’d be surprised how much a 1-year-old can tell you about their adventures.  She had great fun with all the kids.  She got to go into two different playrooms. She sang “head, shoulders, knees, and toes.” And she played in the park. She wanted to come home and play with her colors, but she quickly agreed that we should take a nap first.

Just a blur. Always in motion.  ALWAYS But I like that this one captures her joy. We got a little carried away with our colors…   Does that say trouble or what? I love this one!Amid the devastation…