Redemptions

I didn't pick a word for 2015.

When January rolled around, I was still reeling.

From my brother dying.  From my marriage nearly falling apart.  From lost friendships and loneliness and the unfairness of it all.

Had I picked a word on January 1st, it wouldn't have been an accurate depiction of what was to come in the next year.

I had no idea.

That grief is like a rolling tide.  

That I'd feel Aaron in every breath I take and that missing him and loving him and being his little sister, well, those things never end.

That marriages can start again.

That you can wipe away the things of the past and move forward.  That continuing on isn't settling or giving in or resigning to mediocrity, but courageous and life giving and, holy cow, it's real love.

I still miss my friends and have realized that that part is just going to take more time.

We are nearly 7 months into 2015 and I have my word now.

Redemption.

And really, I think it'll just be my life word.

Because when I see where I am, when I look over at Andrew, when I see Josie becoming a lady, when I see Gabe's whole face light up with that big grin, it really is the only thing that comes to mind.

We have been redeemed.

Saved from error.

Each of us on our own and all of us together.

It's the story of our family.

And 5 years ago today, Gabe's redemption story crossed with the rest of ours and, man, I'm so glad it did.

This past week, as Andrew and I celebrated our anniversary on the beach, I couldn't help but go back to the day we got the call about Gabe.  We were doing the same thing, celebrating our anniversary at the beach.  With Josie and David and Amber and Olivia.

We were having the best week and I didn't want to leave.  I wanted to stay and be comfortable and stick to the original plan.  Which is very reflective of how I lived most of my life.

And then:

Gabe.

Well, Javon, then Von, then Baby V, then Gabriel, then Gabe.

Andrew has made quite a few rash decisions that didn't turn out well, but this one?  Telling me I was nuts and throwing all of our stuff in an expensive rental car and driving 8 hours through the night with our tired 3 year old to get back to Georgia and go pick up the boy that would become our son?

Well, he got that one right.

I remember the way he smelled that night.  His grey skin and seeing his scars for the first time.  I remember those deep eyes and fat wrists and, even if it took me awhile to let my guard down, falling in love.

Gabe.  The one I didn't see coming.

Redeemed.

Happy Gotcha Day Sweet Gabriel Gordon.

the rolls!  i can't deal.

Twisting and Turning and Coming Alive

It took me 11 days to get bored after Josie started school.

So much of my days had been spent on her education.  Planning, preparing, executing.  We ended our homeschool journey so abruptly that I had no idea what to expect.  I joked that I was looking forward to eating midday ice cream on the couch while enjoying my new found unscheduled time, but in reality I knew I was going to need to find a place for that focus to go.

On day 12 I told Andrew I wanted to find a job.

Since financially I don't need to work, I decided to be super picky.  I didn't want to put Gabe in daycare.  I wanted to be home for Summer Break.  I wanted to use the skills I have and feel good about my work.

Andrew and I talked and talked (it's our new thing, we talk.  A lot.) and finally, over some delicious Spaghetti Factory pasta, he said, "let's just make you your own boss."

Which is something I had never thought of and another reason I'm glad I have him around.

Three days later my company was well on it's way to being official.

The website is almost done and I just filed our Articles of Incorporation.  Within the week I had my first two clients and two more scheduled to interview next week.  I'm offering a pretty big variety of virtual services; administrative, bookkeeping, social media management.  All things I love doing and, bonus, can do from our new home office.

My goal right now is 5 clients, at about 25 hours a week.  When Gabe starts school in the Fall, I'm hoping to take it full time.  In the next year, I'd like to be busy enough to have to bring on help.

I'm excited.

As soon as the idea was out of Andrew's mouth I felt myself start to come alive.  Parts of my brain I forgot existed perked up.  I love that Andrew and I can do it together and I love that I can still be with the kids when I need to be.

Every part of my life feels very on purpose.

My parenting, my job, my marriage.  None of it is on autopilot and I love it.  I love the intentional focus it's taking to take each step forward.  I love that out of some of my darkest days there's a bright ray of hope and newness shining in.

I'm twisting and turning and stretching and it feels like growth.

And because I can't post without some pictures, here's a random assortment of our past couple weeks.

 the sunsets here are out of this world.  

i ran out in a questionable state to snag this one the other day.

we celebrated our boy at the loudest pizza place this side of the mississippi.

if you're in town, organ stop pizza is a must do. 

daily bike rides with my road warrior to check out the bird life.

please note them all exiting the vicinity. 

it shouldn't need to be a goal to eat, but eating breakfast is on my list for 2015. 

neighborhood kids after school and all weekend.

i love the steady stream of coming and going.  our neighborhood is such a perfect fit for us. 

my grandma (and bailey) have landed in arizona and we are soaking her up.

we bike to our dates now.  it feels like living in a vacation ad.

this one was this past week and our town is super bowl central.  

there were bands on every corner and the streets were packed.   

does your town have a cupcake atm?

don't be fooled, i'm not a cupcake girl.  i had yogurt from the shop next door. 

another favorite breakfast.

flip fried eggs with whatever i can find in the fridge. 

 someone tell me he'll always look at me like this.

Reminders

Some things I want to remember:

The way his feet dangle at the table.  Not even close to touching the floor.

How putting a band aid on teeny, tiny scrapes makes me a master physician.

The way the sun plays in her hair and how her voice goes up 5 octaves when she plays with her dolls.

Also, that she's still not too old to play with dolls.

His love for music.  How loud it is, but also how sweet it is.  Especially when each song ends with, "and I love my Mom!"

Her tiny pink speakers that are constantly playing Taylor Swift.  Her voice as she sings just like me, a little off key, most of the words wrong, but with passion and a little bit of hip shaking.

Grace Flows Down

 

This Summer was anything but typical.

We traded our usual back porch parties, downtown outings, and laid back schedules for a cross country move that had us living 1900 miles apart for a couple of months.  In the midst of it, I could've sworn we were away from Andrew for at least 4 months.  Seriously.

But my day planner has yet to lie to me, and it's telling me it was exactly 8 weeks.  Two months.  That sounds so doable, but y'all, it was hard.

I mean, not at first.

The first few weeks I rocked out single parenthood.

We kept up with all the Summer Fun and I was nearly on time for most of it.  I was determined to make the sepearation as easy on the kids as possible.  I had shirts spritzed with Andrew's colongne ready and waiting for the nights they missed him too much to sleep.  I had activities planned and we all got along.

But somewhere around week five, I started to feel my equilibrium shift. 

I missed him.

And in that, I wasn't able to carry their emotion and mine as gracefully.

They quit believing me when I told them it was almost over and I quit believing we could make it.  I felt pulled and pushed and weak in the knees.  Our fun days switched to watching a boat load of TV and all of our attitudes started to falter.

The Grace I'd worked so hard to build up was running out.

The last couple of weeks weren't pretty.

I felt lost and had no clue how to regain myself.  I was short, snappy, and a real joy kill.

 I'm not an overly emotional woman.

I don't process things in a way that requires an immediate response.  I like to mull things over, toss them around, before I feel them. 

But this past Monday, as we drove on the bumpiest, narrowest, curviest, road through the Superstition Mountains, I felt all the feelings.  The excitement, the fear, the missing.  I felt the newness and promise and completeness of this adventure. 

A short 180 degree turn and I could see all of us.  The four roads that have unbelievibly merged together into this family that I can't live without.

We twisted through the mountains and all I saw was dry and sharp.

And out of nowhere, almost a mirage, water.

New and fresh and life giving.

And that's what I needed.  To remember that our harsh deserts can be inturupted by springs of Life when we least expect them.  The grace we need to give is given, flowing down.  Man, I needed to see that water in the desert.

We've been here for ten days and I'm already feeling like a new person. 

Everywhere I look is another reminder that where we are is where we are meant to be.  It's good.  Really, really good.

And beautiful.

Really, really beautiful.

Pictures from our Family Fun Day at Canyon Lake and along the Salt River

Evolving

I've been thinking a lot about my mothering and the way it's changed over the years. 

Maybe it's my impending temporary single motherhood or our current book club book (Glitter and Glue. It was a good read) or perhaps it's the corresponding eyewitness account of my babies becoming people. I'm certain partial credit goes to Gabe's heart condition and realizing that time isn't guaranteed.  No matter what has brought it on, I'm noticing that I've entered into a new land.

I used to be a mom that obsessed over birthday party themes and made brownies out of beans. Now I lean more towards store bought cupcakes and tossing a carrot stick to balance the fourth jelly sandwich this week. I still try to substitute whole wheat flour into my baked goods which usually results in dense muffins, but overall I've chilled out.

As a homeschooler, I notice this evolution even more. 

Quite a few of my friends have kids starting preschool and I catch glimpses of the mom I used to be. Worried about memorizing letters and numbers, sure they'll fall behind without constant structured lessons.

Sometimes I worry that Gabe is getting shortchanged by my more laid back methods. But then I watch him construct an entire world out of sticks and rocks and realize I should be more concerned that Josie missed those moments than the other way around.

I guess I'm conducting my own personal experiment to see which school method produces the most advanced child. My money is on neither effecting much one way or the other. 

I used to feel justified in giving parenting advice. 

I mean, hello, look at my amazing kids!

Then somewhere over the years I realized that all the mothers have amazing kids and, what do you know, we are all doing the best we can with what we've got.

I'm quiet now on the how tos of motherhood and weary of anyone claiming to have any actual answers. Breastfeed or formula, homeschool or public school, socks or no socks. None of it makes me stand on my platform and shout the best way. 

I enjoy watching other moms do their thing. Sometimes I take note and try their ways at home. Other times I make mental notes on what I don't want to do. But either way, I learn from each and every mom I encounter.

My babies have turned into little people.  

I guess that's the goal of this whole thing.  To have them need us less and less.  I like to think that I'm flexible and moldable enough to see where I need to lay off or bunker down and then follow through with it.  Each year is bringing brand new obstacles.

Motherhood seems to be the one thing in my life where the longer I do it, the less I feel like an expert.  And I'm totally OK with that.

99% of the time, my kids are playing with boxes.  At least they are enjoying this part of moving.

The Other Side of Mothering

This year being a Mom has felt different. 

It wasn't the pancakes in the morning, hot dinner at night that I'd grown accustomed to. This job that has been near effortless for me suddenly required infinite reserves of effort. 

It took the form of gut wrenching agony, worry, fear, no shower for days. It was holding my crying son while willing my own eyes to hold back the tears. It was missing one child to care for the other. Trusting my village to protect them when I couldn't. I was pulled, pushed, bent and molded.

Carrying the title of Mom was hard this year. 

But through it all, I ended each day with a deep feeling if victory. 

I'd survived!

I'd made it through the puke and the tears and all the doctor jargon that I barely understood. 

Motherhood, and my views of it, have shifted forever. 

And now we are getting ready to move across the country. 

I'm leaving my Village that has helped me in the moments I needed it most and I can already feel my ability to Mother being stretched again. Stress trying to creep in and make me forget all I've learned through the darkness of the few months. That I am strong and able and made for this.  That this, this insanely hard job of molding little people, is my greatest adventure.

I'm not big into Mother's Day.

I don't feel like I need a day off or to be pampered (although the survey the kids filled out where Gabe answered every question with "hot dog" may be my favorite thing ever).  But I do like to think of it as a jumping off point for the next year.  I get 365 days this year to be the very best Mother I can be.  I'm ready for a new adventure and more than just a little excited about how I'll be changed between now and the next Mother's Day.

These kids?

They have made this life more than I ever dreamed of.

Happy Mother's Day everyone.  Make this year your best yet.

A Day In My Life

Recently, a friend of a friend asked if she could come hang out for a day to see how I fit everything into the day.

I had to laugh, because I most definitely do not fit everything into the day.

Many, many days I lay down at night wishing I had read to the kids more, spent more time outside, folded more laundry.

Just kidding, I never wish I'd folded more laundry.  But the rest stands true.  I think it's a gross fallacy that any of us can fit all the things into one 24 hour period.  I do believe with my whole self that we make time for what we really want to do.  Some days I just don't want to read to the kids.  I can make a million excuses for why I wasn't able to fit it in, but the reality is if I wanted to, I would have.

A few months ago, after being particularly hard on myself for feeling like I hadn't accomplished all that needed to be done that day, I had a bit of an epiphany.

Not all the things need to get done every day.

It's ok to push items on today's to do list to tomorrow's.

The world won't end if I decide to forgo cleaning a surface or checking off every planned assignment for school and instead choose to swing with the kids.  Or binge watch House of Cards instead of getting a good night's rest.  I don't have nearly as much to do with the balance of the universe as I used to believe I do.

I ditched the strict schedule for our home and adapted more of a rhythm instead.  I do weekly to do lists and not daily, knowing that a busy Monday Tuesday is usually followed by a calmer Wednesday Thursday.  It works for us and a relaxed me is much easier to live with, which is good since three people have to live with me.

All that to put this little disclaimer on this post:

We have no normal days.  I kept track of my never ending activity on a day that we were staying home all day since those are the least chaotic.  This Day In The Life was on a Tuesday, but there's no way next Tuesday will look like this.

Here we go:

7:08 - YAWN.  My alarm is set for 7:20, but I always wake up by 7:09.  Weird.  I scroll Facebook while I try to get my eyeballs to stay open and send up a silent prayer that the kids will stay asleep a bit longer.

7:15 - No such luck.  Gabe's sitting at the top of the stairs.  His first greeting to his precious Mother he hasn't seen in 11 hours: "I'm Hunnnngrrrryyy!  What's for dinner?"  

7:20 - Coffee.  Nothing else can happen until there is coffee.

7:25 - Toss an orange at Gabe, put on Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, read my book (currently reading Orphan Train)

7:50 - Josie's up.  She's a snuggler in the morning so I like to soak that up.  Once she's sick of me smothering her, I toss her an orange and go back to reading.

8:15 - Emma's here (Emma's our one year old cousin that I babysit during the week).  My day has now officially started.

8:30 - Breakfast time.  I hate eating breakfast so this meal is always a challenge for me.  Today it's frozen waffles and fruit.  Kids eat at the table while I grab a quick shower.

9:00 - Can you hear that?  It's the school bell.  I go lay Emma down for a little nap and we get started.  First thing we need to do is hang up our "I Spy" birdhouse.  I'm a sucker for this kind of gimmick.  Hope a little bird family moves in!

9:10 - Josie reads to me for 20 minutes.  She's reading me Curious George this week.

9:30 - We all mosey up the stairs to the school room.  The next couple hours are for school.  Math, handwriting, spelling, english, and journaling today.  Some days we do science or history or art.  Most days she writes cards to imaginary friends.  There are usually raised voices, sometimes there are tears.  Emma joins us around 10.

* A lot of you have asked what Gabe does while we do school since I'm putting off formal school for him.  I'd say about 3 days a week he wants to do "work" so he will trace letters, cut paper, or do a sensory tub.  Today he wanted to play Legos and that's totally cool with me.  He is allowed to play quietly, but if he gets loud he has to take the toys to his room and play.  It took a good 6 months of training to get him to understand, but now he's excellent during school.

10:50 -  I finally need nourishment and the kids need a break.  We switch it up between smoothies and juicing.  Today it's smoothies and pretzels and riding bikes outside.

11:15 - Kids ride bikes while I read a couple chapters from our read aloud.  We just started The Magic Treehouse series and they are liking it.  It used to drive me nuts if they didn't just sit still while I read.  I've chilled out now and, as long as they aren't talking, I keep reading.  I ask Josie questions every page or two to make sure she's listening.

11:45 - Alright.  My voice hurts and they are done being confined.  Go!  Be free children!  It's very Spring like here this week so they will play outside until lunch.  Most days our neighbor comes down for a bit to play.  I usually go clean something while they play.  Today I'm sweeping and wiping down bathrooms.  Emma is my sidekick.

12:45 - Lunch.  9 times out of 10 Josie wants a jelly sandwich and Gabe wants a cheese sandwich.  Easy and Josie can make them both.  Add some fruit to make me feel like that's well balanced.

1:15 - Everyday, around 1, I get hit with exhaustion.  I need to be alone to rest if I'm going to survive.  Time to ruin everyone's fun by enforcing Quiet Time.

1:25 - Emma goes to the school room for her nap, Gabe to his.  They are both pretty reliable nappers lately.  Josie doesn't nap, but she is very well trained that she has to stay in her room until the little ones get up.  She didn't finish her handwriting so she gets to finish that before she plays.  She is currently in love with Taylor Swift so she listens to music like a tiny teenager.

Three days a week, I have to work during nap time (I do admin work for a local non-profit).  Today is not a work day though so I cozy up with an episode of Law and Order that I've seen 800 times and read blogs.

2:48 - My Minions are up.  And hungry.  Always hungry.  We grab more oranges, cheese sticks, and cereal bars and head back outside.  Livi comes down to play and I go in to fold laundry and straighten up from the day.

4:10 - Amber walks down and we hang out.  "Hang out" usually entails sitting on the porch talking and passing babies back and forth.

4:45 - Andrew gets home.  Earlier then usual, I'll take it.  We all sit outside for a bit then head to our respective homes.

5:00 - Start dinner.  Kids are antsy so I plop them in front of the TV.

5:20 - Emma's Mom picks her up.

5:30 - Dinner.  Tonight it's gourmet spaghetti dinner.  AKA: noodles and jarred sauce.  I wish I was a creative cook.  Or had a family that would eat a creative cook's food.  But I'm not and I don't so we eat jarred sauce and noodles and broccoli and bread.  We all sit at the table together for dinner.  We have since we first got Josie and it's a tradition I love.  Andrew catches me up on Waffle Happenings and reads us the News of the Weird.  Kids finish before us and go play leaving us to sit in peace.

6:00 - We eat fast.  Everyone is usually done eating within like 15 minutes.  Is that strange?  I get up and clean the kitchen while Andrew plays with the kids.  Or sits in the room while they play.  Whatever it is, I'm not in there so it's like a mini vacation for me.

6:20 - Some nights we have ballet or Girl Scouts or church, but tonight, nothing.  So while a lot of people make fun of us for it, this feels like a perfectly acceptable time to put the kids to bed.  Mind you, we have a ridiculously long bedtime routine so the whole "good night" part won't happen for quite a bit.

6:25 - Kids get on PJ's, go potty, and brush their teeth.  There are dolls that need their PJs and toys that have to get put away and pretty much every night someone cries about something but by 6:40, Andrew is reading Gabe a bedtime story and I've corralled Josie in to her bed for her story.

7:00 - Gabe is alseep.  Josie gets 30 minutes to read in bed before I make her shut her light off.  80% of the time I forget to go tell her for at least an hour.  Andrew and I are engrossed in House of Cards right now so as soon as we get our snacks together we meet on the couch to watch a couple episodes.

8:20 - Remember to tell Josie to go to sleep.  She has to show me allllll the books she marked with "cool stuff" that I just have to see.  I try really, really hard, but this point of the night I almost always end up raising my voice at her.  Girlfriend likes to push the limits to see how long I'll stand there while she shows me the same thing I've looked at the last 38 nights.

11:00 - What?  How did that happen?  The hours after bedtime are like the socks that disappear in the drier.  Time for bed.  Gotta get up and do it again tomorrow.