Portraits 2010

I decided for the first time to forgo portraits at the mall and attempt to get a few myself.

There are a few I love.

And then there are children who need to cooperate things that I need to work on.

K, age 8. (in a few weeks)

T, age 6

D, age 3

C, age 1

Now for a few favorites of my three year old character...I HAVE to find something to do with this guy and his faces!

I mean, what on earth is he trying to "sell" me here?

Is he telling me the fish was "this big"?

OH MY!

And this one? THIS is the "real" little guy when he just wants to go play and mommy keeps insisting that he must look at the camera!

And I love the IDEA of the following shots, but next time I am taking Daddy for help!

"K, you need to stand up, please"

"D, stop jumping, honey."

"UP HERE, C" (as I make all sorts of whooping noises)

"K, you have to get off of C."

"Oh, just sit down!"

"D! D! Look here!"

"Get closer"

"Oh jeez. Can someone get that stick from C?"

"Close...look here, D"

"Close again...look UP AT THE CAMERA, D!"

"Oh. Almost. T, I NEED you to SMILE. DONT STOP SMILING PLEASE!"

"I think this might be the best yet!"

"This is a close one too!"

"And now mommy's attempts are over..."

Now...who wants to attempt to take my WHOLE family for me?

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Tiny Talk Tuesday helps parents focus on one of the many joys of parenting - the funny things that our little ones (and sometimes big ones) have to say.

Join in the fun and record the Tiny Talk overheard in your house! Publish a post on your blog and link us to the laughs. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so more bloggers can join in the fun.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.
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My daughter, K (age 7), was at her Granny and Pop's house. Pop was wearing a shirt that matches her father's (his son).

K: You have the same shirt as my dad.
Pop: Yeah, your dad and I could be twins.
K: No. You can't be twins with my dad because he has hair.
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We read Esther, the bible story, the other night. We were discussing the 75 foot tall gallows that were built to hang Mordeci. My husband and I were considering aloud the ramifications of being dropped with a rope around your neck from that height. We pondered whether the body and head would remained attached and decided that they would not.

(yes, we are an interesting family, are we not?)

Well, my kids were listening so T (age 6) piped in to make sure we knew, "If I am ever hung, I want to have them (the gallows) 1 inch off the ground."
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Your Turn:

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Tiny Talk Tuesday helps parents focus on one of the many joys of parenting - the funny things that our little ones (and sometimes big ones) have to say.

Join in the fun and record the Tiny Talk overheard in your house! Publish a post on your blog and link us to the laughs. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so more bloggers can join in the fun.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.
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D (age 3) woke up before any of the other kids, which is rare. Still a bit bleary eyed, I went down to his room to check on him and he was looking at books...

D: (shows me the bunny at the end of his book) Look! It's T! I am patting it down to make it flat.
Mom: Oh.
D: (looks at the window) How many minutes until the sun comes up?
Mom: Umm...
D: I just can't see it.
Mom: Would you like me to come back in a little bit?
D: Yes. (and he went back to reading)

Now, the real kicker of the story is that it was 7:45 AM, so the sun was definitely up. It was a little bit overcast...maybe...but light was clearly coming in the sides of his shade, but they obviously do a great job blocking it! Woo Hoo!
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If you have been following Tiny Talk at all, then you know my son, D (age3) calls himself, "The Cat". Apparently they played, "Duck, Duck, Goose" in his preschool gym class. He asked the teacher if they could make the game, "Duck, Duck, Cat".

She went for it.

I love her!
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K (age 7): I am going to be a great teacher cause I can yell!

Just what kind of teacher must that child have? Oh...wait...
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Dad: Keep your eyes open when you cross the street.
T (age 6): But I have to blink.
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Grandma: D, you have to be nice to C (age 1).
D (age 3): Oh yeah. I forgot.
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Your Turn:

My Heart, Part III

So the fourth baby came and life had to change…Part I
My value is wrapped up in the wrong things…Part II

And today we begin…Part III

I’d like to begin this section by emphasizing that none of the activities I was involved in were wrong. I love to organize things, meet new folks, blog, scrapbook, plan lessons, lead studies, and a million other things. There are things I do well and there are things I just like to be a part of.

The problem wasn’t all of the things.

The problem was the value I placed on my performance in these areas. More accurately, the problem was the value that I let my performance place on me.

And I had to turn back to the root of the problem. ME. I had placed my worth and my value in a few of the wrong places. God was reminding me that my worth is defined by Him, not by what I measurably achieve according to the standards I set for myself.

I am a beloved child of the Heavenly King.

My value is not measurable, though it is so easy to fall in that trap.

So God has been working on my heart. Pulling me back to Him and reminding me to abide in Him. When I abide there, my life is naturally more purposed. I am not distracted by all of the things I “ought” to do so that I can keep up. He’s reminding me that it should be about Him, not about me.

And these days, I find myself more peaceful and more restful.

I let some of the demands slip away. I don’t need to perform. I don’t need to keep up appearances.

The house remains dirty.
The blog remains untouched, except on Tuesdays mostly.
Cards I wanted to send are forgotten.
Phone calls aren’t promptly returned.
The scrapbooking materials get stored in the corner of the basement.
Someone else steps up to organize playdates.
Another person takes on the task of coordinator.
I can't volunteer to help where I might like to.
I pass on nights out when I know I need more nights in.

And I attempt to rest in Him.

Right now, I can’t keep up with everything. Though, I suspect I need to keep up with some of the things…like the house. But some of the other things God will take care of using other folks. And in some of the areas, I often feel like I have failed or let someone down. I admit that I have had to offer up more than one apology.

But I pray for wisdom as I focus on my priorities. And I pray that I will abide in Him more deeply each day. I want it to be more about Him and less about me.

And He is working on it. He has been clearing out my heart of pride and self-reliance. He is teaching me to rely on Him. Because I admit that I can’t do it. My entire being fights it.

So in this season, I am reminding myself to rest in God alone. And, admitting that it doesn’t come naturally.

My Heart, Part II

(Part I is here)

Since high school, it has been pretty easy for me to balance so many “things” on my plate. Simply put, external performance came easy to me. It was easy to get good grades, keep in touch, keep organized, plan events, be involved in several groups and still remain sane.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to hear things like, “How do you do it all?”. But for me, I was just doing what came natural for me. It just wasn’t “hard” for me.

But, I am sure pride in all of these activities took root at some point, sometimes closer to the surface, but more often it hid itself deeper inside. You get used to being known as someone who “does so many things”. And we all like to be known for something, whatever it is.

I don’t hear those things anymore.

More often I hear excuses for my lack of competency.

You have four kids now, what do you expect?
That’s what so many kids will do to you.
Of course you can’t do everything you used to now. You just had a baby.

People aren’t trying to be hurtful. In fact, there are many times I NEED an honest reminder from a friend that I have to accept my limitations. It is the struggles in my own heart that cause these statements to feel hurtful at times.

It is just hard to suddenly feel incompetent. It’s tough to feel like you are failing in so many areas. I mean, who would see anything admirable in an overwhelmed, frustrated, “losing her mind” mother of four?

And don’t the majority of us want to feel valuable and admired? And too often, admiration is based on the achievement of measurable success or the sense of contribution to the bigger picture.

I dealt with some of this when I left the workplace. I lost my “teacher” identity and lost the feeling that I was making a difference in society in a large definable scale. I became “just mom”. But I got through that quickly as I made some other at home mom friends and began to busy myself in mom’s groups, playdates, and bible studies.

But all I did was shift from performing at one job to performing at another. I was still rooting much of my worth in my abilities to perform. Instead of performing at my teaching job, I was “performing” at my mom job. I took on various leadership positions, organized events, and began keeping up with everyone.

Of course, I had no idea how deeply my identity was rooted in the wrong places until recently. God has been peeling back some layers of the layers of pride and self-reliance. I have to admit, it has been emotional and tough to realize just how far the rabbit hole goes.

(continued again in the next post)

My Heart, Part I

Some of my struggles this last year are difficult to put in to words. I have been working on this post for weeks, yet I still don't feel like it captures my struggles completely. But it is a start. And the longer I wait to publish this, the more distant the emotions often seem.

So bear with me, but here goes.

A definite cause of my struggles, though not the root problem, has been the struggle to adjust to four children. This has been a tough adjustment for me, though admittedly, the first year of each child’s life contained a difficult period of adjustment.

Life has been redefined. Some things will change for a short time period and others will have to change for good. I have to accept my new limitations and try to rediscover what I need to do, what I can do, and what I want to do. And I have been finding it tough when my desires conflict with what I can or need to do.

I used to organize activities for groups, remember important dates like birthdays, keep up with blogging or scrapbooking, find information out for friends, and balance a million other activities and involvements. In the midst of that I was always good about keeping up with folks, checking in with them, and meeting new people.

I just can’t anymore.

Chances are that someone reading this has been the victim of this new “me”. I have probably forgotten their birthday or couldn’t follow through on my desire to get together sometime, stopped reading/commenting on their blog, or mentioned that I would call and never did.

This new version of me has seriously caused a shock to my system. It has been quite an adjustment to realize how much I can’t do any longer. I just don’t have the time, energy, or even the desire to keep up in all the areas that I used to.

So I have let a lot of things go.

Turns out, letting them go was the “easy” part of the adjustment because I couldn’t keep up with them anyway.

I have started to realize that the deeper problem is how much of my identity is wrapped up in my “performance”. I look around and see other moms with four or even MORE children who can still keep up with so many things that I can’t find a moment for or the energy to follow through with.

I know I shouldn’t compare, but I do.

Even more disastrous to my psyche is the comparison of the “new me” to the “former me”. That comparison is much harder to reason away. It is also the comparison lots of other people unknowingly make when they make comments about how this fourth child has really thrown me off. They are comparing “new me” to my former self, which is exactly what I do.

And, yes, OF COURSE things will change with another child. OF COURSE, no one expects me to keep up with everything anymore. I know that in my head, but my heart has some issues with understanding that.

And that is where some of my heart struggles begin to rear their ugly head.

(continued in the next post)

It's in the genes

We have always noticed that each of our kids looks like one of our parents. It was finally time to get a photo of them all together.

My mom with T, who interestingly enough shares her name as well.
My mother-in-law with K.
My father-in-law with D.
My father with C.

We have compared them to pictures when they were little too and it is amazing.

We birthed our parents. LOL!

First Day of School 2010

 

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Tiny Talk Tuesday helps parents focus on one of the many joys of parenting - the funny things that our little ones (and sometimes big ones) have to say.

Join in the fun and record the Tiny Talk overheard in your house! Publish a post on your blog and link us to the laughs. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so more bloggers can join in the fun.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.
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Whew...I have not sat down since Thursday night. The hubby and I had a lovely weekend without the kiddos for our anniversary, but I was busy preparing and today was rough recovering with exhausted kids.

So you understand if I am a bit scattered AND I didn't get to visit many TTT last week.
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But the tiny ones are talking, and here is what they said:

T (age 6) announced, "I know everyone is going to miss me," as we took her and D (age 3) home from a weekend at Grandma's.
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D (age 3) walks around singing his ABC's this week. He finally learned the full song at his preschool class. He came home and asked, "Want to hear me sing my ABC's?" Of course, I did. So he performed.

Then he let me know he would sing them for Poppy.
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We learned to "speak Australian" in school this week and K (age 7) has been having a ball. She has learned a ton of the words and makes me laugh as she uses them.

She walked into the kitchen and randomly told me, "I found some sunnies."

Of course, I wasn't in my "Australian" state of mind, so I was a bit confused.

"You know mom. Australian."

Oh yeah...sunglasses.
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K (age 7) told me last Wednesday, "This is the most boringest day ever."

ahhh...sweet words to this homeschooling mommy's ears...sigh...
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D (age 3) continues to call himself, "The Cat". All weekend long he was "the cat" at his grandparents.

We ALL refer to him as "The Cat" now. On our weekend without the kids, Eric and I asked each other, "I wonder how the cat is doing." When I called my parents, I asked, "How are the cat and the bunny (T)?"

Quite a funny little thing that has caught on in this house. I'll miss this phase of "The Cat".
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And speaking of "The Cat"...

Mom: What was your favorite thing at school today, D?"
D (age 3): I meowed.
Mom: You meowed?
D: Uh-huh.
Mom: You meowed at Mrs. Karyn?
D: Yep. I said, "Meow".

And THAT is The Cat's favorite part of his school day.
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Your Turn:

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Tiny Talk Tuesday helps parents focus on one of the many joys of parenting - the funny things that our little ones (and sometimes big ones) have to say.

Join in the fun and record the Tiny Talk overheard in your house! Publish a post on your blog and link us to the laughs. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so more bloggers can join in the fun.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.
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K, age 7, told her father, "If I let all of the hot air inside of me out right now, I'd burn my hair off."

*Nope, there was no context to that comment, but lots of laughter followed.
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We went to the MD RennFest this weekend. While watching the magic show, D (age 3) was enjoying himself immensely!

At one point, everyone's clapping had died down when D let out a big, "AYYYEEE-YAAAH" while he clapped.

The magician cracked up and looked at him. He said, "Apparently all the cool kids yell Ayyee-yaaah".

*No clue where that outburst came from either. Then D went back to digging in the dirt more than watching the show.
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Your Turn:

Groupon

Hey...just a quick note for everyone out there...

Today's Groupon is a $10 8x8 hardcover book from Shutterfly! Think Christmas. Think Birthdays.

Go for it right here. Gonna buy mine today for sure. Great deal!

OK...time to return to Labor Day vacationing!