I have always said the best way to get my house clean is to invite people over. If I know someone is coming, historically, I clean in a frenzy and make it perfect because I want people to believe I am some sort of superior housekeeper and that it always looks like this. And, for a long time, I went around feeling somewhat inadequate in the housekeeping department because every house I went to was spotless and I believed these houses remained in a permanent state of cleanliness that I had been woefully unable to achieve in my own. Not so, reader. Not so.

About a year ago, a friend invited my son and me to her house for a play date and when we got there I was struck by how messy her house was. I don’t mean that to sound rude. When I say it was messy, I mean that there were scattered toys, junk mail was on the table in a careless heap, dishes were in and around the sink, and I could tell the counter top had not been freshly wiped. When I say it was messy, I mean that it was exactly like my  house most of the time. It was normal. It was just their home the way they actually live in it. I couldn’t fathom the kind of confidence she must have had, to be able to invite people over in such a relaxed way, with no fresh smell of Lemon Clorox greeting friends at the door. When I got home I just felt so blessedly normal.

So I don’t clean my house for play dates anymore either. And, as a result, I have people over a lot more. Which means I have more fun. I no longer see the state of my home as a barrier to hospitality. You know what? We have a messy desk. There is pureed pumpkin stuck to the kitchen floor. There are whisker hairs on the bathroom sink and I can see a sock peeking out from under a toy peeking out from under the couch. It is what it is and what it is, is normal. I bet you have a junk mail pile too. So why stuff it in a drawer or cabinet before I come over? So I will think you are the type of magical person who has no paper pile? I am not relaxed around those magical people. I am relaxed around people who make me feel normal.

I worked a charity tour of homes once when I was in high school and the house I was helping give tours in was one of those that you can very briefly describe and everyone in town knows which house it is. (Oh, the big stone house on Bennett that always has a limo out front? I know that house!) It literally had an elevator in it. And one of the bedrooms had leopard print carpet. One of the bathrooms had a mural of the home owner painted on the tile. One of the bedrooms had a ceiling raised several feet to accommodate a piece of furniture. Anyway. It was that kind of house. Just before the tour, the home owner (as gorgeous and strange as her house) showed me around and gave me the spiel. When we entered one of the bathrooms, she said, “Ooops! I forgot to move these!” and hid the toothbrushes in a cabinet. I thought that was so funny–to hide your toothbrushes–to make it look like a house in a magazine spread that no one really lives in. And the truth is, I have tried and tried to imagine someone relaxing there and I can’t. It’s just too perfect.

Do I want to create an environment that people want to tour and photograph or one where people want to live and breathe and have a good time? Well, I might put the gnarly, twisted toothpaste tube in the bathroom cabinet, but our toothbrushes are out for the world to see.

First of all, my goodness, thank you so much for such a wonderful response to Tuesday’s post. I don’t think this blog has ever enjoyed so many facebook shares or so many views in a two-day period. Thank you. I so desperately want moms to know that they are doing motherhood right just by doing it at all, by following their instincts and loving their own children. It can flat out break your heart for the world to first tell you that motherhood is the most important job in the world, then suggest that you are doing it wrong. Most likely, you’re not doing it wrong.

You know, I remember the first time I ever dealt with mother-guilt. I was pregnant with my son and I was criticized for drinking a Dr. Pepper. (For those of you who don’t know, when you are suffering from pregnancy fatigue and your job is to listen to first-graders sound out words and it’s late afternoon, Dr. Pepper is like the nectar of the gods and the only thing that could remotely keep a woman awake.) An older woman scolded me for feeding my unborn baby caffeine and successfully made me feel awful. Even though my doctor had said it was okay to have caffeine in reasonable amounts. I have dealt with the guilt that is just constantly heaped on mothers many times since, but that was the first.

Anyway, I did not anticipate so much response to Tuesday’s post, but since it’s there I feel I should explain just a little bit more and maybe temper it a bit. First off, I am not criticizing any parenting methods. I think you should do whatever works for your own family whether it comes from a book, a friend, or your own intuition. But I have a huge problem with the labeling that goes on. I heard a friend say once, “I could never Ferberize my babies!” What she meant is that she wouldn’t use “the Ferber method” of letting her babies “cry it out” to train them to fall asleep on their own. A commenter here mentioned Dr. Sears and that his book made her realize it was okay to nurse her baby to sleep. Okay, so we have two very different methods out there. Which one is right? The answer is that neither one is universally right! One of them or a combination of both of them or neither of them may be what’s right for your own family. I rock my babies to sleep and nurse them to sleep. I did it with Benjamin and I do it with June Elizabeth. I love rocking and nursing them to sleep. But when Benjamin was between seven and eight months old he started waking up in the night and I would have to nurse him back to sleep. As time went on, he woke more and more frequently every night to the point that at twelve months he was waking about every two to three hours! So, just after his first birthday, we let him cry it out one night. Every twenty minutes I would go in and comfort him, then leave again. It took two and a half hours! It was awful. But it worked. The next night it only took 30 minutes. The following night, only 7. So, yeah, we used both methods. Maybe BabyWise works for your family from the getgo or maybe, like me, you want to rock your babies to sleep and nurse on demand.  It’s your baby. It’s your choice. You are a good mom. You are not a “Babywise” mom or a “Ferber mom” or an “Attachment mom.” You are just a good mom. That’s my point.

The other thing I want to say is that, while books are great, parenting isn’t something you can learn by heart out of a book. Every family is different. Every child in a family is different. No one book could possibly address every nuance of raising every child. You can read a post I wrote about my experience with that here. You can get a lot of good tips, but eventually your own intuition and experiences will define your parenting. And what I want you to know, what I need to know, is that that’s not only okay, it’s exactly right. You are doing it right.

You want to know what I’m sick to death of? Parenting debates. Parenting books. Parenting “styles.” Every day there is some article or picture or facebook status or recommended book about “attachment” or some other form of parenting, some new fad or other. And every time I want to say, “Why does it have to be a style? Can’t it just be called parenting?” Before I get very high on my soap box, I should lay down my credentials: I do not have a PhD in neuroscience, have never  written a parenting book, and am not a certified parent educator, pediatrician, or any other kind of expert. My credentials are that I am a parent, I have two parents and two parents-in-law, am married to a parent, and know a lot of parents. Those are my only credentials.

I am the coordinator of a local MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers) group and we have a diverse bunch of mamas in our number. They are all wonderful. I mean, wonderful. There is one young woman, pretty new to our group, who has a lot of questions about attachment parenting, baby-led weaning, introducing solids, elimination communication, etc. She must be reading parenting books and websites all the time. She doesn’t have to do that. She’s already a good mom. She was practically born that way. That’s my problem with all of these parenting trends and styles. You don’t need a method to follow. You are already a good mom. If you fail at one system, if you never pick up a parenting book in life, you will still be fine. Your children will be fine. That’s what I honestly believe.

I breastfed my son until he was sixteen months old. It was important to me to get to breastfeed and I had a good support system with my mom and my husband so I was successful at getting through the hard part and getting into the really enjoyable part of it. My sister breastfed her son for two months. When she went back to work at six weeks, it was incredibly hard for her to keep it up. She had to pump in a bathroom stall at lunch, her one break during the work day. It was gross and it was hard. Her husband was a genuine abuser who dragged her postpartum emotional state through the mud. She lost way too much weight from stress. She loved her little boy like crazy, eventually left the abuser and became an incredible single mama. How high on the priority ladder do you think breastfeeding was? I would put my son next to hers and dare you to tell me which one was breastfed and which one was formula fed. There’s no way you could tell. Which of us is the better mom? If you answer that question at all I’ll slap you.

One time I saw someone with her baby strapped to her in a wrap. I thought, “That looks handy!” So when someone was getting rid of a similar wrap, I took the hand-me-down and have used it happily. It’s wonderfully convenient even though it’s sometimes really hot. I didn’t know when I accepted the wrap that what I was doing was called “baby wearing” and that it is part of a method called “attachment parenting.” I just thought it was handy. I have since seen articles and interviews with followers of this method that praise the virtues of baby wearing and look right down their noses at moms who instead of wearing their babies, put them in what they call “containers.” Since I’ve been accused of being a baby wearer, rightfully so, I should probably now tell you that if my baby falls asleep in the car seat and I have stuff to do, I have no problem carrying her inside the house in it and setting it down in a cool place until she wakes up. Today I wore her in the wrap for the entire time that I ran errands. But this afternoon she slept in the car seat carrier for an hour. Gosh, I hope she doesn’t grow up unable to trust me and feel safe. We also have a swing and a bouncy seat and a stroller. I’ve actually heard people criticize strollers as “containers” to hold a baby when the mom should be holding the baby. Give me and my back a break.

We have a bassinet in our bedroom for the baby and a crib in the kids’ room down the hall. She’s almost eight weeks old so she’s still sleeping in the bassinet at this stage. I’m not ready to tackle the concept of my three-year-old and my infant sleeping in the same room yet. I know there are a whole slew of sleep methods out there–how you schedule your kids’ sleep, recommended bedtimes, where is ideal for kids to sleep, co-sleeping, etc, etc, etc. Here’s what flies in our house. Our son’s bed time is technically 8:00pm. If he’s in bed by 8:10 we call it a win. If he’s asleep by 8:30 we call it a miracle. He’s almost always asleep by 9:00. I know you’re all shocked and horrified. He goes to bed in his toddler bed, with a lamp on, and after we read stories and pray, my husband has to sweep all the monsters out of the room (my son has a great imagination). The baby usually is asleep enough that I put her in the bassinet around 10:00. Last night she would fall asleep and I would put her down and then ten minutes later she would be awake again over and over and over again. So I finally put her down on her tummy (I know, I know! But we have a movement sensor monitor on the bassinet so get over it) at 11:45pm. She slept until 7:00 this morning. I call that a win. I rolled out of my deep sleep around 6:00am and discovered that my son was sleeping between me and my husband. I don’t know when he came to our bed. I didn’t care. I just rolled over and kept sleeping, too tired to carry him back to his own bed. Sometimes when the baby gets up to eat at 5:00am, I nurse her lying next to me in my bed so I don’t have to wake up too much. Then she stays there until after I get up in the morning because I’m too tired to stand up and take her back to the bassinet. So, it’s kind of like what some people call “co-sleeping.” But I wouldn’t say that we intentionally co-sleep. I would just say that we sleep. Any way we can. Which ever way makes everyone sleep the longest time at a stretch is the way I prefer.

I read an article the other day in which a woman said she would consider putting your kids in front of a television to be child abuse. That kind of made me mad because when I worked in a public school I saw kids who had actually been subjected to child abuse. Television is not child abuse. Call it lazy parenting if you want to, but it’s not abuse. My son is watching Kipper The Dog right now because the baby is asleep and I want him to be quiet. It’s literally 109 degrees in my town today so we’re not going outside to play.We’re staying in and watching a show until she wakes up. He also watches gentle cartoons like that pretty much every morning because I am not a morning person. I throw a bunch of grapes or strawberries on a plate with a slice of bread, shake up a sippy cup of chocolate milk, turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and go back to bed for another half hour at least. Then, if he’s still watching, I take a shower and am ready to be a pretty good mom. If you call that child abuse, we can’t be friends.

We used disposable diapers on my son until he was potty trained earlier this year. For my daughter, we are using cloth diapers. We really like the cloth diapers and we feel like we’re saving money by using them. But we still use disposables at night. I don’t feel like a better mom for using cloth diapers. I just feel like I’m saving some money. I couldn’t care less what anyone else puts on their babies’ butts. That’s a really crappy debate.

I pray for my kids. Not because someone gave me the book The Power Of A Praying Mom but because sometimes parenting is terrifying. I pray for them because I want so much more for them than I could ever, ever give them. I pray for them because I’m exhausted and scared sometimes and I just want to hand it all over to a higher power.

I read to my kids because I like books and I want them to like them too. I don’t have a set number of words I read to them in a day. I just read to them.

I take my son outside to play but not when it’s 109 degrees outside. When it’s 109 degrees outside we don’t even go out for snow cones because we would melt in the line. I’m a weeny about the hot days.

My three-year-old is a picky eater so I kind of rely on Flintstone vitamins to supplement his nutrients. I know the experts say that if you only offer them what you’re eating, they will eventually eat it. But the experts are dead wrong. He will flat out starve himself. Thankfully, he likes fruit and vegetables but he eats a lot of chicken nuggets for protein. At least, I hope there’s some protein in there. And he won’t drink milk without Nesquick powder in it. When I worked in an elementary school there was this one mom who always made these beautiful bento lunches for her kid. I kind of wanted to be like her but really I just get the food on the plate and try to get him to eat it. No fancy preparations.

If I were ever to write a parenting book (which I never ever would), I would call my style “winging it.” Because that’s what I think most everybody is doing anyway. And most of us are doing fine. I honestly think that if you are not an abuser, you are a good parent and the best parent for your own kids. So just relax. You don’t have to follow a method or a trend. You can do whatever you want, whatever makes things go smoothly in your house. It doesn’t have to be this kind of parenting or that. It can just be parenting. And, at least you’re doing it.

Wingin’ it

(from Alvin-Ho: Allergic To Dead Bodies, Funerals, And Other Fatal Circumstances by Lenore Look)

It’s wonderful to have a three-year-old because he’s old enough to talk and start to explain what is happening in his mind, but young enough to be unashamedly sweet and loving, young enough to tell me what he wants and what he loves without being embarrassed. This quote from Alvin-Ho reminded me of my boy.

We have many little nicknames for him, lots of terms of endearment that just float around our house. But I’m starting to see that he prefers different ones for different times. The other day he was hurt. I picked him up in my lap and stroked his hair. “Are you okay?” I said. “Yeah, I’m okay. Can you call me Baby Bear and  rock me?”  What a precious moment. How sweet to be able to meet his needs exactly because he tells me exactly what he needs.

Another day recently he said, “Mom! I goed in the potty like such a big boy now you say I’m SOOOOO proud, Benjamin!” Sometimes when he has, ahem, a big potty accomplishment he’ll ask for a few M&Ms or mini marshmallows because we used these rewards when we first trained him. But that day he just wanted some praise, some words of affirmation, just to hear me say that I was proud of him. It was the only reward he wanted.

I can’t help but think, what would it be like if we grown-ups weren’t too cool to be vulnerable like that? What would happen if we just asked for what we need or want instead of just hoping that our friends and spouses and moms will read our minds? Sometimes people even offer to help or to comfort and we say, “Oh, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me.” We forget that we might also be causing them to miss some joy in getting to help or to hug. I’m not suggesting that we all become just like three-year-olds or whine for what we want, expecting someone to cater to our every whim. But we could stand to be more vulnerable.

I’m learning this, nine-months pregnant with a broken toe and a lot to do. I’m learning to say, “Yes! I do need someone to pick up my son for me so I can rest for a few hours.” And, “Sure–I’d love to have some help with my laundry or my sewing project.”  ”Oh, a drink from Sonic would be lovely if it’s on your way. Thank you!”  Even, “Honey, I’m having a rough day. Do you think you could play with my hair while we talk?”

“If you can’t start a fire, you could freeze to death,” added Scooter. “If you do start a fire, you could burn to death.”

(from Alvin Ho: Allergic To Camping, Hiking, And Other Natural Disasters by Lenore Look)

I am exactly the kind of person to worry about every possibility. If my husband stays up too late working, I worry that he’ll be an unsafe driver the next morning on the way to work and I’ll be left alone to raise our babies. If he doesn’t stay up late to finish a proposal in time for a deadline, I worry that he’ll somehow lose his job and we’ll end up penniless on welfare. If my left foot swells more than my right, I worry that I could have some sort of life-threatening blood clot in my leg. But if I go to the hospital in the evening to check on this, I worry that I will pay an extreme amount of money just to find out that it’s nothing. I have always been this way. I’ve actually gotten so much better.

But it’s helpful at times to laugh out loud at someone like Alvin Ho, someone like me. Because, really, there isn’t any sense in worrying everything to death. I can’t believe how much research went into our selection of car seat when I was pregnant with Benjamin. It seemed like the world’s most important dilemma–to make sure he had the seat that would keep him safe. But what keeps him safe from a tornado, a fire, a freak fall, an illness? At some point you have to let go. I can’t protect myself, my husband, and my children from every scenario. Why waste the days we have on worry? You either get struck by lightning or you don’t.

I admire someone who is humble about his accomplishments, but confident of his ability.

Yes, I’ve hopped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon, but my support for him has less to do with his unprecedented rise to stardom and more with respect to his hard working attitude and recognizable humility. The quote above is something I hold close to my heart – and I really believe that unchecked hubris or pride can be a fatal flaw in any rising star. So let’s talk about Jeremy Lin – the only Asian-American Harvard Economics grad in the NBA who became an instant star almost overnight by a stroke of a lucky opportunity on the Knicks after everyone had underestimated him. That alone makes him a good story. But even more than that, he is admirable for his devotion for religion, humility about his career-high games, and constant praise for his team. He’s making all the other players look bad in comparison (*cough* Kobe Bryant).

He is an inspiration, because he tells us that we can break stereotypes. If you’re that smart Asian kid, if you have enough passion and talent, why can’t you play bball and join the NBA? Conversely, if you’re a tall African-American kid who likes math, why can’t you go to Harvard? Changing the perceptions and stereotypes attached to your race or ethnicity is an admirable thing – taking the first step and being resilient is difficult, but players like Lin gives us hope.

After 5 straight games, we can’t expect him to be superhuman and make every basket. Physically, it’s impossible to be superstar forever. But even if he loses, even if he misses, we should not lose respect for a player like him. He’ll always continue to work hard and be thankful for the opportunities given to him, and that is something we can all learn from. To me, that’s what makes an all-star.

The value of doing nothing? In our world that is unheard of. Sometimes I feel like a hamster in a wheel–running to exhaustion all day long with nothing really to show for it at the end. I pick up toys and vacuum up the crumbs of snacks, work on the budget, read stories to my son while he sits on his little toddler toilet, change my nephew’s diapers, search for the toddler tunes cd that is always wandering off, fix lunch, work on sewing for my baby girl, pick up more toys and vacuum up more crumbs, run the dishwasher, do a load or two of laundry, stare forlornly at the to-do lists, answer e-mails, make the grocery list, clip coupons, try to get up the energy to drag the boys to the store with me so we can eat something more nutritious, clean up after accidents, etc. And at the end of the day, the house is still a wreck but I am exhausted.

Sometimes, it seems good to me just to take a page out of Winnie the Pooh’s book and realize the value of doing nothing. The other day, I just sat and did nothing while my son colored with abandon all over the wall of the dining room. I would have stopped him if it had been the couch, or if he had been using a marker. But, he was having fun and he didn’t need me to actively participate in this fun, and Mr. Clean (God bless the people who make Mr. Clean) makes a magic eraser that I believe is truly magical. So I didn’t stop my son even though I saw him coloring on the walls (and it’s not the first time I’ve made this decision either!), choosing instead to do nothing. To not bother. And it was a good moment. He was proud of his art work, pleased with his quiet coloring time and I felt much more rested.

I read in a mommy book the other night a woman’s account of her college roommate slamming a book closed after a long night of study and exclaiming,  ”C+ works! Goodnight!” I am a first-born who has always believed I am supposed to make an A+ in everything. I can remember my dad’s disappointment when I made a 99 on an Indian long-house project in the seventh grade that he and I stayed up for two long nights finishing. It was beautiful. The teacher actually asked if she could keep it as an example to show future classes. But I forgot one tiny requirement on the instructions (a title for the project visible on the outside of it) and slapped on my project a hastily thought-out title scribbled on paper torn from my notebook and attached with scotch tape. So I lost one point out of a hundred. When my dad began to be angry with my teacher, it was terrible to have to tell him that the instructions were clear and I was the one who didn’t follow them. I felt like I let him down after he helped me so much with the project. He was pretty upset with me over that one point. (To be fair to my dad, though, he knew I could make a 100 on that project. When, in high school, I got in over my head in an honors physics class and brought home my only ever C grade, he didn’t say a word. He knew I had tried my best and just did not understand the math in that class.)

Anyway, I always expected to be an A+ homemaker. I thought I would be an overachiever as a mom. But the philosophy I’ve adopted over the last couple of years is this: A passing grade works. I will never get any awards for good housekeeping. But if my children are happy and I’m not losing my mind, who really cares if my house is barely passing? I don’t imagine anyone is actually grading me anyway. I don’t want to live in a trash heap and I do feel better if the house is clean. But for me, it’s enough if I can just go to bed with the toys off the floor and the dishes out of the sink. If I can get the laundry actually folded and put away, I feel like that takes me from a C to a B and I’m okay with that. I don’t imagine that Martha Stewart is going to show up to my house anytime soon with white gloves on to discover, in horror, that I haven’t dusted in an age. I’m sure our reputation will survive if someone drops by for an unexpected visit before I’ve erased my son’s artwork from the white walls.

Sometimes a passing grade is enough. Never underestimate the value of just Doing Nothing, of not bothering.

THINKING you can just ain’t enough!

(from The Little Blue Engine by Shel Silverstein)

Today is my second day of potty training my son using a three-day method. Today has been okay. Yesterday was dreadful. Yesterday we went through ten pair of toddler underwear before the day was done. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more tired than I did at the end of the day yesterday. Not even when he was a newborn.

So far the method seems to be going by the book (or rather, by the e-book  3DayPottyTraining.com) but I have a few minor complaints about the book. Number 1: The book says that though you will undeniably feel frustration, you are never to show this frustration, keeping at all times a positive attitude toward the process. Well, pregnancy hormones made this a nearly impossible charge. I found myself fighting back tears MANY times yesterday, from frustration, from fatigue, from my house smelling like urine… But I think it was worth it. He seems to be catching on here in day two, so maybe one day of hell is worth not giving up a year (or more!) to the roller coaster of potty training. Of course, this positive spin is completely dependent on the method working in the end, but my hopes are high.

Number 2: The book says don’t take your eyes off the child at all. All day long. Even if you have to go to the bathroom yourself. Well sure, I don’t want to miss the chance to catch him mid-accident and teach him to run to the bathroom, but the baby girl in my womb is kicking at my bladder constantly and my son gets so tired of trailing me to the bathroom every time I need to go. He’s very happy to play on his own and usually does so for lengthy bits of time. He was pretty tired of me being in his business all day long yesterday, and forcing him to be in mine. Also, he usually entertains himself while I take my daily shower. To make sure we weren’t separated for the length of a shower yesterday, I got up at 6:30am to take one and prepare myself for the day. 6:30 AM!!! My son usually gets up around 7:15, I give him a cup of yogurt and a granola bar or toaster waffle for breakfast and go back to bed until about 8:30. Like I said, he entertains himself. 6:30 is a dark and ungodly hour and it came back to bite me in the mid afternoon when I could barely hold my eyes open. It’s hard to keep your eyes focused on a toddler peeing time-bomb when your eyes want so badly to just close. Today I skipped the morning shower and just waited until a time when I was pretty sure he wouldn’t need to use the potty, planted him on a stool at the bathroom sink with some splash toys, and took a shower in the afternoon while he played. Much better.

I read a quote on Pinterest the other day that said, “The length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are.” When I called my husband yesterday before lunch and said, “This is terrible! It’s not working at all and I’m going crazy!” his response was, “Well, it’s only been four hours.” The length of four hours depends on if you are the one potty training a nearly three-year-old boy or not. I reminded him of this. He became much more sympathetic and showed up a little while later with a mocha frappaccino from Starbucks. God bless the man.

Last night, once the laundry was in the dryer (we had to have all those underwear ready for another day) and my baby was asleep (without a diaper), I  collapsed into a heap of utter exhaustion and prayed for the grace, patience, resolve, and strength for another day. I couldn’t honestly imagine doing it all again. But as I lay there, I thought of how lucky I am just to have him. I thought of all the things we go through as mamas: pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, diapers, sleep training, potty training, nightmare soothing, cleaning up messes.  It’s hard work, but some people would give anything they have to get to do these things. I know women who struggle with infertility, with miscarriage after miscarriage, with losing their children too soon.

It’s hard work. If today hadn’t been much better than yesterday (so far), I probably wouldn’t be writing this (because I couldn’t take my eyes off of him yesterday. Today he is actually napping!). Again, it’s hard work. It wasn’t enough just to decide to do it and pluck up my resolve, to say, “I think I can.” I needed more than that. I needed prayer. I needed that extra caffeine from Starbucks. I needed to be allowed to cry at some point. But at the end of a truly bad day as a mom, I’m still so grateful just to be one. I’m so glad I get to be his mama.

“He can’t now,” Laura answered, a little saucily. “And he seems to like you.” (from Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

This one made me smile. I’m glad my husband still seems to like me despite my greatly increased waistline. The bigger challenge for me is to still like myself (I mean, my physical self). It’s hard at times to accept a body that changes, even harder at a time when the public ideal is either skeletal thinness or body builder type muscle. It leaves the rest of us working incredibly hard to maintain something that at least looks okay when fully clothed.

I remember going to a museum a few years ago and seeing plaster castes of Renaissance era Greek statues–beautiful nudes of full-figured women lounging or standing. I couldn’t see any of their ribs, nor did a single one have defined abdominal muscles, but they were beautiful. At the time they were sculpted, they were the ideal of womanly beauty. In fact, many of them were the artists’ depictions of goddesses. It occurred to me then that the modern ideal of womanly beauty would look almost grotesque on a sculpture of that style. But that doesn’t keep me from yearning for a thinner, leaner figure.

I struggle to see the beauty in what my body has become–a heck of a lot closer to a Greek statue woman than a modern swimsuit model. I read a question the other day that made me laugh and sigh: If you could go back to your childhood or teenage years what is one thing you would do? My answer: I would wear shorts every warm day and appreciate my darling, thin, gorgeous legs. But I actually can’t go back to the summers when I had darling legs and wasted them, so what do I do with where I am now?

I take an honest look and force myself to be appreciative. My body has been good to me. It has done some incredible work. It grew up. It carried a baby (quite a good-sized one) and endured surgery to give him a safe entrance into the world. It provided his nourishment for the better part of his first two years. Now it is carrying another baby. It will endure another surgery in a few months. It is nurturing and growing an entire human who is growing at a remarkable rate. Once again it will produce milk to sustain the life of my child. My body is tired, but it keeps on giving to the baby. It is preparing for the next phase even as it does the good work of the phase we are in. It has a scar. It has more padding than it used to. But it’s a good body. It’s the body of a woman, not the body of a child. I’m actually pretty proud of it…even if I can’t wear shorts with much confidence anymore.

(Seriously, if you are sixteen years old, WEAR SHORTS every day that is warm enough!!!)

I didn’t understand that being the best mom possible would mean learning the truth that there is no such thing as a perfect mom.

I didn’t understand that it wouldn’t be my job to teach him patience; it would be my job to learn it by being his mom.

I didn’t understand that trains are more important than schedules, that dinosaurs will never be extinct in the minds of little boys, or that bacon is the real magic word.

I didn’t understand that the first tucking-in doesn’t always take. I didn’t know that sometimes you just have to say goodnight five more times with kisses and prayers.

It seems I rarely understand anything for myself and Benjamin is always and forever explaining things to me.

This has been such a struggle for me lately–untangling my thoughts from their ugly snarls when other people are misbehaving. It is hard. My sister is going through a really hard time with a person who is just making her life more and more miserable with every interaction. For me, to find it in my heart to forgive the person who hurts my loved ones is so much harder than forgiving the person who hurts me.

But as much as I despise this person (and I really, really do), I hate more the way it feels to be filled with hatred. I want my thoughts to smooth out, to untangle and be peaceful and calm. It was hard for Laura Ingalls and it’s hard for me–it’s probably hard for everybody–but I will decide to think about things that are uplifting, pure, noble, and good no matter what others may do or say.

I am, once again, infected by dangerously high piles of laundry. It’s gotten so bad that I can no longer ignore it. We went camping a week and a half ago and I just put the laundry from that trip in the washing machine. That’s how behind I am. We went to Ft. Worth for a wedding three weeks ago and the dresses I took and didn’t wear are still hanging in the garment bag I packed them in. I really don’t know how I let it get this bad except that I honestly never knew a person could feel this tired. The next person who asks me to do anything, be they child or adult, can expect to see some tears. I am completely overwhelmed. And while I am working my way through the laundry piles, I can hear the children making toy piles elsewhere in the house. So piles are everywhere and it seems I never get anywhere.

But, Anne of Green Gables is a good reminder for me today. I would still rather be Kristi of this home and this family with piles of work and a baby in my womb sapping my energy than Kristi of any other place with nothing to do and no one to need me.

Plus my husband just brought me a Dr. Pepper (God bless that man) and I just successfully bribed my two-year-old with a caramel apple sucker so he is picking up the toy pile.

This was such a great little book–thanks to Hilary for the recommendation. Does anyone else have any books you’d like to see quoted here? I’m going to the library tomorrow so leave your favorites in the comments below.

Humility is key to any growth. A wise man said, “The humble make progress.” Is there any time in my life where I have made progress without it. No. I can’t think of any.

The phrase, “The end of myself is the beginning of the Grace of God,” comes to me this evening. I have been pondering it awhile. You see, I have to come to the end of myself to make progress it seems. I have to run out of my ideas of what is right or wrong and my theories. But understanding is not enough. I don’t have the power to change some things in my life. Addiction is one clear example of how powerless we really are. If you haven’t experienced addiction, good for you. But those who have can testify that they really are powerless to stop. The paradox is that they have to come to the end of themselves to say that. Those who still feel that they are in charge and in control–that these are simple choices that they make, can’t say they are powerless over alcohol, sex, spending, gambling, overeating, and certain emotions. Maybe they aren’t addicted. But if they are and don’t know it, admitting powerlessness is like stepping down. Stepping downward from the belief that they have the power to change themselves.

Humility is coming to the end. It is the bottom in many ways.

Humility is realizing that one cannot stop.

Humility is running out of steam.

Humility is realizing that we are human, we are from the ground, humus. It is a proper understanding of who and where we really are.

Humility is understanding that one is afflicted with sin, just like everyone else.
The humble are not shocked when they sin. I don’t mean that they aren’t remorseful. No. But the humble are not shocked at their mistakes and sins for they undestand the illness that afflicts them. They understand that when something amazingly good happens, it is by the Grace of God and not anything in themselves.

The humble are not shocked when someone else sins.  They do not judge.  There is no sense of “how could they do that?” for they understand and experience the phrase, “But for the Grace of God, there go I.”

The humble are not attached to their own ideas, because they understand that their thinking is flawed and needs correction.

The humble and meek are exalted and receive the Grace of God. (The Gospel of Luke, Mary the Mother of Jesus says this after receiving word that she will bear the Son of God) She emptied herself and her life, thus giving us Jesus who gives us eternal life. If we empty ourselves out of pride, control and arrogance, we will have Christ formed in us.

Most of us are humbled rather than living in humility.  We are humbled at an offense, a slight, and something not going the way we want.  Perhaps not everyone is humbled, but the opportunity is certainly there.  Illness is a great opportunity for humility.  We can bearly move, or breath or think when we are sick.  We can see that if we do anything great, we understand that it is and is only by the Grace of God.

So, I must decrease so He can increase.

God help us all.

Erik

It seems strange to me that we have so much more now than we’ve ever had before and things come so much easier because of the affordable technology available, yet we are more worried than ever. Everywhere I turn I hear complaints about the economy, the struggle to make ends meet. But if you get down to brass tacks, the people making these complaints are not really starving. We are unbelievably spoiled by our plenty and unaccountably worried about our small degrees of lack.

In this scene from Little Town on the Prairie, the Ingalls family is upset by the sudden demise of their entire corn crop when thousands of black birds swoop in to eat it where it grows. For years they have worked extra hard (as if the hard work of beginning a homestead and farm in a new place weren’t enough), taking on extra jobs to save up for Mary Ingalls to attend a college for the blind. Just when they feel they have enough to send her to college, the cash crop is destroyed completely. Pa shoots as many of the offending birds as possible and Ma industriously bakes them into a pie to make the best of the situation. They salvage what corn they can to dry for the family to eat later in the winter. But their cash crop, the income source with which they planned to buy necessities such as coal, is gone. Laura immediately assumes that this will keep her sister from realizing her dream of an education. She does not realize yet that her parents will sell a cow to buy the coal and meat for the winter, and send Mary to college as promised.

The coal is an absolute necessity. Supplies for the winter are a must. The cow provides cream and butter–luxuries that they have looked forward to, but not something they need to survive. College for Mary is also a luxury, and between the two, they decide to give her the gift of education and wait a year for their cream.

This is where I think we have strayed in our modern sensibilities: we no longer understand the difference between luxuries and necessities. If my husband and I have two cars and one breaks down, do we have to panic and pay to have it fixed or could we share the one working car until we can comfortably pay for repairs? How often have we said there is nothing to eat in the house, meaning really that there is nothing we currently crave to eat in the house? And should I stare despairingly at the electric bill after an insanely hot Texas summer even while I continue to pay for little luxuries like paper towels, fountain drinks, and movie rentals?

No, there is no real need to worry for most of us. We just need to learn to cut our coat to fit the cloth. Simplify. Check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder collection at your public library and be inspired by a harsher time but a simpler (and seemingly happier) way.

A week or so ago, Benjamin and I were headed home and I remember being in something of a hurry, though I can’t now remember why. We had to cross the train tracks and just as we approached them, the barriers came down indicating that a train was on its way. I rolled my eyes and craned my neck, trying to see how long this inconvenient train was going to be. Just as I was wondering why a train always seems to come just when I’m in a rush, the offending locomotive came blasting down the tracks in front of us, whistle blowing loudly. And that’s when the two-year-old boy in my back seat exclaimed, “Whoa! A train! We’re so lucky!!!”

First of all, if you want a good laugh, you should pick up one of Lenore Look’s Alvin-Ho books next time you visit the library. They are truly hilarious and I’ve heard from my teacher friends that the kids really like them too.

I thought of this quote on Monday morning at our first MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting of the year. We had our steering team indroduce themselves and share just a couple of things about themselves. I thought it was funny that not one person shared what she has her degree in or what she used to do before she was a mom. Each woman spoke about her children, her husband, her role in MOPS. One, a beautiful woman who I know to have an Ivy League education and a master’s degree told about her husband and two children and then said, “That’s pretty much my life.” Some people might find that sad, but I thought of little scared, second-grader Alvin-Ho and how it was a comfort to him to think his mom “never had another life.” He goes on to say, “She is really super-duper. She is not afraid of heights.” And he tells how his mom climbed a tree in no time flat to rescue him from the evil grip of the tree. I love that he just assumes she was practically born a mom. She may not have been a spy-master assassin, but she’s so good at being a mom, he can’t imagine her ever having done anything else. She’s mastered it in a way that must of taken her whole life.

“Mommy, I want some milk.”

“Okay, just a minute.”

No, Mommy, I want some miiiilk!”

“I’ll get it for you in just a minute.”

“Mommy, Pweeease! I want MIIIIILK.”

“Benjamin, I said just. a. minute.”

“I WANT SOME MIIIIIIIIIIIILK!!!!!!!”

“BE PATIENT!!!!!! I’m getting it!”

Hmmmm. Did I just yell, “Be patient!” at my two-year-old? Sometimes it’s the things you see plain as day in someone else that are huge hidden problems for yourself. Or, as my dad used to say, “The smeller’s the feller.” Uncle Vernon is, of course, stupid. But he doesn’t ever see the egg on his own face. I am impatient. But here I’m trying to pound the virtue into my son by yelling? Oh, my. How can I teach him patience when I am so impatient?

Ah, I must learn it myself.

It is a great gift of motherhood that it gives you a reason to finally fix your faults before you pass them on. I have never been more motivated to improve myself, to be worth imitating, to teach well. I want my son to grow in strength of compassion, empathy for others, kindness, forgiveness, resilience, and patience. So I have to stop being judgmental, start putting myself in others’ shoes, showing uncommon kindness. I have to be so quick to forgive and so slow to anger. I have to try again when I fail and do it with a smile. I have to slow down and have patience.

Have you ever seen something ugly in someone else only to realize you have a whole huge dose of that same ugliness in yourself? That’s what happened to me today.

I have this horrible, ugly tendency to be judgmental. Motherhood has cured a lot of this as I’ve been humbled over and over again to do the things I swore I would never do. But some of it still remains. A lot of it, to tell the truth. Today I was surprised and saddened to realize how much I still need to work on myself in this area. Before I was a mom, I used to shamelessly judge women who were mothers–in the grocery store, at the school where I worked, and so forth. I have come a long way since then. I’ve learned to look on other mothers with compassion because it is, as we like to say in Texas, dang hard. It’s dang hard to raise kids whether you’re bottle feeding or breastfeeding, co-sleeping or scheduling, working or staying home. One of the greatest gifts of motherhood to me is the increase in empathy and compassion it has afforded me.

I am a member of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and a part of the leadership team of my local group. MOPS is really big on reaching out to moms of all kinds to make sure that no woman has to do this hard job without the support of friends. It has encouraged me to get to know women who are drastically different from me to see what we have in common–our insane, out of this world love for our kids. And I’ve come to realize that almost every mom is just doing the very best she can with the resources she has. I want to learn from and help these women.

The ugly I saw today was on facebook. Several mothers (not MOPS moms, though!) were grumbling about having seen a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette. I know. It’s an awful thing for her to do. But my growth in empathy and compassion for mothers allows me to look beyond the obvious mothering sin of smoking while pregnant and see the humanity of the woman who was doing it. I can think of a hundred possibilities. Maybe she’s been addicted since birth herself. Maybe she has so much extra stress in her life she cannot take on one more thing, such as the gargantuan task of quitting a lifelong habit as much as she may wish to. Maybe she honestly doesn’t know any better. Maybe the man in her life is horrible. I just think maybe she’s in a situation where it would have been easier for her to choose not to give life to this baby, but instead she decided to do the hard thing. To have the baby. Maybe she’s doing that hard thing alone. I know you probably think I’m horrible for even defending her, stranger though she may be, but I just wish I could give her a hug and invite her to MOPS. Maybe she has never had the resources to help her do the best thing for herself or for her baby. I mean, it was easy for me not to smoke while I was pregnant because I’ve never been a smoker. And I’ve known women who quit smoking because they were pregnant and it was hard, but they did it because they knew it was best. But they admit it was hard. And in the exhaustion and stress of new motherhood, a lot of them returned to the habit. These are women who have emotional, spiritual, and physical resources to help them and they still found it difficult. Imagine if you had none of those resources. How hard would it be?

I was moved with compassion for this unknown woman and others like her, wanting to give her the support and resources to help her do the very best for her baby and for herself. I know that when she comes face to face with that child she will be overcome by an unimaginable love. I also know that she will be faced with an unimaginable burden of responsibility. I hope she finds some kindness and some help along the way. I hope every other woman she meets doesn’t just look on her with anger and judgment, unable to see past the cigarette in her hand.

And yet, in all my compassion for this woman, I was brought to the painful realization that I very recently passed just so harsh a judgment on several people at a bluegrass festival. I am actually pretty sensitive to cigarette smoke and it gives me a powerful headache, sometimes resulting in not the most pleasant of moods. I got so irritated at the people smoking right in front of me and I kept making comments about it to my husband and my friend. I know I said that I couldn’t think of a more inconsiderate people as a whole than smokers. It pains me to even recall that I said that, but I did. And it was truly very recent–just this past May. My friend, a physician in residency, has had the opportunity to meet and work with lots of different people. When she saw these smokers, she felt compassion for them and saw their physical ailments made worse by the addictions they would be hard-pressed to lay off. I just saw how they made me uncomfortable. Shame on me.

I hated to see my friends on facebook judging another mama but I hated even more to realize how quick I am to judge anyone who makes me uncomfortable. I hope I can grow more and more in compassion and decrease my tendency to judge others harshly. I hope I can do like Atticus Finch suggests and walk around in someone else’s skin long enough to realize, as Scout did, that there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

I just had one of those pretty humbling moments where I am forced to question my own grown-up status. Both my two-year-old son and my one-year-old nephew are snoozing gently when the smoke detector in the hall directly between their rooms starts angrily beeping every ten minutes to warn me that the batteries are dying. That’s when I realize I have never, in seven years that I’ve lived here, touched that smoke detector. I realize I have no idea how the thing works or how to shut it off if it really gets going. The beeping speeds to every five minutes, then even less frequently than that. I am terrified this will wake the children on a day when I desperately need them to finish their naps. The door to my room, where my nephew sleeps, is wide open and feet from the offending contraption (the air conditioner does not work in that room and it is roughly 105 degrees today in West Texas–the door must stay open!). As I look at this device from the kitchen chair I am standing on, I can hardly believe I am 28 years old, married, with a toddler, the coordinator of a Mothers of Preschoolers group and I have never touched a smoke detector in life. My parents changed it at their house. Then I got married and my husband tests and changes it. I figured out how to remove the battery because, after all, it isn’t complicated and I’m a reasonably intelligent woman. But I am afraid to put the new battery in because I don’t know if there is some sort of resetting I’m supposed to do and if it might result in more beeping. Truly the beeping is very loud. So if the hallway spontaneously combusts into flames, I’ll just have to rely on my own nose to detect the danger until the children wake up and have their diapers changed and their snacks.

This reminds me, painfully, of the time in high school when I told my dad my car was out of gas and he simply handed me a twenty. “Um, dad, I don’t even know how to pump gas,” I said. I was secretly hoping he would continue to do this for me until I got married and then I would have a husband to do it, the way my grandmother lived her entire life without every pumping a tank of gas. She had a master’s degree and worked as a school principal, but never once pumped a tank of gas. Incredible. Enviable. But even she changed out the batteries of her smoke detectors regularly! My dad did, by the way, take me to the gas station that day and force me to fill my own tank. Then he showed me how to check the oil in my car and informed me that I was to do this at least once a month. How did such an obviously conscientious father fail to make me take care of the hallway smoke detector?

Oh, well. I guess I’ll confess this remaining vestige of helpless child mentality to my husband tonight (you know, after I speak to a group of peers on the subject of couponing and budgeting as if I am a competent and reliable source) and ask him to show me exactly how the device works and how to reset it. Like a grown-up.

1) A humble person, no matter how much spiritual growth, he never forgets his former sinfulness and his outward, undeserving commonness.

2) A humble person overlooks his own righteousness, and looks and lives upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone.

3) For a humble person no work or service is “too beneath” or “too humbling” for him.

4) A humble heart will submit to every truth of God that is made known (revealed) to it; even to those truths that most offend.

5) A humble person lives not upon Himself, but upon the sufficiency of Christ alone.

6) A humble person prizes the least of Christ: the least smile, the least good word from him, the least good mercy from him, etc. She is thankful for a crumb from the table if she cannot get all of the Manna.

7) The humble heart can never be content to pray enough, hear enough, mourn enough, believe enough, love enough, fear God enough, joy enough, repent enough, loathe sin enough, nor be humble enough!

8)A humble person seeks to smite and mortify both great and “small” sins.

9) A humble person quietly bears burdens and takes blows, and will receive disrespect and dishonor and make no noise.

10) A humble heart withdraws all strength and credit from Christ alone.

11) A humble person desires to honor and glorify God in afflictions rather than seeking to get out of afflictions.

12) A humble person seeks not great things of this world; looks not after great things.

13) A humble person rejoices in the growth in grace that they see in other Christians, as much as they rejoice in their own.

14) A humble person will never disdain to be taught by a fool, someone beneath them in dignity, one less learned, and even one who doesn’t truly care for him.

15) A humble heart is a constantly thankful heart.

“A humble heart cannot be satisfied with so much grace as to bring him to glory, with so much heaven as will keep him from dropping into hell; he is still crying out, ‘Give, Lord, give! Give me more of yourself; more of your Son; more of your Spirit; more of your light, more life, more love.”
– Thomas Brooks