Declutter Me

A little over a week ago, I was sitting on my mother's couch telling her how I felt I needed to completely purge my house, declutter every nook and cranny. Now, I am sure some of this is nesting, which begins very early for me, but I also know myself well enough to know that *something* was stressing me out.

I declutter to de-stress. Oftentimes, the decluttering mode goes hand-in-hand with a need to feel in control of something. But, for the life of me, I could not figure out what it was that felt so out of control.

My mom, who thrives on tidying up, gladly offered to come help. So, bright and early Monday morning, we hopped to it. She would be spending Monday and part of Tuesday here and then return on Thursday and stay until Friday. The reason for this is that I am rather pregnant and she tires rather quickly due to post-polio syndrome. We both knew we would both need a break.

The grand plan was to tackle the upstairs the first part of the week and then tackle the downstairs the latter half of the week. We worked ourselves silly and almost met our goal by the time we tired out on Tuesday. The house looked great, I knew exactly what lurked behind nearly every door and drawer, and I thought my feeling of discontentment would disappear as the clutter left the house in boxes and trash bags. But, it didn't.

As I looked around at my neat and orderly home, I still felt uneasy about something. I felt there was still too much stuff in my house. I felt as though I could get rid of everything and still not feel satisfied. WHY?

Mom left and I found myself mulling this question over and over in my mind as I continued to work, hopeful that when she returned, we would be able to go straight to the basement and not have to finish anything upstairs.

Suddenly, it dawned on me. An epiphany! Yes, my house DID need decluttering, but what really needed to be decluttered was ME!

For months now, I've felt this uneasiness. I kept thinking when the weekend gets here and Daddy is home, THEN all will be well. But, really all the weekend did was create a diversion from reality. Monday morning all was back to the way it had been. And what, pray tell, was so wrong within our home? Well, no one really knew. We had all talked about it and brainstormed and even considered that it was Emily's death that was causing all of us to feel irritable and discontent. But, I kept telling my husband I just didn't think that was it, and I felt like all the strife was somehow linked to me.

Then came the catalyst that tipped off my need to declutter ~ my 7 year old daughter. Day in and day out I watched her melt down. Day in and day out I continued to press forward with a homeschool curriculum that left her a screaming, raving, page-scribbling mess. Every day had become a struggle. Every day I wanted to scream right back at her. How come she couldn't be like everyone else and make my life easier?

But, wait a second...

God doesn't make mistakes. He didn't accidentally put her in our family. He didn't accidentally make her the way she is. He wasn't trying to punish me by giving me a high needs child. The mistake was in how I was reacting to her and how I was training her. I was messing up the most important job God had given me! But, I felt completely helpless. I knew I needed to change something, but couldn't figure out how.

Then yesterday, it all began to make sense to me. I am the one who is cluttered. I am cluttered with worldly thinking. I am cluttered with feeling like I have to do things a certain way or else. I am cluttered with to-do lists and scope and sequence charts that blind me to who my child really is and what she really needs. I am cluttered with the label "teacher" to the point that "mother" has been shoved to the back burner.

It isn't just my daughter who is suffering from my clutter. I am losing touch with all my children because there is so much stuff in the way. For months I have been allowing seemingly little things to crowd my world. I have writing projects, sewing projects, school projects. I have expectations of myself and those around me that are forcing me to push harder, do more, be more, accomplish more.

I am the frog in the proverbial pot of water. The temperature is rising little by little and I know something seems different, but I literally cannot see the rolling boil taking place all around me. It took my daughter coming to her own boil to wake me up. It was God's way of shaking me to my senses.

I am mom. I am the only mom these children have. God has a Handbook that tells me exactly how I am to teach these precious little ones. Deuteronomy 6 ring a bell? How about Proverbs 22:6? Yes, academics are important, but only in light of the way God's Word commands us to gain knowledge and wisdom.

I had lost sight of my higher calling...not that of teacher, but of mother. Losing a child did not make me immune to letting the world creep in and steal me away from those little ones I hold here on earth. I was not truly enjoying them because the cares of this world were burdening me to the point I felt I could handle nothing else save for surviving each day. I was living by a perpetual to-do list. A list always undone. A list of priorities out of whack.

And somehow I believed that pushing through my to-do list was going to make life better. It was the perfect plan. How could I fail? But as the plates began to spin out of control, I found myself decluttering everything but the plates.

Now, taking those plates down required a drastic paradigm shift. The Lord was gracious enough to put me in the company of a fantastic group of homeschool moms as I worked through the taking down of the plates. They gave me the courage and motivation I needed to start over.

You see, not all those plates are cracked. Some of them most definitely are, but there are others that are simply out of order. Being able to see that you must start over is only half the battle. From there, you must actually begin to place the plates in the right order and discard those that don't belong. This is where godly counsel and diligient reading of Scripture come in. We know NOTHING apart from the Lord. I was ordering my day according to anything and everything EXCEPT what the Lord would have me to do. In the end, everyone suffered from my mistake.

So, I start at ground zero. I clear the rubble, and I begin with the basics.

Titus 2:4 tells the older women to "teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children." There is more in the next verse, but what really catches my attention here is that we young women must be "taught" to love our children. God knows that our hearts and minds are easily pulled away from the things that truly matter.

So, the starting point is to LOVE my children. Loving them means I spend time with them. It means I get to know them. It means I share with them what truly matters for their lives. It's not the times tables or the parts of speech that matter. It's not even how they act in public or how well they clean the table after dinner. These are surface issues, peripherals, exteriors. The heart of the matter is the heart of the matter.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Prov 1:7)

How do I teach them the fear of the Lord? Go back to Deuteronomy 6, verses 7 through 9 to be exact. There is no way to do what these verses command except to spend copious amounts of time with my children. I have to be diligent. I cannot be diligent to my to-do list and expect to sieze those moments when my children are most needing to learn the Lord's commands. In fact, even if my to-do list involves schooling the children, if I am beholden to a list of subjects and a timeframe, I will be hesitant, if not downright negligible in taking the opportunities to truly teach the fear of the Lord. My daughter's meltdowns were not my cue to press on and just get through it, yet that is the way I had been handling it.

What my children need most is a mama who is following the Lord's leading. Simply put, they need me. Not me all cluttered up with worldly advice and skewed ideas of what life should look like, but me...decluttered.

This post is linked to:

A Legacy of Lullabies

I grew up singing. I grew up hearing singing. My family sang; therefore, I sang. I used to say my dad had a song for everything. It didn't matter what you said, he knew a song that fit perfectly. My life had a soundtrack made of many different songs from many different genres.



So, naturally, when I had children, I injected music into their lives. The easiest way to do this is via lullabies. What mother can keep herself from singing to her baby? Even the mother who knows she sings off-key will sing to her baby because she knows baby doesn't mind. In those still, precious hush-darkened moments in the night when no one else is around to hear, she will softly sing to the precious downy-headed child in her arms, every note pouring out love.



Something I started with my first child and have continued to carry on from there is the tradition of each child having his/her own special lullaby. They love this and often ask for their song at bedtime or in the van.



My 10 year old son received a song I sang in Jr. High for a contest. It is called American Lullaby and speaks of the years just prior to the Depression when Daddies were keeping the wolf from the door by visiting the stockbroker and Mamas were playing bridge and Nursie was taking care of baby all the while. While the lyrics of the song are a bit shallow, the melody is beautiful.



My 7 year old daughter's song is All the Pretty Little Horses. Interestingly enough, she has grown up to adore horses! I can remember countless hours of singing this to her as I nursed and rocked her with my toddler son at my feet. Precious, precious memories.



Our 4 year old daughter was given a song that used to make me cry. It is song from Sesame Street called I'd Like to Visit the Moon. I know it seems silly to cry at a song from Sesame Street, but the lyrics are amazing. It is sung by Ernie I believe, and he talks of visiting all these exotic places: the moon, the jungle, prehistoric times, but that no matter how far he goes away, he will always come home. Makes me sigh just to think about it.



Our 2 year old son is named in honor of my father with an Irish name, so it was perfectly natural to give him an Irish song, Be Thou My Vision. You should see his little ears prick up in church when we sing that song!



Our little Emily's song was Summertime from Porgy & Bess with a not-so-operatic flair, courtesy of Mommy. It is sometimes difficult for me to think about the words of this song, especially the second verse, but I wanted to share them here...



One of these mornin's you're gonna rise up singin',

Then you'll spread your wings and take to the sky.

But 'til that mornin' there's a-nothin' can harm you,

So, hush little baby and don't you cry.



The thing this song has wrong is that the truth is that it was once she took to the sky that nothin' could harm her anymore. She is held and rocked and sung to in a place where no harm will ever come to her.



I would encourage everyone reading this to consider designating a special lullaby for each of your children, something special they can carry with them as they grow, something they can share with their children...a legacy of lullabies.

A Change of Season

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons. I am always anxious for the cooler weather and the fall decor. Today, the children and I decorated the house with gourds and raffia and all sorts of other Autumn paraphernalia.

I took my large round baskets off the wall in order to accommodate some wreaths. With those baskets the two older children created their own decorations. I left them to it and was pleasantly surprised by their creativity.

My 10 year old's creation:



Here is my 7 year old's:



Earlier in the week, I had created a centerpiece for the dining room table from the wild gourds we had found along the road. Sometimes these gourds are scarce, so I rarely get the pleasure of using them in my home. However, this year, I found a whole stash of them alongside the road and was able to gather a few to use as decoration.



The centerpiece consists of a pedestal I purchased long ago on sale from a Southern Living party. The candle is a cheap candle that I never burn because it doesn't smell like it is supposed to (but it's the right color!) Around the candle, I placed Punkie-Cinnamon potpourri from A Touch of Country Magic (the sell their wonderful potpourri at our State Fair every year). The ivy I use year round in various places around the house. The leaves I pulled off a pic of autumn leaves. And then, of course, the gourds.

I can't wait to be able to consistently leave the windows of the house open and simmer potpourri and burn candles (fall scents are some on my husband's favorites as well, so he loves coming home to a house that smells like cinnamon and pumpkin and apples). I'm anxious to see the change of color in the trees out back and along the road. I'm ready to snuggle up in long-sleeves during the day and covers up to my chin at night.

So, anyone else an Autumn Appreciator?

Scrapbooking Again

February 9th and into the wee hours of February 10th, I scrapbooked w/ my friend Sarah. The next morning, I awoke to my 7 month old Emily struggling to live. She passed away in the hospital a short time later.

That was the last time I scrapbooked.

I was an avid scrapbooker. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I had been documenting our family life from the time I got married. However, I could not imagine ever being able to scrapbook again. I wanted to...but the thought of reliving those memories was too much for me.

Well, for some reason, tonight I felt strong enough. I've found that I tend to do that...suddenly feel like I can handle that box in the basement, that drawer in the dresser, etc. And I have to do it right then and there or that feeling might go away.

I pulled out the pictures and the scrapbooking things and did 5 pages. It hurt and there was a lot of guilt and tough memories I had to work through, but there was also a sense of accomplishment...surviving yet another first.

I do know if I continue to scrapbook, I will eventually scrapbook Emily right out of our lives (as far as the scrapbooks are concerned). This is something that bothers me. There will come a point where she is no longer a part of family pictures or family albums.

As many of you know, this is something I live with in the every day world. It is also something that causes me deep grief. I see her. But, to the casual onlooker, she is not there and does not exist to them. And that is what will eventually happen with the scrapbooks.

Since my second child was born, I have always done a full scrapbook that goes from that child's birth to the next child's birth. This time it will go from Emily's birth to Emily's death. That pink scrapbook my mom lamented did not fit in with the rest of our color scheme will be of Emmy. Her life, our life with her, nestled between plastic page protectors. All of our memories bound up in pink. If I can ever bring myself to finish that book, I am sure it will be a cherished keepsake.

Spent the Night in the ER

First off, I am fine and so is baby.
Saturday, I took my inhaler and also had some caffeine. About an hour later, my heart started palpitating. To me, it felt like it was skipping beats. That went on for about 1.5 hrs. It was making me light-headed, but I chalked it up to the albuterol and caffeine and didn't tell anyone what was going on. It eventually stopped.

Ty and I went to the fair and while I was eating (at about 8pm), they started in again and were constant. This time it scared me. I told Ty about it and we decided to call my OB since it had been so long since I'd had anything that would have affected me that way.

She sent me to Labor & Delivery where they monitored baby (but not me) Baby looked great, so the nurse asked if I wanted to go down to ER and have them monitor me there since they couldn't do anything like that for me in L&D. I was really hesitant because I just hate going to the hospital, I haven't been back in an ER since Emmy, and my children were all at my mother-in-law's, and I hate putting people out. Well, my dr. called the nurse and told her I WAS going down (she knew I wouldn't want to go). I'm glad I went...

This strange heartbeat has been happening (mostly in pregnancy) for several pregnancies now. I had kept it to myself, but secretly worried about it. However, it was never sustained long enough to make me think I could go in and have anyone really understand what was going on. Yesterday's episode was a God-send. It forced me to have it checked out and during a time when it was actually happening and the doctors could hear and see exactly what was going on.

Anyway, when they got me in ER, they hooked me up and saw right away what was happening. I was throwing what are called PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions). They are extra beats that do not pump any blood. They are fairly common (not necessarily normal, but common). The reason it was really bothering me was b/c it was happening so often. They did a lot of labs as well.

The conclusion was that several factors were involved in causing this to happen to me. The albuterol, the caffeine, my severe anemia (I'm currently at an 8), and below normal numbers in calcium, magnesium, & potassium. Now, my OB did say that the last three being low in pg are not uncommon and pbly would not cause this type of irregularity, so that was good to know. I also never realized that the rise in my heartrate during pg is normal as well. I always wondered why my heartrate seemed sky-high and no one seemed a bit concerned.

One thing I was not aware of and is the reason I wanted to share this long, drawn-out story is the anemia aspect. Maybe many of you already know that anemia will cause heart irregularities, and if I had really thought about it, that makes a lot of sense. Also, the cardiologist had done a fellowship where he studied pg women and found this condition to be fairly common. Some may never notice it b/c it doesn't happen often enough, but others will have a sustained time like I did.

So, at this point, we try to get my anemia under control, no more caffeine, and hope I don't have to use my inhaler anymore. I am still having them off and on, but not with the regularity of Saturday night.

What have I learned from this? It is important to take care of yourself in pregnancy (or any other time for that matter). I may be severely anemic, but my body doesn't respond the way most people's would. I feel "normal", but that doesn't mean my body is normal. These PVCs are a direct result of something that needs to be fixed. I have more of a sense of urgency about the whole situation now. Time to crack down and take care of myself.

A Little R&R

September is our usual time to head to the mountains. We like how it is already chilly there and the leaves are already turning. The best thing is that by the time we arrive back home, fall seems to be in the air.

This year we had a couple of firsts:

Megan caught her first fish ever...a Rainbow Trout!




And we swung down to Taos, New Mexico on our way home. Ty has been fascinated by the pueblos there and wanted to see them for himself. History has become one of our passions since we started homeschooling. Funny how something I hated during my schooling years could become something I love as an adult...does that mean I'm getting old or does it mean I've grown up?!

While Ty explored the architecture of the pueblos, I was more interested in the hornos (outdoor ovens). I have wanted one of these in my backyard for years.



The women of the pueblo come out and sell the baked goods they have made in these very hornos. We bought some bread from one vendor that was absolutely delicious!

We also purchased a Storyteller.



I could not resist this pottery statue of a woman telling stories as 12 children crawl all over her. Welcome to my life!

Now comes the hard part of vacationing...the re-entry. Maybe next week we'll try for something resembling normal. For now, we are slowly readjusting and not liking a single moment of it!

The Wonder of 4

This year our daughter, born on September 4, 2004, turned 4! That's a lot of fours! But, there is another 4 that makes this little girl very special.

We waited nearly 4 years for her to enter our family. Circumstances set in place by God and man gave us a time frame we never expected. Two back-to-back military deployments with a 2nd trimester miscarriage as well caused what I had truly believed would take only months to become years.

Many of you have followed my Quiverfull posts and know the agony I felt and the lessons I learned during this season of waiting. Pride gave way to discontentment gave way to anger gave way to desperation gave way to complete surrender to the Lord. From that surrender came "God's Sweet Promise" ~ our Melia Alyse.

She made her appearance "sunny-side-up" on Labor Day weekend and has been a ray of sunshine in our lives ever since. A few days after she was born, a dear friend came to visit and bring food. As she approached the bassinet and leaned in to touch our little one, she whispered ever-so-gently, "You have no idea how much your mama and daddy wanted you."

She was right. That peacefully sleeping child had no idea all that had transpired the past 4 years. And honestly, in her birth, the agony of not carrying a child to term melted for us as well. Here was what I had begged the Lord for. He had heard my cries and in His own timing had knit her together in my womb.

Each of my children are special in their own way. Each has a story that, as they age, I will share more and more of with them. They truly are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

But, Psalm 139 is not just some sweet little passage of Scripture that looks great on a baby shower card. The beginning of the Psalm speaks of a God who knows every single intricate detail of our lives from beginning to end. In fact, there is nowhere we can go to hide from Him. But, this is a good thing because when we feel as though the darkness is going to swallow us whole, He is there. Darkness does not exist in the Lord's presence.

I feared this little girl who is now 4 would never live this side of Heaven. I was confidant I would lose her just like I had lost her sibling before her. I lived in a dark, dark world for many months. But, the next verses of Psalm 139 speak of a Lord who controls even the darkness of the womb. He weaves and forms that which we cannot see and do not fully understand. He sees the children some of us never get to see. He knew Melia would be born with a herniated umbilical just as He knew Emily would be formed with malrotation. In fact, He was the one who formed each of them this way. It was no mistake that Melia's hernia healed on its own while Emily's malrotation eventually led to her death. Listen to the words of verse 16:

And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

In those 4 long years of waiting, the Lord was not forsaking me. He was choosing the perfect timing to hand us the next addition, the perfect addition, for our family. It is not a mistake that she (or any of her siblings for that matter) were born into our particular and specific family. So, this little girl who turned 4 this past Thursday continues to serve as a blessed reminder that the Lord's works truly are wonderful!