I haven’t written a lot lately, but fear not…I‘ve still had a lot of words. :) Mostly I keep them in my head where they belong, but sometimes I speak them out loud …which can be very, very good, and...very, very bad! In the last 2 weeks, there are 2 specific incidences that come to mind that I have rewritten/said over and over, to where if I were to do it all again - it would be a much more concise expression of my feelings and my thoughts. Really, it would be!! Unfortunately – we don’t often get “re-do’s” in life. Stinks!! We don’t get a lot of things, and I’m reminded of it every day!! Whether it’s the messages blaring from our media sources, the communities we live in, the places we shop, or the things we are told we deserve. If I listen to this “message” to long I am overwhelmed and could quickly grab my keys and drive off into the sunset…quite frankly, sometimes I could do this anyways! I am a mother of girls after all! :)
I’m tired. I’m a wee bit weary. I feel skeptical more than I care to admit-and way more often that I would like! After an overwhelming 2 years, I sat down at 2:30 in the morning and started pouring through some old journals, pathetic notes, (wow! what a baby i can be!) and embarrassingly humbling thoughts I’ve had. (Sadly this was an attempt to clean out my desk and “stuff”), but alas, I failed at that and my ADD mind has led me, to remind you, (im sure you're thrilled!) that maybe like me, you sometimes feel like we don’t “get” a lot or we are missing out on something more, whatever that looks like!
But let me tell you what we do get
• Options to say, “I’m sorry, really I am.”
& people that say, “it’s ok, I still love you just the same” (and mean it!)…
• Time to reflect on what could have been, what should have been, and what will be done different ~
& time to recognize that even though we think we’d change it all…sometimes things happen for a reason, a season, or for no conceivable rationale at all. They just happen and we roll with it, and trust God with it…
• Loads of grace, ceaseless mercy,(my Wednesday morning group just nodded their heads emphatically!!) and overwhelming forgiveness…anyone?
& the opportunity to give back as much as you have been given in each of these areas…
• The mind to accept what is being said…and yet the heart to feel what isn’t…
• The invaluable gift of understanding what it is to love your child, and recognize that it’s only a infinitesimal amount of the way God loves us, …and ours…
We get loads of joy- the kind of joy that brings tears to your eyes – joy that says, “I cannot believe it!!” or that leaves you with sore cheeks from laughing so hard you thought you’d wet your pants…or maybe you did? T.M.I.!!...We get soul deepening heartaches – the ones that leave you wondering “why?” at first glimpse, but later leave you with the peace to know that in God’s mercy He has willed it and/or allowed it…because He loves you so much…(so hard when you are here…so, so hard…). We get timeless mental “clips” of memories we’ve observed from our kitchen tables while our kids giggled and laughed at silly things, things you cant even remember today- but that your mind cannot erase the smile, or the look, on their face...or from our sofa as our husbands held our broken hearted child with a tenderness you didn’t know, or believe, he could have ever mustered (who can love a girl through heart wrenching bad choices like a loving father? tear.)…We get beautiful, awe inspiring moments where we see things that no-one else will ever see, or get – even if you tried to explain it to them…(and Lord knows i've tried before!!)
We get friendships… life changing friendships. The ones that span broken hearts, hurt feelings, potty training kids, +/- 50 pounds, bad habits, broken marriages,100’s or even 1000’s of miles, late lunches, later phone calls, failed attempts at change, surgeries, months with no contact , rebellious teens, instant “home” in one word, husbands who fail, sick kids, exhausted, frazzled, hysterical “I suck at this” moments, winning moments, character attacks, pj’s at 3 in the afternoon, dirty homes, tears for no apparent reason, and even overwhelming schedules …friendships that lasts…regardless. No if’s, and’s, or but’s…
We get a lot. We really do. It’s just not measurable by dollars and cents, or even pictures and scrapbooks. I can’t sell you what I possess – you have to get your own. I can’t even tell you how to get it…but I can tell you this:
You will never buy it, it’s just your gift. When you get it – you know. Sometimes you are overwhelmed by how much you get, and other times you wonder if you are just failing miserably at being a human being…but we all have a lot. Too much really. And definitely more than we can stand to hang on to selfishly. The crazy part of it is this – if you don’t give some of it, it turns sour, and eventually terminates on itself. I mean how many friendships can you have if you don’t offer friendship to others? How do you know the depth of someone’s heart, if you never share your own? Can you take a mental memory with you if you never observe what’s around you? I think not!
Give.
But save your money…offer something life changing instead…you. Just be you. It’s plenty!
thinking to much...too late...,
~Penny
The real deal on parenting girls and other scary facets of life that no one warned me about!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Motherhood is not for Sissies - Same song/Second verse...aka "dos"
I’m a glutton for punishment! It’s official. If not, then I am definitely easily swayed, and almost always an easy target for kids. I’m beginning to wonder if my area of service may NOT be represented in the list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit…but if it were it would be something like “occasionally taking care of pastor’s kids…because seriously, some of you need a guarantee that you won’t be kicked out of the church!”gift, or maybe it’s listed under discipleship in small print, “one who has the gift of leading pastors kids in the wrong direction, and or luring the nitty, gritty details of their home life out of them”…actually this is a mutual gift –as this is useful for pastor’s and provides great sermon illustrations.
Whatever it is, there is some weird feeling that overtakes me every now and again to say, “We want your kids for a few days!” But the funny part is, we keep picking these pastors’s that have a minimum of 4 kids! What the heck?! Oh well, it’s great birth control. Seriously. It is.
We pick up who we’ll call Los Niño’s (#Uno, #dos,# tres, #quarto for future reference) at 12:30 at church. Of course this is like the only Sunday (in I don’t know how long) that I haven’t been! So here I come in all my glory, (which would be a t-shirt and a pair of running shorts) texting them to be outside on side lot, so as not to run into anyone that my call me out on my absence today! Momma comes around the corner, with los Niño’s running ahead of her, and my heart is blessed. “Aunt Penny, We are so excited to come to your house. We can’t wait to play with you! (What? I never committed to that?) Can you tell us all the things we are going to do once we get there? (uhm, not really, since I have no plan?!) Lord, have mercy on my soul; these children have a lot of words!
Momma quickly passes me car seat, booster seats, bathing suits, bags, and starts walking away. It was more like a weary shuffle, with a little pep in her step. I seriously had to roll down the windows as I backed out because the Niño’s were like, “wait she forgot to say goodbye!!” (Im thinking, hmmm…I don’t think “forgot” is the right word here, but I won’t squelch your dreams just yet!) They waved good-bye furiously and we headed out for our big day….except for the part where #tres hollers out from the way back, “I don’t think I have my seatbelt on!, and I can’t make it click!!” screeching halt, pull in to broke down skating rink parkinglot, and climb over 2 rows a seats to hear the “click” just as I get back there. Ahhhh…just take deep breaths, it’s only 2 days.
We bypass home and head to Willies for lunch, as we pull in momma texts “they’ll eat anything!” { Side note *EVERY MOTHER OUT THERE PLEASE HERE ME ON THIS: Please don’t ever say this to the people keeping your kids!! Your kids eat anything for you, they are afraid of you. Quite frankly, some of your own friends are a lil afraid of you, but your children, they do not eat anything for the fool hearted “Aunt/friend/nutcase/grandparent” when they think they are on a semi-vacation. -end note}….after we placed our order 3 times (I kid you not! it seems everyone else was ordering what everyone else wanted. And then we got to re-order, over, and over…and over!! Good times!), we finally got to our table and I give everyone a quarter (I’m cool like that!) and right off the bat #Uno looses his quarter to machine, to which we are scrounging for a second quarter for him, but I’ve already scrounged just to get the 5 I needed to begin with!? Augh!) Oh yes, we forgot to mention we have added our niece JR to the mix at this point, as she is staying with us for a few days as well! This adds a whole “other” level of fun to the mix. Just sayin’...As we finally get everyone a fake diamond ring, spare teeth and a tattoo, lunch arrives! Yea! And #Cuatro leans in and says to me, “I want to tell you something, but it’s inappropriate, but I really want to tell you!” uhm, she’s 3, and a hot mess to boot!, and all I can think is: what is it about me that a 3 yr.old feels like I would want to hear something inappropriate?( No comment, thanks!) So she leans in to me all serious and says in this tiny sweet voice: “in the movie Shrek 3 they sing, ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie…” she is all singing, hip swinging and attitude! We just crack up, -and mentally put this away for future use as blackmail of course! We encourage her to tell her daddy about this song – ought to go over great on Sunday mornings! Haha!! We finish lunch head to mi casa for swimming…which we do for 4+ hours! Glory! One thing I learned with the “D kids” was water+sun= sleep! I’m in! When they ask for a snack I offer popsicles and water melon, and just for the record these kids ate an ENTIRE watermelon, oh yeah and Red Kool-Aid. To which they said, “Our mommy doesn’t normally give us red Kool-Aid! But this is delicious!”…I strongly encourage they should request it from here on out at home. (Of course we only serve it outside, but I’ll keep that lil known fact to myself!) We finally allow everyone to come in when they are crying and their eyes are so red they can’t keep them open anymore, we serve spaghetti and cantaloupe and bread and salad. I tell you this so you can appreciate that these kids ate roughly a pound and a half of spaghetti, an entire melon, and naturally we served dinner with…SWEET tea! They love us! We are a hit! …But we are tired!
Brandon is confident los ninos will be asleep in no time, but I am having second thoughts on the sweet tea as I hear them dancing around upstairs and the next thing I know #dos and # cuatro are prancing through my house in Taylor and Cheryl’s high heels! (I don’t know what it is going on at their home, but these girls can work a pair of high heels better than any of us at our house. We were dying laughing that #dos could run in heels and we can barely walk in them on a good day. Crazy! Momma must be good with those heels! (geeze Wen, didn’t know you had it in ya!) Apparently bed is not on the horizon, as we so hoped, (sweet tea? Kool-aid?)So we do what any normal person would do and load up and head out for ice cream. Its 9:00 and we are not having great success, until we find good ole’ Baskin Robbins! We get everyone their scoop and begin to listen to them tell us all kinds on great things…like for instance:
#uno informs us PROUDLY that the best meal his momma makes him is Ramen noodles and crackers!
#dos replies, “Well I think she makes great waffles!” I can’t help but ask the burning question…”so are they the kinds that pop up from the toaster?”
“Yes! They are, how did you know?”
“Just a lucky guess!” (My husband tells me to stop at this point, but I am oh so tempted to inquire further…. No need, they sink the ship on their own!
#tres pipes up, “please don’t tell my mom, but my dad is a real good cook. He makes pancakes!”
Evidently breakfast is for dinner around their casa!! I love these ninos. There are no words. Ok, well there are a few more words. Like for instance, I love the fact that these kids are sharing every morsel of their home life. I love that they tell us things like, “when we know we are going to go swimming again the next day, we don’t always have to take a bath!” People!! Bathing is for everyday…even swimming days. Haha! In all fairness, I guess when you have a herd of children, something must go. And evidently with pastor’s baths is it! They also tell us that sometimes they are scared of monsters. I’m like where did you hear about monsters? They all chime in, “ Well one time when the power went out our daddy told us a ghost story about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow!“ nice Pablo!
They beg us to stay up and watch a movie (which I keep calling Percy Sledge, but it’s something like, “Percy…Olympian…” I don’t know), but we find it on VOD and order it and they are in hog heaven. I do hope it’s appropriate, but I can’t worry about such things, after all I have a 3 yr old PK kid singing, “ I like big butts and I cannot lie…” what could be better (or worse) than that?
I can’t WAIT for tomorrow!! I swear if I didn’t have to do something on Tuesday afternoon I would keep these kids at least 2 more days. The temptation is killing me….Pastor’s Kids are the BEST!! Not to mention my membership is a lock at church after this summer! Whew!
Whatever it is, there is some weird feeling that overtakes me every now and again to say, “We want your kids for a few days!” But the funny part is, we keep picking these pastors’s that have a minimum of 4 kids! What the heck?! Oh well, it’s great birth control. Seriously. It is.
We pick up who we’ll call Los Niño’s (#Uno, #dos,# tres, #quarto for future reference) at 12:30 at church. Of course this is like the only Sunday (in I don’t know how long) that I haven’t been! So here I come in all my glory, (which would be a t-shirt and a pair of running shorts) texting them to be outside on side lot, so as not to run into anyone that my call me out on my absence today! Momma comes around the corner, with los Niño’s running ahead of her, and my heart is blessed. “Aunt Penny, We are so excited to come to your house. We can’t wait to play with you! (What? I never committed to that?) Can you tell us all the things we are going to do once we get there? (uhm, not really, since I have no plan?!) Lord, have mercy on my soul; these children have a lot of words!
Momma quickly passes me car seat, booster seats, bathing suits, bags, and starts walking away. It was more like a weary shuffle, with a little pep in her step. I seriously had to roll down the windows as I backed out because the Niño’s were like, “wait she forgot to say goodbye!!” (Im thinking, hmmm…I don’t think “forgot” is the right word here, but I won’t squelch your dreams just yet!) They waved good-bye furiously and we headed out for our big day….except for the part where #tres hollers out from the way back, “I don’t think I have my seatbelt on!, and I can’t make it click!!” screeching halt, pull in to broke down skating rink parkinglot, and climb over 2 rows a seats to hear the “click” just as I get back there. Ahhhh…just take deep breaths, it’s only 2 days.
We bypass home and head to Willies for lunch, as we pull in momma texts “they’ll eat anything!” { Side note *EVERY MOTHER OUT THERE PLEASE HERE ME ON THIS: Please don’t ever say this to the people keeping your kids!! Your kids eat anything for you, they are afraid of you. Quite frankly, some of your own friends are a lil afraid of you, but your children, they do not eat anything for the fool hearted “Aunt/friend/nutcase/grandparent” when they think they are on a semi-vacation. -end note}….after we placed our order 3 times (I kid you not! it seems everyone else was ordering what everyone else wanted. And then we got to re-order, over, and over…and over!! Good times!), we finally got to our table and I give everyone a quarter (I’m cool like that!) and right off the bat #Uno looses his quarter to machine, to which we are scrounging for a second quarter for him, but I’ve already scrounged just to get the 5 I needed to begin with!? Augh!) Oh yes, we forgot to mention we have added our niece JR to the mix at this point, as she is staying with us for a few days as well! This adds a whole “other” level of fun to the mix. Just sayin’...As we finally get everyone a fake diamond ring, spare teeth and a tattoo, lunch arrives! Yea! And #Cuatro leans in and says to me, “I want to tell you something, but it’s inappropriate, but I really want to tell you!” uhm, she’s 3, and a hot mess to boot!, and all I can think is: what is it about me that a 3 yr.old feels like I would want to hear something inappropriate?( No comment, thanks!) So she leans in to me all serious and says in this tiny sweet voice: “in the movie Shrek 3 they sing, ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie…” she is all singing, hip swinging and attitude! We just crack up, -and mentally put this away for future use as blackmail of course! We encourage her to tell her daddy about this song – ought to go over great on Sunday mornings! Haha!! We finish lunch head to mi casa for swimming…which we do for 4+ hours! Glory! One thing I learned with the “D kids” was water+sun= sleep! I’m in! When they ask for a snack I offer popsicles and water melon, and just for the record these kids ate an ENTIRE watermelon, oh yeah and Red Kool-Aid. To which they said, “Our mommy doesn’t normally give us red Kool-Aid! But this is delicious!”…I strongly encourage they should request it from here on out at home. (Of course we only serve it outside, but I’ll keep that lil known fact to myself!) We finally allow everyone to come in when they are crying and their eyes are so red they can’t keep them open anymore, we serve spaghetti and cantaloupe and bread and salad. I tell you this so you can appreciate that these kids ate roughly a pound and a half of spaghetti, an entire melon, and naturally we served dinner with…SWEET tea! They love us! We are a hit! …But we are tired!
Brandon is confident los ninos will be asleep in no time, but I am having second thoughts on the sweet tea as I hear them dancing around upstairs and the next thing I know #dos and # cuatro are prancing through my house in Taylor and Cheryl’s high heels! (I don’t know what it is going on at their home, but these girls can work a pair of high heels better than any of us at our house. We were dying laughing that #dos could run in heels and we can barely walk in them on a good day. Crazy! Momma must be good with those heels! (geeze Wen, didn’t know you had it in ya!) Apparently bed is not on the horizon, as we so hoped, (sweet tea? Kool-aid?)So we do what any normal person would do and load up and head out for ice cream. Its 9:00 and we are not having great success, until we find good ole’ Baskin Robbins! We get everyone their scoop and begin to listen to them tell us all kinds on great things…like for instance:
#uno informs us PROUDLY that the best meal his momma makes him is Ramen noodles and crackers!
#dos replies, “Well I think she makes great waffles!” I can’t help but ask the burning question…”so are they the kinds that pop up from the toaster?”
“Yes! They are, how did you know?”
“Just a lucky guess!” (My husband tells me to stop at this point, but I am oh so tempted to inquire further…. No need, they sink the ship on their own!
#tres pipes up, “please don’t tell my mom, but my dad is a real good cook. He makes pancakes!”
Evidently breakfast is for dinner around their casa!! I love these ninos. There are no words. Ok, well there are a few more words. Like for instance, I love the fact that these kids are sharing every morsel of their home life. I love that they tell us things like, “when we know we are going to go swimming again the next day, we don’t always have to take a bath!” People!! Bathing is for everyday…even swimming days. Haha! In all fairness, I guess when you have a herd of children, something must go. And evidently with pastor’s baths is it! They also tell us that sometimes they are scared of monsters. I’m like where did you hear about monsters? They all chime in, “ Well one time when the power went out our daddy told us a ghost story about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow!“ nice Pablo!
They beg us to stay up and watch a movie (which I keep calling Percy Sledge, but it’s something like, “Percy…Olympian…” I don’t know), but we find it on VOD and order it and they are in hog heaven. I do hope it’s appropriate, but I can’t worry about such things, after all I have a 3 yr old PK kid singing, “ I like big butts and I cannot lie…” what could be better (or worse) than that?
I can’t WAIT for tomorrow!! I swear if I didn’t have to do something on Tuesday afternoon I would keep these kids at least 2 more days. The temptation is killing me….Pastor’s Kids are the BEST!! Not to mention my membership is a lock at church after this summer! Whew!
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