The March of Time

So, where does the time go?

It goes from taking vacations with your family to passing on family trips in favor of jobs and basketball.

It goes from running to show Mom a salamander or yelling, "Hey, watch me!" to running out the door with a, "See ya!"

It goes from playing with the brothers in the backyard to road trips with them across the country.

It goes from 'dorky' to 'cool'.

It goes from visiting siblings in college to taking off for your own university experience.

It goes from sitting in the co-pilot's seat to taking off on your own.

It goes from getting your humorous comments put in the family "Funny Book"--

"I feel sorry for this song (last one in the hymnal), no one ever picks it."

"Oh! Dana would love that (passing a horse farm)! She could clean stalls."

"Finally! (his 7th birthday) I'll bet you're excited too. To have a boy since he was zero already 7-years-old!"

"If Hawaii sunk, would they take a star off the flag?

"I was going to sleep with my sunglasses on last night. I wanted to see if I'd have weird dreams when it was really dark."

To writing thoughtful and insightful college papers.


It goes from asking, "Will you go to prom?" to "Will you marry me?"

She said yes (to both), and the March of Time goes on to a whole new tune.

Congratulations Shane and Claire!

MEOW!!!

In my long list of things to do today I did not include:

"taking apart 3 levels of a brick retaining wall to rescue a kitten"

Lisa and Mopsy are very glad that I was willing to adjust my schedule.

Tag-team parenting

Part of being an effective parenting team is knowing the limits of your spouse. It was a wise husband yesterday who said to his son,

"Here, let me help you. Your mom has had enough of you today."

I'm so glad that husband is mine!

It's OK if you can't "do it all"

I can't tell you how many women have said to me, "I don't know how you do it all." I try to tell them, "I don't do it all, I can't do it all." But, they never seem to believe me (unless they marry my one of my sons and finally see for themselves how much I don't do!).

Somehow, having a big family makes women feel that you are doing something super human and accomplishing a lot more than they are.

Here are some facts from my world:
--The housekeeping suffers the most. Even if kids help clean (and they do) they're not very good or very motivated and with a lot on my plate it doesn't always get checked very well. We end up with too much dust, too many spiders, marks on walls, cluttered storage spaces, and very grimy windows. My consolation is knowing that when I do get to really cleaning it won't look any different than it would have if I'd been keeping up with a weekly regime.

--The laundry gets done, but not that well. I seldom spray stains. I tell the children they have to tend to items that need extra care--spray or soak it and add it to the appropriate load. I don't check pockets, that's the job of the wearer. Just this week I washed a leather wallet, a library card, and $3 that were left in a pocket. I don't iron (well, hardly ever), you can still be a nice person even if you're wrinkled. If it's really bad I toss it back in the dryer with the next load and try to catch it as soon as it's done.

--When we had a dozen or more in the house we lived with survival cooking. Meals were typically one-pot things geared toward ease and nutrition. I wasn't too interested in taste-appeal or variety. A side benefit is that everyone's cooking looks really good next to mine. My daughters-in-law haven't had to try to live up to Mom's home cooking!

--My bedroom is the dump spot. After a week of homeschooling, going to four basketball games, driving to piano lessons and appointments, and then having a group of thirty for some weekend event the house is usually in need of more attention than I can give it. Unfinished projects, school books, and any other clutter gets gathered up and dumped in my room where it sometimes remains for an embarrassingly long time.

--Household projects don't just get put on the back burner, they're not even on the stove. I have 2 sets of curtains that need to be hemmed. I put them up anyway, letting them bunch up on the counter above the window. They've been bunching there for 4 years now and I have no immediate plans to get to them. Add to the list painting projects, wall repair, wall and ceiling replacement and the back burners are all full to overflowing.

--Personal grooming can really take a hit. Just today I got through all of our morning routine, meals, schooling, Gabe-time, prepping for a birthday party, and out the door for our afternoon sports club before I realized that I hadn't combed my hair, or even looked in the mirror. I'd also forgotten to eat (now that rarely happens) and a little later in the afternoon I remembered that I hadn't put on deodorant either. You can guess how that realization came to me...

These things don't all get missed all the time. I pick up the pace in one area and another goes slack, then I pay some attention to the slack-off thing and something else lags. It's kind of a general cycle of moderate neglect.

I could do better. I know I'm a slow-paced kind of person. We all have our own internal clock and speedometer and sometimes I think mine is set just slightly above idle. I have to conscientiously tell myself to hurry and move faster if I want to get things done quickly. I'm just naturally too relaxed. The positive side is that I don't get too stressed about anything. The negative is that I probably am left with more things that I could be stressing about!

I like to think that the main reason for my "behind-ness" in these areas is that I'm investing my quality (and quantity) time in my family--husband, children/spouses, and grandchildren, tending to things/people of more significant value. I want my legacy with them to be relational, not temporal. I hope they relish spending an evening playing games with me more than the memory of my neatly hemmed and pressed curtains.

Some of the demands on my time are lessening as our family changes and fewer children are at home. My bedroom and closet are pretty normal looking right now and there's been a bit more variety and creativity showing up in our family mealtime. But by the time I'm actually "doing it all", I'll have an empty house and lots of quiet time to finally get to it all...at least until the grandchildren come to visit!

Double Digits

There she was


Here she is


Our tenth child is ten. 02-22-2002 was a full ten years ago. I just responded to someone today who said, "The time just flies by," that it hasn't for me. Time just meanders along at an appropriately manageable pace (unless, of course, I'm facing a deadline). I look at the picture of my baby Lisa, my "Squishy" as she was called, and it really does seem like a decade ago. Time hasn't seemed to drag painfully on, but has been slow enough to make me feel like I've been a part of the lives of my growing children. Lisa is going to be a fun girl to grow with over the next ten years. She is full of life and spirit. She has struggled mightily with a complaining spirit, a negative attitude, and a need for control. But, she's growing and learning and, best of all, changing.

The day before her birthday she lamented (not usually a time for lamentations) that the bad thing about birthdays is that they only last one day and then they're over. She told me that other fun things don't end like that. For instance, if you go to an amusement park you can have a lot of fun for the day, but then it's still open the next day and the next if you want to keep going (never mind that we've never gone to an amusement park for consecutive days). Birthdays, however, just end after only one day. Thankfully, she got past her moroseness and had what she described as the best day of her life.

Except for one small part. Owen offered to play anything that Lisa wanted during the hours before her party. She chose a game and they were half way into it when they met a snag. They couldn't agree on a particular rule and Owen chose to quit the game (for understandable reasons considering the tone of the 'conversation'). Lisa was devastated and, after hearing out the situation, I concluded that I couldn't do anything to solve it. Increased devastation and torrents of emotion. But then, the breakthrough. Fifteen minutes later Lisa came to Owen and sweetly and humbly asked if he would play again with her and she would be willing to play by his rules.

I would have been stunned if I hadn't been so immensely proud of her. You can not know what an enormous hurdle this was for my girl. I had privately told Owen that I thought, considering that it was her birthday, he should have agreed to play by her rules in the first place AND I really believe that she was right (although I didn't tell them that). Yet, she chose to enjoy playing a game rather than sulking even if it didn't go her way, a way which she was convinced was right.

So, as I imagine the road of the next decade I can imagine a great deal of joy with Lisa.

Here are some highlights from her tenth year.

Aunt Lisa







Sister Lisa


With Dad between a wedding and reception...why not fish?!


Putt-putt on Mom's birthday


Camping in Glacier National Park


A 'sign' of Roger King's humor in Idaho (The sign reads "WARNING no fishing or diving from the bridge)

Roger took each of the children up for their first airplane ride.


Playing with the Pacific Ocean in Washington




Lisa was fascinated with the statues in Vancouver. It was like a life-size imagination land for her.


Softball



One of many swimming days close to home


At camp with Hope. They "met" in August of 2001, 6 months before they were born and have been friends even since.


Adventurous, determined, and tenacious--Lisa was the only child to make it to the top of the climbing wall that day.


Devoted big sister--just don't ask her to share her toy horses!


Friends gravitate to bubbly, friendly, out-going Lisa, but she loves to play by herself and get lost in her imagination world


My faithful gardening partner helping to plant a Kaylee Hope spring bulb garden


She made the cookies, she decorated the cookies...


...AND she cleaned up the mess without being asked!


Lisa's only frustration with having girlfriends is being teased about having boyfriends. And Lisa has a lot of boy friends. She likes to run and play and compete (a lot like her Mom and sisters, OK...exactly like her Mom and sisters) and she often thinks that boys are just more fun. But for now, this is as close to "boyfriend" as this girl gets.

And that's a GOOD thing?

One of my married children recently shared an observation with me,

You and Dad have really done a great job at raising all of your children to be really excited about getting out of the house.

It was supposed to be a compliment.

Mom Confessions

A quarter of a century ago seems like, well..., a quarter of a century ago. Back then I didn't think too much about our rapidly growing family. Everyone around me was amazed and shook heads in disbelief as every year or two our family photo grew by one.

We didn't see it that way. We shrugged, or laughed, and just carried on, enjoying every minute (OK, maybe not EVERY minute), but in the general scheme of things we were pretty blissful about the whole arrangement. We loved raising our family!

What I didn't think about was the sudden explosion of life that would take place a decade or two down the road. It started with the teen years and the inevitable shift in hormonal balance and one thing led to another and here we are. In a matter of fewer than five years we have added five in-laws, four grandchildren, are expecting three more, have three teens at home, and still have three more up and coming.

It's not that I didn't consider the possibilities of family growth. But it's more than just that, SO much more! It's meshing the numerical growth with the individual growth and journey of each child finding their own way, understanding who they are apart from family, challenging or accepting not just who they are but who WE are, and then, in the midst of this ideologically challenging soup, leaving and cleaving to their new life mate, while a half a dozen others are in various stages of the same process--it all leaves a mama feeling whooped.

On any given day I can be the best mom ever, the worst mom ever, the most understanding, the least understanding, the greatest blessing, the biggest curse, the most desired, the least wanted, the smartest, or the most clueless.

I never set out to prove that I was going to be the world's best mom and show everyone how it was done. I didn't dream of writing "How to" parenting books or giving lectures while holding up my perfect posterity as examples of my authority. And now that I have a few years and stories under my belt I shy away even more from questions of "What did you..?"

I just wanted to stay home and be a mom. On the whole, I didn't bargain for the great ocean of emotional upheaval that would come with loving and pouring myself out for my children. There is just no way I could have ever understood the intensity of the heartache (in the good and bad) that is part of this job. I've had times that I looked at my husband and confessed, "It's just not worth it. We don't come close to getting back anywhere near what we put in." I dream about being alone and escaping demands and accusations. I imagine not having to be so responsible and accountable ALL THE TIME. I imagine, being the kid.

And then I think of Jesus. I remember that, with him, I AM the kid. I think of his great love and sacrifice and how little he gets in return for what he's given. I see myself, the kid, through my experienced eyes as the parent. And I'm not too happy with what I see. I see, as the child, the same things in myself that I struggle with in my children, and my heart softens for them. I see, as the parent, Jesus' perfect example for my life--giving for me his perfect love in love and submission to the Father. I'm shamed and humbled, but not into despondency. My sins are covered by his forgiveness, my hard heart is washed in his love, I'm clothed in his righteousness, and I'm renewed in his spirit.

Motherhood IS worth it, but not for childish kisses and sweet secret notes, or for late night conversations or expressions of gratitude. It's worth it because it draws me closer to my Savior and helps me see myself in a different light, as he sees me. It inspires me to be a better child. And through all of that it makes me more content and full of love for what I have as a parent. It also makes me realize that in so very many ways I get back much more than I put in.

Keeping up with Gabe

I spent the afternoon with Gabe yesterday. Just Gabe and me, for three hours. We did things Gabe-style. I had to stop at a grocery store, but even there I let him direct me. We looked at things he liked and walked where he wanted to go.

We toured a garden center because the piles of rocks fascinated Gabe.

We pulled in to an animal wildlife center and walked the grounds. Gabe ran to see the geese and ran to see the burros and ran to see the fish and hopped on the kiddie rides not caring if I didn't insert a quarter.

We went to playground. It was here that I had a vision of Bill Keane's Family Circus. Gabe was Billy and he ran circles around the park. I could just see the dotted lines in my mind's map of Gabe's playground tour.



Gabe climbed up a ladder and went down the slide, he climbed the rock wall, and went down the slide backwards, up the stairs, down the slide on his belly, went to the merry-go-round, the teeter totter, the big swings, the baby swings, the handicapped swings.

He crawled through the play tube, went down the slide on his belly backwards, went to the baby park, rode the fire engine, climbed the structure, ran back to the big park, hung from the glider, went down the slide on his back forward, went down on his back backward, went down on his knees, went down on his feet, and once he even sommersaulted down it.



He ran to the beach and ran up and down the two piers, he climbed over the rock wall, he ran into the tennis court and lapped the two courts, he ran around the sand volleyball pit.

And then he repeated all of the above several times.

Most of the time I ran and followed and offered a completely unnecessary protective hand. The one time I tried to sit for a minute he sprinted to the glider and commandeered a dad to give him a ride.

We left the park with a tired Mama and a very happy Gabe. As we drove down the road Gabe called out, "Want butterflies!" He began to sing, "Old Macdonald had a farm. E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a BUTTERFLY!" (ceasing with the tune and hollering the word 'butterfly').

Since it was a special outing for two, I honored his request. We pulled into McDonalds for 'french fries'.

Young Truth

Recently, Lisa's brothers would not let her play with them and she wailed to me:

"Nobody likes me!"

Considering the immediate circumstance with her brothers I countered with:

"I'm sure your friends like you."

Unconvinced she explained:

"That's because they don't really know me."

So I asked:

"If they really knew you what would they think of you?"

Meekly and soberly, she replied:

"They'd think I was a brat."

Unknowingly, Lisa is wise beyond her years. It took me 10 years longer than her to realize that I, too, was a brat. I thank God for His subtle way of opening our eyes to who we really are and giving us hope in Christ for a changed heart.

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it."

Basketball--Senior year--Life lessons

Another Wisconsin White Winter means basketball. This year we had 5 children playing on 3 teams. I have pictures of everyone that I've been waiting to post during the month of March Madness. I'll post the younger four later but want to highlight Troy in his senior season with this post. Not all of the comments are about Troy, but I'm using his pictures.

March Madness: If you'd have asked me 30 years ago what I thought "March Madness" meant I'd have probably made a guess that had something to do with Lewis Carroll or some similar sort of children's literature.

I've been educated and now know that March means basketball tournaments, all month long. Owen just said a month or so ago, "I hope I get sick in March so I can lay on the couch and watch basketball all day." This morning Bryce and Owen both woke up with fevers, and spent all day lying on couches, watching college basketball much of the time. As amazing as it seems that he got his wish, he actually missed his goal by a few weeks. True, college basketball is on all day today, and Owen's enjoyed watching it between naps; but the real deal doesn't start until March 17--St. Patrick's Day--Vince's first birthday, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. I think that tournament ranks second only to Christmas for event-to-look-forward-to in our house. And I'd never even heard of it.

Although I really do enjoy keeping up with the tournament, filling in my brackets, and listening to the boys laugh at my unlikely predictions I MUCH prefer watching my own children play on whatever team they play. I don't care if they win or lose, I don't really care about the level of talent, and I don't care about (or keep track of) the team record. I just like watching them because they're mine. I try hard to be a team fan, but the fact is, if my kid wasn't there I wouldn't be there either.

I don't find it agonizing to go to game after game watching loss after loss. I'm not disappointed with low scoring totals. I don't really care if my child plays the whole game or less than half the game. My greatest joy comes from watching them work hard, enjoy themselves, improve, and learn the invaluable lessons they learn by being put in intense situations that test their character in high-stress, emotional, public situations.

It is definitely enjoyable to watch my children make three-point shots, steal the ball, block a shot of someone bigger than themselves, sink free throws, or lead the team in rebounds.








But when I think of personal highlights for me there are two things that stand out.

Fisrt of all, I love seeing my children have the opportunity to play together. As much as you try to get them to work together at home, they tend to be against each other in any type of sibling games or competition. If it's one on one, they're opposed. If they make teams the two oldest head the teams and they're opposed. This year, for Troy(44) and Shane (14), they got to be teammates, and I loved it.

(Look close and you'll see that Troy and Shane's faces are the only two that are visible here--Troy, center left under the arms; Shane, center right over the arms.)



The second thing I love is seeing them learn and improve in their ball playing skills and in their behavior and personal fortitude. Seeing Lisa go from literally standing stock still like a traffic guard with arms outstretched in her first game to dribbling the ball and putting up her first shot in her last game was a delight. Her smile beamed for a full minute after she shot the ball, and she didn't even make the shot! Another high moment was seeing Troy foul out of a game (following a couple of very questionable foul calls), then calmly take his place on the bench and cheer his team on.
Clean block followed by a called foul.


There were some behavioral low moments, as well, much lower than finishing a game with substandard stastics. Those moments weren't wasted however. Good can come from being exposed and vulnerable.


I don't think people realize how hard it is to be in the public eye, under scrutiny, during trying times. Every movement, grimace, eye-roll, or shake of the head is watched by a crowd. When the media is there, it's also a matter of public record.



As public as the trials were, and as much as they gave plenty of people reason to make judgments and engage in easy conversations about the lack of character/sportsmanship/integrity they witnessed, they had value.



The value came from talking about the situation after the incident, challenging them on what God's word says about dealing with such a situation, questioning them on ways they could have handled it better, or how they would feel seeing someone else act like they had acted, or hearing someone say what they had said. They had the opportunity to fail publicly and see the result of their 'self' shining through for all to see, including seeing it themselves. They benefited from the backlash they got from family or friends by being put face to face with their shortcomings. We all have shortcomings and flaws, but we aren't all tested (especially publicly) in a way that lets us see what we're made of. It's true that, "The heart is deceitful above all things...who can know it?" We deceive ourselves and don't even know it, often. Failing, or just messing up, helps open our eyes, helps us see the need for change, and helps us look Godward for that change. Being tested and seeing yourself fail pushes you to stand firm the next time.

The joy of rising above the challenge and coming out on top the next time is well worth the failure.
(#45 was 6'9" tall and won the conference Player of the Year award. It was no easy thing getting shots past him.)

Because of all the good that can come from it, I can take the public criticism and deal with the negative comments and opinions. It never feels good to hear bad things said about your child, but my goal is not that they portray perfection so I can look good. My goal is that they would be growing in Christ, and if that comes at the expense of the good opinions of others while God tries them, so be it.

Last Tuesday, all of our teams had their last game. The seasons are finished and schedule-weary parents are ready for a break...until baseball season.