I wasn’t Invited and I didn’t Follow The Rules..

On social media there is a “challenge” going around where you are told to share one black and white photo of your life for 7 days. No people. No explanations. Then you challenge someone else and they do it. I decided to do it without being invited. Here in one day and not seven. Also..there are people in mine – to not include people would be to pretend I have alone time. I haven’t had alone time since 10:47 pm February 13, 2011. Probably nine months before that even to be honest.

I proudly present my photos..8 of them for my rebellious purposes!

The Circus Hour

I like to think I’m pretty laid back in my parenting approach. I don’t have many things that are “required” on my parenting journey outside of staying out of jail, paying the bills, and trying to shower every day. I am not cool enough to go multiple days without a shower unless we are camping at which point I get close with my inner cave-woman. Yet there is one thing that I knew I wanted from the moment I knew that my family of two was becoming a family of something more. Family Dinner.

Everyone has that one bogus parenting fantasy when they are pregnant with their first. Perhaps the family dinner was mine. I pictured conversations, catching up on our day, the baby doing whatever it is that babies do in their high chair (turns out that is the main problem with family dinner…the baby does a lot of things other than eat dinner), and everyone having one time a day where they gather as family. Beautiful and sweet right?

Three kids later I’m still pressing the family dinner issue but my bar of expectation is ..well…different. For starters family dinner is often mom and three kids dinner because their dad works late. Still, he knows that on his days off he better have his body in that chair or his wife is taking a dive straight into the deep end. I mean, his wife is going to kindly ring the dinner bell and wait patiently for him to arrive at the table. Right.

In the movies the family comes to the table and eats, smiles, has amusing conversation, and feels fantastically connected. Let me adjust that image for you in a few “simple” steps to a real family dinner with 3 kids age 6 and under.

1. Try to make the dinner. Have 30 requests for a snack during this process. Have 3 year old beg to “help” but really just sneeze into the food and leave you wondering if “heat from the cooking process” will kill whatever contaminates may have now been injected into dinner.
2. Put dinner in the oven and ask kids to help set the table. Have 20 debates about who gets what plate color, cup color, fork color, spoon color…don’t even think about a knife. Curse yourself for buying the unbreakable but mixed colored kid place settings. Take that alarmingly sharp knife out of 1 year old’s hand. Turn on the TV in the kitchen so that silence will fall for the last ten minutes of dinner prep. Realize that you either forgot to turn on the oven or that you were supposed to take food out of oven 5 minutes ago. Improvise.
3. Serve dinner onto small human plates. If husband is available ask him to pour drinks. If not..just forget the drinks. Who needs drinks? Not us. Also don’t worry about making yourself a plate of food. Way too soon for that.
4. Turn off TV. Direct small people to their plates. Have the toddler begin feeding it to the dog. The preschooler will declare a hate for whatever you made and announce a bathroom break. The elementary student will scarf the food in the 30 seconds it takes for you to make a plate for yourself and ask for seconds or better yet ask for a Jelly sandwich or Bologna or something else completely not on the menu.
5. Help preschooler wipe and wash. Turn to see dog on table eating preschooler’s food. Listen to preschooler scream in agony about the dog eating the dinner she “hated” three minutes ago. Find seconds for the elementary kid and firsts (again) for the preschooler. Ignore the baby with the plate on her head.
6. Sit down at table and take a bite of cold dinner. Ask elementary student about her day and feel slightly pleased when you get a real answer until they start to tell you a story about kissing boys on the playground. Abort conversation. Turn to preschooler who wants to know when snack is, even though she hasn’t had a bite of her dinner. Look to thebaby who is now ready to frisbee throw her plate across the room. WHY DID YOU GIVE THE BABY PASTA SAUCE? She looks like she has a traumatic head injury!
7. At this point the preschooler will tip over her chair. You should sneak another bite of dinner. The elementary student now wants Bologna again. The baby is standing on the table and heading quickly toward her preschool sister’s plate of food with feet of death.
8. Declare dinner over. Be thankful you HAVE trained your kids to put their own plates in the sink. Yell at dog for eating the leftovers out of the trash can. Clean up bloody murder scene – aka marinara- off baby’s entire body. Lose track of where elementary kid went. Have preschooler ask when you are making dinner (try not to scream that they refused it).
9. Repeat the next day.

Yet I do it. Every day. The kids will get bigger. They will get busier. They will get annoyed with the mom who forces them to come home for dinner at least 5 nights a week. They will get tired of squeezing around the table between sports practices and time with friends. They may never learn to actually eat but we do it every day.

It’s chaos. Pure Chaos – and yet – I believe one day I will look back and be so glad we did it. I hope they will too.

What Being A Parent Is..

More and more of my friends are having babies! This is amazing! It also means I get asked occasionally what it’s like to be a parent. Let me start by saying that answer is different for each and every person. No two kids and no two parents are exactly alike. Still, I’ve given some thought to what being a parent is to me and this is what I’ve come up with..

Being a parent is wanting 8 hours of sleep, but ending up being awake no less than 13 times on any given night for things all the way from projectile vomit to a need for snuggles during a thunderstorm.

Being a parent is being exhausted and having all the kids peacefully asleep, but choosing to stay awake to enjoy the weight of your 7 month old passed out on your chest for just a few minutes longer.

Being a parent is keeping a few bottles of water in your van so that you can mix up formula at a moments notice and wishing you were still nursing so you didn’t have to mix up a thing.

Being a parent is dropping everything you are doing to sit and breast feed a child, and sometimes wishing you were feeding bottles so that someone else could do the honors while you took a hot shower.

Being a parent is spoon feeding baby purees and thinking about how nice it would be to feel comfortable just dishing something to them off your plate.

Being a parent is letting the baby feed itself food from your plate, and thinking you should have just spoon fed it some purees to avoid cleaning up the insane aftermath of what is a baby with fistfuls (and now a hair full) of spaghetti.

Being a parent is being super excited about the cool new toy you got your kid for Christmas, and then ripping out the batteries two weeks later because you just can’t take it anymore.

Being a parent is listening to the Veggie Tales CD and singing along, then realizing you dropped your kids off at a friends house two miles ago and its date night. Quick change the station BE COOL!

Being a parent is dreading owning a mini van and thinking about how nice an SUV must be.

Being a parent is worshipping your mini van and praising the Lord your kids couldn’t toss open the doors of the vehicle into the one next to you.

Being a parent is wanting your kids to slow down and stay little, while being so thankful that tomorrow is Monday and the big “smart” one will be at school all day.

Being a parent is tapping your toe waiting for your kid to get out of school because you’ve just wanted to hug them all day long.

Being a parent is contradiction. It’s wanting one thing, and then something else. It’s making good choice and bad choice and bad choices that turn out to be good ones. It is being a great parent and the worst parent alive all within the same hour.

Most of all being a parent is an adventure, an exploration in love and self. It isn’t everything there is in life – but it’s a big thing – and you know how I know you’ll be just fine? Because if I can do it, anyone can!

You Can’t Always Get What You Want..

I’m going to say something that is going to make some people cringe. From the very first time I saw two pink lines on a stick that informed me that my husband and I were in way over our heads I wanted a boy. I wanted dirt, slugs, trucks, and all the boy things. Three pregnancies later and no boy is in sight for us!

Yes. I wanted healthy. I was thrilled with healthy.

Yes. I love my girls. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Still. I wanted a boy.

I wanted a boy with our first for 20 weeks straight. At the ultrasound I just knew it would be! When I was told that my “boy” was indeed a little girl in those images..I suddenly felt less prepared for parenting than I ever had been. You see, growing up I learned two things very quickly.

1. Girls were mean. I may have been a girl but other girls intimidated me for many years for a number of reasons.
2. I had no idea how to be “girly” or at least the version of girly that my mind conjured up. Painting my nails? Yeah I painted my whole finger. Hair? A pony tail was as complex as I got. My favorite clothing item for YEARS were pairs of boy’s basketball shorts. They were comfy. They had pockets. What more could someone want?

How was someone like me supposed to raise a girl? Then 2 girls? Now three girls! Fortunately, like many things in parenting you learn a lot. Here is what raising girls has taught me..

1. How to French Braid – I knew if I was having girls I wanted to be able to braid their hair. Thank heavens for YouTube and the motivation of my first daughter’s pending arrival. I’ve now mastered the French Braid, Dutch Braid, Fishtail Braid, the braid that’s never been named yet braid — you get the idea. It’s pretty cool.
2. How to Play Dress Up – I don’t remember owning (or wanting) a single dress up dress. My oldest could own every one in the world and never have enough. This was entirely new to me.
3. That some girls ARE mean at times- but that girls are also sweet, loyal, sensitive, brave, kind, generous, smart, ambitious, LOUD, and smelly.
4. You can wear a dress or skirt no matter what you are doing. I always avoided dresses. I didn’t know how to act “lady like” or at least it didn’t come naturally. My oldest two girls love dresses. They also love crawling on their hands and knees, rolling in the grass, jumping in mud puddles, and doing cartwheels in their dresses. Sure, I probably won’t be doing cartwheels in a dress any time soon but if they can pull off the look – I’ve been brave enough to try it to. They inspire me.
5. That being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t be into bugs, dirt, Legos, books, dead things (oh dead things), sports, hot wheels, and general mischief. It means you get to be into all of those things while also being everything else the world implies a girl should be. Maybe I should have learned that from myself, but in the end I needed their help in order to fully understand.
6. That being a girl is fun. It’s powerful. It’s worthwhile.

And the most important thing that having girls has taught me?

Sometimes God doesn’t give you what you want..he gives you what you need..and I folks, needed three little girls.