family life – Page 19 – little thoughts

night-time parenting and my need for grace

Posted on 2016-05-09 by kristinabean

My worst parenting moments are typically in the middle of the night when one of the boys is taking an uncharacteristically long time to fall back asleep after waking. It’s a combination of three difficult factors: my tiredness, the unexpectedness of the problem, and the baby’s insomnia. I could probably handle things with more grace if only one or two of those factors was involved, but together they are a deadly trifecta to my parenting calm. Because I’m tired, it’s harder for me to assess the situation and come up with a solution; because the wakefulness is unexpected and not a normal event, I have no routine already in place to deal with it; and because the baby is also tired and out of sync with his normal routine, he typically can’t express what exactly is bothering him and keeping him up. Limerick has been known to scream for a good 30 minutes straight before managing to sob out that he wants a bottle of milk instead of a bottle of water, for example, which is a far cry from his communicative daytime self.

It is in those moments that I most desperately need to turn to God for help. That is when I am most helpless, most frustrated, least buoyed up by my own reason, most emotionally and physically fragile and worn out. And yet I don’t often find myself searching for grace and peace at those times. The immediacy of the problem blots out everything else from my mind, unfortunately.

And that is one of the reasons why it is so important for me to bathe my parenting in prayer in all the other moments – to keep praying for grace, wisdom, patience, and strength even when everything seems to be going well, so that when things get hard and my sleep-fogged brain can’t see past the crying baby, I’ve already asked God for the help I’ll need to get through it with love. I have to cultivate my relationship with Him, my dependence on Him, through all the easy times, the happy times, the normal times, so that my anchor and foundation are already secure when the challenges arise. It would be foolish to think the challenges would never come, and even more foolish to think I’d be able to handle them without a consistent effort to walk with God.

So tonight I think I’ll be preemptively praying for patience, wisdom, and compassion, just in case Limerick is up for hours in the night again – and maybe that will help me when I can’t see past the irrational tears and my body is crying out for sleep. If the Spirit is there reminding me of the reasons Limerick might be up (last night he was in some sort of pain and it took a dose of Tylenol to settle him down), helping me find solutions, helping me think despite my fatigue, maybe I won’t get so frustrated with my little guy, and will be able to better respond with gentleness and love, just like God consistently responds to me even when my complaints and tears make no sense at all in the light of the bigger picture that He can see.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – pretty much all real

Posted on 2016-05-052016-05-05 by kristinabean

I will be honest with you all, this was a rough week and a half. Last Tuesday we spend the morning playing at the park with the boys’ cousins – and by nap time Limerick was vomiting. And he didn’t stop for over 30 hours, most of that time losing it every 1-2 hours very violently. So then last Thursday he transitioned from one end to the other and Rondel started bringing everything back up. Both boys had low-grade fevers for a couple days and were essentially couch-ridden (I made them sick nests on the couches so they wouldn’t have to be upstairs in bed); Rondel slept for the majority of the day three days in a row, and I have never seen him that worn out and sick before in his life – which admittedly has been a rather short one, but still! It was a new mommy experience for me.

Yesterday was really the first day both boys were feeling (almost) back to normal – no diarrhea, no vomiting, and energy to get up and play for more than 10 minutes at a time. Through this whole week, I’ve been reminded of Auntie Leila’s rejoinder to consider this time of sickness as a time to sacrifice myself – my plans, my routines, my comfort – for the sake of these kids, to show them what Christ-like love is all about. As she puts it,

You know, when our children are sick, we have a wonderful opportunity to serve them in a completely different way from the way they are used to. We can take a break from all the demands of daily life — demands which include prying them away from love of self, encouraging them to serve others and take responsibility — and just take care of them. Rather than viewing this part of motherhood as a stressful chore that reveals our incompetence, we can see it as a real blessing.

It was very stressful for not to be able to clean the house, or have regular meals together, or get out of the house for the outside time that I need just as much as the boys normally do, (a lot more stressful than I would have anticipated!) and I had to keep telling myself that “love endures all things.”

Kind of humbling to realize how much of an emotional and spiritual challenge this week of sickness was to me… I’ve still got a long way to go to reach holiness! 😉

{real}

In the first days of the illness, Rondel was so concerned about his brother. He kept asking me when he would be feeling better, and what was wrong, and just wanted to comfort him with his presence. This is one of the beautiful side-effects of sickness, I think – the development of compassion in the sick child’s siblings.

But all too soon he needed his own spot on the couch 😦 When Limerick started to feel better he seemed to find a lot of happiness in helping me take care of Rondel, especially when I would let him deliver a bottle to his brother, which was adorable and sweet.

{happy}

One of the happy things that sustained us during the sick times (besides endlessly blowing bubbles for Limerick) was reading books. The boys like books well enough normally, but they also like to be moving and doing things – but when they didn’t have the energy to play, the books took them out of the moment and gave them something to think about. Limerick in particular has become far more excited about reading than he was before!

demanding to read the Very Hungry Caterpillar

So there were some fun things in the middle of all the sickness – but all in all we are all extremely glad to have the blankets and sheets washed and off the couches, and a sense of normalcy and order restored to family life. I’m sure the boys are even more glad not to be hurting and sick anymore!

I really hope that you all had a better week than we did! And don’t forget to join me over at Like Mother, Like Daughter for the link-up today 🙂

family life, musings

filling my marriage with love

Posted on 2016-05-042016-05-03 by kristinabean

Despite the financial and practical headache of divorce, I think it is often easier to split up than to hold a marriage together, even (especially?) when there are kids involved. Children make it harder to find the time to invest in your marriage; the stress of added expenses and responsibilities leads to shortened tempers and sharpened tongues; the lack of sleep and increase of worry contribute to emotional and impulsive choices. Our own flaws, quirks, sinful tendencies, and past baggage drive us away from each other as well, their effects exacerbated by the absence of time to relax to and put things in perspective. And as we grow more accustomed to each other and our infatuation settles down, we start to notice only the things that irritate us and take the rest for granted.

My primary love language, to borrow from Gary Chapman’s schema, is quality time – so when school and work and sick kids have prevented us from having a good conversation or a chance to snuggle and just be together, I start feeling unloved and the irrational thoughts just flow from there. I get angry at every little thing he does that isn’t perfect. I barb my tongue even as I desperately hope he’ll want to spend time with me. I start blaming him, in my head, for every struggle we’re having financially or in parenting. So if we didn’t make it a priority to spend time together and rebuild that feeling of love, it would be extremely hard for us to make this marriage work. Similarly, if I don’t make sure that I’m doing the things that make my husband feel loved – like listening to him well, giving him physical love and closeness, and taking care of the little things that need to be done around the house – he is going to be more stressed, more on edge, and more likely to lose his cool when things with the kids or school get frustrating. Actively investing in each other, intentionally trying to give each other love in a personally meaningful way, prevents so much strife and so many misunderstandings! And yet so often we neglect it, and take each other’s love and happiness for granted…

All this is to say, take the time to learn what makes your spouse feel loved and then live it out! Build up the love and joy in your marriage and in your home – there is only so much you can do alone, of course, but I believe in the majority of cases both spouses want to fix the malaise and tension in their relationships, and all it takes is a little bit of intentionality.

family life, musings

building a marriage on mutual respect

Posted on 2016-05-032016-05-02 by kristinabean

One of my happiest memories is that of my parents complimenting each other, whether implicitly or explicitly, face-to-face or behind each other’s backs. Everything felt right in the world when my mom and dad were admiring and relying upon each other, whether it was in little things like cleaning and chores or in big things like vision or logistical skills. I’m not saying that my parents were perfect; in fact, they probably picked on each other more than they complimented each other (and they will never be reconciled to each other’s driving style!). But they had an understanding and appreciation of each other’s abilities, accomplishments, and efforts – a realization that their marriage was so much stronger with the gifts both of them brought to it than when either of them tried to dominate or control the relationships. Though they have never been particularly demonstrative or romantic people, I saw in this dynamic the deep love that they had for each other. And so it is this mutual respect and interdependence that I want to cultivate in my own marriage, so that both my husband and myself can bring our strengths to the table with confidence instead of pride or insecurity, rely on each other in our areas of weakness without feelings of shame, and generally form a team that functions out of a place of mutual love and encouragement.

family life, musings

meditations in the midst of a round of stomach flu

Posted on 2016-04-302016-04-29 by kristinabean

The boys are sleeping.

Limerick turns restlessly on his crib, mutters into the darkness, settles himself back down with his bottle of water.

Rondel lies curled up against the back cushions of the couch, pillow beneath him, blanket kicked aside, breathing quiet and small in the darkness.

And I hope that as they sleep they are healing, so that when they wake the pain and fatigue will be gone, and their normal energetic exuberance can resurface.

When the normal pattern of our life involves hours spent running and climbing and laughing outside, days in a row snuggled up on couches, dozing on and off, quiet and slow, feel foreign and strange. When bright eyes are dull and weary, when little faces are pale, when active limbs are still and calm, nothing seems right.

And I think to myself, this is only a stomach bug, and they’re going to be better in a few days, and however do mothers cope when this becomes a new normal, and sickness buries its talons into a family? How do they not break with the pain of it, loving so deeply and being so horribly unable to stop the hurting and restore health and energy to their baby? It takes my breath away, how lucky I am, how many good cards I’ve drawn in this game of life; and if it were all to fall apart, would my faith hold firm? I hope that it would, but I pray that such a test will never come.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – the gift of family

Posted on 2016-04-282016-04-28 by kristinabean

This week has had some highlights and some rough spots, and both of them have emphasized to me the goodness and beauty of family.

At the beginning of the week, my husband’s brother (the oldest, and the only one of the five brothers that lives out of state) came back into town for a few days, so the five of them had a night out and I invited my two sisters-in-law with children to come up to our place for dinner and to give the cousins a chance to spend time together. It was really a fabulous evening 🙂 We had ribs and watermelon (easy for me to throw together in a crockpot since this all happened on a 10 hour work day, but maybe in hindsight not the neatest meal when there aren’t enough chairs for all the toddlers) and then took the kids outside to play in the water on what was conveniently the warmest day of the year thus far. With six kids ages three and under, outside play was far less stressful and more fun than inside play would have been!

{pretty}

my local sister-in-law, with the current youngest cousin, just 3 months old!

My sisters-in-law are some of the sweetest and godliest women I know – I really am blessed to have them in my extended family through our marriages. It was such a pleasure for me to able to have this time with both of them, even if it did end up mostly centered on the kids! My out-of-state sister-in-law (hyphen overload, my goodness) has shared a lot of parenting wisdom with me over social media, and it was really awesome to see her put it into practice with her daughter during our time together.

{happy}

And my worries that the cousins would end up having a lot of conflict proved utterly groundless. They all seemed so at ease with each other, and enjoyed the time playing with each other. When they had all left and I shut and locked the front door, Rondel looked up at me and asked, “open door so cousins come back in?” It was so adorable 🙂

{funny}

In the smaller context of the immediate family, I’ve been so thankful that my boys have each other, to balance each other out and to give each of them a different personality to bounce against and play with and learn about conflict and friendship with. Whatever kind of sibling struggles you may have in childhood, your siblings end up being the people who are still part of your life in adulthood, when other friends have moved on or drifted away. So right now, one of my biggest goals for my boys is to help them learn to love each other well, whether in play, conflict, or service. We did a lot of playing together this week:

Rondel climbed in, so Limerick climbed in too! And this time, it was Rondel’s idea for Limerick to join him, and Limerick thought it sounded like fun. Cloth diapers in laundry baskets are apparently pretty awesome to wiggle down into and bury one’s legs in 🙂 Then Rondel decided to hug one of the diapers, so of course Limerick had to do that too! He loves to do whatever his big brother is doing – and his big brother is starting to pick up on it, and occasionally tries to encourage him to copy him doing something silly.

(Also, yes, I’m aware of the sharp kitchen knife casually lying on the floor next to them… Rondel was using it, under supervision, to cut the banana that Limerick was finished with.)

{real}

We’re finishing off this week, that started so well, with a nasty stomach bug. So far no one’s been sick except for Limerick, and we’re hoping it stays that way, because one miserably sick vomiting person in a household is enough!

But his sickness has made me realize again how blessed I am by my family, and how valuable family support truly is. When Limerick first got sick yesterday, it was about 30 minutes before I was supposed to leave for work, and I already had the boys at my parents’ house so my mom could watch them for the afternoon. And I could go to work without feeling guilty because I knew that she would be able to care for Limerick with all the common sense of an experienced mother and all the doting love of a grandmother. I could borrow clean clothes from her to wear to work so I didn’t have to drive all the way back home first. I didn’t have to worry about making dinner to feed the rest of us because my brother made dinner for the whole family at my parents’ house. We were incredibly buoyed up by their presence and support on a difficult day.

Today again, watching both boys after I got home from work, I saw how beautiful family could be when Limerick, who had otherwise been just lying wherever I put him with a tired and zoned-out expression on his face, broke into a smile and actually started laughing because of Rondel’s silly antics around him. I saw the power of brotherly love when Rondel came up to his sick brother and covered him in kisses and hugs, and lay down beside him on the bed to snuggle to “help him feel better.” I’m sure it didn’t help physically, but I’m equally sure that it helped Limerick emotionally.

IMG_0026-1 — how Limerick has looked since about noon on Tuesday, with intermittent bouts of sleep, vomiting, and crying; only Rondel can really make him smile.

It makes me so happy that they have each other, to share laughter and silliness, and to learn compassion and love.

Head on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter today to join the link-up or just to be encouraged and encourage others, as we all try to figure out this marriage-and-parenting-and-striving-for-holiness-in-Christ thing together 🙂

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – mostly sweet potatoes

Posted on 2016-04-212016-04-21 by kristinabean

I got some pictures of our baby sweet potatoes in the garden!

{pretty} and {happy}

One of the little slips didn’t make it – I think it was just too small to be transplanted – but I kept one of the purple potatoes and both orange potatoes in their jars anyway, so I’ll be able to replant in that location when the more sluggish slips have reached a better size.

Right now, they look like they’re doing rather well! Even the orange potatoes, which have been slower to root, have a few slips with both good little leaves and decent-sized roots, so maybe I will plant them sometime this upcoming week.

{real}

Of course, the difficulty with having those tiny new plants in the garden is that the boys have to show some caution now when digging in the dirt. Rondel is pretty good at understanding the idea of being gentle with the baby plants, but Limerick seems a bit more oblivious… I just hope they will learn and that the sweet potatoes will survive!

{funny}

Apart from the garden, Rondel’s sense of humor has been growing all the time. Last night he came running out of the bathroom with an extra pair of underwear asking to wear both. When we told him that only one pair would fit on his bottom at a time, he decided the other pair should go on his head! And he found another hat to top off the ensemble:

I think the laughter he brings just might make up for the sleep deprivation he causes…

What’s been going on in your world? Head on over to the link up at Like Mother, Like Daughter to share with everyone else!

family life, musings

rainy day in the desert

Posted on 2016-04-182016-04-17 by kristinabean

Sometimes, when everything is dry and parched and hot, rain comes bringing renewal and new life.

Maybe if I’d grown up somewhere wetter, rain wouldn’t always feel like a gift from heaven or an answered prayer – but to this desert girl, where water is always needed, rain is analogous to grace. It comes from God, not by any effort of our own, and we delight in it.

It got a bit cold for us out in the rain, because it was also fairly windy, but the boys were entranced by the water anyways.

I just hope that they will be just as entranced by grace itself as God pours it into their lives.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – working in the garden

Posted on 2016-04-142016-04-14 by kristinabean

For the first time in my desert gardening adventure, I’m going to be attempting a crop over the summer. Our scorching days not being particularly friendly to most plants, I’ve avoided the summer so far – but this year, we’re going to be planting sweet potatoes! I’ll have to take another picture of the slips I started soon, because they’re really starting to take off, especially the purple potatoes, which have the most beautiful red-veined leaves.

Anyway, to grow sweet potatoes we needed to seriously amend our soil, because the native soil where we live is the kind of clay you can build with – dense, compacted, hard, and thick: pretty much the opposite of what root vegetables need! So we spent Saturday mixing in two huge sacks full of compost from a local farm into our raised bed, and the boys, particularly Rondel, had a wonderful time exploring the dirt and helping with the work.

{pretty}

He was so focused and engaged with the task at hand! He first helped me water the mint and oregano, which we had to transplant to the trench garden from the raised bed to make room for the sweet potatoes, and the continued to water the dirt in the raised bed as we mixed in the compost. We had the kiddie pool filled up in case anyone needed to cool off, since Saturday was pretty warm, and it provided Rondel with a way to fill up the watering can on his own.

{happy}

In addition to wanting to help with the tasks of preparing the garden, Rondel couldn’t resist sticking his hands in the dirt and discovering what it felt like at various stages of wetness, from completely dry all the way to soggy mud.

The garden has always been his happy place, where he pushes his sensory boundaries and lets his imagination run wild, and I absolutely love seeing him get dirty and sweaty and so incredibly captivated by natural things. This is our little piece of nature in the midst of the city, and something about it speaks to his heart.

{funny}

Limerick also wanted to use the watering can, once Rondel put it down, and after a while he kind of got the hang of it – but at first he just turned it upside down like a bucket:

{real}

Aside from the watering can diversion, however, Limerick was not thrilled about our family time in the garden. He was tired and hungry and generally grumpy, and constantly demanded bubbles.

have you tried taking pictures of bubbles as you’re blowing them? it’s more luck than anything that one of these bubbles managed to be in focus…

And it’s so hard to say no to him because I always wonder if I’m just saying no because of my own selfishness and laziness instead of for a legitimate reason, and because he sometimes gets very fixated on things and has a lot of trouble moving on to something else when I say no. It’s hard not to pull out the bubbles when your baby is crying for them and it’s not a difficult activity to share with him – but on the other hand, I don’t want him to think that he can get whatever he wants by crying for it. Right now I’m trying to be firm with boundaries that I care more about and just caving on the bubbles… I do love bubbles myself anyways…

Head on over to the linkup at Like Mother, Like Daughter today to share some more everyday joy and contentment!

family life

Limerick being silly

Posted on 2016-04-112016-04-12 by kristinabean

This little guy is one of the jolliest babies I know – he always seems to have a smile or a laugh ready, and he’s already got quite a sense of humor.

Yesterday afternoon he was diligently capping and uncapping some pens, and ended up with the lid to an orange pen but not the pen itself. The pen was sitting on the ground in front of him, by his right foot which was tucked in, but he kept overlooking it. So he looks up from his capping and asks, “other half orange one?”

“Is it right in front of you?” I ask.

Looking by his outstretched left leg he says, “nope!”

“Is it by your toes?” I ask next.

Reaching out to the toes of his left foot, he picks up his whole foot by the toes and then proclaims, “nope!”

At this point I’m not really sure what to say, so I wait for him to keep looking on his own a bit longer before simply telling him, “It’s right next to your other foot, Limerick!”

To which he responds by picking up the toes of his right foot and declaring, “nope!” once again.

I totally lost it. I mean, I fell over on the floor I was laughing so hard, and Limerick ended up deciding that hysterical mommy on the hallway floor was much more entertaining then a bunch of pens anyway, so he came over and sat on me.

I have a strong suspicion that he knew where that pen was the whole time and was having fun seeing what would happen if he pretended he couldn’t find it 🙂 These boys – they bring such silliness to my life and I absolutely love it.