Inspiration

I've been ambushed by a variety of inspirations, new relationships are starting to take root and opportunities are offering themselves like so many Costco samples (I couldn't think of a better analogy...is that a bad sign?) and I'm getting to the place where it's quickly becoming apparent that I have no idea what I'm going to feed all these kids this week and the sink is full of dirty dishes and it's just about bedtime and we haven't eaten dinner (these longer days are fooling us!). My big dreams and inspirations are hitting the ceiling of this little houseful of hungry children who look at me to direct their own bursting imaginations.

But before I realized the impending conclusion of spring break leisureliness, I found inspiration in a conversation with my dad. I promised my dad that I would sketch something and mail it to him immediately. I told him he should, too...but it might take getting mine in the mail to push him to actually do it. He's an amazing artist, but he's been undercover for a long time. Just takin' care of business I guess. There is value in always making art, if that is what you were made to do, like I was (I am forcing myself to believe that). Like he was. Like his mother before him was. I don't want to let art become a stranger to me.

So I held up my end of the sketchbook... now it's his turn.

Eight, By the Sea

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to see the ocean for her eighth birthday. So she got on a bus with her friends, paid the fare (one sand dollar) and took off.

 BEEP! BEEP! "Next stop: Oysterville," said the bus driver.

Unfortunately, the bus couldn't take them all the way to the water. "Schools of fish are always trying to get on for a field trip," the bus driver explained, "and they are far too soggy.

So the friends had to walk the rest of the way to the beach.

"But where IS it? We must explore!"

Finally, through the tall grass, they saw some seagulls and heard the crashing of waves.

"There it is!" cried Taylor. "The OCEAN!"

 Morgen was delighted!

 She immediately waded into the ocean's shore...

...only to find it FREEZING cold, so she jumped right out and into the air!

 Micah was still trying to find his way through the tall grass....

(...he thought it tickled his nose...)

 ...until Taylor found him and showed him the way out!

Feeling the cold water, Micah exclaimed, "I'm going to be BRAVE!" He hiked up his shorts and ran straight into the oncoming surf. What a brave little boy, indeed!

 Their big sister apprehensively watched from up in the tall grass. She wasn't sure she wanted to venture into that cold, cold water with her siblings.

 But the salty ocean air, the sound of seagulls and the water crashing onto the sand exhilarated her senses until she couldn't help but to come out of hiding.

She paused momentarily, as if to unknowingly reflect the Birth of Venus itself...

 ...and lept for joy into the frigid surf!

Korah was very pleased to be at the ocean's edge.

 Back and forth, back and forth, they ran with the tide....

...until it was time to line up and travel back from whence they came.

It was time for some birthday cake!

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY, MORGEN!

(Editor's note: it's amazing to me that I can lay down the strangest-looking cakes, so far from my cake-decorating fantasies, and all the children ooo and ahhh, salivating with forks poised at the ready. Maybe it's because cake is such a novely around here, or maybe it's because children have simple, joyful hearts and I ought to take a lesson. Either way... they heal my perfectionist spirit with their cheerful ones.)

 Two things to notice here: one, that Noble is apparently trying to put cake directly into his stomach, thereby fitting his entire fist into his mouth. And secondly, notice the little friend in the foreground. Morgen and her school pal she brought along, found these fuzzy little guys and invited them to the party!

"We're here!"

Hmph. Party crashers.

 Taylor always writes the funniest cards.

Then... how do you burn off a sugar high when it's dark and rainy outside and you're stuck inside a beach house? STAIR SURFING!

 This is where mommy turns a blind eye. It looks like someone's ankle is about to break here.

 This is a laughing face, believe it or not.

They've never had so much fun smooshing into each other!

 One last family photo around the birthday girl before we leave.

You are so loved, Morgen-girl! May God bless you big, this ninth year of life!

That's It, I Give Up. (Okay, maybe not...)

Um... hey. How's it goin'?

I've been purposely not-prioritizing showing up here because I feel like my last post needed a proper follow-up. When you put your hopes out there on the internet and things go so terribly different, as I see it you have three options:
1) Shut it down and pretend it never happened.
2) Keep up a facade that your character consists only of sugar and spice and everything nice
3) You can tell the ugly truth and move on.

To complicate blogging motivation, I also have this irrational fear that if I put anything sweet and lovely out into the interwebs, that someone will perceive me as ...well, sweet and lovely, perpetuating the "perfect mom" myth. Gross. I want no part in such fallacy. Plus, I am no good at hiding my faults. If I put on make-up, I will have a booger on my face. If I put on a white shirt, I will immediately spill coffee on it. I'm much safer being proudly broken, bathing in grace!

So all I remember about that day-- the one where I was so pumped up to speak words that heal to my children, the one where I even prayed for God to set a guard over my mouth-- was that a couple of hours into it, something gurgled up inside of me, zero-to-sixty from nowhere at all, and flew out of my mouth so fast that I didn't even know it was happening. Are you ready for this? I screamed F----YOU! at my daughter. [Gasp! Shock! Horror!]

That doesn't mean I shouldn't have written that post. It encouraged at least one person, and it's a reminder to me as well. I am better for having written that down, making it more a part of me. But just in case you have ever let swords and daggers and dragon breath fly out of your mouth instead of rainbows, hearts and unicorn farts (that one was for the 10-year old) I want to be the one to tell you that you're not alone...and, it SUCKS! It sucks that I did that, that I get so uptight and furious and stressed out and let #$%^@* fly out of my mouth!

"It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?" --ro. 7.21-24 the message

So what are we to do? It's discouraging.

But wait; I remember one more thing about that day. An apology. A humiliating admittance of defeat on a day that started off with such good intentions. The healing of relationship between mother and daughter. In the end, the answer to the question is that it is me who has to accept the hand of Jesus, me who has to let grace lift me off the ground, then dust myself off and trudge onward, red-cheeked and humbled.

Even when I don't know where I'm going next...

Readers: Have you experienced grace in Parenting? Care to share in the comments?

Under the Sea

This month I had a ridiculously awesome offer given to me by Milagros Boutique (the best mama & baby boutique in P-town, baby!): to re-paint their play area! Welllll.... alls I do is sit around dreaming up crazy murals in my own house (the baby's room is East-coast sand dunes, and there's a half-finished stork in our hall (for about 3+ years now). See?) so this was a no-brainer!

I took Taylor with me and all the paint I could find. A few sketches and almost 7 hours later (woah, that's like...a workday!) and we've got an underwater adventure!

At the last minute I found gold paint in my stash,
so I had to add some bling to the mermaid's attire.

This guy looks like he's going to open up any second and offer you a pearl!

 This was so incredibly fun! I loved taking Taylor with me. He primed with me and helped with some larger color blocks, but mostly he just kept me company, washed brushes, ran errands. He was my excuse to get dessert from the French restaurant next door. It was so LIFE-giving to me to paint like this, and I haven't painted in acrylics, much less painted at all since I got my job as a MOM....you know how it goes. Well, maybe you don't. Maybe you have had a well-rounded life of fulfilling your potential. But for me, this is a walking-in-the-right-direction, and it feels great! The best part is that I got to trade for time at their beach house. More on that to come....

Meanwhile, maybe it's time I finished that stork.

Words

It's almost 8am and no one is awake! Except me, of course. Is it because I want everyone to get back on a school-schedule? We would have to be leaving the house by now. Is it because David is taking a personal day to work on the attic dormer, and he's still in bed, too? Even though he sneaks away every morning, the house seems to have an unsettling when he's gone, and the children never sleep in very long after he leaves. I could leave and come back at noon and those beds will still be warm!

My reader seems to be carrying a theme this morning, and when life throws me a theme, I figure I'd better listen up. Today's theme is: WORDS.

Grace words.
Words that heal.
Words that make children feel strong.
Words that give thanks.
Words that give life!

Because words can bring death. I have brought more death than life with my words in my lifetime, I am sure of it.  If you have been the recipient of my death-words, please forgive me. I know I am learning to keep quiet when I am tired and hurt and my tongue wants to barf out all kinds of maladies, but I still have a long way to go!

Today I am printing out (and I mean by hand! We don't have a printer, lol!) Ann Voskamp's Manifesto for Joyful Parenting. What a good thing to move towards as the harried, early school mornings quickly approach!
And today I am praying,

"Set a guard over my mouth, Lord. Keep watch over the door of my lips!"

Speak well, today!

Gnocchi at Sunset

A Poem for Febe

I close my eyes and try
to make the traffic sound
like waves. The games of kids
pretending is the same,

Without the element
of magic that comes from
friends
and salty air

And gnocchi-making to
a rainbow sunset.
The gift of respite, on
the job, was burned into

My senses with the smell
of bubbles in the bath,
the ocean rolling in,
the blue and orange and gold.

Inspiring me to try
a poem with my hands,
to keep on making art
with my whole life.

Your laugh is balm to my
encumbered spirit and
so glad am I that you
are my friend, mi amiga.

Bicycle Dating

For the record --because that's what this is for-- thanks to my mom carting four of the kids away to have hotel room/jumping on the bed/swimming pool fun for the night, David and I got to go on a little bike ride date! Noble babbled away in his little bike seat, yelling "HI-EEE!" at everyone we passed. We took the scenic route and had dinner at some food carts. Bummer, Scoop was out of Salted Caramel (the flavor you'll dream about), but that's okay. Riding home to the tune of cotton candy skies and white sliver-of-a-moon and the singing chatter of an ice-creamed toddler, we are feelin' the Portlandia. We are feeling blessed to spend this time together, refreshing our Selves....

What Is It?

We found this in our attic eves today:

Any idea what it is?

Our house was built in 1907, and has been randomly modified in various ways ever since. So there's no telling if this dormer came with the original house, but it's time for this rickety, leaky bad-boy to go.

DEMO-TIME!

Making progress! There was a nasty, fogged-up window here, with no ventilation except for these two wood flaps, through which --legend has it-- the previous owners' three-legged dog would climb out and bark at the neighbors. I also happen to know that racoons will crawl in those flaps and poop in your attic, too.

I am ecstatic to:
a) see the sun
b) smash something with the sledge hammer
c) not be making food for someone
d) all of the above

Seriously, if you know what that cage-thing is, tell us, please!

I'll try and keep y'all up to date on what comes of this massive hole in our roof.

Mother's Day For Me...

David bought me flowers and made me French Press before he left for work.

 Korah spent the morning instant messaging the girl who lives a block away, and the rest of the kids were infatuated with Taylor's new Hex Bugs.

 Which gave me the opportunity to enjoy giving myself the day off from getting all the kids to church.