Shifted purposes.

I am not enough.

There’s not enough of me to go around. I’m tired and sore and wishing the next weeks away, longing for the day I’ll feel normal again. For the day I feel normal again.

I can’t ever take the kids to the park enough times to suit me. The zoo pass sits lonely and unused far more often than I’d like. I haven’t played with my kids outside since the first time it snowed. That was at least a month ago. But lately, it’s not just “not enough”. It’s “not at all”.

The subject of “mommy guilt” has always confused me. Guilt about what? Lately, it’s all come crashing in on me. Guilt about everything. There’s something about pregnancy hormones that will do that to you.

And yet, as I lay in my bed last night, unable to sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder at the thought process. My children aren’t complaining. They rub my belly and look forward to the day they can hold their newest sibling. They take joy in serving me… most of the time… even if, in Pierce’s mind, it’s bringing me a Coke four times a day. (Since I bought the Coke to marinate deer meat, it’s an interesting gesture. Basically, it has him moving Coke from the box in the basement to the fridge in the kitchen because I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t want it. So I procrastinate and send him to put it in the fridge for me. We’re getting a huge stash up here, only to be taken back down… he must think that box will never, ever empty itself.) Liberty offers to make supper every single night. Eden loves to look through cookbooks to find me recipes to make with the ingredients we have. Sterling is the expert “stand on a stool and stir this” supper helper and Ruby loves to get things out of the garage for me. She usually comes back giggling with a tale of “I had to climb into the chest freezer to find the broccoli.” Such hardships, I’m sure.

I wonder. Is pregnancy a way to make me slow down? Is this an opportunity to teach my children service, empathy, and the value of offering to help instead of spend their time doing less fruitful activities? In my guilt over what I’m not doing with them these days, have I missed the bigger picture?

Our home is still functioning. The floors are swept… most often by an eight year old these days. Laundry is as caught up as it ever is. (You decide what that means!) My older two have learned how to sort, start laundry, switch loads, fold, and put away. The younger four are fabulous at taking laundry to the laundry room. School has happened every day, just like we always do. Grocery shopping is enough to make me need a nap – but my children pitch in and put groceries away and while I have yet to find the onion soup mix we bought last week… that’s minor. I’ve had more chances than normal to sit and read books to the kids, to snuggle up next to my little ones, to convince Pierce to take a nap – with me.

Maybe, just maybe, I need to look at this as a season to live differently, a chance to teach my kids things they’ve not learned yet about service, compassion, and empathy. Maybe, instead of seeing this as what they aren’t getting, I can see it as a chance to get something entirely different.

It’s hard. I’m thankful it’s not anticipated to be long term. But instead of looking at it for what it isn’t, I’m going to look at it for what it is. Guilt free.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun… (Ecc. 3:1)

Learning.

Someone told me once that, to have a large family and remain sane, one must have a good sense of humor. I’m always rather enjoyed the funnier side of life, but children have slowly taught me to see things that way on a far broader basis.

When Pierce pooped on the floor at the eye doctor’s, it was horrifying. But, now we laugh. And I’m certain he’ll hear about that one when he’s older. And when he gets married. And when he’s potty training his own son.

When my then two year old asked, in a Baptist (ie. dry) congregation why she wasn’t allowed to take communion, followed by “Does it have ALCHOHOL in it?!” in a very loud voice, I was mortified. We didn’t share all the same convictions, but that didn’t mean we needed to offend everyone in that. But… now we laugh.

So now, I’m trying to remember to just laugh. Skip the embarrassed and go straight to enjoying my children. It’s all I can do, anyhow. Embarrassed doesn’t get you very far anyhow. Anger doesn’t either. In an eye-opening moment, my dear baking-loving daughter brought me a broken (6 year old!) rubber spatula in two pieces and a dollar, I wanted to cry. Am I seriously so stinking uptight when she legitimately broke something that she felt like she needed to bring money to help replace it when she showed me what she’d done? Hello mirror. That reflection is looking pretty stinking ugly right about now.

When Pierce bit Charlotte and ran for the bug bite medicine, I scolded. And then, I laughed. Because who would have thought of that?!

When I’m rushed for time and my dear, fun-loving Ruby decides that the train she needs to color for math needs stripes – about  30 different colored stripes – I’m learning to go with it. I’m doing my best to back off from the hurrying up and slowing down to try to enjoy life. Including the most colorful trains you ever did see in one math book.

When Sterling left his 2 week-old crayon box out in the sun one afternoon this week, we examined what wax does in heat, what colors melting on colors looked like… and then I handed him a new box of crayons. It’s just not worth getting crabby about. (Contrast this to the melted crayon he was required to scrub off the sidewalk this summer and you’ll note progress. I hope.)

When naked Sterling, fresh from the tub and 20 months old, plopped himself down on the frozen turkey my sister had just removed from the freezer but it had yet to make it off the floor and into the sink to thaw… Sterling saw it as a perfectly sized stool. And then he froze. On two counts. But oh, we laughed. And laughed, and laughed. Do you know how good that feels?!

Motherhood, it turns out, is pretty stinking funny. Embarrassing, certainly. Humbling, definitely. As iron sharpens iron – but, I’m learning, play dough in the carpet does a pretty good job of sharpening iron too.

How do you want to be remembered when your children are grown and gone? I’m aiming for easy-going, go with the flow, laugh-instead-of-cry, grace-extending, and quick to forgive. And slowly, with God’s grace, I’ll learn from my mistakes and get better at this.

Murphy’s Law?

We burn wood for heat. Come about now, when the heat is enough to make Sterling question why on earth we’re cutting wood for heat, we start cutting for next winter. So when Blaine read a CraigsList ad from a family who had a bunch of trees that need to come down, we started on our quest. Saturday, Blaine cut the first tree down, changed a flat trailer tire, and we brought a trailer load of wood home. He fixed the tire when we got home.

Tonight, we were headed back to get the rest of the tree. With the new to us (but most definitely not new-new) trailer behind my big van and Blaine in the pickup, with plans to get the rest of the tree, we headed out. I made it less that 1/4 of a mile before the other (not recently fixed) trailer tire made a tell-tale hiss that spoke volumes about it’s incapability to serve. Shredded. Sighing at the inevitable hiccups a new apparatus is bound to have, Blaine dragged the trailer home and we went with Plan B. Or Plan ZR257, or whichever plan we’re currently trying out.

I took the van, he took the pickup, and we figured that at least I can help load the truck so he’d be done sooner. He still had the whole tree trunk to cut up, so this was a long process.

He made it all the way to town before his pickup’s tailpipe fell off the pickup at both ends, attached only by the wire he’d put on it when he’d noticed it’s low status on Saturday.

Oh yes. Did I mention his tailpipe fell off? Liberty was laughing at the irony of his pickup bumper sticker, “I have a Leatherman. I can help.” I thought it might be good to get one that says something to the uses of duct tape on the other side of the bumper.

Blaine removed the tailpipe in the Pizza Inn parking lot, and we headed out again. The pickup was loaded to weight capacity and all but groaning at the weight of it in the pickup’s old age. When I realized we were six tree trunk logs away from getting the whole tree, I cringed.

“Fine. Put them in my van.”

And so, my trusty 1-ton 12 passenger van hauled a good portion of a tree and seven passengers home tonight. Tomorrow, it’s getting a good vacuum and scrub job. Poor thing.

It’s a zoo.

Since the friends we went to the zoo with here in South Dakota are far more on the ball than I am (While I took pictures, my camera still holds them captive.) I’m going to steal her photos and share them all with you. Thanks, LC.

My kids love the head boards. Or whatever you call these things.

I just want to know what was going through Eden’s mind when she made this face. Close up, for good measure:

Oh, dear girl, you make me laugh.

Pierce really enjoyed the zoo. He took in most of it from this position:

Yep. Thrilling.

Once I get my camera back into my parent’s house from the van and our most recent trip to North Dakota for camping, rain bathing, and mosquito blood donation, I’ll share a few more. In the meantime, half a dozen loads of laundry a bit of calamine might be in order.

Summer nights.

One of our favorite things to do on a warm evening. (One of these days, I’ll learn to count to six and realize Eden was busy cooking another marshmallow after donating her first to Charlotte and she never got in the mix of messy s’more eating children. Oops.)

Heavy thoughts for a Monday.

As I walked through a grocery store tonight, I ran into a friend. She also has six children. After commenting that we look an awful lot alike when it comes to family size and mentioning how people never fail to comment, we went our separate ways.

Less than three seconds later, I was cornered by a perfect stranger who was asking my children if they were all brothers and sisters and if they all have the same mommy and daddy. Oh. My. REALLY?!!!!!! And then it occurred to me.

We’re not normal.

I know, I’m a little slow on the uptake, but bear with me. I haven’t slept well in, oh, about ten years.

I’ve always wondered at the attention we draw. I’m not nearly so outgoing as I’ve been forced to become in recent years, so this has rather bothered me. I can go grocery shopping at midnight without my children, but even that gets interesting. Something about buying 6+ gallons of milk and 12 loaves of bread makes people look at you funny. I’ve been asked if I was having a party before. Dude, you have no idea. Every day is a party at my house.

We don’t just draw a crowd. We are a crowd. No matter how well behaved the kids are – and sometimes, they just aren’t – we’re still in the way. People are in a hurry, and I’m the huge roadblock at the end of the aisle.

But where they see it as inconvenient, I see these as blessings. These are my blessings, my heart, worn outside of my body for all the world to see, to critique. Eden, she’s the one who will never run out of energy and is always willing to run anywhere to get something for me – and run she will. Ruby will make you laugh, every time. She says everything I say, and usually the first clue I’m saying something too much is when she starts saying it too much.

Charlotte is quiet and reserved and such a love. She’s vibrantly passionate about her hugs. Liberty is my right hand, learning to do everything I can, and becoming one of my best friends. Sterling is quiet and purposeful and his Daddy all over again. Since I fiercely love one, I also fiercely love the other. Pierce is stubborn, willful, and determined in all he does. He’s blazing through life with a temper that will either serve him well or get him into trouble – or both.

But my point is this. Before telling a momma she has her hands full, before you question her judgment in the choices she’s made, realize that whether she has one child or ten, these aren’t inconveniences to be merely be amused by, to comment upon, and shake heads while walking away, saying how glad you are that you aren’t me. I’m glad you aren’t me too. These are children of God, after all. I’ve been blessed enough to get to teach six of them about the Lord who created them, died for them, and rose again to give them life.

Pictures: what our homeschool looks like.

Every homeschool blog I look at looks idyllic. Orderly, labeled, color-coded shelves of perfectly graded schoolbooks, desks free of pencil marks (and dust), and charts on the walls to tell each perfectly groomed student which minute of which hour they should be doing their 3rd grade Geometry.

Oh, to be so organized. But I’m not. So, without further ado about what I don’t have, a look at a day in the life of our homeschool:

Sometimes, they sit where they are supposed to: at the little table, in front of our less-than-organized children’s reading bookshelf. (Do I get points that the kids’ books have their own shelf, and 95% of them are on the shelf or on top of the book on the shelf? Please?)

Or they work in the middle of the room, on their laps. Because that’s super comfy. (?!)

Younger siblings sit and soak up the instruction as well. The way I figure, they’ll know half of what they need to know before the age of five at this rate.

The floor is a popular place to be.

But it has it’s risks.

And in the end, it usually works something like this.

I attempt to keep children on task and distractions to a minimum. But it doesn’t always usually work.

Our school shelf screams for someone, anyone, to do something. It started out the year organized, and each child’s books were together, youngest to oldest, left to right. Now, they are all on the shelf, and when room runs out, they are on the books on the shelf. It’s success so long as it’s on the shelf, I’m afraid. As long as the encyclopedia set is in alphabetical order, I tell myself there’s hope.

When a dear child fails to maintain their proper schedule on time, penance must be paid. It’s rough.

But they are learning. And one day, when they are older, they will thank me for their ability to concentrate despite extreme circumstances.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

**Just for the record, Pierce was napping during our photo session this school day. If he hadn’t been, the camera shake would have been considerable and the learning level greatly diminished.

Christmas monkeys.

I sewed 17 sock monkeys in the last month and a half. Ten of them were for my kids and their cousins who were here for Christmas.

Fun stuff.

Christmas numbers.

There are 17 people in my house this Christmas. All family, crowded together under one little roof. Ten little people, all having the time of their lives and making memories that will last a lifetime. Seventeen people, one bathroom, 51 meals a day to prepare, and more games played than I can count.

One Christmas trampoline, gifted early, being well broken in by 20 little legs (and a few adult ones too). Two black dogs, unsure about being friends, tolerating one another and joining forces when it’s time to tree the cat. One Christmas tree, decorated in tinsel in the name of making it less homely, now decorating seventeen people with it’s tinsel. One baby boy, unsure of the level of noise in his home, raising his level of crabby to an all time high. One little girl, bossing around the dogs in her big girl voice, fully expecting to be obeyed and becoming indignant when she’s not. The same little girl, asking numerous times if the visiting dog is a dog or a cat. Our cat shares the same name. The visiting dog is the size of a cat far larger than any I would consider safe and welcome in my home. And she can bark. It’s so confusing.

What a wonderful life.