Chewymom

What does that sound like to you? A diabetic coma waiting to happen? It probably is, and I get an “F” in parenting today. DD4 is now DD5, and you know what that means, don’t you? She gets to pick ALL of the food for the day!

Breakfast–donuts.
School–Cookie cake with friends.
Lunch–out with Mom to O’Charley’s for a big bowl of Mac & Cheese and a surprise pie for dessert.
Dinner–Mac & cheese and a “regular” birthday cake.

I’ll be glad when today is over so I can get rid of my post-sugar “hangover” and get something accomplished.

DD5 also requested having her nails painted, so we went to a little nail salon and had hot pink polish and butterflies painted on her cute piggies! And all the while I was having flashbacks to a tiny bundle lying on my chest, swaddled in a cozy blanket with pink roses on it, with a little pink bow taped to her head, that matched the shape and color of her lips.

Happy birthday, little princess!

When DS12 was in 3rd grade, he received a nomination for Student of the Month in the category of “initiative.” According to dictionary.com, initiative means “an introductory act or step; leading action.” DS12 was putting himself out there–working hard to make friends, to be a leader, to get involved, even though we were new in town and he was entering a tight group that had been together since preschool.

I was reminded of that character trait in DS12 again today. Our kitchen remodel is almost finished, and some painters were scheduled to come by and do a little bit of work. I happened to be at the grocery store, so the following insanity is what transpired.

• I called DH on my way home, who immediately launched into questions about whether I had left the house unlocked, because he had just gotten off of the phone with the contractor who had just gotten off of the phone with the painters, who were standing helplessly in front of our house.
• I told DH that I had locked the house. But I reminded him (to remind the contractor to remind the painters) that there is this little thing called a lockbox that the contractor had placed on our front door. It had a key in it. The painters could use that very key to enter our house.
• DH reminded me that the doorknobs had been changed, so the lock was different.
• I informed DH that the person who had changed the lock two weeks ago had gotten the correct key from me and put it in the lockbox, replacing the key that was there. Meaning that if the painters had actually tried the key, instead of helplessly calling the contractor, they would have discovered that voila! they key worked!
• DH called the contractor back and told him that the correct key was in the lockbox (thanks to the contractor’s own employee, I might add).
• DH then called me back to inform me that the lockbox had been missing since the doorknobs were replaced.
• Um, no. The lockbox is on the ground between the storm doors and the front door. If the painters had thought to look down, they would have seen it. Or if they had scratched their heads and tried to figure out what this thing was that they had to step over in order to enter the house, it might have occurred to them as well.

And there, my friends, is the value of initiative. Being able to assess a situation and consider your options–to take an introductory step in trying to solve a problem before helplessly making a phone call and whining that you can’t do your job. And I wonder why we’re going on four months and the project still isn’t complete….

Because my family is in the PCA, we talk a lot about covenant theology. The very basic idea is that God tends to work within families, and that He has made certain promises to Christian parents. One of mine and my DH’s prayers has always been that our children will grow up to love Jesus with their whole hearts. We alluded to that when we took our parental vows at their infant baptisms, promising to “raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

In my mind, when I made that vow I envisioned this scenario: I read sweet Bible stories to my children during their early years. We talk about spiritual things around the table, and when a difficult issue comes up, we lead them to God’s word for answers. They go to church and Sunday school, they live moral lives, and when they grow up, they marry a nice Christian spouse who was also raised in an intact Christian home. Then they go on to produce good little covenant grandchildren who continue in the same path. Along the way, there may be struggles. My child may struggle to control his temper, just as a hypothetical example, because nothing this drastic would ever happen in my home, and kick a hole in the wall. Or another child may tease a younger sibling, again all hypothetical, mercilessly. But other than that, life is pretty rosy.

In the real world, my ideal doesn’t usually play out. Well, it might work if all I’m after is a superficial Christianity that has the depth of a pancake. But I’m after more. I want to see my children come to a point where Jesus is their all. Where their sole desire is to bring him glory and to love him. I want them to know God as a perfect Father who holds his frail children in his arms and loves them. I don’t want mediocrity and a lukewarm faith–I want their faith to be real and deep and meaningful.

I know a few people who are deep and thoughtful Christians who have become that way just by living a comfortable, Christian life. But those people are very few. The people whose faith has depth and purpose and passion tend to be those who have struggled in a real and personal way. Those who have needed much have been given much in the faith department. Those who have suffered have grown to know from personal experience and deep need, that Jesus can be their all in all.

In my own life, I faced significant marriage struggles a few years back. As a new bride, I would never in a million years have predicted that we would struggle as we did, and I would certainly never have wished for or prayed for that. In the middle of it, things were awful, and I saw no good whatsoever that could possibly result. And even now, I look back and remember with pain and grief and sorrow what we struggled with. And yet, without that, I would not be who I am today. My struggles then were the hardest thing I ever had to live through, and yet they were probably the best thing for me. Those struggles helped me to learn about myself. They showed me truths about God’s grace in ways I never could have learned if I had simply studied in a book or listened to a motivational Christian speaker.

Even as I type, there’s a young girl I know who is making some poor choices. Her godly, distraught parents are working with her, trying to reason with her and convince her to take a better path. As parents, they are doing exactly what they need to do–loving her, giving her boundaries, and praying for her protection. As I watch the situation I am torn in my heart. I see that what she really needs is to love Christ above all else–and her parents see this as well. But I also see that that love may well come out of bad decisions and living through difficult consequences. It’s not something I or anyone wishes on her or on any other person, and yet ironically it may be the very thing we have all prayed for. Bad circumstances often drive us to the end of ourselves when we are left with nothing but to throw up our hands and say, “Help me, Lord!” It is not the path I would choose for this girl–I would rather she let me tell her my story of struggle so she knows what to avoid, how to make wise decisions, and she is saved from heartache, and she loves Jesus with her whole heart, too. But life doesn’t usually happen that way.

I still pray for this girl, that she will mature and listen to godly counsel, and that she will realize her errors and turn around and begin to let Christ be her sufficiency and her prize, rather than seeking out affirmation and love in unhealthy places. And yet I also sit back and nod my head knowingly, realizing that the maturity and love I long to see in her may come through difficult circumstances. Circumstances that might be brought on by bad choices and immature thinking. I pray she is protected from this, but if she is not, I pray that they will drive her to Jesus and she will come out a stronger person in the end. And I pray that if and when I see my own children struggle in their lives, that I can remember this and be content knowing that this testing of their faith will produce the very perseverance (and love and passion) that I long to see built up in them.

In our new house, we have a laundry chute. It is under my bathroom sink, which is, obviously, upstairs. We haven’t been able to use it yet in our two weeks in the house, primarily because my washer and dryer weren’t hooked up until last Friday. Oh, and because we had cabinets with drawers put in, but no counter top yet, so the laundry would fall into the medicine drawer. Which is annoying.

So today, I had DS16 go up and toss his laundry down the laundry chute. He had a big ole time hollering at me through the chute and then carrying on a conversation with DS9 who was using the restroom adjacent to the laundry room. Such fun.

When DS15 came home, I asked him to get his darks downstairs because I was starting a load. He dutifully headed upstairs and came back down with a handful of clothes. As he reached out to place them in the washer, I said, “You could have used the laundry chute.”

“REALLY?” he exclaimed. “Cool!! Where is it?”

“Under the sink in my bathroom,” I replied.

DS15, clothes in hand, headed back upstairs. After a few seconds, the clothes fell through the laundry chute.

Yes, the novelty will wear off. I predict by this Friday.

That pretty much sums up the past few weeks. Below, a more detailed summary.

• We moved into our new house! This is mostly a good thing. I say mostly because when we first moved in we were totally camping with the added touch of sleeping in our own beds and having air conditioning. And A/C is nothing to sneeze at when temps hover above 100 for over a week. After six blissful days of camping, our refrigerator and freezer were installed, as were the ovens and microwave! Meaning we were not forced to eat either pizza or sandwiches for every single meal. Work is still ongoing, and rumor has it I’ll have counters, a sink, and plumbing in my kitchen before the week’s end! Hallelujah!
• I celebrated my second blogiversary on August 9th! I use the term “celebrated” loosely, as I didn’t even really blog on that date. The post on that day was written a day or two before then.
• I celebrated my 41st birthday! “Celebrated” is once again used loosely. No kitchen sink, school starting back, soccer, football, cross country…you get the picture. I did get to play Bunco on my birthday, which is always fun, and my sweet friends had a cake for me!
• In other news, let’s talk about the green nose. On DD4’s 3rd day of school, the assistant teacher greeted me with the above comment when I picked my daughter up. Yeah, I knew about the nose. It seems she’s allergic to school, so in addition to starting back on Singulair, we started a round of antibiotics. Ever tried to keep an antibiotic refrigerated without a refrigerator??? It’s tricky, let me tell you. And the bug. I don’t even know what to say other than, “gross.” Who knows how it got in there, but we were “camping” remember? So I just chalk it up to part of the whole experience–making it all more realistic, you know.
• And finally, I started Microbiology today. So if i shrivel up and die, or hide under the blankets for a week on end, or start obsessively washing my hands and spraying the computer keyboard with Lysol, you’ll understand why. And I might be slightly more bothered by the green nose and the bug. I’ll keep ya posted.

Yeah, that about sums up the past two weeks for me. How’s life in your neck of the woods?

Do you ever get Christmas letters you know you do that almost make you want to…barf? Where you read it and think, “Why can’t I have that life? Everything sounds so perfect! Mrs. Brown, with her 16 perfectly behaved kids, leads Bible study, homeschools her little geniuses, bakes bread from scratch, plays tennis, has perfectly manicured nails, and–judging from the enclosed picture–dresses her entire family in designer clothes. Her children are all honor students and sports stars. She wears a size 4, and her husband is a very successful businessman, and their picture shows a glimpse of their estate-home that they just built, and their designer dog.

Well, enough already. It just ain’t reality. So here’s a meme I can get into. I got it from BooMama

I hope you’ll do it as well, and post in the comments to let me know. Here are the instructions:

The idea is to write two blurbs for the alumni newsletter, updating your life. The first should be the perky, show-offy kind that everyone writes. The second should be the darker side of honest.

Version 1:

Chewydad and Chewymom, who met through a Furman University foreign study program, are about to celebrate 19 years of happy marriage. They have travelled extensively, and they are now settled in northern Alabama with their five children. Chewydad is employed as an IT Professional at a business located only four miles from their home. Chewymom has gone back to school to pursue a second degree in nursing. Their children are excellent students at the local high, middle, elementary, and preschools. They are involved in Cross Country, Swimming, Football, Soccer, Gymnastics, and Ballet. They are active in their church where the Chewyparents work with the junior high ministry. They have recently bought a new home and remodeled the kitchen, and they hope you will stop by for a visit and enjoy a poolside margarita with them, if you are ever in the area!

Version 2:

Chewydad and Chewymom met through a Foreign Study program at Furman University. They have been married for almost nineteen years. Some of those years have been happy, some rough. They have experienced pretty much every “trial” a marriage can struggle through, so if you are having marriage woes, give Chewymom a call. She can give you some advice. Or a pat on the back, a hug, a glass of tea, and a listening ear.

The Chewyfamily has moved eleven times. They will be making move number twelve in a few days. Call them crazy. Insane. Moving is not fun. Although it does help you to accumulate less clutter. They will be having a garage sale soon to get rid of, you guessed it, clutter. Their new house will be wonderful, thanks to the pool and the kitchen remodel. Which has been going on for three months. And isn’t finished. So if you visit soon, don’t expect to eat off of pristine counter tops. You will be served on paper plates, and you will likely have cold cereal or poptarts. Even if it is dinner time. Because they are also lacking several handy appliances and things, like a kitchen sink and a cooktop, to name a few. The pool is great. It has turned green twice. A new chemical system was installed, along with new sand in the filter. Currently the filter is not working, however, so if you do drop by, you might just be sitting out by a green, algae-filled pool, listening to saws in the background, and drinking water from the hose. The house is also likely to be a wreck, because Chewymom frankly hates housework and can always find a blog that needs to be read when she ought be be running the vacuum. Ahhh, life is good.

Moving right along to the children. Currently they are being neglected as Chewymom writes this blogpost and sips her cheap Trader Joe’s “two-buck-Chuck” Merlot. A girl has to have her priorities! School starts tomorrow, and Chewymom spent the day buying school clothes, because she didn’t plan ahead and get it done earlier in the summer, like on our tax-free weekend. Currently, Chewydad is out with two of the kids buying a few more essentials, like…oh…binders. Just a minor item left off of the list.

The Chewykids are involved in all kinds of sports. So many, in fact, that Chewymom can’t seem to remember who is where, and when. She drives in circles from 3:00-8:00 at night. Literally. Often she misses kids’ games, because she can only be so many places at once. Once, Chewymom swore that her kids would not be over-involved and that they were going to live simpler. But that was before she had highschoolers.

The Chewyfamily is blessed with kids who are good students for the most part. Still, that doesn’t prevent the occasional zero for work not turned in, resulting in a much lower grade than the child is capable of and a report card that makes Chewymom start to twitch.

The Chewyfamily cannot afford country club memberships or exotic trips. Chewymom has been known to shop on ebay and thrift stores for clothing for herself and certain little girls who are very into clothes and changing outfits one-thousand times per day. Chewymom frequently finds herself adding money to the cuss jar when she does the bookkeeping. And she’s not the only one adding money to the cuss jar, right certain son of mine who owes far more than a week’s allowance? You know who you are.

Overscheduling, cussing, moving, house-woes, and marriage issues aside, the Chewyfamily can still say that they are blessed to be leading the life they do. And y’all, it ain’t perfect, but it’s still good.

It’s a weird thing when your own kid starts suggesting sermons for you to listen to.

DS16 and DS15 went away to youth camp a couple of weeks ago. DS15 has been full of all kinds of stories from camp. Like the guys who paraded around their room naked, the kid who got the key speaker to sign his toga (yes, this kid wore a toga for two straight days!), the 3-day-old sour cream that a girl dumped onto one of the guys, the multiple mishaps at the restaurant where they ate on Thursday night, and the leader who snores. Loud. I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the stories and imagining the fun my guys were having!

But beyond the goofy antics of high school kids, there was some real learning going on. My son has not ceased to talk about the sermons. This preacher gave a sermon every day of the conference. And to hear my son tell it, this guy is the best preacher he as ever heard. So good, in fact, that he plans to download his sermons onto his I-Pod. Folks, that’s sayin’ something! A regular ole preacher, so good that teenagers are anxiously awaiting his podcasts. The man’s name is Brian Habig, and he is pastor of Downtown Presbyterian in Greenville, SC.

Yep, it’s a strange thing indeed to have your own kid excitedly telling you that you need to listen to a certain preacher. It’s what you, if you are a Christian, always hope will happen someday–that your child will separate himself from you, claim the Christian faith as his own, and grow independent of the things you have been teaching him. And then it happens, and you do a double take and wonder who this person is, how he got so mature, and why you have been given the privilege of being his mom!

You’ve been warned–this is a Mommy-brag coming up!

DS9 has been playing soccer since he was four years old. I’m pretty darned low-key when it comes to sports. There’s a reason it is called playing, folks. I refuse to let my kids’ schedules get insanely busy. Previously when one of my sons wanted to play club soccer, I just had to say no. My life with five kids was just way too crazy to make that work for our family.

This year, the emails started coming a few weeks ago–tryouts for club soccer were coming up! The coach for the club team was DS9’s coach on the rec league soccer team last year. I felt brave and emailed that we might, maybe, possibly be interested. But we’d be out of town for the tryouts. We were given an alternate date for tryouts (last night), but it conflicted with Bunco night for me. Let’s see here…sit on a rainy, wet soccer field while my son tries out for a team I’m not sure I want him to be on, or have dinner, wine, girl-talk, and oh yeah, play some Bunco with eleven girlfriends. Folks, the try out didn’t happen for some odd reason.

The phone rang rather late last night, and I was surprised to see it was this soccer coach. He said he had missed DS9 at the tryout and asked why we had changed our minds. I skipped right over the missing Bunco part and told him that we were unsure we could make the commitment required–the travel for games, the extra practices. After all, I have two kids running or managing cross country, one playing football, and a daughter who is dying to take gymnastics, take ballet, and play soccer. What’s a mom to do? The coach was very reassuring and told me that all of the teams are within 30 minutes, so the travel is minimal, and others could help carpool to practices and such. And he’d really like DS9 to play.

A friend of mine who was with me when I got the call said to me, “Chewymom, are you insane??? You have to THINK about this???? A coach just called and asked your son to play on a club soccer team without trying out??? YES YOU ARE GOING TO LET HIM PLAY!!! The kid has TALENT!!!”

I talked to DH and DS9, and both were in favor of me saying yes to soccer. I was thinking sheesh, they must be desperate–they’re asking my kid to play when he didn’t even try out! Well, the email came today, and that’s not quite the case. They turned kids away. And yet DS9’s former coach asked him to play on the team. So I’m bragging about my little guy, DS9, who will be playing Club Soccer for the first time, without ever trying out. What mom wouldn’t be just a wee bit proud?

About ten years ago, a little baby was born to a family–the fifth child. Soon after her birth, it was discovered she had a hole in her heart. This did not appear to be a huge issue, because her older sister also had been born with a hole and she was four years old and just fine. After a bit, however, it became clear that this little baby would require surgery to repair the hole. At six months of age, her parents headed down to the nearest children’s hospital for the surgery. After she had been in surgery for a bit, the doctors came out and said that things were going badly. Very badly. They repaired the one hole, and it opened up dozens of tiny perforations in the heart wall. They were going back in to un-repair the hole in hopes of halting any further damage. Ultimately nothing could be done and this precious little baby did not make it.

I did not know her family at the time, but they have been friends of mine for about five years. I have often wondered how the mother was able to stand the pain of losing a little one so unexpectedly. Today I was riding in the car with DD4, and we drove a route I rarely travel, past the town cemetery where this little one is buried. My thoughts drifted to my friend. I wondered if she still visits the cemetery very often. Does she bring flowers? With it being close to ten years, does she think often of the little girl her daughter would now be?

As I was lost in thought, my own daughter piped up from the back seat, “Mommy, on Miss K’s birthday the kids at church sprayed her with slimy green Silly String!” My heart jumped. Miss K is exactly the friend I had been thinking about. Her birthday was six months ago. What made DD4 think of her? She knows nothing about the baby, the cemetery. Are she and I that tuned in to each other that we can sense each other’s thoughts? Did God bring Miss K to DD4’s mind so we could both think about her and cover her in prayer?

The whole thing was so surreal–one of those times when you suddenly question either your own sanity or whether you are dreaming, because it’s just a little too weird to be normal reality. Regardless of the how or why, I am thankful that God brought “Miss K” to both my daughter’s and my minds today so we could talk about her and think about her and pray for her.

Many many months ago, an opportunity was presented for my two high-school boys (DS16 and DS15) to attend a youth conference for our denomination called RYM. We were excited to be able to send them with lots of other kids from our church, but we were also faced with a dilemma. How could we accomplish both the goal of sending DS16 and of allowing DS15 to have a fun week with his friends?

We decided that the best way to accomplish both was to ask the various boys in the youth group to each take a half-day and be DS16’s helper. The boys all agreed, and I made a schedule and a list of ways to help DS16. Make sure he gets to meetings. Make sure he doesn’t wander out of meetings. Help him cross the highway (!) to get to the beach. Make sure he doesn’t drift along in the surf and lose sight of the group! That’s a lot for a high school boy to keep up with–it’s like having a kid brother along on a high school trip. I knew I was asking a lot, and frankly, it made me nervous. We do have adults down there with our kids, but they cannot devote all of their time and attention to my son alone.

Two days before the boys left on their trip, I learned that my niece would also be attending with her church group. Awesome! Another set of eyes on DS16. A set of eyes that love him as much as DS15, that would feel a responsibility to be sure he is safe. I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God for providing yet another person to help DS16 enjoy this retreat. But it gets better.

This morning, just after dropping the boys off at the church, I called my sis-in-law–the one whose daughter was also attending the retreat. She said, “You won’t believe this, but my DH is going on the trip!” Folks, this is one of my DH’s identical triplet brothers (also known as the non-blogging FatTriplet3). How cool is this?? Now DS16 has arranged helpers from his youth group, his brother, his cousin, and his uncle all watching out for him. I know his Uncle FT3 will have an eye on DS16 and will love and watch over him just like his own Daddy would. Not to mention that our youth group will get a kick out of meeting DH’s identical triplet uncle!

Not only does our Heavenly Father have his omniscient eye of love on my guys, but He has provided many earthly eyes as well. As a result, I am relaxing this evening (with a glass of wine, even), confident that my older two boys are safe and happy down at the beach.