motherhood for the introvert

Shy was the word used to describe me in elementary school. That, and the girl with the freakishly skinny wrists. But then my family moved from the only town I had ever known to a new town several states away. Suddenly, my need for friends and fun outweighed the fear, and my life as a social butterfly began in full force.

That move was a turning point for me. I had lots of friends and I liked it that way. I wanted to be with people and always know what was going on. Still, I craved alone time but often skipped it for fear of missing out. As a result, whenever I took personality tests through high school and college, I was always pegged an extrovert. That is how I saw myself.

Years later, after I had children, I realize the truth: I am an introvert. People who know me in real life are sometimes surprised to hear that. I wouldn't call myself an extreme introvert, but I think I am returning to my kindergarten roots in a way. I'm no longer shy with people, but my energy is found only after time alone. The pressures of motherhood smoked the introvert right out of me.

Lately I've been thinking about parenting and personality. Sometimes it feels like I will explode from the inside if I don't have the opportunity to just be. Alone. Without the chatter. A girl needs time to do important introverty things like stare out the window, sit for no reason, or write bad first drafts without an agenda.

But having three small children at home does not allow for such luxuries a lot of the time. Instead, I improvise. I find little ways and crazy times to squeeze in the quiet.

How does your personality effect your parenting? What are some things you have discovered to help you maintain the balance between being who you are and being who those little ones need you to be?

I hereby declare skates are from the devil

What has 16 wheels, four eyes and speaks fluent Whine?
The twins wearing the worst Christmas gift ever. Back in August when they first asked for skates, I am confident they had visions of gliding down a smooth road at warp speed, waving at smiling dogs and happy neighbors while holding pink balloons. That is not what happened.
Skates are trouble. They are heavy and bulky and hurty and not tight enough and waaay too tight. Not to mention they like, move. On their own. Still, everyday since Christmas, they have begged me to take them out. I finally caved, tired of hearing myself make up excuses like We'll do that later or It's too cold outside or Well, we need to wait for Daddy to do skates because Mommy doesn't know how or I don't speak English.
After 20 minutes of velcroing Barbie elbow pads, knee pads, wrist pads and helmets, we finally managed to arrive outside in the minus 17 degree weather. I walked at a snails pace, both girls hanging onto my arms for their very lives. They were lucky they had all that padding. After a few laps around the cul-de-sac, I declared it to be too cold to function.
I think gifts that require excessive work from Mommy and/or lots of equipment and/or wheels should be banned until kids are 12. That is my new rule. So, do you have any gift disasters?

how we do birthdays

This happens every year. Just as I begin to settle into the Christmas season, my girls begin to plan their birthday. They were born shortly after Christmas (seven whole weeks before their actual due date thankyouverymuch). Had they come on time, we wouldn't be doing their birthday until the middle of February. Which would have been great because nothing big happens in February.

This year they will be five. They have already made their invitations and have been busy making plans for what will happen on their birthday. So far, it is a coloring, pajama, balloon, cooking party and there are 473 people on the guest list. And they want strawberry cake. With purple icing.

One thing I know they won't want is for us to focus on who they were as babies. Although it is fun for them to see baby pictures and to hear stories from their birth, for the most part they want to talk about all the things they can do now that they are five: like get skates and go to kindergarten and help mommy make dinner.

So we will celebrate them. We will celebrate the fact that, even though they were born too soon, they were healthy and whole and well. And they have become little ladies full of joy and innocence and excitement for life. We will celebrate who they are now.
As I've thought about the way we do birthdays, I've considered the unique way we celebrate the birthday of Jesus. We sing about his birthplace, his virgin mother, his swaddling clothes, the manger. On Christmas, we celebrate Jesus as a baby.

Maybe it's because it seems more manageable and less offensive to think of Him as a baby than to think of Him as a man. I can handle a baby. But a man who claimed to be the the Son of God, Savior of the world?

He entered the scene of humanity in this most humble of ways and he did so on purpose. Beautifully. Ironically. But Jesus as a baby isn't such a big deal unless you know him as a man and why he came as a baby in the first place. What depth of joy is available to those who are able to transition from celebrating Jesus, the tiny baby in the manger to Jesus, the redeemer of our hearts.

spreading the christmas cheer

We are certainly enjoying a holly jolly Christmas season around here.

Evidently my kids forgot the first line of
Santa Clause is Coming to Town.
Merry Christmas from our happy family to yours.

clean house secrets revealed

The toy clutter is out of control. Like vines on brick, the Polly's and the dollies and the little matchbox cars are taking over my world one room at a time. And it has stressed me out to no end.

Until now. I have found the secret to a clean house. Wanna know what it is?



Someone please tell me why I haven't let this be okay before? It is genius, I tell you. And it is, quite simply, the best I can do. Gone are the days of putting toys where they belong. Just throw them in the middle and vacuum around them. I don't know how long uptight Emily is going to allow this to continue, but for now I am going to enjoy my new-found freedom. Merry Christmas to me.

testing

I knew this would happen: as soon as I announced publicly that I am purposing to slow down and notice, I would be tested on every side to do just that. This morning as I was stealing 10 minutes for a shower before The Man left for work, I cringed as one of my children stood at the bathroom door, wailing for me to come out.

As I was cleaning the shower with a Q-tip to avoid the inevitable, I wondered in my head Okay. Where is it? Where is the celebration in this? Because it's easy to notice the small and lovely things when I'm alone and rested and clean and happy. But when there is a whole day looming ahead and no clean clothes and three children with runny noses?

Things just have to get done. Not to mention the fact that Christmas is three weeks from Thursday.

The day has continued just as it began: if it isn't a child crying for my attention, then it is the laundry or the fort-covered living room or the Jesse tree ornaments that I still haven't made/found/bought.

It's hard to be present when my present seems so imperfect. Today I purposed to notice the little things. But instead of reveling in the hidden blessings, I tripped over the obvious tasks. Instead of being present, I caught myself in a dazed stupor countless times, overwhelmed with the running list in my head.

I think the fact that it is a struggle highlights how important it is to slow down and celebrate smallness. I am thankful for this quiet moment, to know and receive truth. The day was far from perfect. But His mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness is great.

Has anyone else had trouble celebrating what is in the midst of anticipating what is to come?

when play becomes work

When, exactly, did play become work?

I remember playing with Barbies in the summertime for entire days, stopping only to eat and use the bathroom. Our Barbies would go through high school, fall in love, get married and have babies all in the course of one long, Indiana summer day. We picked wardrobes. We placed furniture. We had multiple "houses" rigged up in our room. When the day was over and it was time to go to bed, we would wake up the next morning and start again.

I have been playing house with my kids for the last 45 minutes. And I think I'm going to die. Like, DIE of tiredness. I am always the mommy. Always. I try to convince them to let me be the dog, but they won't allow it anymore ever since that time I curled up in the corner and took a nap. I tried to tell them I was an old dog. They didn't buy it.

I have also tried to be the baby. The sick baby who needs lots of rest. They don't let me be the baby anymore, either.

Chickadee from A Familiar Path once wrote about how she loves to listen to her kids play. She just doesn't always love joining in. That is exactly how I feel. I could listen to their dramatic and relational stories all day; their voices a simple melody chirping in the background while I sweep. But sometimes they are discontent being my background music. They want me to be the lead singer.

I have to force myself to sit down and play. I have to force myself to interact. Sometimes its fun, sometimes its work, but one thing is certain: I never regret it.

brainlessness

This morning, my daughter was watching me put laundry in the washing machine and she curiously asked: Where is that water coming from?

The following is my brilliant and attentive answer:

Well, it's the washer and that's just how it's made and there's pipes and that's how it works.

I think I do this sort of thing more often than I would like to admit. You know, giving an answer that isn't really an answer but has lots of words so maybe that will satisfy the four year old. Sometimes it does. But not always.

Can you think of any brainless answers you've given lately? Please do. Make me feel better.

even the darkness is not dark to You

Most days, I conduct my business under the illusion of control. I make decisions about what to make for dinner and where to send my kids to school and how to juggle my time. For the most part, the days pass in a predictable pattern and there is an underlying sense that I have things under control.

On Monday, my family and I had a nice dinner together. The eighth day. My day of rest. We left the restaurant and loaded up the kids into our car. The Man was teasing me about buying coats for looks rather than warmth. I was teasing him for having 12 fleece pullovers. We laughed as we entered the busy intersection.

And then, another car ran a red light and our safe, warm, family car spun out of control.

Out of control. The illusion was shattered.

A scream escaped without my permission.

Our kids began to cry.

I stared into the distance, confused as to why the view through the windshield was of the restaurant we had just left rather than the opposite side of the street as it should have been. Things were not as they should be.

I heard the familiar sound of my own voice speaking with a calm that didn't reach my heart as I unsuccessfully attempted to convince our girls everything was okay.

Later, we watched as our car was towed away, and I considered the vulnerability of humanity. How, one moment you are laughing with the love of your life - lighthearted, safe, normal. And in the midst of those happy sounds, your life is interrupted with an event that is totally beyond your control.

I am without a car today. I can't tell you how little I care about that. But I was awake until 3am, stricken with worry. About what could have been. It was as though my room was filled up with fear and I was taking it in with deep breaths, allowing the dark gray of uncertainty to swirl within me and settle deep inside. The what if was haunting, pulling against my attempts to trust. What if the other car had been going even faster? What if it had been bigger? What if one of my kids...? What if my husband...?

In the midst of the fear, I sensed the Lord reminding me to rest. I prayed for the anxiety to pass. It didn't. Not for a long time, anyway. So I waited. He waited with me.

He never promises that our families will be safe. Not in the way we think. He does promise His presence, though. And if you don't know Him, you may think that is a bad trade-off. There are times when that is how it feels. I want my children. I want my husband. Today, I have them all. But control? The idea that I actually have a hand in the way things will go? The veil has been lifted on that illusion.

I am learning more about what it means to have the presence of the Creator of the Universe with me wherever I go. It is important to know I'm not alone. Especially in those moments when my life and the lives of those I love are revealed to be vulnerable. My only option is to trust in the One who holds all things together, even when they fall apart.

extraordinary

During the summer when my three little darlings were all home and The Man was traveling a lot, I was hit with some powerful and unexpected emotions of insignificance. Perhaps it was because the most important thing I seemed to do all day was playing referee for twins who would not stop fighting. And I wasn't even doing it very well.

I felt small. I felt hidden. I felt overlooked. And I felt guilty. It seemed in many ways that the work my husband was doing as a youth pastor - traveling with a couple hundred teenagers to be the hands and feet of Jesus for a town who lost so much in last years floods - that work was extraordinary. And the work I was doing at home? Well, that was just expected.

I've heard all the mother's day sermons that praise moms for the work we do. I know the one liners about changing the world one diaper at a time and all that. I do believe it's true. But when you are in it, it doesn't feel true. It just feels ordinary.

An emotional woman + a husband out of town + a couple of bad days + three fighting kids = Yikes. Throw in a few hormones and you've got one discouraged mama on your hands.

In a moment of what can't be explained by anything other than the sweet hand of God, I picked up a book called The Indwelling Life of Christ by Major Ian Thomas. He is a favorite in our house. And there, on the very page I turned to, I saw this:

It is not the nature of what you do that determines the spirituality of any action, but the origin of what you do.

Well then. If what I do is done in complete dependence upon the Father, then I suppose it doesn't matter what that thing is, rather who is the one doing that thing. Is it me? Or is it Him? Who am I to decide what is extraordinary? The Father has already decided. And He says He is extraordinary. So anything I do as I depend on the Extraordinary One, well...I guess that is extraordinary, too.

sweet dreams that leave all worries behind

I want to move with my man and the children we have made to a faraway land and live off the fruit of trees and honey from the hives we tend with our own hands.

I want to walk barefoot in the grass and make sandcastles and read stories and sing.

I want my high school hair back with the corn silk curls, and I want to wear skirts that touch the ground and weave crowns made of sweet smelling flowers for hours with my girls.

I want to laugh for a week without stopping.

I want money and chocolate to grow on trees.

I want to buy a new toilet instead of cleaning my old one.

I want a maid, a hairdresser and a chef. And a milkshake. And world peace.

diving in

The Man has been in youth ministry for over seven years. During the first few, I was with him for nearly every ski trip, small group and sleepover. When the twins were born, it was time for me to shift my main focus from students to babies. But today, the high school students leave for their annual fall retreat. And guess who gets to go with them?

That's right! Chatty Emily will be hopping on one of four buses carrying 170 students out of town for the weekend. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to get to know some of them better. I'm excited about leaving the little ones in the capable hands of my parents so I won't have to worry. But I'm feeling old, y'all. I got an email last night with the minute by minute schedule for the weekend (I love an organized youth ministry). I read it slowly, picturing everything in my head, planning accordingly. It wasn't until I noticed the amused look on the Man's face that I realized I had been studying the schedule for...kind of a long time.

It was then that it hit me: motherhood has slowly sucked the spontaneity right out of my personality. I now have the need to plan, to know, to not be surprised. But anyone who works with teenagers, has teenagers or is a teenager knows that no amount of planning can insure a plan. Life simply doesn't work that way. Especially not in youth ministry.

So I have my bag packed, my phone charged, my camera ready. I'm trying my best to take off my mom-to-three-preschool-students hat and put on my laid-back-friend-to-high-school-students hat. Most importantly, I'm beginning to release my illusion of control and to instead allow Jesus to live through me, love through me and maybe even surprise me.

confessions

Thanks to my twin skin and permanent muffin top, I have finally perfected the fine art of tucking my tummy into my jeans before I sit down. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask questions. Bow your head. Thank the Lord. Say Amen. Don't look back.)
This is me today, in jeans. Nearly falling off the child-sized chair I'm standing on because I don't own a full length mirror. That is my shirtless son playing with the Polly pocket car that I just fished out of the toilet. Wonder how it got there? Anyway, I love these jeans because they are so comfortable. Wanna know why?
Because they are made for pregnant women. No, this is not my fun way of telling the world that I am pregnant. It is my fun way of telling the world that I'm a dork who is tired of fighting with jeans. I just want to be able to sit down without tucking. So today, I can. Hallelujah.

to be or not to be

Every cartoon should have two equally pretty, equally important, equally nice female characters. That way, my twin girls wouldn't fight over who gets to be Madeleine or Cinderella.

As the theme song to Clifford began the other day, one of the twins declared "I'm Emily Elizabeth!" in a sing-song, victorious kind of way. Of course, the other twin began to pout and stomp her foot declaring, "You ALWAYS get to be her!"

What's the big deal? I thought to myself. So I said, "You can both be Emily Elizabeth." Wrong solution, Mommy. More drama. Much complaining. Ridiculous, thought I.

And then, it all came back to me.

It's a school night in the mid-80's. ABC's Tuesday night lineup is only a few hours from airing: Who's the Boss, Growing Pains and Moonlighting. All of a sudden, my sister blurts out the all-coveted phrase: "I'm Alyssa! I'm Maddie! I'm Carol!" And just like the rules of shot-gun, whoever called it, got it. I'm not sure why we called Alyssa Milano by her real name and the other two by their character names. Still, the phrase was important. The winner watched in victory, the loser destined to imagine herself as Mona or Maggie or worse, Miss DiPesto.

So maybe my girls aren't so unreasonable after all. This memory helped me to empathize with their cause, their need to project themselves into the make-believe world of another. And their need to stand in the shoes of the heroine alone, without a measly sister sharing the spotlight.

I'm not saying it's healthy. I'm just saying it's true. So. Who did you want to be?

Dear Nuby Sippy Cup,

You have been an important part of our morning and evening routines for over four years. As I wrapped my arms of comfort and safety around my little ones before they went to bed, you were their constant companion. You are pink. You are blue. You are cheap at Wal-Mart. You never once complained about those sharp teeth that habitually gnawed on your soft, chewy spout. Thousands of ounces of juice and milk have nourished my children because of you.

Unfortunately, Matt Lauer tells me you are poisonous.

As I collected your growing family of 16 and threw you in my trash, I confess my heart was flooded with equal parts nostalgia and betrayal. My children have loved you, carried you to preschool, Sunday school, the gym and family picnics. You have been there for the birthdays, the holidays, even the sick days. And what do they get in return? A tripled risk of cardiovascular disease and a heightened proclivity to diabetes.

No mother should have to explain to her children that their beloved sippy cups are dangerous. It is mean. There has been a positive side to your downfall, however: a shiny, green, not-quite-cheap, BPA free Nalgene water bottle that will last forever. And lots of extra room on the top rack of my dishwasher that has otherwise been crowded out by you and your 15 family members.

I am disappointed, Nuby. And although you are no longer welcome here, you will be dearly missed.

Emily

what I've been doing

These are books on The Man's bedside table. There is always a stack at least this high. I used to remove them everyday and put them back on the shelf. I stopped doing that last year when I began to appreciate what those books say about him. Notice the two different versions of the Bible. He likes to compare things. And the one third from the bottom? That is no book, my friends. That is the 3rd season of The Office. I say all this because The Man has been on my mind even more than usual, as this week we celebrated his birthday. So I've been doing that.
Also, we had around 40 high school students over a few nights ago for a leadership interest meeting. Such a cool bunch, they are.
Today, I've been working on this. Next week is the much anticipated consignment that I sell things in every year. I pulled some things out of the garage and this is what I end up with. I can't wait to see what happens when I actually clean out drawers and closets. We have entirely too much stuff.

a hard day in the forest

This isn't the first time her arm fell off. I doubt it will be the last.

Though thankful for the hot glue gun, I remain concerned about the scar tissue.

the heart of a hero

She wanted another son. She and her husband already had one baby but struggled to conceive another. They chose to adopt. And so she waited. She dreamed. Then, she waited some more. She fought hard against insurmountable odds that culminated to a dark and hopeless hour last week when it seemed they would never be allowed to bring him home.

Just when it seemed she might have to let him go, they received the email that changed everything. Contrary to all they thought would be true for them, they prepare to leave on Friday for a trip around the world to bring their little boy home.

Last night, I attended her baby shower. I sat in her sister's living room and watched as she opened packages of hope and happiness disguised as tiny boy clothes. She was giddy and overwhelmed, helpless to hide her tears of relief.

I couldn't keep my eyes from settling on the photo hanging behind her of the son she was preparing to meet. A dark haired boy with a wide, toothless grin. He is an orphan destined to remain so unless someone, somewhere fights for him.

Not because he earned it. Just because he is.

The heart of a mother reflects the heart of God like nothing I have ever seen. Her love is no less passionate or fierce whether that baby is growing inside her own body, born of a woman on the other side of the world or born only in her heart as she struggles to conceive. A mother loves her baby without condition or expectation. She will wait any amount of time, travel any distance, fight any battle.

A hero indeed.

using time unwisely

So, what do you do when the your baby naps, the twins are at a friends house and your dishes are sitting dirty in your sink?

81 words

back

Believe it or not, last week I really was on vacation. I know my post about what I wasn't doing threw you off because I'm so sneaky like that. I had done most of the babysitting posts before I left town but I did cheat and clean them up a bit while we were gone.
Now that we're back, I promise I'm not going to write a long post about my great vacation to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
Don't worry, I won't go on and on about what a blessing was to watch our girls be sweet to their baby brother...
and to have The Man all to ourselves.
I know you don't want to hear about how the twins are big enough to ride their bikes with us now.
Or what a perfectly pleasant date night The Man and I had at the harbor watching the sunset
while we ate our fancy dinner. I certainly won't waste any of your time telling you that I think that flower alone cost $12.50.

So now I've got laundry. And mail. And coupons that need cutting. So I'm gonna go do that. And I most certainly won't be dreaming about going on vacation.