Musings on Life and Beauty Archives - Page 140 of 145

Will I miss it?

July 20, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

As a disclaimer at the beginning of this post, I will freely confess that I am not finding the last month of pregnancy particularly enjoyable. Mostly I’m feeling like surely it’s already been nine months and this whole state of existence should have ended by now… but that’s obviously not the case, as anyone can plainly see.

This morning I took some pictures of my 18 month old trying to do a forward roll. She’s really good at getting her head on the floor, but cannot push herself over. Still, she tries and she laughs and she does it over and over again.
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It was cute enough to me that I managed to get the camera out, and even crouch down on the floor in an attempt to get a photo I would like.
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Then she found a pair of my shoes that I didn’t put away after coming home from church yesterday.
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So we took some pictures of her trying to do a somersault in her mom’s heels.
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Little moments like this, I know I will miss someday. I’m sure I’ll wish I still had a baby rolling around on my family room floor, babbling and laughing without a care in the world.
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Yes, I know I will miss this.
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But there are other things I wonder about.

I just finished watching a slideshow of our vacation pictures, which I turned on to help that same adorable 18 month old snap out of a tantrum she was throwing. Thankfully it worked, but I ended up with her sitting on top of my pregnant stomach, with my three year old sitting on what is left of my lap, and my four year old sitting on my shoulder, wrapping her legs around my arms, neck, and so forth.

Let’s just say that I felt a little smothered during that 30 minute experience. And we’ll say that I felt a little bit warm with about 80 extra pounds sitting all over me. But I just sat there and told myself that I should endure it because the children were enthralled, because we were together, because aren’t mom’s supposed to handle moments like this without complaint?

And the question came to my mind, “will I miss this?”

I honestly don’t know. Given how I feel at the moment, I would think that the answer is NO WAY! But what if I’m wrong? What if I miss the feeling of having so many bodies so close to me that I want to scream? It happened yesterday at church, too. I had this moment when I wondered if I would be able to just sit there with so many people scooting closer and closer…or if I would just stand up and scream. Gratefully I survived without causing a scene.

But really, will I miss it? Will I miss the feeling of being the bottom of the family dogpile?
Barbara Kingsolver wrote, “It’s surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”
Believe me, I noticed this one. But if I wasn’t 8 months pregnant, I might not have noticed it so much.

My guess is this: I may not particularly miss the feeling of being smothered by lots of wiggly little bodies, but I’ll probably miss what it represents. I think it represents a stage of life when all of a child’s problems can be solved simply by closeness, by being near their parents. A time when the world really is as small as the walls of your home and you can still keep everything unwanted out of their sweet little lives. A stage when their needs and their hearts are so uncomplicated, when all they need or want is love. A time when I really can fix most of their problems with a kiss and a hug. I’m pretty sure I will miss that.

Marker Mania

July 7, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

I walked in the door today from picking up my daughters and was greeted by a proud 18 month old who came running across the house shouting “Look!”

So I looked. And this is what I saw.
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She was covered with ink. Her hands were solid blue, she had marker all over her clothes.
The back of her neck was blue, and the inside of her ears were blue. She was so proud of herself.
Her three year old brother, who was responsible for climbing to get the markers, had escaped with blue hands and a few marks on his face and neck.
The babysitting brother had no idea what had just happened on his watch (we’re learning).

So, I grabbed my camera and some Magic Erasers and we all went upstairs to assess the damage.
Let’s pause here to just make sure that every mother of toddlers knows about the existence of these fabulous things.
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Every house needs a bunch of them on hand. They can get almost anything off of a wall, without bringing the paint, too. I’m a big fan. In fact, I should have invested in stock years ago because of the small fortune I’ve spent on them. You can get them in most stores on the cleaning aisle. And if you don’t have them, please get some! You’ll never regret it.

Back to my early evening detour. At first I just saw things like this:
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No big deal, I thought. We can take care of this.

So I put the little ones to work in an attempt to teach them to take care of their own messes, and took a few pictures of them cleaning. I was still feeling pretty good-natured at this point.
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She was cleaning so earnestly!
The whole thing was almost a sweet experience until I walked back into the hall and could see the murals on her brother’s bedroom walls.
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Then big sister walked in with her American Girl doll who had some new tattoos on her face. They looked an awful lot like the graffiti on the walls.

I started walking from room to room, assesing the damage, and realized that the walls weren’t the only targets. She had gone for the beds too. Five, yes five, sets of white sheets all now had red and blue scribbling on them! Three bedrooms, the hallway, and five beds. I’d call that a pretty thorough adventure.

Then I turned around and discovered that my four year old, in a sincere attempt to be helpful, had taken everybody’s erasers and soaked them in the sink for a minute. She didn’t wring them out. Suddenly I had three little kids wiping blue and red marker off the walls as it ran down their arms and dripped bright blue ink into my carpet.

All of a sudden it wasn’t cute, funny or sweet, and I wasn’t feeling like a good, patient mom anymore.
That’s why the pictures stop right here. I couldn’t bear it.
I reclaimed the sponges, explained the problem to my daughter, and tried to quickly get the blue out of the carpet. I put the two little ones in the bath and we scrubbed as much marker off their little heads and faces as we could.
I finished scrubbing the walls, a couple of which still have a blue tinge to them and which I will tackle with a fresh eraser on my own. Then I answered a long distance call, raced to get my son to Scouts (late, by now) and came home to feed them all tacos for dinner.

We won’t talk about the lettuce on my kitchen floor. Let’s just say we had an early bedtime. And I’m going to bed early, too.

Homegrown Cherries

July 5, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty, Preserving and Freezing

Just a few months ago, I was celebrating the tiny bits of green that had appeared on my cherry trees.
In such a short period of time, we went from green to blossoms to cherries.
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We came home from vacation and our yummy cherries had turned into deep red, dripping with sweetness, dribble juice all over you cherries.
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Beautiful cherries.
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We started picking. Filling buckets and trays.
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But it didn’t even look like we’d picked.
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I’ve always enjoyed preserving fruit, making jams and sauces, dehydrating and bottling. But it’s never come from my own backyard.
I’m fortunate to live in an area where there are multiple orchards around me and I can buy from the growers. This time, to be harvesting from our own trees is really a pleasure.
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I’ve been bottling cherries and making jam.
I’ve never had cherry jam before, but we’ve learned that it’s really tasty.
Freezer jam and cooked jam both.
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It’s a lot of work, but for me it’s work that brings a real feeling of satisfaction.
So much of what I do has to be redone several times a day. But I love the feeling of lining up the food I’ve preserved and knowing that because of my efforts my family will enjoy it in months to come when the fresh food is no longer available. And we’ve only harvested from one tree!
I still have another to take care of this week.
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I also find that working with fruit helps me slow down, relax, and notice more of the simple joys of life. I start looking at the lovely shades of color in the fruit, pondering life in a day and time when work such as this meant survival. Today I noticed the lovely color of the foam as I cooked some cherry jam.
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And how beautiful it was when it reached a full boil.
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I feel more grateful for the bounty that God has given us, marveling at the genius of a God who created trees that can bring us such delicious pleasure, and such blessings. I am reminded that God’s economy is one of abundance.

Taking advantage of such abundance, expressing my appreciation for it by putting it to good use and sharing it with others, just feels right. And that’s an awfully good feeling to carry around in your heart.

Jennifer