Musings on Life and Beauty Archives - Page 136 of 146

Sorting

October 13, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty, Projects

Today has been a day of emotional sorting. Sorting through a whole bunch of unrelated things that are all related because I’m feeling all of them at once.

My son’s band teacher was killed in an accident on Saturday night. She died trying to save the lives of 50 students. She did it. Did I know her? No. I had spoken to her, but didn’t really KNOW her. This is my son’s first term in Junior High. He really liked her. And so, while I am on the edge of it all, I still feel affected by it. And affected by the knowledge of the hundreds of people who are much more acutely affected than I am. And I guess I just feel a heightened awareness of the fragility of life and the blessings of it.

I’ve been sorting through some of the natural disappointments of life which feel so big in the short run even if they aren’t in the end. Sorting through the humbling reminder that God has a lot of much bigger needs out there than mine, like all the people mourning the loss of a loved teacher right now. Teetering between feeling ashamed that I have my own small concerns to bother the Lord with and feeling grateful that he cares even though my cares might be silly.

Sorting through a pile of fears that I didn’t know I had until I became a Mom and my kids started growing up and each of them unveiled their own set of challenges. Sorting through all the questions about how to respond, how to help, how to be sure it’s the right thing to do and not a decision made out of fear. And wanting to be certain that my fears won’t prevent us from doing the right things.

I guess today was kind of a going through the motions day while my mind and heart was sorting, sorting. I wish I could say that I have it all sorted now, but I don’t. In fact, I think I’m ending the day with more new questions and no answers. But I’ve been reminded that it doesn’t work for me to tell God how to take care of things; he has a plan all his own and a way to take care of things and achieve much more than I can dream of. I just have to have the courage to give him my fears and exercise faith.

I’ve learned that much of life’s sorting is done while our bodies, or hands at least, are on autopilot. Often when I’m processing things I end up cleaning, preparing food, ironing, and so forth. Some people go for a walk or a run. Sometimes my husband goes skateboarding when he’s got things to think through. Today I ended up in my sewing room. This is what my “sorting” produced:
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A baby blanket for my little one.
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It’s made with that soft minky fabric that’s so perfect for babies.
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I bought the last of a bolt a couple of weeks ago, thinking this would be the perfect little blankie for her.
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I love the pleats. I think it was the monotony of the pleats that made it the perfect activity for me today.
Not to mention the fact that spoiling her a little sort of eased the sorting my heart has been doing over yesterday’s haircut . And the fact that I’d really like a big one of these for myself.

So here’s my question. What do you do when you’re grappling with life’s questions? What activities help you to sort through it all? Do you have something you consistently do, or do you end up doing any of a number of things? Just curious.

3 comments life

So Stupid of Me!

October 11, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

Have you ever had one of those days when your heart was hurting for a lot of reasons, some that you can define and some that you can’t, and then you agree to something and too late you realize it was the last thing in the world that you wanted? And then the implications of what is happening REALLY hit you and you’re done for?

I did that today. And all I can do is keep asking myself, “Why was I dumb enough to agree to this?”

Here is the story. My husband would probably like to add an addendum when I’m done to share his side of the story, but it isn’t his blog. It’s mine. So he’ll have to share his side somewhere else. Somewhere like Facebook, perhaps.

At some point in time some people we know talked about how they shave their babies heads so that their hair grows in faster. He thought it was a good idea. So now that our baby has rubbed much of her baby hair off, he thought she needed a haircut. In a way, he was right. She had a long strip in the middle of her head that was still dark and longer and it was looking a little like a mo hawk. But in the back it was still doing ok.
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So, for some STUPID reason my brain was turned off and I agreed to let him give her a haircut. Now, let’s just say that when I think of a haircut I think that implies that something is actually left ON the head. I must honestly admit, however, that part of me felt like I was agreeing to somehow mar her beauty. Like I was agreeing to rush her out of this perfect infant stage and into something different. I don’t like feeling that way. I should have known that those thoughts were my signal to grab the baby and run away from that ridiculous razor. But I told myself that we were trimming the long mo hawk part and making her head look more like the sides. I think of how guys get their hair cut and say things like “#2 on the sides, please” and I assumed that we were talking about something along those lines.
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No. I was wrong. He was talking about removing every tiny bit of evidence that there ever WAS hair on her head. Too bad he didn’t tell me that until after he’d done half of her head. Actually, he never told me that at all. I just figured it out as I snapped these pictures.
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Poor thing. Look how much she likes it….NOT!
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Right about here it hit me that he was going for the bald style, not a fuzzy style.
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And this is when I had to leave the room.
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The only comparison that came to my mind was of Darth Vader when he has Luke take his mask off before he dies. His head has always looked so awful to me. And now my husband is turning my beautiful princess of a daughter into a freak.

I went around the corner where I couldn’t see it and sat down to process what was going on. The razor kept buzzing. Do I insist that he stops now? How can I let him shave half of her head and not finish the job? Will I be able to look at her?

I turned my head and saw this:
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Her lovely silk gown, still lying where I left it, draped over a chair in my bedroom.
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Things were so frenzied last week with everyone here that I never got a pretty picture of her in her dress. I planned to put it back on her and do a real photo shoot. (Please remember here that I’m trying very hard to do the things I’ll regret not doing if she turns out to be my last baby, so this photo shoot is kind of a big deal, if not in real life then in my heart.) Now I can’t because she doesn’t even LOOK like herself! That’s when I started crying. And when the sentence “I can’t believe I agreed to let you do this” began parading through my mind over and over again.

The next thing that came to my mind was the story of my friend’s husband who cut their daughter’s hair when she wasn’t home and how she threw a block of cheese at him when she came home and saw it. I figured if I was thinking about that story I’d better move farther away.

I went downstairs, shut myself in my office, and started ironing. Ironing something beautiful. Reminding myself that my daughter is beautiful if my husband’s haircuts aren’t. Wondering how I can look at her without crying. Knowing that it isn’t permanent, but it sure feels close to permanent. Knowing how long my babies always take to grow their hair.

Thankfully, everyone had the good sense to just leave me alone. Until about 45 minutes later when my husband was trying to get all the kids to help him clean the kitchen and my seven year old was holding the baby. The baby got fussy, so naturally she brought her to me. As my sweet young daughter handed off the crying infant to her crying mother, she simply said, “Her haircut looks pretty weird.” Yup. Leave it to the children to say it how it is.

I took a deep breath and looked at her, hoping to feel like she looks ok. Wondering if I can bear to take a picture. Nope. She doesn’t. I can’t take the picture. I can’t bear to catalog the evidence of this awful afternoon. My daughter was right. She looks pretty weird. I carry her upstairs to find a headband she can wear to help. It doesn’t help. Finally I find a hat, my toddler’s hat that she wore the winter she turned one. I tighten the ribbon and fold up the brim.
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It’s not great, but at least she looks like a human again.

So, since I can do nothing about how terrible her head looks, I can at least state the following:

Number one. Never let your husband near your baby’s head with a razor in his hand. Never. Under any conditions.

Number two. Remember how much you love your husband even though he is never again allowed to suggest such a horrible thing as making your baby look like a dying Darth Vader.

Number three. Until further notice, NO ONE is allowed to remove the baby’s hat, no matter what kind of good reason they might think they have.

Number four. Tomorrow we’re going shopping for hats.

Number five. This little one is two months old TODAY! I think I’ll end the post now and go cry a little more. I’m so sorry, sweetling. This never should have happened. Next time I’ll listen to my heart.

3 comments baby, life, parenting

The Humbling Side of Motherhood

October 9, 2009 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

I love having a big family. I’ve learned, though, that it comes with some pressure. Perhaps the pressure is purely a figment of my own mind, but I feel it nonetheless. For some reason, I feel like BECAUSE I am raising a lot of children I have to always be a little bit MORE on top of things than most people. Not that I am, mind you, but I feel like I should be. I feel like I have to do a better than average job to justify our numbers.

At the same time, I have a strong desire to be real. I’m not superwoman, and see no need in having others view me as such. I’m a regular Mom raising a regular family. I’m doing my best. I’m good at some things and stink at others. I want to be genuine. What’s the point of being anything else? (Which is why I’m willing to share the following experience.)

Here’s what all those feelings really boil down to: My #1 fear is to be the Mom that someone else looks at and uses as justification to NOT have a large family. I really don’t want to be the crazy woman that people use as a reason NOT to raise children. I would love to have them look at me and think that it looks like fun. They can look at me and think how hard it looks. I just really don’t want them to look at me and think, “That’s why people shouldn’t have a lot of kids.”

Well, today I did something that would certainly qualify me as the Mom that makes people think that big families are not a good idea.

It involves this beautiful little girl.
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She’s my cute little kindergartener and I love her with all my heart.

Here’s my story. Every day after school, I pick my children up at a park nearby the school. We pulled up to the park and she asked if she could get out of the car and play. I said no. She sat there with the door open, just hanging her legs out of the car. When the big kids walked up, she slipped out of the car and ran to play.

I didn’t notice.

The car already felt roomy because my oldest had stayed after school to work on something. Sometimes when someone is missing it messes up my sense of who’s where. Now, I’m not using this as an excuse. It’s just that I’m still adjusting to counting eight heads. I’m also adjusting to this five year old being mobile in the car, as she recently moved from a carseat to a booster and she’s experimenting with unbuckling her seat belt every time the car stops. I’m used to her being pretty immobile in the car, so I don’t really think of her as one I need to keep track of once we’re all packed up. That is, I didn’t think of her that way until today.

The big kids got in. I looked in the back. I didn’t see my 5 year old’s head, but I thought she had fallen asleep like she often does when we’re driving in the afternoons, so I didn’t think anything of it. That should have been my clue. I didn’t remember that she had just been hanging her legs out of the car.

No. Instead I thought, “They’re all asleep. Hooray for me.” And we drove away.

Enter a phone call from the school. Your daughter is here. Someone found her at the park. Because of her uniform they took her to the school. She’s barefoot. (This phone call from the mother of my daughter’s friend, who happens to have two children. Why is it that I always make my biggest mistakes in front of parents of two children?)

And all I can say is, I’m on my way. I called my husband, who works 2 blocks from the school. Of course he beat me there.

She is safe. We’re so thankful. But she got in someone’s car! A complete stranger! She was totally frightened. Of course she was crying. I met my husband at his office and we hugged her and I told her how sorry I am and we hugged her some more. The tears kept sneaking back to the surface because she was so frightened. And I kept thinking things like, she knows my phone number, but that’s when she was calm. She’s never tried to remember my phone number when she was scared to death. We’ve talked to her about what to do around strangers but that was when she felt safe. She’s never tried to handle it when she was alone, and panicked. I picture my petite little daughter, crying, alone, and all of the horrible feelings she must have felt in a place far from home. It’s the sort of experience when you need your mother, and not only was her mother nowhere near, but her mother was also the one who caused it!

Ouch. I feel so, so bad. And I feel so, so thankful that she was protected. So grateful for a God who watched over her when her Mom wasn’t doing such a good job of it.

I brought her home, and my heart nearly broke at the sight of her tear-stained face and puffy red eyes.
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Do you know what that sweet angel did? She told me a joke.