Chaos
Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. - Rumi
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Do Numbers Lie?
5: Dentist appointments yesterday. 7: Stops on yesterday’s outing. 3: Outfits Fox wore before 11 a.m. 1:50 a.m.: Numbers on my digital watch when I laid my weary head to rest the previous evening. 6:30 a.m.: Time the alarm went off yesterday morning. 8:30 a.m.: Time I actually got out of bed. 3: Minutes I spent in the shower because I slept past my alarm clock. 2: Hours spent at the dentist’s office yesterday. 25: Dollars earned from selling our old printer/copier. 200: Inventions made by students at the Invention Convention we attended yesterday. 6: Cupcakes consumed by our family at Strossner’s Bakery. 14: Wet feet climbing over the seats…
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I Wish This Was More Unusual Than It Sounds
As Piper was just heading to her nap, she said, “I poo on little people.” I sort of laughed. Because it sounded funny, okay? And then, because I wanted to move on to my next task, I said something like, “Oh, okay. Sleep well, Little Willow.” And she said, “I poo on little people.” Insistent – eh? Not satisfied with my response? Alright Piper. “Oh. Well, Piper. Don’t poo on little people.” And then she pointed to a basket on her floor. Full of Fisher-Price Little People. Uh-oh. Now things were beginning to make more sense. Unfortunately. The Little People victim was not hard to spot. The brown smear across…
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I’ve Been There
I saw a woman at the children’s museum we visited this week. She had five children with her – just like me. And her kids were a lot like mine . . . kind, funny, rowdy, polite, unruly, curious, speedy. Just like any number of small people that we know. I was sitting on a bench feeding Fox his lunch and I was watching this family. They were preparing to leave the museum, but this mother of five wanted one little group photo before they left. She lined them all up, posed them properly. (Anyone who has photographed children in groups knows what a daunting task that can be.) They…
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The Edge
(This is not a post about U2. Sorry Jane.) I think I live on some precarious edge. Like – right next to a cliff. (You know, like the little old man in Up who wanted to plop his home right down beside the ravine, the waterfall, the danger?) I live there. Or at least, I have been camping there for far too long. And the view is alright, I guess, but the effort and the stress of living right on that edge is wearing me down. And another thing. Because I live so close to that edge I find it really hard to maintain stability. To find a firm footing.…
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Joining Us Already In Progress
Wilder has a new skill. It’s called Balance Standing. (Or something like that.) He pulls to a standing position with the aid of any nearby object – ottoman, stool, leg, whatever. And then he expertly releases his hands from their gripping position. And balances. (Did I mention that he isn’t even officially nine months old yet?) In other Keigley news . . . London has a second loose tooth – center bottom, directly beside the previous loose tooth. Tonight she was playing her current favorite game – “doggies”. (It’s not my current favorite game because of the increased number of holes in the kness of her pants.) At any rate.…
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Rainy Day, Inside and Out
What a gray day. Sleep-deprived from the instant I heard the alarm. (Derek Webb’s “Mockingbird” is a lot less lovely at 6:30 a.m.) Kevin wasn’t feeling well. The rain was steady and the clouds blocked the sun from showing even a hint of itself. I should have stayed in bed. Or at least stayed home. But the fridge was empty. And had been for two days. No, I don’t just mean that we were out of milk – which we were. I mean – we needed groceries. As in, I saw Riley packing her lunch last night and she was cutting open some old MREs from my brother the Marine…
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Last Night
It was late. As in, kids all tucked in, kitchen cleared, computers powered down, sitting on the sofa kind of late. I was writing a letter to my friend (sorry Sara – I may never get to finish that epistle at this rate) and Kevin was watching (with his eyes closed) some M. Night ShimmyWhoWho movie on television. And that’s when we heard the cry. “Mommyyyyyyyyyyy.” (Hmmm. Now they call my name. Interesting.) We discovered Mosely in the bathroom, over the toilet, taking care of her little sick self. We wondered if Mosely had managed to make it to the bathroom before the sickness began. But evidence to the contrary…
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The Next Thing
Today I woke up feeling . . . defeated. Like the battle was over and I had already lost. I read this quote once that Elisabeth Elliot (our Mosely Elliot’s namesake) had once said to her daughter. I read it probably ten years ago. Maybe more. But I still think about it nearly every day of my life. Especially on days when I just need to manage. To make it to the next day. Or the next afternoon. Or the next hour. Or whenever. She said, “Don’t think about everything you need to do. Just do the next thing.”
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The Mirage
I had to laugh a little when a friend of mine recently told me that she thought I was so organized and that I looked as if I had it all together. Maybe it looks that way from a distance. (A very far distance.) But if it ever does look like that, it would only be a mirage. Let me share an example. (And there are so many from which to choose.) Today. We have been saving our change and stray dollars for our Disney World Christmas adventure. And it only seemed appropriate to stash said spare change in a plastic bank that is a giant Mickey Mouse head saved…
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What Do We Do?
(It’s another one of those this-picture-has-nothing-to-do-with-this-post-other-than-the-fact-that-this-is-my-blog-and-this-is-my-cute-kid. Apologies to all.) I just heard this line in a song . . . “If you feel it, it must be real.” That turns my stomach. This idea is absolutely pervasive. It has invaded everything. Our music. Our movies. Our commercials. Our attitudes. Our expectations. Our brains. Our hearts. Our actions. And I hate it. Because it is a lie. I’m not saying feelings always lie. I’m not saying feelings are wrong. Or sinful. Necessarily. I am saying – you cannot trust only your feelings. You cannot live from your feelings alone. You cannot base your actions on your feelings. It is a dangerous…
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Is This A Test?
We try to learn a few verses together as a family. I write them on the chalkboard wall near the dinner table and we read them out loud together before each meal. This week I wrote out James 1:19-20 – “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” And let’s just be honest. When I picked this little nugget of a verse I was targeting a handful of sometimes short tempered, angry-word-shouting siblings. I was trying to preach when I should have been quiet. And so maybe this day just serves…
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The Greatest Obstacle
Do you want to know what my biggest parenting challenge is? Let me start but telling you what it is not. It is not determining which homeschool curriculum to use or even the decision whether or not to actually homeschool these children at all. It is not preparing daily breakfasts, lunches and dinners with variety and healthy eating habits in mind. It is not balancing the demands of six children, a messy house, overflowing laundry, marriage and friendships. It is not determining the best course of discipline appropriate for six different humans. No. It isn’t any of those things. My biggest parenting challenge is this . . . With five…
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Constant
Really, this post is about chaos. And I think the photo demonstrates that fairly well. And it’s funny. And Leanne said she will only read my posts if they are accompanied by a photo. Our house is lived in. It’s comfortable. And we like that. But comfortable can ooze into cluttered faster than Bergen can ride a bike down a hill. And cluttered can morph into chaos with a speed faster than Riley’s fingers can text. Last weekend Kevin and I looked around our home. And it looked like chaos had settled in. I was tired of messy children’s rooms where a child could not play with any particular item…
