From the fog

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My family is emerging--both figuratively and this morning, literally--from the fog. We've been battling a stomach virus that has been slowly taking down members of the family one by one for the past week (two weeks?) or so. 

I feel like I've lost track of time in the haze of sickness and laundry and trying to maintain some kind of order. Apparently a crazy super-bug is making its way through our county. It's big local news, as they try to track its source. 

Dan has been the last one to fall and sickest of all of us. A trip to the urgent care clinic turned into a trip to the emergency room and I felt like I was walking in to something out of a movie. Triage, people clutching buckets and moaning, crying. People being treated in the middle of the waiting room in order to move people through more quickly. 

Meanwhile, I kept my face down, my hands to myself and applied what I imagine was the equivalent of one gallon of hand sanitizer on a constant basis. Thankfully, the nurses liked us, and placed us in the back "behind the curtain" to wait out our stay and test results. 

Today, we're still limping along. I'm running on little sleep and lots of chaos. I waffle between running this house like a tight ship--chores divvied! school work checked off! laundry humming!--and blinking back tired tears while trying to text a friend and tell her how tired I am.

But. BUT. Normal will return. In fact, I can see it on the horizon. The fog IS lifting and there are things to be thankful for!  

  • We have electricity. As silly as it sounds, every time I throw another load of laundry in the washer I think, imagine doing this if the power was out. 
  • It's not snowing.
  • My kids are doing chores like champs.
  • We're still managing to get school work accomplished.
  • The fog was beautiful this morning.
  • Birdy's daily outfits make me smile.
  • Barn cats swirling around your legs when you walk out the door? That's free therapy right there.
  • This sickness is only temporary.
  • We're about to have our birthday marathon and one of my girls is getting a huge surprise.
  • It's spring! Hallelujah.

So that's where I've been. Hiding out, recovering, changing sheets and serving up ginger ale, crackers and toast. But still...finding little things to lift my spirits in the moments that try to drag me down. 

Thanks, as always, for listening. 

xo.

Elevate the small

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mindfulpareting_mommycoddle.png

That quote stuck with me several weeks ago when I was feeling bogged down in the big philosophical questions of motherhood. And while it is important to parent with the big picture in mind--What kind of person will my child become? Will they make good decisions later in the life? Will they be a good person? Am I doing a good job?--it's also important to just settle in to the little things. There can be just as many important moments in the washing of jam off little cheeks, sing-a-longs at stoplights, tucking hair behind ears, and brushing teeth.

There's nothing like mothering through difficult patches to bring out every insecurity and worry about whether or not you're doing it right and doing right by your child. 

But this one little quote burst that balloon full of doubt and worry and what-ifs that I was facing a few weeks ago. My mind had raced so far down the path of the future, I was forgetting to just do the little things really, really well. 

That, I can handle.

The quote comes from this article, 8 Reminders for Mindful Parents.

Gracious words to begin your new year

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I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of words. Not only things that are said out loud, but times when I hold my tongue and don't offer my thoughts. Or the words that are swirling around inside my head that I'm saying to myself. Or the words that come out of my mouth to my children....

At my last Bible study of the year, we passed around a basket full of rocks. On each rock one of my friends had painted a word. Each rock in the basket had a different word and we closed our eyes and drew one out of the pile. 

The word painted across my rock was

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Rubber boots and other things to be thankful for

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I finally broke down and took my annoying, non-stop cough to the doctor this week. Turns out I was sick--walking pneumonia to be exact. I may have even said something like, "Are you sure?!" to the nice walk-in clinic doctor. 

But I guess that would explain the cough, not to mention the general lack of "get up and go" these past two weeks. So now, I'm just over 48 hours into my antibiotics and the haze is starting to lift and I'm remembering that yes, at some point, I did lead a mildly productive life after all. 

In the midst of the piled up laundry and forsaken school work and the mess, oh the mess!, I'm finding that the lifting of the veil of sickness makes for

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A "what's been happening" list, the honest version

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I think the beginning of every homeschooling year feels a bit like coming home with a newborn. It takes me a few weeks to get my feet under me again, to readjust to our new normal, to figure out how I'm going to do laundry, put dinner on the table and take care of the baby (or in this case, get our school work done each day.)

This year, more than ever it's taking me awhile to catch my breath. But this year, more than ever I'm also trying to do more than I ever have, I'm pretty sure. And, I'll be honest, it's really wearing on me. Lately, I'm longing for those moments of lingering and of not feeling like every moment is scheduled or being attacked by the things that need to be done after it. So I'm doing my best to find those still moments in the midst of the 'needs to be done'.

We're getting there. Little by little. 

I was at a Bible Study last week--a very small group of women, mothers. Most were people I'd just met that evening, one was a good friend who had invited me along. But the group felt instantly warm and comfortable, diverse but connected.

At the very end of the evening,...

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