Truth for the Trenches

As a stay at home mom I look to define “my job”. As words start to fill the description it quickly becomes obvious that no woman is capable of all that. I clung to the word “homemaker” for years to define who I was now. I liked that idea of creating a home. When I quit my job I felt the need to justify the loss of income by perfectly cooked meals, well planned grocery budgets, Pinterest decorated spaces, dust free corners and tidy organization strategies. I was missing the point. If a clean house was what my husband and I held in such high esteem we wouldn’t have needed a child to justify the loss of my income. I have always been a home maker. The home keeps changing along with the needs, but I was a home maker as a five year old helping my mom unload dishes. I was a home maker in training putting my dolls to bed each night. I was a home maker when I moved to college and when my husband and I bought our first house. Quitting my job as a producer wasn’t to take on a new job ...

The morning starts loudly in our house. The 2 year old calling for me from his bed, the older 2 kids slamming opening their doors racing to the potty.  I remember the quiet of 3:00 a.m. when I got up to use the bathroom. I take a deep breath, "here we go!" encouraging myself that this onset of noise is okay, natural, even good. This noise is life in these walls.   Breakfast begins and I find myself taking orders for 6 different things, listening to 3 different songs and getting annoyed by the games and silly stories they are telling because I'm tired, because I like quiet in the morning, because I dont have complete control over everything. But, this is good, this is life being lived out joyously in 3 little people and me having everything just how I want it is not the goal. So I turn down the heat on the eggs, ignore my hot cup of coffee and turn away from the task of breakfast to face them and watch. To force myself to enter into their noise, because in th...

We need to hold sleeping babies to remember they don’t always cry. To remember and imprint on our minds and arms and chests what it feels like to hold this warm, soft, squishy gift. Babies need to be held they find it comforting, sometime they need to sleep on us. I think sometimes we need it too. Sometimes we need to snuggle with them and let it go on for longer than they would. We need to take deep inhales of their sweet smell. We need to count their fingers and toes without them wriggling down to run and play. Sleeping babies don’t need to be held, they are sleeping…but we need it. We need the reminder of grace and peace. We need the bonding of holding them in quiet after a day of screaming and crying and fighting naps and no showers. I still feel this with my 3.5 and 5 year old. I need to lay in bed with them at night and sing songs and pray and snuggle. I need to have them hug me and I want to be hugged. I know I’m their mom and they aren’t responsible for filling my love...