Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I Think I Have a Problem

My daughter pointed out yesterday that the family always has to match on holidays and special occasions. I don’t like accusations without evidence, so I decided to see if this was true.

Nathan’s parent’s 40th wedding anniversary:

40th-03

Easter 2011:

Easter-01

Thanksgiving 2010:

fam-2

Easter 2010:

Easter-02-1

4th of July 2010:

July 4-65

Need I go on? I guess she may have a point. Do you think there’s a support group for this or should I just start saving now for therapy for my kids?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

19 Pairs of Flip Flops

Nate’s been asking me for new flip flops for awhile. And I’ve been telling him, now that he has a job, he can get his own. And, of course, I believe you can never have too many flip flops; I could live in them year round.

Today, was our day! Old Navy had their flip flops on sale for $1 apiece! Each person could buy 5 pairs, so up to the mall the kids and I went. We went a little crazy. Daniel could only find 4 pairs he liked, but you do the math. 4 people, limit of 5. Bring on the warm weather!

flipflops-1

Friday, May 20, 2011

Through the Garden Gate – May: Hope and Failure

Shakespeare said that “April is the cruelest month,” but Shakespeare never lived in Duluth. Since I moved here 8 1/2 years ago, I’d have to argue that May is the cruelest month. Rain, East winds, capricious temperatures, with a few warm, sunny days thrown in to mess with our minds.

There is a rule of 3’s regarding survival: “You can survive 3 months without companionship or love, 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 hours without shelter (in extreme circumstances), 3 minutes without air, but only 3 seconds without hope.”

A Minnesota, May garden is an exercise in hope. Tiny little plants start pushing up through the ground. I have hope that those lily bulbs will one day look like this again:

DSCN1149

But, for now my garden only gives me tiny, little hopeful reminders.

A single stalk of asparagus:

garden-1

A brave, little johnny-jump-up:

garden-2

My bleeding heart, just beginning to bloom:

garden-3
I plant my vegetables with hope; hope that I will have a fabulous harvest at the end of the summer.

And yet, hope also carries with it the fear of failure. Why do we as humans fear failure so much? We all fail. In fact, just today I was explaining to my middle son that neither I nor his dad were perfect. “That’s good,” he replied. “That would be annoying.”

It is annoying when people attempt to be perfect or expect perfection from us, yet why do we expect it of ourselves?

Hope and failure go hand in hand. We fall down, we get back up. We have hope and faith that we will do it better the next time; that we learn our lessons and come out of each successive failure better people, stronger people.

In an article I read today, Kate Hudson said, “Fail, fail again, fail better. Only in failure do you reach success. You can only get to the good stuff when you’ve done the hard stuff.”

Failure is hard, but there is always hope that we will come out on the other side. Failure never lasts forever. Get back up. Keep hoping.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

My Bad

I did something so completely moronic this past week, I’m almost embarrassed to admit it. But, I’m going to, in the hopes that you, my blog readers, will also ‘fess up to your brainless moments to make me feel better. Yes, I’m turning to my Internet friends for comfort and solace. Pathetic, I know.

So, I bought this awesome, new sewing machine two months ago, and it’s been working like a charm. I love it. But, the other night I was sewing with it in my kitchen and the foot pedal just quit working. I was so frustrated! I mean, c’mon! My brand new sewing machine! We looked at it and hemmed and hawed and I eventually brought it in to get it repaired.

Two weeks passed, and I was in quilting withdrawals. I finally pulled out my old machine and decided to sew with. My sewing room is kinda cold right now and messy, so I hauled my machine up to the kitchen and plugged it into the same outlet. Uh-huh, do you see where this is going?

It worked fine for awhile, but suddenly the foot pedal quit working! If I was a cartoon character a little light bulb would have appeared, BING! over Molly’s empty head. Could it be the outlet? I did what I should have done the first time and plugged the machine into a different outlet, and wouldn’t you know it worked just fine?

Not the sewing machine, just a faulty outlet.

I picked up my new machine from the repair place yesterday and skulked out, hoping they wouldn’t ask too many questions. I’m sure there’s some sort of lesson or conclusion I could draw from this, but right now I’m just feeling too silly.

One friend told me she bought a new curling iron when the same thing happened to her, but this friend and I have decided that we have one full brain between the two of us, so this didn’t make me feel much better.

Please, please, tell me I’m not alone in my stupidity! Or just laugh at my expense if it makes you feel better.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

My Favorite Job

I love being a mom. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to grow up and be a mom. That was always my one goal in life. I knew I wanted to have kids and stay home to raise them. By the time I was in college I also knew I wanted to homeschool my kids. So, to say that I love being the mom of Laura, Nate and Daniel is a massive understatement.

This is my 15th Mother’s Day. My, how the time does fly! Every mother with more than one child can attest to the fact that each child is unique, and I celebrate the differences that make my kiddoes so fascinating.

Laura Jane is my only daughter and made me a mom when I was just 22 years old. I sometimes wonder what in the world I was doing at such a tender age, taking a tiny little newborn home, but she was gracious to me, and we got along just fine. Thankfully, she was a pretty easy going baby and such a fun little girl. Our personalities couldn’t be more different and when she was younger, this would frustrate me to no end. Laura is extremely unemotional and almost nothing flusters her, including her mother’s emotional ups and downs. When she was little, her stubbornness drove me insane as she would pick the craziest hills to die on. Today however, she has channeled this character trait into something positive. She is assertive and will not back down on something she believes is right, even in the face of tremendous peer pressure. For a mom of a teenager, this is something that is reassuring and makes me incredibly proud. Laura also has a great sense of humor and is becoming my ally and closest friend. I love having a daughter! It might be prejudiced to say, but I happen to think she’s the most beautiful 15-year old I know; inside and out!

40th-04

Then there’s Nate! He was my happy baby. He giggled and laughed his way through babyhood. And really, he hasn’t stopped. He has a funny, outgoing, charming personality. Oh yeah, and if you know him, you’ll know he never stops talking. About anything and everything. Hmmm, I wonder where he got that from? Nate is our miracle baby. I lost a baby in between Laura and Nate. When I was only 5 weeks pregnant with Nate, we nearly lost him too. For most of the my pregnancy with Nate there was an enormous blood clot dwarfing Nate in my uterus that threatened his life. We went in for weekly ultrasounds to check up on him. By the time that threat had passed, I went into pre-term labor with him at 30-weeks. The doctors were just minutes from an emergency C-section when things turned around. Nate, thankfully, was delivered full-term, just a week early. Everything was normal and he was a healthy 8 lb baby boy! God must have big plans for our first son! Nate loves Legos and loves to build. In fact, he is incredibly gifted at building. He hopes to be an architect someday and I can’t wait to see what amazing buildings and structures come out of that imaginative mind of his!

40th-06

Then there’s Daniel. Oh my. Daniel. We thought long and hard about a third baby. My body had been through a lot with my fibromyalgia and the hyper emesis I suffer with in pregnancy. We were advised to not have anymore children after Nate, but we prayed about it and felt strongly that we should have one more. I am so glad we did. I can’t imagine this family without Daniel. Daniel, although to the outside world, seems to be quiet and shy, is the resident family clown. Once you get to know him you find out that he is hilarious! Daniel keeps this family in stitches! Daniel also has a will of iron! This was unbelievably difficult to me during his 2nd and 3rd years. It took me quite a bit of patience and digging to figure out this little boy who could scream for 45 minutes because I cut his toast in squares instead of triangles and who instantly began to bang his head on the floor and scream the minute we walked into church. But, we got through it. I found Daniel some coping mechanisms and we also discovered that he couldn’t hear! Surgery for tubes twice have certainly helped with that. Daniel has tenaciously overcome many challenges and is currently chipping away at learning to read. I love to snuggle with Daniel. Daniel is the one who will cuddle up on my lap, hugs me every morning and tells me I’m beautiful every day. What mom could resist that!? Daniel says he’s going to be a policeman someday.

40th-09

“I get kissed by the sun
Each morning
Put my feet on a hardwood floor
I get to hear my children laughing
Down the hall through the
Bedroom door
Sometimes I sit on my
Front porch swing
Just soaking up the day
I think to myself, I think to myself
This world is a beautiful place
I have been blessed
And I feel like I’ve found my way
I thank God for all I’ve been given
At the end of every day
I have been blessed
With so much more than I deserve
To be here with the ones
That love me
To love them so much it hurts
I have been blessed”

-I Have Been Blessed

Martina McBride