Iveyrock

Last year, our family celebrated Advent for the first time. I was on modified bed-rest for the first part of the Christmas season, and after that I was expecting a baby any day. While our celebrations had to be low-key and somewhat flexible, I have such good memories of that time. It was more about slowing down and being family than racing around and getting everything done.

This year, I am hoping for some measure of that peace and togetherness, as we are starting the holiday season. This year is looking very different – we are planning a cross country road trip, along with the regular Christmas traditions around here, ending with a birthday celebration as soon as we get home.

I am hoping that we can celebrate Advent as a way to reconnect and touch base every day, and focus on slowing down and spending intentional time with each other.

The first day of Advent was yesterday. We celebrated with Danish Ebelskiver, a Christmas tradition from my house growing up.

After dinner, we lit a candle and read our verse for the week (Jeremiah 29:11 ‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”)

After the verse, we gave them a slip of paper with the activity for the night on it. For the activity, we set up our nativity puzzle, another Christmas tradition from my childhood

Ian had decided earlier that a celebration needed confetti, so he helpfully made us some… he and Chava had a good time throwing that around, to end the night. He made some more this morning, so I think it might become a permanent part of our Advent celebrations this year

Since writing this post, I had the opportunity to find out what happens when I do get really sick. I did not, in fact, whip up a five course meal. What I did do was spend some time laying around and feeling very sorry for myself. I haven’t been that sick in awhile, and I always forget how bad it feels.

Along with feeling sorry for myself, however, I spent some time feeling very thankful. On Friday, when I felt my worst, I couldn’t sleep for most of the night. In between whining to myself about how miserable I felt, I was constantly thankful that we co-sleep. I couldn’t imagine having to get out of bed, calm a fussy baby, get him back to sleep, and repeat throughout the night, when I was feeling that awful. I know that different sleeping arrangements work better for different families, but I personally love having my baby next to me.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about how very thankful I am to live here, with the luxuries that I have. I have a husband who does even more around here when I am sick. Some of my friends don’t have anyone to help them parent, let alone wash clothes and dishes.

And beyond that, all night long I thought about water, and how I take it for granted. (I was pretty dehydrated at this point…)

I can get clean, fresh water any time I need it. There are women and families all over the world that do not have that luxury. I kept thinking about women, or even children, who feel as bad as I felt, and still need to go draw water from a well, and carry it back. And the water that they have access to isn’t necessarily clean. According to Living Water International, some household in Africa spend up to 26% of their time getting water for their family. And 1.8 million children die every year because of unclean water.

That is 5,000 deaths a day. Today. Right Now.

I hadn’t intended for this to be a Thanksgiving post, but as I am writing the day before – and writing about my thankfulness – it is clearly turning into one. So here is what I am thankful for, this year.

My children are not dying of thirst. They are not dying of diseases from unsafe water. I can give my family clean water every day, without even thinking about it.

And although it is Thanksgiving time, I am not content to just voice my thankfulness. Tomorrow, when we eat Thanksgiving meal, everyone will go around and say what they are thankful for this year. I am not willing to sit in a chair, with more food than I can eat in front of me, and say out loud that I am thankful for my children’s health, and eat the rest of my food, and drive home, and feel content and justified that I have given proper thanks for my blessings, while other women’s babies are dying.

There are several organizations that provide wells for communities that need them, World Vision and Living Water International being two of them. While I do not think that kind of donation is the end of my thought process, it is certainly a place to begin.

Before I tell my little story, I want to be very clear that there are a couple of reasons that Ray usually does the cooking around here. One of those is that he is better at it than I am. For everything I cook that turns out well, there are many more efforts that come with “explanations.” I don’t usually make dinner, and most days it never even crosses my mind.

It appears, however, that something about being sick sends my brain into overload, and I spend a day or so using all kinds of energy.

The last time this happened, I took the kids on a long walk to a nearby pond, came home, and made chicken turnovers from scratch. While I waited for my dough to chill, I realized that I felt so odd because I had a low grade fever.

Yesterday, I was inspired to clean my (neglected) kitchen, and make dinner. Not only dinner, but dinner with an appetizer. I have a basket of tomatoes from our garden that need to be used, and a great (and easy) french bread recipe. (As a side note, did you all catch that? Extra tomatoes from our garden! Not only are they actually growing, they are making more than we can eat. Amazing!)

So I decided that not only was I going to get the kitchen completely clean, I was going to make bruschetta. I found some recipes online, but none of them looked exactly like what I wanted – so while I was waiting for the kids’ lunch to cook, I just started chopping.

I made lunch, started in on the kitchen, started bread dough going – and realized that I felt awfully strange. Sure enough, another low grade fever.

Both my chicken turnovers and my bruschetta turned out better than I had hoped they would. Dinner last night was spaghetti and bruschetta – eaten in a clean kitchen. I am vaguely wondering what would happen if I got really sick… maybe I could whip up a five course meal. At any rate, I need to do something with the rest of these tomatoes.

I have found that I do my worst parenting when I am parenting out of fear. This is true when I am afraid for my children’s safety, but it’s even more true when I am parenting in fear in regards to my children’s behavior.

When I am listening to the voice in my head that says, “if you let them get away with this, they will want to do it again…”, I lose my creativity. I lose my perspective. I lose my ability to keep my temper. As soon as I let my fear of “what if” override what is really happening in the here and now; I create a battle where there doesn’t have to be one.

My children are responsible for helping with our daily chore. In the beginning of this routine, I felt that I needed to draw a hard line in making them help. Because if I let them get away with slacking off once, surely they would want to do it again. And I was afraid of loosing control of that situation. More than once, I created a meltdown that didn’t need to happen. It certainly didn’t get the cleaning done. It did nothing for my relationship with my children. It didn’t teach them anything about perseverance or hard work. And at the end of the day, I knew that I had let my fear turn into anger, and treated my children unfairly.

I have since discovered that if one of my children isn’t as into cleaning that day, it is ok to back off. That day of not helping doesn’t turn into a life time of trying to get out of work. They return to chore time the next day ready and willing to help. If I just keep doing my thing, and working with the child who is wanting to work, the other one often joins right in.

There are so many things to be afraid of. If I don’t get him to sleep on time tonight, he will think bedtime is negotiable every night. If I let her draw on her arms, she will think she can draw on her arms whenever she wants. This fear gets me nowhere. I am not a better parent for it. My children are not learning anything from it. When will I learn to let go of this?

It’s the fear that if I don’t somehow control my kids’ immaturity, they will always be this immature.

It gets a little easier, as my oldest grows. Things that were all encompassing before are not even issues now. He doesn’t throw his food on the floor. He doesn’t throw his toys. Someday he will learn all of the other things I am trying so hard to teach him. I suspect he would learn them better, if I relaxed and let him learn.

When I am parenting in the moment, I am able to keep my temper. I am more creative. I can be the parent I want to be, without letting the behavior of a child determine my mood. I keep my perspective and my sense of humor…  and, of all things, my children actually learn by what they see me do, when the message doesn’t get lost in my frustration and anger.

This is the first time that my mom has been able to visit without some major life event happening around here. While we have appreciated her help in the past, I was really excited to be able to have a chance to just relax and have her be a part of our “normal” life around here.

Unfortunately, one of our kids started throwing up while she was here. But we were still able to visit a new library, a couple of parks, some of our favorite places to eat, and the Celtic Festival…

And get in lots of time reading and playing with Grandma.

She made play-dough for the kids – I had offered, but they insisted on waiting a couple of months until Grandma got here, because “Grandma Jayne is the one that makes play-dough for us.”

The kids had been really looking forward to her visit, and are already asking when she is going to come again.

Micah celebrated her visit by taking his very first steps! I was so glad she was here to see, although I can’t believe he’s trying to walk already.

I have been missing fall so much this year. I have told my sister a couple of times how much I want to be home for the leaves changing. My mom is here visiting this week, and my sister sent me these, from her backyard in Ohio. I can’t even say how much that means to me.

This is supposed to be a post about pumpkins. We have lots of seasonal pictures to share, and I really intend to do that. But today was such a GOOD day… I am ignoring my cute pictures of kids in costumes for a little while longer, and just sharing our afternoon.

Since our backyard is finally dry, after all the rain, my kids made their own puddles with the garden hose. Ian tells me that this is a pipe to take water out of the ocean, for the people that live “in the sunken city.” I am not really clear if the water is going to the people, or being pumped out of the city.

My Chava girl hung out with me, offering me blueberry pie made of sand.

And Micah did what he does best.

It was a perfect afternoon, and I am so glad I was a part of it.