Survival Mode

We dated for a sweet forever and then planned a wedding in 4 short months.  We had vaguely outlined our plans for a family.

We hosted Thanksgiving for 13 after a month of marriage,  Christmas was celebrated and before just New Years, barely two months into marriage, I told Joshua we were expecting our first child.

It wasn't our plan.  We walked around dazed.  We said two years, not two months.  

Thomas arrived not quite 10 months after the wedding.  Things were complicated at first.  Not long term complicated like the paths so many have walked, just a little complicated.  He was a sick baby and had to have constant attention and numerous doctors visits until finally the diagnosis was given.  About the time he healed from his surgery and we were finding a groove, we discovered we were pregnant.  Again. 

Sarah Grace was due on his first birthday.  Less than 22 months after we'd exchanged vows. 

19 months after that, Elizabeth arrived. 

Another 19 months went by, and Anna was born. 

Fast forward 29 months and Daniel joined in the mix.

When Daniel was born, we'd been married for 88 months.  Of those 88 months, I'd been pregnant for 45 months.  We'd had a baby in the house for 78 months of our marriage.  We'd been preparing for or caring for a baby for 86 months of our 88 months together. 

Those are hard numbers, y'all.  I'm not gonna lie.  

Here are some more hard numbers - 6 years, 5 years, 4 years, 2 years, newborn. 

Those are the ones that nearly sunk me.  I trusted God, but I wasn't dealing well with the day to day reality of what He'd given us.  It's a lot.

The past two years have been the hardest of my life.  My pregnancy with Daniel while trying to keep up with the needs of my four other very young children pressed hard on me.  The week leading up to his birth?  Hardest physical demands I've ever had to answer to (you simply have to read Daniel's birth story to understand that statement).  Childbirth was a piece of cake after that insane week.  Caring for a baby with a 'strong personality' these past 18 months and maintaining my role as mommy to 4 other children, wife to my husband, and keeper of my home?  Hard.  Hard, hard, hard.

We call it Survival Mode.  And our entire marriage has been just that: Survival Mode. 

Go ahead and chide me if you need to.  I've broad shoulders and can bear it.  I've also the knowledge of what living in Survival Mode is like. 

I know the demands.  I know the rawness of born of exhaustion.  I know the darkness of depression.  I know the hurt of failed friendships.  I know the frustration of changed plans.  I know feeling trapped.  I know helpless.  I know fear. 

But I also know the triumphs.  I know the chinking away of selfishness.  I know the balm of an encouraging note.  I know the grace He pours over a weary heart.  I know joy.  I know peace.  I know His ways are not mine, but He is my hope, and if I but trust Him, He will make straight my paths. 

Joshua and I laugh when we tell people that we didn't plan our family, but that God did it for us.  We KNOW that His ways were to our benefit.  We KNOW we are rotten, selfish people and that our faults and weaknesses are too many to number.  It's scary, really. 

I really believe that God gave us our children in His timing and not ours because He knew that we really had some rough edges that needed to be sanded down.  He also knew that those rough edges were only going to become more jagged if He allowed us to have our plan.  He knew that if He'd given us those 'couple of years' we would have been doing our children more of a disservice  than we already are, making it even harder for them to see Him in us.  And because He's not a God of confusion, He didn't want that for the precious children He had planned for us.

So I'll take these past nine years and be thankful for the stresses and the hard times and the tears.  It's grown us, molded us into who we are now. We've had to let go of a lot, re-shape our minds and clean out our hearts.  We've been blessed beyond measure with the people God has put in our path.  Just the right person at just the right time every. single. time.  Things have been full tilt and cry-your-eyes-out hard.  We haven't planned our lives so much as we have chased after the leash of our lives, but we're in a place of grace.  We're in a place where we can see His sustaining hand through the crazy.

For our ninth anniversary, we had the chance to talk and plan and really think about what we want to do as a family and with our family and for our family.  We were able to finally sit back and breath deep and look over where we've been, where we are, and where we'd like to go.  We hold these plans loosely, but we have them in place.

In His good and perfect will, of course.  

Pictures courtesy of N&N Photography

 And y'all, it is good.

Oh, Thomas!

You're just so not shy, vibrant child of mine.  If it's a thought in your head, it's rushing out of your mouth or being put into action with your hands.  Your have  audacious ambitions and you love big words.  Details and definitions are inconsequential and irksome.

You are currently planning to purchase a plot of land a little way up the road.  You're intent on planting lots of strawberries, blueberry bushes, pumpkins, and watermelon on the land.  Your Daddy and I shake our heads because we know you don't have a firm grasp on what $40,000 means and you're diligently putting some of your allowance aside for the big purchase.

That you want in time for the Spring planting season.

You've also hatched a plan to earn money so that you can fly to Costa Rica and visit one of your since-birth-buddies after his family moves there.  You have a shoe box full of notes you've made and services you can offer to folks around you and how many quarters to charge them per service.  You were thrilled when I said I'd pay for your passport.  The hug you squeezed me into nearly broke me in half.

Because, not only are you always thinking, you're growing like a wild thing and you are so strong.  You can almost pick me up off the ground!  I love you and your raucous affection.

I also love listening to you as you tell me about your first crush and the thoughts and struggles you are experiencing with that.  I have been so proud of the way you have handled it all, though I must admit I giggle when you and your sister, Sarah Grace, talk about it in voices that are no where near as quiet as you think they are.  I love that you share this aspect of your life with not only your Daddy and me, but trust your sister with it, too.

You are funny and full of life.  Your baby brother adores you and wants to be where you are, doing what your doing.  You have almost endless patience with him!

You are watching your Daddy closely and modeling many of your ways after him, though you are still very much different from him.  I listened to you lament about how you can't wait to have chest hair like your Daddy and my heart skipped a little when I realized you're already to a point in your life that you're thinking about things like chest hair and shaving.

And then you come barreling through the house on your way to the garage to figure out one of your building projects.  As you gallop through the kitchen, you yell, "Apparently I'm not as smart as I thought I was!" and I know that your still a little boy.  Mercy knows in a few more years, that phrase won't even have real estate in your mind, never mind it being said aloud!

But those days can wait...I'm enjoying the you I have right now.

Daniel -18-ish Months

I really do have the best of intentions, but the crazy in this house leaves me breathless.  In a happy-enjoy-the-moment-with-laughter-or-tears kind of way.

My baby is a year and a half.  It sounds better when I just say '18 months' because then I can conveniently forget my math skills (I don't even have to try) and pretend he's not got 2 years grabbed by the tail and yanking himself towards it as fast as he can.

I'm eighteen months old and...
...I can come down the stairs on my own!  No more standing at the top and yelling 'Mama!'
...I like the sound a book makes as it hits the water...bathtub, toilet, I'm not picky.
...I may not have many words, but I mimic all kinds of noises and sounds.
...when Mommy dresses me in the morning and pulls my shirt down over my head, I grin and say 'Boo!'
...I'm learning to drink from a big boy cup!
...I like to take my big boy cup to the Berky and fill it up and watch my cup over floweth to the floor and then sit down and smack-splat around in the water that pours forth!
...Mommy giggles at me when we both know she should be 'training' me.
...I am very independent, but I frequently walk over to my favorite people and lay my head on their leg for a moment or two to show affection.
...I prance when I get excited!
...I fully understand the concept of running (apparently my siblings were at a loss on this) and look incredibly cute when I take off.
...I love my Daddy!  He's my very favoritest person in the whole wide world!
...I was sad to see the bottom of the doughnut box on my first trip to Krispy Kreme.  I cried so brokenheartedly the people next to us offered to buy me more!

It's A Mystery

Remember a few years ago when this happened?  Well, that little incident led to the eventual pulling of Elizabeth's top two front teeth.  If I documented it on the blog, I can't find it to link back to.  Sorry.  I just thought all those little labels would keep me organized.

Apparently that only works if you take the time to go back through the history of the blog and label everything.  Correctly.  That's six years of blog entries, y'all.  One day....

So.  Ummmm.... Elizabeth has been short a few teeth for about half her life, now.  Recently, she added her first 'official' lost tooth to the ones that had to be pulled and the the gap in her grin grew.

Tonight, she curled up next to me and we were talking when she looked at me with an expression I couldn't define.

"Mama, where is it?"

"Where is what, Liz?" I replied.

"My tooth!  It's not in my mouth!"

It took me a second.  I'd forgotten about her 'new' loose tooth.  Again. 

Hold on.  I need to justify myself here, as I feel like you're going to think I always forget everything (which I basically do).  The thing is, when Thomas and Sarah Grace had loose teeth, we heard about it all. the. time.  Amen.  With Elizabeth, she tells you once or twice and then never makes another noise about it.

Until the tooth is no longer attached to her gums.  

We searched but couldn't find it.  Finally, at bedtime, she asked me if she could still have a Tooth Fairy and would I be her Tooth Fairy this time.  Yes, on both counts, baby, I assured her.  She hugged me and grinned big.

Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and turned around.

"Good-night toothy-tooth, wherever you are!  I love you!!"

I giggled and shooed her off to bed.  She's a delight, that one.