Every Sunday Morning

First Tooth.

Patience, today you became big. Three bites into your lunch apple, and you were officially big. You are so proud. You are so sure. That you're big now. You waited forever for this day. Now it's here. You yelled, "Mommy! I lost my tooth!" Then you ran to the bathroom to look, holding your tiny treasure in your hand. You said it feels funny. But you like it.

I told you we'd have to take your picture to show everyone- then it hit me. Grace's first tooth picture flashed in my mind and I realized- you're wearing the very exact same overalls today that she was wearing the day she lost her first tooth. And you never wear these overalls. Not ever. This is maybe the second time in a year.

So I think they must be lucky.

She Lives.

You saw The Cone of Shame. It didn't end there. By night, she was sicker'n a dog. But it wasn't funny. She only wore the cone for the first day- because after that, she was too weak to lift her head. Our ultra-active, sharp-as-a-tack, loving, mink-soft Bella was laid flat, fur matted down, in horrible pain, and dying.

The pain of the open wound and infection almost licked her.

This Mama grew up on a farm. She's seen a lot of dying animals. And she- wait, I'll start referring to myself in first person again- And I- I knew this was it. She would either make it through the night, or be gone. I hoped we had gotten the antibiotics we needed in time.

I got serious with Grace, talking alone with her about what was happening. I explained what had made Bella so sick, what was happening to her body- too weak to sit up, eat, swallow water, so weak her body was shutting down- and everything she needed to know to be prepared just in case, and to be prepared to help fix it.

And so on the floor of our bedroom she prayed over her kitty and we got very serious about doing all we could to make her get better. We poured water down her throat- have you done this to a cat? Pleasant. But 4 hours later, she lifted her head. And the next morning, she was able to eat small amounts of food again- softened pieces, one at a time. All three girls took charge of feeding her, and getting her strong again.

She spent 5 days like this, swaddled in her favorite green blanket, alone on the floor of our bedroom away from the busy house, sleeping and taking all the love and care she could stand. And some that she couldn't stand, but we had to do anyway. I had to take her to the litter box, because she couldn't stand up, and definitely couldn't walk. This loss of dignity is very tough on a cat. She hated and loved me for it. We brushed her fur gently because she couldn't groom herself and cats can't stand to be messy. Penny kept her face clean. We did it all. We saw a little more brightness in her eyes, a little more eagerness to eat every day. By Friday, she stood up for the first time since Tuesday night.

It was a victory.

And finally, on Tuesday, the course of antibiotics almost finished, she got up- to choose to lay in the sun and watch the birds with Penny. She still rested all day, but didn't sleep as much. And she took her own furry booty to the box. And she took the initiative to find her food and water. And she gave herself a bath.

Just like Gilbert. She didn't let it lick her.

And on Wednesday morning, she played. Grace was thrilled. "Mommy, now I know she's getting better for good, because she played with me." Cat + Ribbon From Egg Carton + Playful Banter= Thrilled Six Year Old.

And Relieved Mother.

And Happy Cat.

And Patie, Lily and Hudson were happy too- and so was Jim. But Grace is my deep thinker. My brooder, my feelings-deep-down girl. This stuff hits her hard. And gives her passion to do what it takes.

Bella Lives.

When You Grow Up

I've encountered a staggering amount of cynicism, hopelessness, and pain this week. Not in our lives, but in the lives of others that seem to be colliding all around me. And children, your mother is reflecting today. Just sitting in it. And trying to breathe, and weave some sense.

You are always talking about what you'll be and do when you grow up.

So many parents say, "I don't care what you do, as long as you're happy."

And they aren't telling the truth. But we can talk about that another day.

You know what I always tell you- that no matter what you do today, tomorrow, or in 30 years- I want you to, in every moment, be in the place of mission, purpose and heart that God wants for you. And if you're living every moment with Him, you won't just "be" one thing "someday". You'll be His- now and always- and life will never, ever be a series of simple labels for identity. Life with Him is a constant adventure, with peaks and valleys, shades of gray and peace in the rain and shine.

That's what I mean- but all I say is, "No matter what you do, no matter where you live, no matter how much I want you close, no matter what it means for you- Be right there with Jesus." And you usually complete my sentence for me. Believe me, I need to hear myself say it, just as much I want you to know it. I still need to know it better for myself.

And while I'm at it, here's more of what I want for you.

I want you to be present and open, not disconnected and "safe". Be awake. Be present. Listen first, and speak without fear.

I want you to create. In a thousand ways. With words, art, science, your text messages, the way you do dishes, how you buy your groceries, the ways you relate to others, how you see the world- and what you do about it. Be creative. Do a new thing.

I want you to stand firm in convictions- but stay flexible and willing to be formed.

I want you to live free, and out of the boxes the world places you in, and live real, not covered in facades and striving for the fulfillment of empty expectations.

Don't be afraid to say No. Don't be afraid to say Yes.

I want you full of love, compassion and peace, to bring healing and fresh life, to live rightly, compelled by the Living God- not full of rules, checklists, and man-conceived laws of "good" and "bad". Live closely pressed to the chest of God, discerning, listening, thinking, with patience to wait for answers- not hungry for new laws of what is OK, and what's off limits. Know the peace of absolute truth- and the freedom that lives within it.

I want you to live in the midst of reality- to live a life close to God, not afraid to push into the real, messy, complicated world- not satisfied to stay neatly cornered off from the rest.

I want you to be a gift to the ones you meet. A real, honest-to-goodness Godsend.

And I want you to be happy.

Happy in God.

The Great Coco Conflict

You already know how I feel about Ken Burns.

And you already know how I feel about Conan.

So you shouldn't have trouble guessing how I feel about this...

Dear God, Make Me a Bird...

Jim and I are going to fly far, far away from here.

Well, we're dreaming up a vacation. We haven't decided where to go. We're open to suggestions on the location of our little va-cay later this year.

Some guidelines:

Though we'd both hop a jet to another country in a second, this is going to be a domestic trip. I suppose Canada is a possibility...but not likely... sorry Canada. And, I'm dying to take the girls to PEI someday- so I think I can hold off on the land of the maple leaf until then.

We will be gone for about a week.

We are of course going sans children.

We're going to fly.

We would like to have a balance of scenic open space and beauty, and a major city. (See? It's getting tougher.)

We want a place that is historical, and culturally rich. (We don't want to go lay on a beach for 7 days- and cruises and the like are absolutely out.)

We don't want to go anywhere that is over-commercialized.

We're kicking around a few ideas. Right now Boston and DC are big contenders. We'd love to visit National Parks, see the Grand Canyon etc, but those are investments we'd rather make with our children there to enjoy it with us.

A week at The Smithsonian sounds amazing. Or The Met. But I don't want to go to NYC with only a week to spare. I know Jim and I would both love exploring Boston- which has a great balance of history and art and so much more... But would we have time to visit Concord? Let me rephrase...would Jim put up with a mandatory trip to Concord to see Orchard House and to sit by Walden Pond? (Putting some lifelong dreams out there for the Internets to see).

We're undecided. And open to suggestions.

Queue the Cinderella Song...

That's right, You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Goooooone.

I have been so legitimately angry and sad all week.

Oh, Conan.

I have been a huge fan of Conan since 1995. No lie. Huge. Have I watched much Conan since 2002? Of course not. I became an adult who went to bed at 10:00. But I still loved Conan. And I was so jazzed when he finally took on The Tonight Show. Jim and I never failed to laugh out loud when we watched- the first half of the show was always our favorite- guests are always touch and go- the best part was Conan, and everything the show dreamed up.

And now we can't watch anymore. And it's just not right.

Long live Triumph, long live In the Year 2000.

We'll forever be proud members of TEAM COCO.

And so...

The girls were spayed and declawed last Saturday. By Monday, both seemed to be on speaking terms with me. By today, Penny was really acting chipper, even a little playful again.


But Bella? Bella has cleaned and picked at her wounds for hours, as she dealt with the emotional after-effects of impotent paws and a sore tummy.

She would. not. stop.

And this morning, she actually ripped her outer set of stitches out. Then she started to feel a little woozy, a little lightheaded. And needy. And like she didn't want anyone to touch her. Nice combination. Of course we took her in to the vet right away. The antibiotics are already working. But there's no breaking her bad habits.

And so...








She wears the Cone of Shame.

Early.

I love the sacred stillness

of the early morning.

Healing silence, room to breathe,

bare feet on the carpet,

hands wrapped around a bright yellow cup

filled with strong coffee,

and my heart certain

it's never a mistake

to see the sunrise.

This is it.

I spent the weekend caring for 2 healing cats, both now without front claws or the chance of ever being a Mommy, but indeed they are both in possession of a bit of a chip on their fuzzy shoulders towards me, the one who took them to their demise. They're wearing down though. Both of them snuggled me last night.

Oh, and I spent the weekend working on several things for school and for Full Life, balancing productivity with laziness and freedom alone with Jim while the kids were away with Grandma and Grandpa and (see above paragraph- Hudson did not need to be here to help with their recovery...he just loves them too much). It's always fun to be alone, and do whatever we want- I'm always amazed at how much time there is when our kids aren't here. It's like 4 days in 1. Blows my mind. Love you, Jim. Thanks for a great weekend. I really like you.

Sunday was topped off with a huge sinus headache and the Golden Globes. Basically, I watch one to two big awards shows a year, which is more than enough information to know who's up, who's down, what's big, what isn't, and in general, what's going on in Hollywood. I just got done filling up our Netflix queue, and now we'll catch up in the next year on all the things everyone else has already seen. And we will now go back to barely paying any attention to what's happening in Hollywood. And, are we the only two people in America that don't want to see Avatar?? Really? The only two?? Oh, and am I the only one that thought it was funny to hear Arnold say "Avatar" over and over? Am I the only one?

To wrap up, that was my weekend. And I didn't take any time to blog. So this is my Monday exercise in writing. This is it.

Wanted

Samantha Krieger posted this video yesterday, watch it if you can- it's an incredible project.

But it struck a chord that my heart plays often.

I was 20 years old, a senior in college, married for four months. I was absolutely certain I was about 6 weeks pregnant, but due to my clinic's policies, I needed to have a test done in-clinic to be sure, and to book with an OBGYN.

I remember everything about the visit very vividly. It was sunny outside. I was wearing a blue South Dakota State University sweatshirt. It was late in the afternoon. There were all kinds of people in the waiting room, all ages. I wondered what they were there for. The nurse was very friendly, both she and the doctor were middle-aged. I know I looked young, because I was.

I needed to wait in an exam room for the results. When I heard a knock on the door, both the nurse and doctor came in, silently, with very somber expressions. I was at once very worried. I had taken a blood test- what did they find? Until this point, I had just expected a cut-and-dry outcome- a, "Yep, you're right on, like you already knew, you're pregnant. Here's your card for your next appointment." And I'd be out of there. They looked so serious, it caught me off guard.

My concerned doctor sat down next to me, looked me right in the eye, and softly said, "Your test result was positive. There is a pregnancy."

The nurse was just silent in the background, with an, "Oh, honey" look on her face.

My first reaction was relief, and a, "Great! I was absolutely sure I was- can't wait to tell my husband it's "official".

I can. not. forget. what happened next. The doctor, truly a great man I think- his face shifted instantly to a look of total surprise/confusion.

"Well [uncomfortably long pause], if you want them, kids are great!"

And the rest of our conversation was short, sweet, and awkward. And then I was on my way.

This just cored me. Because I knew, if I didn't want this, I could end it. I would have immediately been put in contact with Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, a clinic I now drive by on a regular basis. My appointment would have been swiftly and discreetly made, and no one would have asked questions. I wouldn't have even had to tell Jim about this pregnancy. I could have told him our suspicions were mistaken, there was no baby. He didn't even have to know.

Because I wanted it, I was led to the appointment desk, where I filled out more paperwork, made my first official appointment with my new OBGYN, and was given a neat tote bag full of coupons, magazines and free stuff, as well as tons of information on how to take care of myself now that I was also caring for a baby- how to eat, how to exercise, what to drink, what not to drink, what medicines I could take, and what I absolutely couldn't, how to pick baby names, how to start planning for a nursery, which vitamins I needed to go buy right now. Because now it was all about protecting that baby and helping it thrive.

Because now that I had made it clear that I wanted it, it wasn't a pregnancy. Now it was a baby.

It was one of the most disturbing experiences of my life.

This is who I wanted...

Booked

We've got an intricate, fiercely organized, digital collection of photos, dating back to the year 2002, backed up in a couple locations. But over the past three years, I haven't printed our everyday snapshots, at all. I could print them anytime I needed one. They're categorized so well on flickr, I can find anything I'm looking for fast. I look at them when I want to, I sometimes show them to the girls for fun, but they aren't printed. I dutifully filled out photo albums for Grace and Patience for a few years, then once Lily came around, it all just seemed so unattainable to continue- it took money to order enough snapshots from every month to fill up an album for each of them with all our everydayness (so they'd have a giant library each someday). It took TIME that I just couldn't see spending. I felt like a slave to our constantly-updated albums. And, I take about 1000 shots a month, just of us, so it just got to be too much.

Photographs adorn our walls and stairwells. We've got pictures everywhere. I print off fun snapshots that make the girls happy- pictures of fun things, or of them, that they keep in their personal treasure boxes for themselves. But I don't make printed, everyday, albums.

And I have this little blog, where we catalog all kinds of everydayness, which has proven to be an invaluable family record, as I look back over the past few recorded years. And if our kids want to look back on this digital-scrapbook, they can. And if they, when they are older, want all the photos from their growing up years, I can just send them the flickr links, or burn them some DVDs of the files the want, or whatever we'll do to share files by then, because it will surely be very different from now, and they can print at will. Because as technology changes, I'll keep moving all those old files forward. They're priceless to me.

So this year, I finally did it and started a new January tradition. I created a book for 2009. It was super-fast, simple, and really, really rewarding. It's leather bound, and over 100 12x12 pages. A selection of everyday snapshot highlights through the year, coupled with highlighted texts of birthday letters etc, and other photographs. I can't wait to receive it in the mail. Even Jim is excited about it. To me, not a scapbooker, this was a perfect compromise, and very affordable, when compared to the old printing, shipping, time-spending, album-buying-and-filling option for our family of 6. Snapfish saves my old projects, so there's a chance additional copies would be available down the road. A chance. Who knows. I could have created storyboards in Photoshop and made it highly customized and personalized, then created a snazzy album via my regular printer, but that would have taken much more time. This was crazy simple. The occasional frustration in not getting a page exactly how I wanted it was worth it to me.

And can I just say, of course this Mama was in tears for most of it's creation?? I'm always such a sap for memories...

You can view it here.

For a photographer Mom who loves filling memories with her kids much more than albums, this was a perfect compromise.

I ♥ Faces Week 2: Best Face Photo

It's the nap hair. It's that face she makes all the time. All the time. And it's the dimples that pop up every single time she makes it. That's what I love about this shot.

See more at

Chill.

It was -26 degrees here on Saturday. So, you know, when we went outside, we wore a light jacket, in case we got a chill.

Sitting around the breakfast table after letting the dogs outside, Jim pronounced it cold enough that you could throw a pot of boiling water in the air, and the water wouldn't hit the ground. So I said, "No way!", so we tried it- and it worked. So we did it like, five more times. Then, two more, because the facebook community demanded pictures and video.
There you go...


Even with the hassle of snow and cold, I'm so thankful I live in a place with extreme seasons. Builds character.

Update...

After a snowy day on the couch, our hopes were confirmed: Penny does, in fact, like to watch Anne of Green Gables. Whew.

Too Many Capital Letters? You decide.

It's FINISH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN WEEK at my house, all things involving my, house. Next week it's FINISH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN WEEK, for all things spring semester lesson plans. The weekend after that, it's GET YOUR CATS SPAYED AND DECLAWED WEEKEND, which surprisingly, as we have to get our cat-loving kids out of the house so the felines can heal in peace and bandages, is also going to mean a MINI-STAYCATION WITH LOVIN' MAN WHILE KIDS ARE AT GRANDMA'S NOT MISSING US WEEKEND. The week after THAT begins FINISH YOUR TAXES AND DO 1000 THINGS FOR FULL LIFE AS PRODUCTIVELY AS YOU CAN BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY EXTRAVAGANZA.

All this and a great life too. Doesn't get much better than that.

I think all those CAPS really added something to the conversation.

In the midst of all this, I can't help but post a shout out to CHUCK, who is coming back this weekend- and you can read all about Mr. Chuck, Zachary Levi, down there- he's on the cover of the current issue of RELEVANT.... which, is, actually, always in all CAPS (and is also one of my favorite magazines/websites/podcasts).

RELEVANT Magazine - Jan./Feb. 2010 :: Zac Levi

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Oh Yes We Did.

Bacon turned 6 on December 30. Appropriately, we celebrated with a cake,

And a Pug-fabulous gift.



That's right. Patie turned the corner at PetSmart and saw these and started to giggle, "Mommy, it's a Snuggie for dogs."



The back is just hilarious. Paws free for remotes, and game playing. This is exactly what Bacon needed!



Actually, he loves it. He takes it off when he goes outside, and steps right back into it when he comes back in.
Then we covered him in all kinds of love.


It's important to hug your Pug.