That Time We Went to Great Clips

Sometimes, when I go the store or to the post office or, say, to get Sam a haircut, I like to dress like I'm a respectable adult. You might find this surprising considering my recent confession to occasionally resembling a homeless man in my spare time. But, in fact, I actually take showers and have been known to brush my hair and even wear lip gloss.

So, yesterday was one of those days where I decided to kick it up a notch. Despite the seriously depleted wardrobe I had to choose from, due to a negligent laundress (me, in case you were confused), I wasn't sporting my finest. However, I did pull out the iron (gasp!) and pressed the little creases in my Converse Target skirt to make it look a little more refined (I'm using this word so loosely, I'm surprised it hasn't fallen off the page).

Sam and I head to Great Clips down the mountain (kiddo haircut - $10; Mexican restaurant next door for a post-haircut enchilada - priceless). It happens to be in a strip mall of sorts catty-corner to The Wal-Mart. And, because of where we live, which is close to mountains, this whole montage of consumerism is positioned in a valley that is way, way too picturesque for one of Sam Walton's temples of cheapness. In fact, I told Sam (my Sam, not Mr. Walton), "Wal-Mart does not deserve to be here," to which he did not respond.

Anyhoo, because by this time you are probably clamoring for a photo of Sam's new haircut, I'll indulge you:

And now, I'll share a photo of me, who you'll remember was trying hard to look relatively decent and even remotely adult-like on our little outing to Wal-Mart Valley. (That's right. We put on our fancy duds to go to Wal-Mart)

What's that sticker about, you ask? Oh, well, despite my efforts to look like a real adult, someone (see picture above my picture) thought sticking their "I Heart Great Clips" sticker on my chest was a good way to find it later. This must have happened at some point when I was distracted by the cashier at Wal-Mart or choosing Berenstein Bear books at the library because within a couple minutes, I'd forgotten it was there.

And so, that sticker stayed there for the rest of our errand-running. I can only imagine people wondered at my apparent enthusiasm for Great Clips seeing as how I was willing to proudly wear a sticker proclaiming my love for them and their great clips on my chest.

Summary:
Attempt to accomplish haircut, grocery run, library visit - SUCCESS!
Attempt to appear like a put-together and somewhat normal adult: FAIL
Free advertisement for Great Clips compliments of my chest: DONE

Mapmaking

I had a moment recently, or to be more honest, a whole day where I just about gave in. It was already "one of those days" when I rolled out of bed and by mid-morning, on our way to Sam's pediatrician for yet another doctor's appointment, I was having it out with the Lord in the car. Sam was hanging out in his carseat with the miniature Slinky I'd just bought him and I was driving a little too fast with hot tears running down my face, trying hard not to take Job's wife's advice. Just to cut myself a teensy bit of slack here, I was a little low in the blood sugar department and should have had a little more to eat that morning. Somehow that always seems to make anything hard seem ten times worse.

This doctor's appointment was one of a number of visits we'd made recently to Dr. Jeannie, Sam's fab pediatrician, thirty-five minutes from our house on the mountain. Sam had a cough that sounded like he'd been smoking for the past thirty years of his two and half and it didn't seem to be letting up. So, here we were, making our way back to the doctor after what's seemed like a summer of doctor's appointments for he and I.

Before we'd left that morning, I'd finally gotten up the courage to open up the bills from the procedure that followed my miscarriage and found that, while our insurance covered the lion's share, we still owed nearly $1000. I thought I was prepared for that when I opened that bill, but something came undone in my heart when my eyes scanned that number. It felt like such an injustice after what we'd just experienced, like adding insult to injury.

All the way to the doctor, I mentally yelled at God, explaining that we did not have an extra $1000 lying around. We certainly hadn't asked to lose a pregnancy and then get stuck with a huge bill to deal with. Then somehow I managed to make my way from that grievance into some old stuff I'd obviously not dealt with and was still apparently holding against Him. I even managed to bring up the fact that we'd spent five years doing full-time ministry, so what was the deal giving us such a hard time? There I was, acting a lot like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story who believed that his good behavior obviously warranted his being treated a little better.

Anyway, all this to say, I was almost ready to throw in the towel and tell God to just leave me alone. I got this close (imagine me pinching my fingers together right now) and then I ate lunch. This had an amazing effect on my ability to be reasonable and essentially toned down the anger that was real, but had been somewhat enhanced by low blood sugar issues. My daily spoonfuls of Nutella make more sense to you now, don't they.

I spent that day crying a lot, which is more than a little unusual for me. I think some of that was a delayed response to the grief of having just had a second miscarriage. The questions and confusion and uncertainty that come as sides to that full serving of sadness take some time to respond to. Apparently, atleast six weeks for me.

The past few days have been less emotionally dramatic and I've felt like I called a truce with God for a while. I haven't felt as angry, but, I've also known that something isn't quite right and needs to be dealt with at some point.

Today, I read my friend Kitty Hurdle's most recent blog post about her and her husband's adoption story. (You can read about that here at their blog joelandkitty.com.) In her post, she admitted that she and her husband had been struggling to trust God in the midst of some pretty intense circumstances, highlighted by a long walk through infertility. Kitty shared that after some intense prayer and confession, she and Joel were reminded that God had been faithful to them throughout the hard season they were in. What they also realized was that they had been listening to the Enemy's lie that God was actually cruel. After that wake-up call, they were reminded that "God is good even when He doesn't feel good."

That last part made my eyes water.

I've been letting the Enemy tell me what to believe about God. What the heck. No wonder I felt like telling Him to take a hike.

So, I've resolved to stop doing that and start remembering how God has been faithful to me. For starters, there was this five years and one week ago:

And then there was this:

And now there's this:

And this:

And this:

On that pitiful drive to the doctor last week, I forgot all the ways that God has been faithfully writing a story for us that is full of joy and hope and redemption. It's so ridiculously easy to let the hard stuff make us lose sight of the good and the beautiful things that fill up all the rest of the space in our lives.

A friend in college, who was going through a really rough patch at the same time that I was during our senior year, shared a quote with me about making a map of God's faithfulness by intentionally remembering how He has been good all along and believing that He will continue to be good even in the hard seasons that we walk through.

So, here I am again, trying my best to make that map.


Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
-Catharina von Schlegel, 1752

Mama Was a Homeless Man

You know that woman in the grocery store wearing grubby yoga pants and yesterday's make-up that you felt sorry for last time you went to pick up goat cheese and melba toast? Um, that was me. You may or may not have also noticed that my faded shirt (a la Tar-jay) had a hole in it and a peanut butter and jelly handprint on the back. Additionally, you were right to wonder if I had taken a shower that day or the day before. And no, I didn't do my own hair. My two-year old had a hand in that hairstyle I was sporting.

You felt confused about my appearance and maybe a little sorry for me, didn't you. Well, let's just say that in this season of life personal grooming has become something of a luxury. It's the sort of thing one indulges in on the occasional weekend when the husband takes the little guy to Cracker Barrel for pancakes. Instead of going out for coffee with a friend, I choose to stay at home and shave my legs, maybe even trim my nails. It's the little things that help you feel like a human being after spending the week very intensely focused on keeping a little person fed, bathed, and alive.

A friend of mine recently told me about something she'd seen on Facebook that I keep thinking about. It was an open letter from a babysitter to a stay-at-home mom which basically acknowledged her having come to understand why stay-at-home moms are the way they are. She specifically mentioned that she was now more sympathetic to a stay-at-home mom's plight after a stint of babysitting and it had all been made clear to her why said moms tended to resemble homeless men.

When I dreamed of children and homemaking all those years whilst mooning over Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, I never pictured myself one day resembling a homeless man. And yet, that day has come. I wear hole-y clothes, sport unwashed hair, look perpetually haggard, and always seem to be carrying around a lot of random stuff.

I still have my pride or I'd post a quick picture of me in my ubiquitous yoga pants (which haven't done yoga a day in their spandexed life) and my pilled, one pocket Target tee (you know the one), and weird hair. Sigh.

I made the mistake of reading an old friend's fashion blog today and then clicking on a link to her favorite fashion blogger's blog. I wish I'd never seen it, but now I keep it open on my browser to occasionally glance at it and remember that people outside my house wear things like heels and pinstripes and equestrian-printed party dresses (What? And yet, it's true.) I sighed over every page on that blog and then kind of wanted to cry a little bit. Just a very little bit, mind you. You can go there yourself and see if you don't feel like shedding a small tear for your lost fashion sense. But, prepare yourself, she has posts like "Wine Country Weekend" in which she posts pictures of herself wearing chiffon and wedges and big sunglasses and you'll want to run outside right then and there and burn your Target yoga pant collection. Don't say I didn't warn you: http://atlantic-pacific.blogspot.com/

But let's be honest, in their hearts of hearts, stay-at-home mamas don't want to remind people of homeless men. They want to wear pretty sundresses and necklaces and perfume and have hair that doesn't smell like peanut butter.

I'm slightly afraid that the few pictures I've made it into (I'm usually the picture-taker) during Sam's early years will only make him ask the question, "Who's that homeless man?" Maybe this is a wake up call. Maybe it's time to reclaim my ability to wear something other than spandex pants and t-shirts. Maybe this is the moment when I should pull those orange patent leather wedges out and boldly wear them to...the park.

And yet, as nice and impractical as that would be, the hard, cold truth is that it would last for about five seconds and then someone would deposit a small dumptruck load of cheddar bunnies on my lap and it would all be over.

So, the homeless man will continue to show up in family pictures. Perhaps before Sam's rehearsal dinner I'll have figured out how to photoshop and can airbrush out those yoga pants and add some equestrian printed capris instead.  

Hope you don't mind a little self-indulgent picture posting. This is me a few years back before my homeless man persona took over. I like to look at it sometimes and remember myself before yoga pants took over my life. I know what you're thinking. Get your camera out, woman, and take a recent picture of something. Well, maybe I just will. But, until then, you'll have to be content with circa 2007 me.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

2:00 p.m.   I put Sam down for a nap (which will likely not involve actual sleeping), and I close his door to the sound of his musical toothbrush singing "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" on repeat. If you're wondering, this is the kind of thing Communists could use to torture people into surrendering information. I've been listening to that toothbrush sing about a rabbit for the last twenty minutes and if I had any information to give the Commies, I'd have spilled it by now.

2:05 p.m.   I'm back in Sam's room with the intent of swiping the toothbrush before it drives me clinically insane. But, then I discover that he needs a serious diaper change. Whilst changing said diaper, the toothbrush continues to serenade me and Sam chews on it a bit. Then he smiles and says,

"Mmmm. Want a bite?" to which I answer, "No, thanks."

"Mmmm. It's tasty." Sure, it is.

"Tastes like cake," he says. Right. Or Chinese plastic.

I'm laughing hard at this point in the conversation and I realize that because you're not here to see how adorable he is or hear his little voice saying all this, you obviously can't enjoy it as much as I do. But, in the interest of writing things down for his future wife to (hopefully) read about his childhood, here I am posting it before I forget it.

This is the kind of moment in the long days of staying at home with a toddler that make it all so infinitely worth it. Thank the Lord for singing toothbrushes that taste like cake. I'm not sure I wouldn't just run away on occasion without moments like these.

Sigh.

P.S. I just noticed that this is my 100th blog post. So, I'm thinking I should have written something a little more momentous for numero hundredo. But, then, maybe this is just the right thing to mark one hundred posts. I suppose a post about changing diapers while laundry gets tossed around in the dryer downstairs is just about right for commemorating this blog's 100th entry. I think it's official now: I am a mommy blogger. That felt like a weird confessional. Oh, well.

The Danger Zone

With my somewhat inexact math skills, I've calculated the time between now and the day I turn thirty-five. And it turns out that it's something like nine months and eighteen days. I have a very real fear that when the calendar rolls around to that day that everything attached to me will instantly begin to sag and all those wrinkles I've been fighting back will show up with reinforcements and take over my whole face. In other words, thirty-five is haunting my dreams.

In addition to my sleepless nights over turning half of seventy, I'm also pondering the medical community's assessment of this random number of years, specifically in the life of a person who could potentially make a baby at any moment. According to them, thirty-five is the beginning of The Danger Zone. And this, my friends, is not the Kenny Loggins' kind of danger zone (Pause here to let that particular line of song from "Top Gun" reverberate in your memory as you see a post-Scientology Tom Cruise playing shirtless-jean shorts volleyball in your mind's eye). No, thirty-five is where my ObGyn starts getting cagey about the possibility of me having more babies.

My great grandmother had sixteen children. Sadly, only eight made it to adulthood and those eight were all boys over six feet who probably made her want to give a few back on occasion. (Rabbit trail: those eight boys all went to war during World War II and every last one of them made it back without a scratch.) Anyhoo, she was having babies into her mid-forties, which these days is unacceptable unless you're a well-preserved Hollywood actress who still looks thirty-two, despite having been in The Danger Zone for roughly ten years.

So, I'm wondering, is the day I turn thirty-five really the moment when all bets are off and the chances of my child being born with an additional arm or third eye become more than just a vague possibility?

I keep trying to sort out the fear that I feel about trying to have more children and my hope that there will be atleast one more person to use all the baby stuff I've got squirreled away in the attic. I'm trying really hard not to let an impending birthday make me afraid.

I did not expect my childbearing years to be as tough as they've been and, to be honest, some days I'm ready to throw in the towel and just get a small dog. But, as long as there's still a chance, it's hard not to keep hoping for just one more small, Johnson and Johnson-scented miracle.

Prepare yourself for an awkward confession happening in three, two, one... Sam and I were rocking his stuffed animals to sleep this morning and I was holding this scruffy old dog named Henry that belonged to Matt when he was a baby. There we were, me cradling a thirty-year old stuffed animal and Sam holding a cat puppet with the scariest plastic eyes you can possibly imagine. I was attempting to teach Sam "Rockabye Baby" which is a weird little tune if you take a moment to think those lyrics through. Pretty sure a mom who couldn't get a wink of sleep because of a crying baby wrote that song at 2 a.m.

Anyway, there was a weird moment as I held that stinky old stuffed dog (I've febreezed him, but he still has a bit of a 1980's aroma) where I was reminded of what it felt like to hold a real, live baby. I put that dog down in a hot second because I felt like that just might be the beginning of something I might need counseling for later. No more rocking stuffed animals to sleep for me.

But, the reality is that despite the seemingly long odds, two miscarriages, and a somewhat aging body, I can't seem to give up hope for another baby. I want to sometimes. I try to convince myself that I can be content with one child, that he won't grow up to be the Unabomber because he didn't have any siblings, and that our future Christmases won't be uber depressing with just one kid opening all the presents.

And yet, I can't get away from this hoping stuff. It's hard to push down.  

I mean, God gave Sarah a baby when she was like ninety-eight or something, right? I think He can probably work with thirty-five.

And while we're talking about babies, here's a picture to remind you of how cute Sam was as a babe.
                                                        
                                                                                            Baby Sam, circa 2010

Again

Lately, I've been feeling the urge to clean out closets, get in shape, lose five pounds, eat spinach, read more, watch less television, invest more in friendships, read my Bible, write more, learn new things, sit on the porch more, etc, etc, etc. I think I'm feeling a bit stagnant these days and realizing that if I don't live with a little more intention, I'm going to miss out on some things I don't want to miss out on.

What's prompting this mini-revival/premature mid-life crisis, you ask? Well, it's partly the wake-up call that turning thirty-four gave me. It's also something of a response to a change of plans we just got handed.

If you know me, you know that I don't share personal things as well as a normal person might. (Perhaps you disagree considering the fact that I have a blog, also known as a very public diary). But, to be honest, I'm not good at sharing feelings. Ask my husband. About once every six months, something comes over me and I find myself overwhelmed by all the emotions I've been stuffing for half a year and it all kind of blows up in one big explosion, usually over a rare dinner date with said husband, who is blindsided mid-meal. Also, as a bonus, I usually cry when this happens. Lucky Matt.

Anyway, I tell you this because, in light of my seeming handicap when it comes to sharing feelings,
I'm going to once again use this blog to mass-communicate something personal that I'd likely make really awkward if I was telling you in person.

Remember last summer when I shared about the miscarriage we had? Well, despite the odds being somewhat stacked in our favor regarding having a healthy pregnancy after a miscarriage, we had another lost pregnancy this summer. We're still processing this whole experience and trying to make some sense of it, so it's possible that I'm writing this post prematurely. (Which means there may be a sequel to this post that includes some sort of minor breakdown, possible identity crisis, or something else equally dramatic.)

I've been wrestling with a lot of the obvious things that probably anyone would after a disappointment like this one. It's been hard not to be angry and tell God He's really got some nerve giving Snooki and the Kardashian sister babies when we're obviously the ones who should be getting babies around here. (note: I realize the seriously gross arrogance I just expressed, in case you were wondering). But, beyond the issue of the Snooki/Kardashian/Hollywood people having babies like it was their newest hobby, I've had a harder time with the reality of others who have perfectly healthy babies choosing to medically dispose of them while folks like us are aching to welcome little ones into our family. I haven't been able to reconcile any of this just yet, although some light is coming through the crack in the door I've been trying to shut and the truths of common grace and the promised redemption of a fallen world are starting to filter in.

What I'm also keenly reminded of is how unbelievably miraculous it is that any baby makes into the world considering all the minute details that have to happen just right for the whole process to even work. It's mind-blowing, really. The ultra-sound screen we stared at a month or so ago that didn't have the baby we were expecting floating around in it only made me that much more aware of how crazy-precious the little one God gave us two and a half years ago is.

And so, in the midst of all the grief and the confusion and the rearranging of our life and our plans regarding our little family, I'm reminded that there is still hope. I'm still working out the details of what exactly to be hoping for, but regardless of my frequent lack of faith and the weight of this fallen world, I cannot help but believe that there will be some redemption in even this.

I've been spending time at my parents, getting help with the little guy and regrouping a bit in a place that's familiar and safe. And this is where I've been thinking about this need for intentionality that keeps waking me up in the morning with thoughts of writing books and traveling and praying more. Maybe I'm having an "Eat, Pray, Love" experience after a devastating loss, but I'm not sure that it's the same thing.

Having lost something I was really, really hoping for seems to have reminded me of what it means to hope for something at all. I think in the midst of baby-having, baby-watching, and the past year and a half of toddler-hood, I forgot how to hope for more than just the moment I was in.

After a different kind of loss years ago, a wise friend offered counsel that included "leaving a crack in the door for Jesus." I think that's where I am again. Despite the instinct of a wounded heart wanting to slam the door shut on the possibility of hoping again, I think the desire to see God do something new and restorative is strong enough to help me leave the door cracked a little.

A friend emailed me last week with this verse:

I Peter 5:10 "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Restore. To give back. To return. To renew.

There's a boatload of hope in that word. I think I'm going to go write that one on the wall somewhere or crochet it onto a pillow.

Or maybe have it tattooed on my arm.

                  This guy is a daily reminder of God's faithfulness to me. He's also the reason I may

 need to take valium on a daily basis at some point.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

You know how sometimes you're cleaning the lint out of the dryer, or picking up the forty-two thousand cheddar bunnies that your child has tossed onto the carpet, or walking up the stairs to get the laundry you keep forgetting to bring down for the hundredth time and suddenly you have an unexpected flashback from The Old Days? The days when things like cheddar bunnies weren't on your list of things you knew existed and laundry only happened once or twice a month and you wore make-up more days than you didn't.

I had a flashback like that the other day whilst doing something mundane and house-wifely, like washing the dishes or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Out of nowhere came this image of my younger self with dyed, one-shade-lighter than goth hair, glistening in the sun. What was that about, I wondered. I remembered that those boxes of impermanent hair dye come with this magical conditioner that makes your hair shiny and awesome for a few weeks. I found myself considering dying my hair again. And then, the logical part of my brain shot that idea down.

After pondering the benefits of hair dye for a moment, I washed another dish and mulled over that bit of my hair's history and then recalled a little more about what the catalyst for one-step-away-from-goth hair had been. The Kardashians weren't ubiquitous then, so it couldn't have been an unconscious attempt at achieving the hue of their lustrous, unnaturally shiny locks. And then I remembered.

That dye job was right out of my old "I just got dumped" playbook. I dyed my hair soon after a less than enjoyable summer of yo-yo dating and then a subsequent break-up. My solution to this "devastating" loss was to dye my hair a semi-ungodly color. It was super shiny for a while and then it was just awkwardly dark.

This stroll down breakup memory lane prompted a bit of reminiscing about my ill-advised responses to breakups during my twenties. In case you aren't there yet, or can't really remember them, the twenties are a teensy bit tumultuous. There's a boatload of figuring out how the heck to be an adult that spawns more than a little drama. And, everything feels so intensely important and weighty and life-altering. Turning thirty solves some of this, and having a child solves a whole lot more of it. However, I have this sneaking suspicion that it might start all over again at forty.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy a little look back at some of the ways I turned a breakup into a dramatic life-altering revolution. And if you're still a single, twenty-something or other, maybe you should take notes.

1. My first misguided response to a break-up may seem pretty dull, and to be fair, it was. Essentially, the choice here was to become a nun of sorts. I lived in a house with five women, spent hours and hours reading my Bible and praying and was for all intents and purposes a nun/hermit. I think we even called our house a "nunnery" if I remember correctly. Looking back, this wasn't as dramatic a response as it could have been, but it took me a while to get back in the game after a semester as a nun/hermit/potential una-bomber.
NOTE: This is not to say that a semester of reading my Bible and praying was a bad thing. I just didn't get out much. Or ever.

2. The second response was a little bit more dramatic and maybe a little more pathetic considering the boyfriend in question wasn't an official boyfriend. Lots of ambiguity and confusion here, friends, so we'll just skip to the misguided response part. After a dramatic conclusion to our non-relationship, I resigned from my first real job in the city and moved back in with my parents, four hours away. I was 23 so let's all give early-twenties-me a break.

3. Breakup number three was less dramatic and more crazy ex-girlfriend-ish. No, I didn't burn anyone's house down or key anyone's car. I did, however, decide that it would be a really good idea to join the gym which my gym-obsessed ex-boyfriend frequented. I still cannot explain what made this seem like a good idea at the time, especially when my greatest fear was running into said ex-boyfriend at said gym.

Feeling better about yourself yet?

4. A few years later, after a long-distance relationship suddenly became no-distance, the "no" part of that equation led my boyfriend to decide that we should call quits. This breakup was the catalyst for the goth hair I mentioned above (which really wasn't as bad as you're imagining). It was also the impetus for the purchase of an almost brand-new Jeep Wrangler. Turns out, owning a new car doesn't make being dumped feel any more awesome in case you were thinking it would.

So, maybe there weren't as many unfortunate responses to breakups as I remembered. Maybe I'm blocking a few out for my sanity's sake. All I know is that it's a good thing Matt showed up when he did, or who knows how long this blog post would be or what sort of lunacy I might have engaged in over a breakup (i.e. I was probably just one breakup away from a tattoo).

Now I'm curious if anybody else out there has made an ill-advised decision related to a breakup. I'd love to hear it...