How are you?

I’m getting that question a lot lately.  “How are you?”  I’m…. fine?  Doing the best that I can?  Coping?  Horrible?  Hanging in there?  I struggle to answer that question.

My son has a brain tumor.  A tumor.  In his brain.  That concept seems so unbelievable to me.  How can there possibly be a tumor in his brain.  My son.  My sweet, sweet son.  He’s 10.  Is he even old enough for this?  He doesn’t deserve this.  He’s a good kid, gets good grades, treats everyone fair, respects his elders… A tumor.  A tumor.  In his head.  “How are you?”  There’s a tumor in my son’s brain…. that’s how I am.

I know there are teeny tiny babies out there born with tumors, with broken hearts, with life threatening diseases.  There are children missing limbs, missing parts of their faces.  There are babies that only live hours, minutes after they are born.  That’s not fair.  There are parents who would give their life to spend just 5 more minutes with their son.  There are kids who cannot run and play, who cannot see or hear.  “How are you?”  There are families worse off, we’re fine, we’re fine.

I hear whispers late at night… “Your time with him is limited.”  I see him, not as he is now, but a shell of himself… so damaged that he cannot speak.  “Grab onto him and hold him close while you can.”  I feel fear lurking around every corner, lies in every shadow, anxiety in every sleepless moment.  I don’t allow myself to think ‘what if’.  His plans are cancelled and it’s not fair.  He’s crushed and sobbing.  “How are you?”  I’m not dealing with this very well.

I hear him laugh and see him run.  He argues with his sisters and eats his asparagus.  Homework gets finished.  He procrastinates over chores. We go to the park.  I read him comments from Facebook and texts from my phone.  He tells me jokes and makes me laugh.  He sits by my side, leans into me and relaxes.  “How are you?”  Fine.  We’re fine.

We go to the hospital.  He sits through test after boring test.  He’s hungry.  We talk to doctors and see images.  Nurses and technicians rock our world.  There are phone calls and thankfully no bills stacking up yet.  There are needles but not many.  I’m keeping notes and doing research.  Reading articles and looking at pictures.  We are understanding what’s going on and what’s next.  “How are you?”  Taking it one step at a time.

I read through Scripture.  I pray.  You pray.  and you and you and you and you.  We get texts, emails, phone calls, and comments.  And we are lifted up.  We see God revealing Himself in each step.  We see the miracle that this was even found, that it is benign, that he can speak.  “How are you?”  Blessed.  So, so blessed.

Christmas

This morning I read this:  http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/2011/11/2008-tis-season-for-nativity-sets.html

And this paragraph stuck in my heart:
The truth is, the story of a King born a baby in a barn is not something we need our best clothes on to hear, or something we need to put on the highest, unreachable shelf.  Yes this story is precious and requires reverence and awe when we really sit and contemplate all that God has done to win back rebellious people.  But, I never want to forget that He came to our filth.  Our dysfunction.  He was born right into our complex, broken lives.  Emmanuel.  God with us.  God with the distracted.  The greedy.  The back-talking children.  The moms who fall asleep at night wondering if they could possibly fail more.  God with the ones with secrets.  The ones who feel left out.  The ones who think they will never measure up.  The ones with failing marriages.  The insecure.  The mean.  The ones who never seem to learn.  He came here.  He was born in the middle of our junk.  He came to be God with us.  God in the middle of our homes.  The middle of our living rooms.  Right in the middle of the madness and mess…He came.  Emmanuel.  God with humans who are so utterly…hopelessly…human.  He was born to a teenage mother who probably would have forgotten to take her prenatal vitamins.

Abandoned

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/

I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about abandoned houses that draws me in.  It makes me sick to see the condition of these houses.  They were someone’s home.  Who were they?  What were they like?  Are the still alive?  Where are they now?  What is their story?  What is their STORY?  I think that’s what it really is…. each of those houses holds a story.  I look at each one and I can easily imagine a family…. what Christmast looked like, summertime with kids in the yard, fall with pumpkins on the porch…  Maybe it was a family that struggled… a single mom raising 2 boys, a husband with a sick wife.  Maybe there was a lot of joy when a child came home from the war.  There were prom dresses, engagements, births, sickness, birthdays, loss, pets, chores, grandparents, Easter egg hunts… All of it.  I want to walk through the houses, touch the walls, imagine each room filled with furniture, maybe find a forgotten photo tucked in a closet.

Never gonna grow up

Beans:  Do I have to go to school tomorrow?
Me:  No.  It’s fall break.  You’re off all week.
Beans:  Do you have to go to work?
Me:  Yes.  I don’t get a fall break.
Beans:  That’s not fair!  When do you get lots of days off to celebrate?
Me:  I don’t.  We don’t really get breaks at work.
Beans:  That’s not fair!!

Family

The house is still and quiet.  It’s not even 9 pm.  This is a rarity.  I love to “listen” to the silence.  It’s a funny thing this silence.  It gives me pause to reflect on my love for my family.  That is what I think about most often.  How in love with them I am.  Their little quirks, their smiles and humor, the quick hugs, the simple routines and traditions, the cowlicks and freckles, the warmth… the all pour forth love.  I am so blessed.

My husband is my anchor.  He does so much for me and never complains.  He’s a great father and very involved in our kids’ lives.  We don’t bicker and rarely ever fight to the point of anger.  Sure we disagree but we talk and move on.  I love that.  God knew we need that in each other.  He is my sounding board.  He is my best friend.  I love spending time with him and hate to be away from him for more than a day.  He wrote a note to me that I have taped to my computer.  It says “You are my heart.”  He is my heart.

Oh Chickie is so beautiful.  She has such a tender heart.  I love watching her with children and animals.  She has always been an awesome child but this year… she is blossoming.  It is amazing to watch.  I cannot express how much I love her.

My Boy steals my heart with his smile.  He loves to hug and snuggle – both with my and my hubby.  He loves to be affectionate – even to his sister – mostly because it grosses her out and he finds this immensely entertaining.  He is so creative and I love to see what he comes up with… his stories, his drawings, his Lego creations.

Beans is my joy and never fails to make me smile.  I am always surprised at how different she is from her siblings and yet how she can be just like them too.  She is fiercely independent.  And passionate.  This child will love with the deepest love and cry with anguish and hate with the heat of a thousand fires.  She will move mountains.

I love my family.  The uniqueness of our personalities blending together to form a tight knit group.  I am so blessed.  I am so thankful.  I am so in love.

The Usual

If you’re anything like me you have a hard time ordering anything new at a restaurant.  We all have our favorites.  Dishes that we know are delicious.  We order them up just the way we want them:  Salad hold the lettuce, tomatoes, onions.  (Yes, I have heard that ordered.  I probably forgot a few other things he doesn’t like on his “salad”. Hee hee)  Our meal will not disappoint.  I mean, what if we dared to order something new and we didn’t like it??  How sad. 

Maybe you aren’t like me.  Maybe you’re adventurous and like to try new foods.  You order things like a Big Mac with Egg or a Lamar bar with raspberry filling.  (shudder!)  You can enter any restaurant and have a dozen favorite dishes.  Kudos to you.  Oh, and can I just try a bite of that?

The same holds true when I walk into a coffee shop.  I always order the same thing.  I pretend to look at the menu.  But every time it’s an iced caramel macchiato with extra drizzle (fo’ shizzle).  I say that last part in my head every single time too.  During the winter I actually have a small rotation of drinks: caramel brulee, caramel apple cider, or a hot caramel macchiato.

Then a funny thing happened.  I was gifted an espresso machine.  After some trial and error I found just the right vanilla and caramel and espresso and I now make my favorite drink at home.  Maybe a little too often, the jeans are getting snug.  But that’s not the funny thing.  No.  Now, on the rare occasion, when I find myself in the coffee shop I find myself ordering things like a salted caramel mocha or a chocolately chip frappeccino or a vanilla rooibus tea soy latte slightly sweetened.

So how about you?  What’s your usual?

Quick snapshot

It has been almost a year and a half since we moved back.  I’ve recently spent some time reflecting on the past year and all that has happened.  I’ve also spent time thinking about the future and setting some goals.  I guess I wouldn’t call them goals… more like a general direction.  Goals to me feel a little bit too much like New Year’s Resolutions and we all know what happens to those by February 1^st. 

My health in the last year has been not-so-good.  I had my bout with the kidney stones.  I still have a couple rolling around but so far have not had any more issues.  Quick – knock on the largest piece of wood you can find!  Then I had the opportunity to experience the ever lovely Bartholin abscess.  We don’t need to talk about that.  Ever.  Recently I had a slight scare with an oncology appointment scheduled by my doctor.  Everything came back extremely healthy (yay me!) but that didn’t explain the swollen lymph nodes and other random symptoms.  They went away and the doctor wrote it off as a random virus.  Ha.  Guess what happened this month?  They’re baaaack.  Of course they are.  But this time I realized that these symptoms appeared at the same time as my other monthly visitor…  coincidence?  I think not.  Time for another round with the doctors.

 My health issues plus a desire to be healthier in general has lead to a modification to our daily food habits.  We’re incorporating more veggies and fruits and scaling back on the “meat” as the main portion of our meals.  We also cut out cereal.  I don’t know the last time we bought a box.  Now we stick to eggs most of the time.  Throw in some sausage, pancakes, waffles and oatmeal and you have most of our breakfast meals.  It has meant getting up a little earlier but it’s so worth it.  No more sugary carbs to fuel our mornings. 

 I’ve also started walking more.  I walk a half mile every day at work and then I try to walk another half mile in the evenings with the dogs.  The nice thing about taking the dogs is they get into the habit of walking rather quickly and if I try to skip a night they’re at the door crying and looking pathetic.  I can’t resist those faces.  The bad part is they fall out of the habit rather quickly too and by night 3 of no walking they’re laying on their bed snoozing away. 

 It’s not only health stuff that I’m working on these days.  I’m also pushing myself to get out of my hermit hole and socialize more.  I’ve re-connected with my best buddies from high school.  It’s been a blast catching up but even better laying the foundation for a new relationship going forward. 

 I know that I haven’t been writing here much but I have been writing.  I’m working on a story.  I’ve gotten positive feedback and I’m excited to see where this story is going.  Maybe one of these days I’ll post some of it here.  We’ll see.

 That’s a quick snapshot of where I am today.

A Writing Assignment

This is from a flow chart that Beans’ did in school.

I got a bike fur my ole cresmes
it was the happy day of my lif.
>>>
I Lite my frends rind my bike.
>>>
It was a grat day.
>>>
It was the grat day frum my lif.
>>>
It was wundfr fro me.

Despite the creative spelling – I love that her optimism shines through.  It was the best day ever!

In Love

I am so in love with my kids.  Do you remember the first moment that you laid eyes on your baby and your heart swelled?  There were no words to describe the love.   I have always loved my children but it’s so easy to get caught up in living the day-to-day life that you miss out on really seeing your child – really loving them.  Does that make sense? 

I know that I have been extremely busy since moving back – especially with a full-time job outside the home plus my full-time job at home.  It’s been awhile since I’ve stopped to study each of my children and to just rejoice in who they are, what they’ve accomplished, where they are going in life.  I’m trying, each day, to take some time to think about each one of them – to really focus in on them.   And I find myself falling deeper in love with them. 

It’s not that they are being “good” or that they’ve done something sweet.  It’s who they are.   I am in awe of what God is doing in their lives.  I fall so short as a mother that is only by God’s grace that I can parent.  I see His love and grace stamped all over each of my children.  I am so blessed to be in their lives and to have them in mine.  I am so in love.

Clever Girl

During my lunch hour my youngest, Beans, was pestering me to make her a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn’t have time so I told her that she had to pick something for lunch that she could make herself.

How to make a Grilled Cheese Sandwich – Bean’s Style
Toast two pieces of bread. Butter them. Add one slice of American cheese. Microwave just long enough to melt the cheese.