Bed shopping with kids . . .

We went on a date and we bought a bed.  What a great weekend!

Go back about two weeks and I woke up in the middle of the night with a bed-spring jabbing me fiercely in the side.  So not a pleasant way to be awoken out of a lovely slumber.  Discussions with Jim ensued.  With a pleading, please, can we, please get a new bed?  Funnily enough, several days later the newspapers came out with mattress sales painted across the fronts of four.  Joy, oh joy!  Here we go, on an adventure.

Last Sunday we went to a couple places and took the kids with us.  It was as though we had invited them to the circus.  Immediately upon entering the mattress areas of the the stores we had decided to visit, the kids' socks and shoes were shucked and they set about testing all of the beds in the department.  Oh, good times.  It was a litany of, please don't jump on the beds.  No, you cannot run across the tops of the mattresses from one end of the department to the other (this could have a similar look to crossing a stream on rocks jutting out of the water at various intervals or maybe you could compare them to a stone being skipped across the surface of still water).  Where are your shoes?  Where are your socks?  And, to the sales people, no, those aren't our kids, they just followed us here.

For the most part, the sales people were very kind and good natured.  Perhaps because they work for a commission, I'm not sure.  A few actually vocalized that they were quite pleased to see such a lively set of kids.  I really hope they were being truthful.

Move ahead a few days, my husband wants to do some research about what bed to buy.  He's a Consumer Reports kind of guy and has to research everything.  So we begin our attempt at some research.  Everything in the magazines tells us that buying a mattress is to each one's own taste.  If you lay on it and it's comfortable, it's for you.  He didn't like that answer very much.  Weren't there ratings somewhere?  Advice on better brands?  Nope.  Go lay down on it for 15 minutes per side you sleep on, and if you like it, buy it.  We realized this could take a long time.  Right side, left side, front side, back side.  You could theoretically be testing one bed for an hour.  This was not going to work with kids acting like circus monkeys.  Lord, please, grant me the patience to get through this.

So to yesterday, my mom came down to visit and gramma-sit.   Jim was really, really, really sick on his birthday and we had a whack-a-doodle schedule that had us in six different places on my birthday.  She was going to look after the kids for us so we could go out with each other, alone, for the first time this year.  Happy birthday to us and double yay, we got to go to a movie too.

Cut to today, my brilliant idea, let's go look at mattresses again, they're still on sale!  My poor mom.  Love her and am feeling bad I sucked her into kid duty while we laid around all morning.  We did, however, find a new mattress and it will arrive next week.  The bonus, we paid less for the mattress than the total of our savings on the final bill. That always leaves me feeling pretty good.

I am so grateful for my mom and how well she loves our kids.  Ava cried at bedtime tonight because she wanted to sleep with bamma (it's what my kids call her).  I'm so thankful we found a new mattress and it was relatively painless.  My kids are going to grow up and they'll be gutting themselves laughing one day about, “remember when mom and dad took us mattress shopping. . . ?”  Yeah, families.  Good times.

Visiting Ng-yin ng-yin . . .

Old folks homes.  Care homes.  Long term facilities.  Kind of all the same thing, but with different names.  I like how care home sounds.  Nice, caring, being looked after well.  My mother in law is in a care facility.  At almost 95 her ability to look after herself has diminished substantially, but her mind is still razor sharp.

I have mixed feeling when we go and visit her.  It is a privilege, really, for me to be able to take my kids to see their grandma.  It is an honour to her for us to come and visit.  It makes my heart smile knowing that my kids like to go and visit and that she so enjoys their company.  So, as often as is possible, we go.  We drink tea with her and eat cookies and she pinches their cheeks and doesn't speak a word of English.

My melancholy kicks in when I greet others who are visiting and they inform me that one or the other of their parents or grandparents has passed away.  Or the funny little grandma who always says the exact same thing isn't there to greet us at the front door.  Or the number of special care beds in the sun-room number six now instead of the four that were there last week.

It hits me when we walk in the door, past the laundry room, and I am assaulted by the smell.  It's not entirely horrible, but it can induce retching.  I think if urine were to ferment, that is what it would smell like.  It's a sad smell, but it's one that you kind of get used to after about an hour.

I also struggle with seeing the indignities that these elderly are subjected to.  Growing old brings with it so many unpleasant things.  Soiled diapers, inability to feed oneself, or clothe oneself, losing the ability to speak and move.

And then I see the care aides.  The men and women who work in the home and care for the residents.  The level of patience and the concern that they have for all of the people who are in their care.  And then I think, how do they do it?  They are there, and they will care for everyone who passes in and out of those doors.  End of life care.  Watching death come every day and still maintaining their positive spirits and smiling and caring and doing all that needs to be done for those who cannot do it for themselves.  They are an amazing group of people doing an honourable and noble job.   That's not to say that there are not exceptions, I'm sure there are.  I am just grateful that my mother in law is a place where we know that she is being well cared for.

These are my thoughts, my kids see it differently.  They are excited.   They want to go see ng-yin ng-yin (translation for paternal grandma).  When we go see her they get to see the fish pond and the cat and ng-yin ng-yin gives them candy.   They get to order tea from the kitchen staff.  They've learned that they need to ask politely for milk and to say please if they want a cookie.  We end up having a real tea party buffet at our table.  They know that the little curly haired grandma who is always dressed to the nines is going to talk to them and they need to respond kindly and with a smile.  They know too, that there is another grandma that they need to be careful of because we never know how she is going to react to anything (had a couple of scary run-ins with her).  John, a really big guy who has had a brain injury, is always kind to them and shakes their hands.

All of these instances are opportunities.  For me to teach and to learn.  For my kids to learn compassion and kindness.  I am grateful that my children get to know who their dad's mom is.  That they are going to have some amazing memories of their time with her and that they are acquiring some incredibly valuable life lessons.

Birthday Lessons and Blessings

The days run one into the next.  The calendar on our fridge has things posted on it for this, that, and the next thing.  School, work, activities, events, and my birthday.  One after another they go flying by and I have to stop, pause, take a breath.  Remember why I am here and what I am doing.

Growing up, birthdays in our house were a big deal.  My mom or my grandma would make a birthday cake in whatever shape we wanted.  A princess, a flower, a car, blue jeans.  And depending on how busy my mom was at the time would determine whether she or grandma would be the one making it.  There were gifts as well.  From everyone who was invited!  This included everyone from Sunday school and classmates - about a dozen or more kids. 

When I was dating Jim he made a bit of a deal about my birthday.  Mostly, though, it was flowers whenever and just because.  Then we got married.  And I got resentful and more than a little cheesed off.  I felt neglected and totally unappreciated when my birthdays would come around.  It was as though the very fact that we were married meant he no longer needed to ply my affections with gifts.  Learning curve and life lessons to come.

I expected him to make the same kind of big deal about my birthdays as my family did.  Putting this expectation on a man who grew up not having any kind of recognition about his birthdays was not my best move ever.  He was lucky to get an extra bowl of rice on his birthday.  Let alone any kind of a gift.  What was I thinking?  He grew up so differently than I did as far as gifts and things of monetary value.  He would say to me, when I got really twisted, that we needed to be making sure we were looking after the kids, that money for gifts for me was not a priority for him, and it shouldn't be for me.  At one point he even went so far as to suggest I was materialistic (I realized later he wasn't too far off).  That elicited a reaction I would rather not revisit.  Ugly, would sum it up fairly concisely.  I was way to focused on what I could get.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate gifts.  I really like getting something from someone that means something, but I don't expect it anymore.  And when something does come my way, it's such a nice surprise.

I had to go from a place/mindset, that because it was my birthday, I deserved to get something.   Jim is teaching me that I have everything I need.  Deeper - I have a greater appreciation for the gifts God has given me and that which I have been blessed with in my life.  A wonderful, loving husband who treats me very well and loves me and our kids so much.  He's an amazing, involved, dad and he actually likes spending time with our kids and they know it.   I am blessed with three healthy children who are growing so fast and learning so much.  The best gifts - sticky kisses and hugs from my kids and a “mommy, I love you so much!” and arms that wrap snugly around me at night followed by a whispered “I love you” and a goodnight kiss.  I have everything I need.  Happy birthday to me, everyday!

Toddlers + Tiaras = Troubling

I was channel surfing.  I do this on occasion.  Not as often as my husband, but I will admit to it.  Ran across the program “Toddlers and Tiaras.”  The title makes me cringe.  It's a program, if you're not familiar with it, about pageants.  For little girls.  Baby girls from one year old to girls who are seven, eight, and nine.  I got to listening to the girls and their moms and was almost in tears.  This reaction varied with anger, sympathy, and abject horror.  Little girls, little girls.  Speaking and acting like something I'm not even sure I have words for.

Quoting a mom, “This is war.”  She was speaking about the competition.  A little girl, about nine, “I'm going to kick her butt.”  A mom to her daughter, seven years old, “Put your flipper (a dental appliance that looks like perfect pearly whites) back in, your teeth are hideous.”  A year or so ago a mother was raked over the coals in the media because she had her daughter botoxed.  Ack!  My heart is not okay with this.

As a mom of girls, I really want to make sure that I am bringing them up with a healthy sense of self and a level headed confidence that will get them through the rough patches they are sure to face.  I certainly don't want to be the cause of them having body hang-ups and low self esteem.  On what planet did it become okay to criticize your daughter's teeth?  What next?  A girdle to hold in the baby fat?  Good grief!  I can't even wrap my head around the damage that is being done to these little girls.  They're criticizing each other in the same way their moms are criticizing them.  Granted, I do need to give credit to the program editors.   I expect they are putting the show together to evoke reactions like mine, but seriously, how is this okay on any level.

So taking this all in, mulling it around, and writing it down, has made me even more determined to grow my girls well, the best I can, with what I'm given.  Checking myself, making sure that I am being a positive example for them, regardless of how I feel about myself.  Working really hard at putting my hang-ups aside to ensure that I don't pass them on to my girls.

I guess I would have to say that, in a strange way, I am grateful for the opportunity to see a world completely different from my own.  These pageants are those families lives.  They live and breathe for the crowns available to be won based on criteria that, for all intents and purposes, is so unimportant.   I am grateful that I have the ability to grow my girls with biblical principles and not be persecuted for it.   To teach them that life is about more than lipgloss and looking pretty.

Dad's Love is Unending . . .

I love my dad.  How do I love him?   Let me count the ways.  I can't.  They are too innumerable to do so.  I can start with some basics though.  Growing up, he was my hero.  Someone I could depend on and I knew with every fibre of my being that he would do anything and everything to protect me from harm.  I could cry on his shoulder if I needed to or laugh myself silly with him.  He was, and still is, a rock steady presence in my life.

In 2008 when he told us he had cancer, it felt like I had been hit in the chest with a baseball bat and simultaneously had the floor ripped out from under me.  I railed against God, I cried, begged, pleaded, and tried to make deals.  To please spare him.  I could not imagine continuing on without my dad around.  It was way to awful to comprehend.  He's still around, and grateful does not even begin to describe how I feel.

He was here yesterday.  Working hard.  He's always working hard.  No complaints, just doing his utmost to take care of his family, his kids.  We, his kids, are all in our thirties, married, and have our own children.  And my dad still takes care of us.  I don't know that when he was growing up this is what he dreamed he'd be doing.   I don't imagine it involved traveling away from his home every week for a job.  That's what he does though.  And in the very little spare time he has, he looks after his dad, my mom, his kids, and tries to get quality time in with his grand kids too.

I got to thinking that there is nothing I've done to deserve his love.  It's just there.  Like the air I breathe.  His love, his care, always constant.  After his surgery for the cancer he did something really special.  He had necklaces and pendants made, specially designed by him, for each of his girls.  They have the Chinese character for the word love imprinted on them.  On the back he had each one inscribed.  They are all different.  Mine has “Dad's love is unending.”  Powerful.  It had me in tears.  No matter what, no matter how long, no matter the distance, his love for me is unending.

Over and above my dad's love for me, is God's love for me, for all of us.  A constant presence, never ending, no matter the distance, no matter the time, no matter what.  HE will always be there for us to depend on, no matter how undeserving we are.  Unchanging, unceasing, unconditional, unwavering, unending.  How great is that?

I am so grateful for a dad who exemplifies a Christ-led life.  A man whose caring and devotion to his family is a human example of the greater love of God.  I need to be clear, my dad is not God, nor is he perfect in the eyes of the world, but he strives daily toward the goal that God has promised us all.  Eternity with HIM.  And so with a prayer of thanks on my lips and a smile in my heart, I am so thankful to have been blessed with the amazing dad I have.

Aches and pains and a job well done . . .

I love the feeling of a job well done.  When you put your mind to doing something or are required to get something done by a certain time.  Like, cleaning a garage that had stuff dumped into it on a regular basis since 1992.  That's when my husband, Jim, bought and moved into our house.  A few years of nephews rooming with him, family members moving, and us getting married, and the garage is overflowing.  Really and truly.

We had stacks of boxes, furniture piled precariously high, abandoned textbooks, empty fish tanks?, assorted bit and pieces of things that no longer work.  How do we end up with so much stuff?  I don't consider myself a hoarder, and I don't think Jim is either, but between the two of us and the kids, and everybody's leftover things, we cannot even get the car into the garage.  Seems as though we are, quite literally, bursting at the seams.

So back the question of how we've ended up will all this stuff?  Cause that's what it is, stuff.  It's not going to make or break our lives to have it or not have it.  I think that my husband is sometimes too kind.  He didn't feel like he could just toss things that were not his.  I would have liked to have just called 1-800-GOT JUNK and just emptied the entire contents.  I realized soon into our marriage that I wouldn't be able to get away with doing that, so I've just sat patiently (but not necessarily quietly) and waited.  About two years ago we brought up with family members the whereabouts of their possessions.  We put them on notice, so to speak.  Just kindly let them know that we would be cleaning out the garage and did they think they may want to come and gather their things.  I figure, two years to come and get it and you don't, adios!

When my dad offered to build shelves for us, I was ready.  Took a bit of convincing with Jim, but I got him on side with the process.  It meant that he had a deadline.  Time to roll up the sleeves and get down to business.  We've been picking away it for few weeks now and yesterday was the big get down and dirty day.  Ruthless, we were!

I woke up this morning feeling twice my age.  Aches and pains in places I forgot could have aches and pains.  I have scratches, at what point in the day did I get them?  I have bruises, I don't know how they happened.  And my skin on my face and neck feels tingly and warm.  I got a sunburn.  Was I even out long enough for that to happen?  Must have been.  An entire day of pushing, pulling, lifting, moving, sweeping, packing, stacking.  Oh, and I planted some pansies, hung my wind chimes, put in a forsythia bush, planted a heather, painted a table for the girls' room, went to Wal-mart to buy more paint when I ran out, cleaned the tub, and got a haircut.  I think that was everything.  Reading all that, it's no wonder I'm feeling so exhausted.  But, again, job well done.  Ready for tomorrow.  Another day of hard work ahead of us, but it is so worth it.

I am so grateful that I have a body that can do this work.  I am physically able to take on these tasks.  The aches and pains remind me I am alive.  I am capable.  Bring it on, I can do it.  I might not move so well the next day, but it'll get done.

House cleaning on the edge . . .

My grandma Mae had a couple of plates hanging on the wall in her kitchen.  One of them read, “Come in, sit down, relax, converse . . .” and the other one read, “my house doesn't always look like this, sometimes it's even worse.”  I need a sign in my house like that right about now.  Given that my dad, mom, and grandpa will be here in four days time I am doing the frantic cleaning spasms of a madwoman.  I threw the kids outside (it's a nice day) and promptly sat down to write, because I've been getting flack for not doing so.  It's all in good humour.

It never fails that when I am doing laundry, I manage to smash my head on the cupboard door. Every. Single. Time!  Why, oh, why, do I do this?  I know that I'm the one opening the cupboard to get the soap out.  I watch my very own hands open the cupboard.  That voice in my head, it says, “be careful, cupboard's open.”  And then, WHAM!  Connected.  And it really hurts.  Every.  Single.  Time!

I clean the toilets pant-less.  Don't go visual on this one, it's so not a great sight!  Bleach, gets me every time, too!  I have ruined four or five pairs of pants scrubbing the toilets.  I decided it would be best if just took my pants off when it came time for the toilet business.   My husband just shakes his head.  Especially when it's been a couple of hours and I've forgotten to put them back on.  I worry that at some point I am going to be found unconscious and pant-less on the laundry room floor bleeding from a head wound. 

I am also maniacal when it comes to the kitchen.  My dad has to, at this point, carry an epi-pen.  His allergies to nuts and molds are so bad that the next go round could very well land him in hospital.  So every surface has to be immaculate.  Any and all nut products are confined to their own space and I make sure several days in advance that there will be no possibility of cross contamination of food products.  He tells me not to worry about him, he'll look after himself (that just means he won't eat anything).  Having already triggered a reaction for him in his own home using cheese that was open for more than two days, I'd rather just do the cleaning and know that I've taken all the necessary precautions.  I also figure that, because he's coming here to put up shelves in our garage, the least I can do is not kill him.

So between the house cleaning, laundry, and garage cleaning that needs to get done, I am feeling a wee little bit overwhelmed.  It'll get done.  I'm not worried that it won't.  Martha Stewart I am not, with some lovely platitude about how wonderful it is to clean.  I just really like the end result.  I wish I could just wiggle my nose, or wave a wand, or click my heels.  Nope, didn't work.

Thanks Ella, for the lovely dandelion just deposited on my desk.  I am grateful that I can clean my house and enjoy it when it's done.  And now, it's time to get down to business.  Toilets here I come, give me a few hours before you come knocking on my door. 

Bridal Showers, Weddings, and Marriage . . .

It's always so great to see new relationships develop.  Today the congregation did something they do for many young couples who've made a decision to get married.  They threw a potluck lunch in honour of the young couple.

A big group of people pulling together and saying, “hey, we are going to support you and help out by giving you a head start with a few household necessities.”  I remember back to the bridal showers that were thrown for myself and Jim and all the wonderful feelings that came as a result.  It's like this massive hug of encouragement and support.  Everyone around us, surrounding us, lifting us up, and sending us off with a whole lot of love.  How great is that?

As a young woman planning my wedding, I was ready to be married.  Or so I thought.  The first few months were all happy, happy, joy, joy, bliss.  Then I got pregnant.  And then the hormones went wack-a-doodle.  I'm pretty sure that by our first anniversary my poor husband was questioning what he'd gotten himself into.  A credit to him, he never said too much about it.  Which is probably a good thing.  If he had, there's no telling what may have become of us.

By anniversary number five, we have a four year old, a two year old, and a new baby.  Over year six, we find a groove.  We flow around each other in a dance of sorts.  Like we needed those years to learn each other and everything works like a well oiled machine.  Perhaps not the nicest or most romantic analogy.  We can both be in the kitchen working in tune with each other, like two parts of a song, each others harmony.  We blend and can read each other.  He'll go that way with the cutting board, I open this drawer.  Bumping into each on occasion, but usually it's deliberate.

Now we are almost to year eight.  I am growing and learning.  Putting expectations aside.  Learning to how be, just be, with each other.  Appreciating, accepting, no expectations, none needed.  We just do, for each other, for our kids.  Working, and yes it's really hard work some days, with each other to solve issues.

I'm not professing that all of sudden, because I've been married all of almost eight years, I've got all the answers.  Heck, I look back at the girl I was (thinking I had all the answers) and I wish I could tell her, “hey, save yourself some heartache.  Drop the expectations.  ALL OF THEM.  No one can live up to what you've created in your mind.  Know that you'll get there.  You'll find that place where you can just be.”  It's a hard thing to do, but around year two, when an older, most respected woman friend and I were having a conversation, her words were, “no expectations.”  That was when the positive shift started to happen.  As Oprah would say, it was my “aha moment.”  I do need to remind myself every once in a while, but for the most part, it's working.  Really well.

I am so grateful for the friends and family that have surrounded and supported us and continue to do so.  We need positive examples of relationships that are working.  And we need to see new relationships, bridal showers and weddings, to remind us of why we got married to each other in the first place.