Once upon a...

Yesterday Moses offered to read me a book. This is the first time he's wanted to read to me and I was really looking forward to finding out what he retained from what I read to him. He chose his Giant Dump Truck book that we have had from the library for months. It's a book about a particular type of dump truck that works in quarries and mines. Someday the information in that book is going to win me a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Moses: (opens to blank page with only the library bar code) Once upon a potty - I mean - Once upon a time...in a far away land...there was a dump truck. You ready to turn the page, mommy?
Me: Sure, bud.
Moses: There was a one (pointing to the page number at the bottom of the page). And there was a two (pointing to the next page). You ready to turn the page, mommy?
Me: Sure, love-boy.
Moses: There was a three. There was a four.
Etc., Etc., until the end of the book. Apparently the information that we learned in that book will not help him win any games of Trivial Pursuit.

Eavesdropping

Overheard from the Living Room:

(Splash, splash)

Dad: OK, Moses, I'm going to wash you off now - we need to rinse. Oh, don't pee. Well, don't pee ON Lily.

Moses: Ha Ha - Daddy - me pee on Lily, look.

Dad: No, Moses- DON'T pee on Lily- it's not funny. It's very, very yucky.

Moses: (dissapointed) Oh, OK. Stop me pee on Lily.

Houston, we have a problem...

Just got back from retreat. Now I'm on the computer doing my best impression of escapism. I was clearly not prepared for re-entry - my heat shields are burning up, the oxogyn is getting very thin, and my voice is high and squeaky. So, here I am, trying to ignore the smells and sounds coming from the children and poking around on Facebook and blogs. How do I deal with this level of need and chaos on a daily basis? My brain must have been fried somewhere along the way, because after a weekend of calm and quiet and prayer and adults I am clearly not able to handle all these sensations.
Well, there is just only so much escapism allowed to a mom and I have used several days worth here so I will be cleaning up the strained peaches from the carpet first and then fixing one malfunctioning control at a time until my brain is back to being fried enough that it can process the madness of multi-tasking without overload. Don't they have some sort of simulation machine set up for mom coming home after a retreat?

The bloom is off the Lily

It is here. The stinky poo. Which, as an aside, means that Lily has made her foray into the world of eating solids. She has taken to it as only my monster girly could. The very best words to describe my darling girl-child are:

Fat and Happy.

And the way she is eating it looks that they will continue to be the best descriptions of her for some time. I have to admit that I am really surprised and a little sad that she is already 6 months old and is moving away from me. No longer am I the only source of sustenance. BUT food makes her so happy and it makes me happy so we now have something more in common. Oh, and the answer to the perennial question, "Would a Rose smell as sweet if you fed it solid food?" is emphatically, "NO".

Cathedral Builder

I don't know who Charlotte is and I'll admit (with a modicum of embarrasement) that this is a forward that I received but...well, I really appreciated the sentiment and the imagery, so, here it is.

I'm invisible...

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Pick me up right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -- but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going .... she's going ... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean.

My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read -- no, devour -- the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals -- we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God who saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.'

And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder.

As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand-bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.'

That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible moms.

Build on dear friend!

Worth the Hype, 3

My new wet/dry hair straightener. For $22.00 at Target I can go from jumper-homeschool-mom-with-frizzy-half-dried hair to Rachel from Friends in 10 minutes. No blow-drying necessary.
I may post before and after pictures sometime if I ever let my hair go the way of the frizz again but it's doubtful...

Home and Gardens

Jeanne Marie Laskas is a really fun author that I've been reading a lot of over the past couple months, I just finished her 3rd book last night. I've marked lots of passages that I want to share with the little part of the blogosphere that Love Life fills up but I'll just start with this one because it exactly states how I feel about housekeeping. Since I live in a little apartment and have no balcony (cue: much wailing in my heart) my home is my garden.

Gardening is all about the urge for excellence, which a gardener never achieves, which is what keeps the gardener hooked. Gardening is about power. You are the master of that world. You are the king and queen and the duke and the duchess. You see what happens when you can tame a four-by-six slice of nature, and pretty soon you think: What about ten by twenty? You tame, and you tame, and you tame, and all you can see is what is not tamed.

That is my gardener spirit at work in my little slice of apartment eden to a tee.
Link to picture.