Let’s start with #TBT today. Stormie at age 2 {1988}
Here we thought our little baby girl was so cute wrangling the words to the romantic 80s hit “Somewhere Out There.” It is now, in the reviewing some 20+ years later I can see she was interpreting it quite differently. She smiles and sings a long, but little Stormie was a obviously (well, obviously now concerned that some one was “out there” peeking at her.
Poor baby girl. I just “captured” this with my phone from TV, so it’s a little hard to hear, but if you’ll note – Rocky is tormenting his big sisters in the background, yelling his head off while his daddy was singing with Stormie and his mommy was entertaining guests downstairs. Ornery little cuss. :)
Speaking of peeking…
Amelie came for pre-school and we had “second breakfast,” a long-running tradition for the grands when they school here. We just really cannot be expected to start working hard with some coffee (hot chocolate) and toast.
Kai was staying with us while his parents were trotting about in Pa-Reeeeh {Paris} so Poppa was feeding him at the counter.
Amelie started to giggle. I looked up to see this:
He is wondering when he can begin pre-schooling I just know it, and “BTW-where is my coffee?” I am sure that’s what he is trying to say. You can see that in his eyes, right?
He also didn’t think there was that much to laugh about.
I fixed this amazing salad for two different shindigs in one week – because YUM! Because it is DELISH!
And super healthy. I did use sweet onion instead of shallots and doubled the bacon (the actual pork-type, rather than turkey) just because. I love bacon. Oh, and at my daughter’s suggestion of golden raisins (which I did not have), I added some Craisins to the second batch – a little bit of sweetness. It was just another tasty component to this deep green, tangy, crunchy eats-like-a-meal salad!
I also used the slicer blade on the food processor to make quick work of the Brussels Sprouts.
You may find the extraordinary recipe {CLICK HERE}. Looks like lots of other wonderful recipes are there, too with really pretty pictures!
My new garden girl.
She likes to play games that involve counting marshmallow “teeth” and she loves plunking seedlings into the ground. Moss Roses were first on her agenda. I cannot wait to see her reaction to blooms. When it gets hot and dry those things will spread like weeds!
I feel the same, like my attachments are excessively strong. I love my loves deeply.
The grand-boys, all three, were my weekend dates! Plus Dave. :)
Isn’t time with a good friend just like a fresh rain for the garden?
We just mowed the lawn 4 days ago, but these daily afternoon rains, the kind that wet everything deep, are just creating a lush carpet of green. Spring green – there is just nothing like it. It is like new birth and renewal and loveliness and health and vitality.
Time with a good friend does that for the soul. You leave feeling younger and renewed and refreshed and loved and you thrive like spring-green grass. Especially if you had really good Mexican food.
Need to make that happen more often!
You have almost made it to the weekend!
Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone’s thinking of me
And loving me tonight
Somewhere out there
Someone’s saying a prayer
That we’ll find one another
In that big somewhere out there
Hopefully, there is just some one somewhere loving you and not just peeking at you or being weird about it at all! Hope your Thursday is amazing, and remember:
“Your smile can save a distressed soul, gladden a sad heart, or heal a broken spirit.” Go get ’em!
Oh, Stephanie, Happy Birthday…I am thinking of the day you came and all the days you have changed our lives…
I was browsing through your baby book and 1st year calendar, neither of which I kept well at all, I am sad to say. But I saw enough to stir intoxicating memories of really treasured times in the early 80s with a little girl who won my heart as I reached through the small opening in your “incubator” and you wrapped your tiny fingers around my pinky.
Everything about your impending birth, from the life-and-church filled, busy days leading up to your almost 6-week early arrival to the months that followed were just amazing light-filled, Technicolor, fun, happy, frazzled and most cherished days.
You were born to one big sister and some young, energetic, wildly-in-love parents who were over the moon about every single part of the pregnancy and expectancy of you. Our Thursday night birth classes were highly romantic date nights to us. We’d drive home in a buzz, planning and dreaming, the radio playing Chicago or Air Supply!
It’s odd to think that when you were born, boy or girl? was still a surprise! That, coupled with your early arrival {which was a real surprise}, left us pretty unprepared for what was happening. We thought maybe we’d have a boy and name you after your dad, or maybe name you Christopher Michael, or Tristan (yes, “Tristan” was a name on the short list).
So when the administrator came to ask your name, we were a bit befuddled. We hadn’t much time to choose and so your name came, heaven-sent, I think now.
So it was Stephanie (“crowned one,” “victorious crown,” “crowned in victory”). Stephanie May (for the merry-merry month in which you so delightfully arrived). And from that moment, we were a household of children, multiples of babies and little girls and dolls and stuffed animals and chatter {oh, the chatter} and heart-warming conversations. You started a party, you and your sister, that was so much fun we could barely call a halt.
But you were so tiny, your lungs undeveloped…
And when I was too stupid to even understand how very grave the situation surrounding your entry was, when I should have insisted on going to Indianapolis in the life-ambulance with you back in the days before they knew what damage might be caused by ripping a baby from her mommy minutes after birth and saying, “Stay put,” I am so glad God gave you to me and kept you safe.
I am so grateful there was no distance ever in my heart from my tiny, tiny girl-baby, with me at Howard Community in Kokomo, you at James Whitcomb Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. I promise you, Stephie, I got there as fast as I could. My heart was beating with yours, my love never once let you go. There was much we didn’t know back then, but I know God went with you and He held you until I could.
It was years before I realized, after reading preemie studies, that as much as my empty arms were missing you in those first hours and days, as much as my longing was breaking my heart, you had to be wondering where I’d gone, too – the sound of my heart and my blood pulsing nearby… I am so glad they understand these things better now.
But you were always passionately burned into my heart and soul. I fought my first bloody battle with the enemy for you. For this child I prayed… I hope your tiny little center-of-being somehow knew it was so.
It was all a whirlwind after that. God healed your lungs – poof – breath of life into them. You thrived, you developed, you healed so quickly it surprised the medical teams. But no wonder there: you were anticipated, received, welcomed, adored, sung to, kissed, snuggled and loved, all 4 pounds, 8 ounces of the baby we brought home just 12 days after being told it would be “months.” Like a movie scene going fast forward on the DVR, I remember a wisp of a baby girl in a yellow carrier/car seat (so dangerous by todays standards I can’t even find a picture of one on Google). I can see a very small baby girl whose eyes would search the room, taking in details, cheeks full and kissable. A little night owl she was, from her earliest days. Like her daddy.
Mixed up days and nights, tiny appetite, staying tiny, wearing doll dresses…
The baby girl “catches” up to growth statistics at one and becomes a toddler in a teal-blue Martha Miniature dress, and at once her humor is notable, her conversations with Sunday School teachers get replayed for the awwwww-factor.
She giggles and sings. Oh my goodness, the singing! She falls asleep with a song and wakes up in melody…
Her hair, like silk, grows thick and shiny, her rosy cheeks and pink lips the stuff Hollywood pays big money to obtain. Laughter and utter hilarity reign nightly in the yellow room of three sisters on Armstrong Street. She chases and teases her big sister. Soon she is leading younger siblings about, teaching them everything she knows (which is a lot).
And there is a gentleness behind her eyes, a knowing, something deep taking place in the middle of a big, noisy familia.
She goes to school and becomes a thoughtful friend, a bright student, a girl who cares for issues and the earth and animals and other’s hearts and feelings. People comment, “Stephanie is special,” I swell inside. “Stephanie is a rainbow, a multi-faceted, colorful girl.” “Oh, look at her,” I often heard when sharing photographs, “she is just beautiful.”
Years speed by and she is smack-dab in the middle of silliness and mayhem, but also close and soft-hearted {mystically sweet}, a hand-holder.
Her hair gets curly at puberty, just like her mommie’s did and her humor becomes sharper, her wit more keenly developed. And while traditional, public school methods (not to mention home school) could not capture her brightest shine or contain her unique genius, it also could not dull the quantum creativity, the kaleidoscope of sparkling treasure and color emanating from her brilliant, astute and observant mind.
Girl becomes beauty becomes alluring becomes woman becomes Tristan’s fascinating wife and then a mommy herself.
And even still, Stephanie {my second-born and much-beloved daughter}, so accomplished and courageous, so influential and efficacious, stands at the youthful brink, just hitting her stride, just beginning to be all and do all she will, all for which she was created and healed to be and do.
Because the breath of life is so wholly, fully strong in her, the healing so complete – she will create Gardens of Edens, and place brilliant stars in night skies and build cities of ideas with long-awaited answers to mysteries. She will and she has and she is, already.
Oh my goodness, Stephanie. You are an amazing spring of crystal clarity and rich depth mixed with unstoppable determination. I sensed from the time you were very small that you thought deeply and felt keenly and understood beyond your years. You’re surely one of the smartest, most intelligent people I have ever met.
And so I bless you, I bless your life…
I recognize and publicly receive the full beauty of God’s work in you, in your heart and life and teaching and leading and creating and informing and helping people. You were formed perfectly with great purpose and I just concur with the God of the Universe that what He has seen and planned and prepared for you is good and far-reaching. I recognize His iconoclastic call on you (to change the landscape for the better), His stamp of extreme approval and His delight in you and I thank Him for trusting me to be your mommy, then your mom, then a woman who admires and loves you deeply.
Like anyone else who is ever near you for even the shortest time, I have learned so much from you, received your grace and forgiveness so many times and been the joyful recipient of your humor and creativity, your thoughtful gifts {you’ve been especially gifted to give good gifts} and wealth of insight and knowledge on the world in general. I am so grateful to get to be near these things.
And so I bless you back and pray that all you have given comes back to you by the armfuls. I pray that the result of you helping hundreds, if not thousands of people toward renewed health returns to you in supernatural vitality and God-given strength (May the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead quicken and strengthen your mortal body, just as it did when you were born). I pray increased love and joy in your heart, total peace and all the wisdom you need, when you need it. I pray you’ll prosper and find success in every area you put your hand to and continued favor from the God who sees.
Of all the things I ever gotten to be part of, of all the days God planned for me, of all the people in the universe to get to know, getting to be your mommy and know you now are the best things I can think of, more than I ever would have hoped or dreamed.
A weed is just a plant that is growing where it isn’t valued. Or growing in the super-healthy-I’m-so-glad-to-be-alive way that it infringes on another plant that is actually desired.
It’s gardening time!
I went to prepare the rock garden for some squash and pumpkin seedlings. It’s a spacious area where they may curl and swoop and tendril freely while my grandbebes may happily traipse through on pretty stones they fashioned to watch the fruit grow.
You’ll note from previous garden posts in 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, etc… that I spend a great deal of my first gardening days each year attacking and battling hollyhocks, garlic chives and Russian Sage. The Cold War is not over in my yard!
So, that is where I started again this year…trying to remove what shouldn’t be there and is growing like a weed, so I can place other plants I do value and will almost certainly have to coax to grow.
The point of the tale
I went in with a vengeance, hacking away at those irrepressible hollyhocks, so deeply tap-rooted, so strong and very prolific. I was digging out the garlic chives who believe themselves to be welcome anywhere and everywhere and I was beating back the Russian Sage, reminding it of the boundaries I had insisted upon less than a year ago.
Then I spotted them, hundreds and I mean hundreds of short, sturdy seedlings, snapdragons, all, at my feet. Somehow, last year’s snapdragons had left their prodigy in the rock garden in literal droves all the way around each grandbebe-designed and crafted stepping stone.
A few feet away, I saw a huge patch of happy white chamomile, yellow-dotted daisies on bushy, strong plants totally filling one of my 4 foot by 4 foot square gardens, as if I were going to live off chamomile tea forever.
I cannot leave these plants. The chamomile isn’t useful to me in the spaces where I’ll get so many wonderful fresh vegetables for the summer. And the snapdragons, though one of my favorite annuals, can’t grow around the stepping stones or they’ll be no place for tiny feet to walk safely through to enjoy the irises and pumpkins and day lilies and moss roses and butternut squash and yes, even the Russian Sage and hollyhocks.
Snapdragons are wonderful, Chamomile is glorious. But when they are where they shouldn’t be, well, then Houston, we have a problem.
The Chamomile is fully flourishing, flowering with divine joy. The snapdragon, if given just a few weeks would provide an amazing and colorful show. I couldn’t just rip them out and throw them away.
“Just because you can’t grow here, little seedlings, doesn’t mean you can’t be a star somewhere else.” That is what I told my little plants.
You’ve heard the old saying “Bloom where you are planted?” But sometimes there is an uprooting, for whatever reason. Sometimes you may have put down roots and thought you were at your forever place. But you couldn’t stay. Your value couldn’t be realized there. It’s just part of living.
Just because you couldn’t bloom where you were planted doesn’t mean you will never get to be everything He created you to be and do everything He has equipped you to do. It doesn’t mean you can’t be saved. Grace saves.
“Don’t worry,” I told the flowering plants, “you can’t stay here, but we’ll find you a spot.”
I felt like God re-affirmed that to me, even as I said it.
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace [Who imparts all blessing and favor], Who has called you to His [own] eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you securely, and strengthen, and settle you.” 1 Peter 5.10 Amp.
Our God, the God of all gardens and life and living and roots and growth, our God, who makes all things new, is able to establish us, heal us, ground us securely and strengthen us and actually cause us to flourish!
“The [uncompromisingly] righteous shall flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and fruitful]; they shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon [majestic, stable, durable, and incorruptible]. Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. [Growing in grace] they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap [of spiritual vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment]. [They are living memorials] to show that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Psalm 92.12- 15 Amp.
Just because you couldn’t stay in this garden here, don’t give up hope that you can be the upright, strong, fruitful star of that one over there. Bloom where you are transplanted!
Where on earth does the time go? It’s the middle of May!
5 minutes ago, it was May Day, and suddenly the month is halfway gone, school is about to be let out, graduation parties are happening in earnest and spring seems awfully late this year (a little snowstorm on Sunday and Monday???).
What do 30 kale seedlings, 14 tomato plants, a couple dozen pepper plants, zinnias, daisies, cauliflower and cabbage, 4 cubic feet of vermiculite, 9 cubic feet of peat moss and a bunch of bags of compost have in common?
They are not in my garden, as they SHOULD be on Mother’s Day weekend because they are waiting for some sunny warm days to happen, you know, inarow! Do I seem bitter about the spring snow? Because I obviously am.
Where in the world are DP and Tara?
Paris. In France. Or maybe London, in England today? Not sure which. But they are somewhere 8 hours ahead of us.
I am watching Kai while they are gone. He is a little bruiser and quite independent. He is 16 months of power and speed. But when he runs to me with his little arms up, I scoop him close as fast as I can, before the moment passes.
Yesterday, I was cuddling him for his nap and I swear a blanket of deja vu swept over me and I felt like I was in my 20s again – a young, energetic mommy. It was a heady moment, so sweet. And Dave and I still have our co-parenting rhythm, I have found – the gentle give and take and ins and outs of baby-chores: diapering, bathing, feeding, diapering again, playing cars on the floor. We were once top experts in our field, with so many babies in the 1980s!
But at about 1 am I woke up with aching back, neck and shoulders and realized, uh no. I’m not in my 20s anymore. I am a Nonna in my 50s. Ha! But Malakai’s darling squeals and trails of cheese crackers and Hot Wheels do take me back. Memories…
How is it possible to just so deeply love this many people I have known for 11 years or less?
It’s like – I couldn’t have imagined them and then, *poof,* here they are and I cannot fathom anything without them. I could ramble on about them all, I actually could. But suffice to say, Steph gave me these shots for Mother’s Day. And I just want to give them all a *kiss-kiss* from Nonna. Tonight is Gavin’s last band concert of the year. It’s scheduled to be outside. Hope the rain holds back. He’ll be 11 soon, and officially a middle-schooler.
Here is the low down, left to right (above): Hunter (9 1/2); he is holding Eva (5 months tomorrow), she lives to smile with her whole heart and face; Then there is Averi (6); Gunivere (8 1/2) is holding Bailey (who is 1 and wants to run); Gemma May (7 next week) got glasses recently; Amelie Belle (4); Malakai (16 months) making a getaway; and finally the one who started it all, Gavin (turning 11 in June).
The lovely and fair Guinivere, as soft and sweet, thoughtful and gentle as she looks (but also sharp and wry, with a sense of humor that comes out of nowhere) just became an official business woman. She has been sewing decorator pillows (by machine, then stuffing, then finishing by hand) for $3 each to raise money for a camping trip at the zoo.
She worked really hard and sold lots more than she even needed to reach her goal and her mommy said she felt the pressure of deadline order filling. But she did it. And she did it well. I am so proud of her.
Which is worse: failing at something, or not even trying?
I think almost everyone would say that not trying would be so much worse than trying something and then failing at it. But maybe the question is really this, Which is worse: failing at something you had the courage to try, or feeling ashamed by others’ reactions when you fail at something?
Forget Hunger Games, the shame game is the most deadly in the world. Though we understand that failure is just experience in the making, a stepping stone to something really great, the heaviness of having shame heaped on when it happens keeps us from trying the things we were born to try. Shame says:
You did it wrong. You shouldn’t have tried.
You have now ruined it for everyone else in the universe.
I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
Shame is a liar.
Don’t you just wish we would call its’ bluff more often? I want to master the art of “the shrug,” the oh-well, I tried. I did my best. I love people who can take flying leaps, outrageously stumble, then tumble, skid on their knees into brick walls, get up, hobble away with a smile and say, “Ok – next time, I think I will..” Yes! Those kind of people amaze me.
Keep trying!
BTW-what the heck with the vermiculite?
I used to be able to buy course grade vermiculite for about $3 per cubic foot at a garden center in Westminster. They closed and I need a new supplier. Now I am paying more than $10 per cubic foot.
As I understand it, vermiculite is made from mica and other minerals being heated to the point of “explosion,” puffing up like popcorn! It’s like tiny, rock-looking, little sponges that soak up moisture and keep it in the soil near the plants’ roots where it is needed. It also keeps the soil from getting hard and compacted.
I am creating more tomato space in the garden this year (of. course!) and I just had to pay more than $50 for 5 cubic feet of this stuff. I am willing to raid a vermiculite stash in the night, trash bags in hand, if anyone knows where I might find such a place?
#tbt Throw-back Thursday time again!
Since I am having memories of when our kids were little so strongly this week, well, I’ll share from that era. You know I always tells you the 1980s were a blur, as we added to the family in rapid-fire succession. Oh, they were sweet days. Big hair. Silly children. Songs, church, gerbils, bikes, face paint, kids clubs, walking to school and oh, so many hugs and kisses and love among us!
At the beginning of the movie, “While You Were Sleeping,” the Sandra Bullock character is recalling her childhood and they were depicting scenes from her hazy, muted memories and she says something like, “I just don’t remember it being so…orange.” haha. I feel somewhat the same!
Baby Dessa napping with her handsome daddy. Summer 1983.
Does it go without saying that I, like my mother before, would not be caught without lots of sailor-inspired outfits for my children. We even brought one to their little cousin, Jordan one year!
Stormie’s first birthday.
Getting Stephie ready for her dedication at church, summer 1982.
Tara’s 2nd birthday.
Rocky’s dedication day. Fall 1984.
One of those church directory photos. They are always the worst! But still, October or November 1982. My little family in Kokomo.
I was the picture of a pastor’s wife, I think. Pantyhose and dresses at almost all times! Fall 1987, when the kiddos were 1 1/2 – 8 years old.
Well, this was quite the mish-mash of memories and thoughts and garden frustrations. But that is what Thought-Collage Thursdays are all about.
Please let me know if you have the answers to the riddles of life that swirl in my head, and plague my existence…especially if your know where I can get that vermiculite! :)
Older women* are the largest demographic in the world.
That’s me.
*Sometimes known as women of a certain age. You can never be quite certain what that age is, but believe me when I tell you, it’s old enough to know a lot of things other people don’t and young enough to enjoy it.
Ok-so I wrote this in 2007 and never shared it because it sounds like one of those e-mail forwards people used to send around. But I am emptying out my drafts folder and this is definitely the oldest one. And, it made me laugh because it was based on the true story of a certain period of my life, in its’ own metaphorical way. And I could you tell exactly where every one of these locales exists!
So, after 6 1/2 years, don’t be hating. Let me have my fun!
The Move (because “Snot-Trail Lane” didn’t actually end up in the writing):
I had moved into the sagging house on Agony Avenue, just southeast of the Sorrow Circle and Heartsick Street intersection, when I pondered how many of my belongings I’d lost at my last house on Baggage Boulevard. I hadn’t wanted to leave there, I had been kicked out unmercifully by a demanding landlord, but the widening of Woe-is-Me Way and the incoming Melancholy Mall development were forcing me to move on, anyway. I hoped my time on Agony Avenue was temporary.
I wasn’t about to forget my stuff, though, so I headed right back to the old home place. To get there I needed to hop on Heartbreak Highway and get off on the Teary-eyed Turnpike, but I ended up having to take a detour on Burdened Bend which got me lost and absolutely stuck on Wounded Way, which is a completely dead-end street. I thought turning onto Pity Path would get me out, after all, I’d been here so many times I should have known it like the back of my hand, but I ended up hopelessly lost on Blame Lane.
A Truth Taxi happened by and the driver told me he could get me home, but there wasn’t room for my lost stuff, only what I was carrying and that Baggage Blvd. was under construction, anyway. So I asked him to take me back home, my home on Agony Avenue. Hopeless, I figured there were just things I had lost that I would never get back.
As I turned from watching my old neighborhood fade from view, I saw the Truth guy was taking me a way I had never been.
He turned north on Peace Parkway, and though Rage Road looked like a major thoroughfare , he told me it was too dangerous, the traffic heavy at all hours and wise to avoid it like the plague whenever possible.
At Joy Junction, I saw a sign “This way to Forgiveness Point.” I asked the Truth Taxi guy if we could stop there for just a minute or two. He parked at the entry, where the Comfort Creek waters had risen and were covering the Burden Bridge, leaving me no option but to slosh through.
I was surprised the path up Healing Hill to the Forgiveness Point wasn’t any easier. It took a lot of effort, but I was compelled. I ended up having to leave all the things I was carrying on the side of the road, one by one. But when I got to the top, the air was fresh, the sunlight sparkled, the breeze was gentle and my heart was light.
When I spotted a ‘for sale’ sign on a beautiful home in Righteousness Roundabout, I was surprised to see the Truth Taxi man there ahead of me, somehow. He was removing the sign and handing me keys. “It’s yours,” he said, “I already paid for it.”
Home. Where I always belonged.
“He drew me up out of a horrible pit [of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my steps as I walked along.” Psalm 40.2
“you’re my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child. ” ~Elizabeth Noble, Things I Want My Daughters to Know
EldeenAnnette.com
I know where I was at this exact minute, on this day in history in 1979. I know how I spent the day. I remember everything leading up to its’ culmination at 7:16 pm from my waking thought at exactly 5:55 am, just before the alarm would go off.
What was that? Am I in labor? Eyes widen, fully awake!
Thirty-five years ago at this exact time, I was being born.Me – this mother, now grandmother part of me was laboring to be, to become. I was shedding the skin of childhood and girlishness and self-focus and passing through the purifying pain of labor and delivery. I was walking a pathway to an unknown and unknowable destination. I was giddy and excited, scared and alone. I trembled with each deep, slow breath.
A girl woke up alone at 5:55 am, pregnant, filled with life {potential}. At 7:16 pm, she was born – a mommy, a full-grown woman. They placed this perfectly round-shaped, blond-fuzzy-headed baby girl into her arms, the fruit of her labors, a tiny baby girl was born {potential}, too. Now they were two.
“when — naked, soaked in sweat and blood, and a heart thumping from a marathon — you are squeezing onto your bosom ‘the whole universe wrapped in harmony with your soul’ and realize that this is the tiny body of your own baby. Mytyr, Mana, Mater, Muter, Madre, Mother, Mamma, you are the circle of life; heaven and earth pass through you.” (Eleftheria Mantzouka)
Yes. Today is Tara’s birthday.
Thirty-five years she has walked this earth, which is hard to believe when you look at her, overwhelmingly stunning, her spontaneous smiles so youthful, so nineteen! It’s the celebration of Tara, it’s her birthday! Her arrival changed everything! The entire course of my existence was altered right there on the spot. This is a bit of her story, her glorious entry, as I recall it.
When I’d arrived at the hospital, just 30 minutes before she was born, I was {quite unknowingly} in deep, transitional labor, my entire focus on cooperating, breathing, bringing my baby forth. I asked the ER attendant to wait before wheeling me upstairs.
“Oh honey. You’re never gonna make it, ” the sassy girl said. “You’re going to be in labor for at least 20 hours and if you’re acting like this now, you’re never going to make it.”
I had never wanted to hit some one so badly in my life (transition!), but I was on a mission to birth a baby. I closed my eyes to shut her pointless babble out and breathed, {inhale} in through my nose, slowly, to maintain some control, {exhale} out through my trembling lips.
She rolled me onto the elevator and her negativity became a drone, the sound of the “adults” on Peanuts cartoon specials, like unseen teachers talking to Charlie Brown, “Wah-wah-wah-WAH-wah-wahhh.”
Could she not see that I was bringing forth perfection – and soon?
In their defense, apparently hospitals work with first-time moms who freak a little too soon in the game, but I’d been laboring, working hard for this since 5:55 am.
I was wheeled into the laboring room at about 6:50-something, given one of those magnificent gowns to don and left to my devices. I swayed, I breathed, I called this baby (boy? girl – my secret dream?) forth. I braced myself for 20 hours of this hard work, my reasonable service.
When nurses returned a few minutes later, they were surprised to find that my royal child, this gift of God, was ‘crowning.”
MayDae.com
Tara was born.
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”
She was born at 7:16 pm, just about a half hour after we’d pulled up to the hospital doors and no one there really had anything to do with it. It was me, my baby and the God of the Universe. The Creator – He was there, having just applied the finishing touches on a life so uniquely formed and perfect, His own (full and complete) delight splashed all over her, perfuming the air with His very Presence, His absolute love. I inhaled the scent of the heavenlies from the top of her tiny head.
Alone with my baby a little later in a dimly lit room, this exquisite girl-child and me, she slowly opened and closed fawn-shaped eyes. The holiness of the moment, of the realization of the redemptive work of God and His total love lie swaddled securely in my arms, as irrefutable proof of Him. He was here – He was with me, for me. Proof!
Tara was a gift to me from God Himself. To me.
I’d awoken a girl, filled with questions and wonder and trepidations. I was going to sleep, having been ushered through the courtyards of the Lord, arms and heart filled, into motherhood. A daughter!
I am ashamed to admit I still sometimes struggle to truly, really, wholly trust God. That is terrible. Especially because He has actually completely shown His trust in me – 5 times!
Do I even need to tell you that a gift from God is good? That He gives beauty for ashes, a garment of praise instead of a spirit if despair? Do I need to remind you? And He sent the healing oil of joy for mourning. Our good friend once called Tara, “Liquid joy.” And it’s true, because oil is poured out and nothing it touches is ever the same.
The enemy tried to take her from me once {from God’s great plan for her life}, but the full-force of heaven stood with a mom, born that day, May 9, 1979, who said, “Give. my daughter. back!” And what could hell do but whimper sheepishly away?
MayDae.com
So, Happy Birthday, Tara, and happy {joyful} day you made me a mom
You have grown up to become a compassionate, loving woman. People are drawn to your smile, your sincerity, and your gentleness powered by strength. You are a star in the darkest of nights and a voice for your generation. You’re a wonderful mommy, the fun-nest kind and such a devoted wife. Your house, all interesting and textural and colorful and serene absolutely looks like you. The lyrics are in you, the melody pours forth sweetly, and you, my most darling and beloved first-born, are such treasure on the earth, let alone to me.
And baby girl, I can tell you this about God’s gift of you to me, for these words could not be truer in any situation,
“Now to Him Who, by the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it).” Ephesians 3.20-21 Amp.
And so, as your momma, you need to understand how desperately I pray this for you. And how deeply I KNOW God is hearing you and your heart’s cry.
And because I witnessed your birth, felt you emerge straight from the hidden place where the Hands knitting you together delivered you into my arms and into your bright-light existence, because I understood His delight and joy in having created you and written your story, I KNOW He hears you now and that this same God, His power at work in you (in your heart, in your body, in your womb, in your reproductive system) is able and will carry out His purpose so far beyond anything you even dare to ask or think or imagine or wish or hope.
Beyond your highest and most powerful prayers or your wildest dreams, infinitely more than you may even have the courage to ask or think, God can do anything, anything.
It’s not too late, my Tara-girl. And I once fought hell over you. So believe me when I tell you, I am believing, petitioning, agonizing, asking, reminding and staying put before the throne for you, for your life, for your deepest, wildest dreams to come true. Because I was born that day, too. And this is what mommies do.
God has given you so much love in three adoring fellas. From you to them, from them to you. But you have more to give, more love, more joy. So sing, sing in the Spirit and with the understanding. I’m joining in your song {Tara’s song}. Let’s see what will happen. :)
I’ve learned a few things about MADD since we started this project 3 months ago.
I found out MADD was founded by a mom whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver. I don’t know if anyone in the world could have foreseen how much impact this amazing woman made by turning her sorrow into change.
MADD leads the way for legislation that protects victims and survivors of drunk and drugged driving in our nation. In fact they make it easy to send emails and letters to our own legislators and help you know how to Take Action {click here}.But more than that, MADD also supports drunk and drugged driving victims and survivors at no charge, serving one person every 8.6 minutes through local MADD victim advocates and at 1-877-MADD-HELP.
So I am so happy to be participating to benefit an organization like MADD. It’s a fashion show with more than clothing at its’ heart. Because at the heart of it you find the title sponsor, Eldeen Annette, Ellie, as I call her. She is a talented photographer who takes a group of high school kids each year and by making them her studio “models,” affords them the opportunity to experience numerous photo shoots in a variety of settings during their senior year.
And this year she added to the experience by putting on a fashion show. The students sold the tickets to benefit MADD and they will also walk the runway in spotlights and fun clothes, ending in their prom dresses and suits and get to have stylists and pampering and fun! Isn’t that nice of Eldeen Annette Portraiture?
So, yes, I guess you could say it’s just a fashion show, but I have had a blast working on it, from securing the venue to selecting the songs to shopping the stores, to recruiting volunteers. And I have high hopes for it. When all is said and done
I hope the 20 models from 7 area high schools will have had a good time and felt special and beautiful, hitting the runway in fun fashion trends they may never have even tried on before.
And I hope they will know a little bit more about MADD and that because they do and because they have learned something they will be a little less likely to take risks themselves. I hope they’ll take a standand influence their friends and family too.
I hope all the businesses (these listed and many besides) that have joined me in this adventure in time and resources: B & B Dance Company @ The Prairie Center, GAP @ Flat Iron Crossing, Maurice’s @ The Marketplace, Bohme @ Flat Iron, Rue 21 @ The Marketplace, Old Navy @ The Orchard, Pink Door Boutique in Brighton (downtown), Shift Originals, Montage Academy (formerly Longs Peak Academy of Longmont) will get lots of love back for their effort! I hope they will reap the generosity they have sown and have business opportunities open.
And I really hope people discover the joy of just having fun and doing something good in a fun way.
For my longsuffering friends and familia who so lovingly and willingly said, “Sure, I’ll help,” #BESTILLMYHEART! You are amazing and lovely. Thank-you for trusting me with portions of your life. Doing cool things together is part of what makes the time we live and love sweeter.
The SOE and script are complete, the songs o-so-carefully chosen and timed out, the marketing done, the clothing sorted on racks, high heels lined up. Gift bags with many cool goodies, stuffed…A fast and furious fashion show is about to happen…
So, two words: fashion show. But many, many hopes for it to be much-more + fun… :)
I believe that! This sphere, in all its amazing splendor, beauty and creativity – ALL a gift of the creative imagination and infinite ability of the Maker of heaven and earth.
Oh how I wish we were taking better care of it, being better stewards, enjoying His creation like we should, and really – could.
I just read this blog early this morning and LOVED it! The writer referenced Isaiah 11.9, which is a favorite-favorite-hope-filled scripture!
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
The sun is shining here in Denver today. The grass is brilliant spring-green and the skies are blue with puffy white clouds. The shrubs are flowering. And the dandelions have once again blanketed the nearby fields, not to mention how they are traipsing boldly right down the block in this HOA-protected neighborhood, with great glee as if they weren’t sternly chased out last year. *sighMust be Earth Day! Happiness.
Hard to believe, but true – in my lifetime, I have known Christians who have resisted things like “Earth Day,” allowing it to be spoiled by supposed political associations or some fear of earth-worship.
Psshhhht, people. The earth is His. “Bless the beasts and the children” and get on board today by thanking the Creator and Maker of all the incredible, life-sustaining beauty in the earth! He has surrounded us with His very glory, this Great God of ours!
Note to my children about your children:
Please get them outside often, out-of-the-city on purpose when you can (read the aforementioned blog post to see why – I know you’ll want to, then). Teach them to lie in green grass and watch clouds and to run barefoot, plunge their hands in to black soil for planting, get muddy, splash in puddles, go where there is no cell signal and listen to birds chirp, throw rocks into creeks and rivers, and yell really loudly where no one can hear. Give them Psalm 23 experiences for their body and soul’s health.
And you, too, my sweets. You get out of the city and go where you can see a million stars in the night sky and hear nothing but the beating of your own hearts – just long enough to regain your bearings.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23
If you happen to see me and I look dazed and confused
It’s probably because I have been collecting songs for the fashion show. And high-energy club music makes — me — craaaaaaaaaazzzzeeeey!
I may or may not have a throbbing pain behind my left eye, while my right eye is twitching. I won’t say. But I am enjoying these three songs, only the first of these made the show cut. But the other two are fun, too!
Sometimes a small phrase turns a very nicely written article into something quite fanciful~
Nibbles, Tredessa’s wedding 2011
That happened with a Laura Gaskill piece at Houzz on Sunday. She was advising us all to “Cultivate Everyday Joie de Vivre.” Upon her fourth suggestion, “Entertain with Abandon,” in which I felt fully encouraged to have guests over often without worrying over perfection, she wrote,
“Offer aperitifs and nibbles as soon as guests arrive to put everyone at ease.”
“Offer aperitifs and nibbles.” Doesn’t it just sound divine?
Well, it does, but of course, I don’t do alcohol {teetotaler, here}, so I won’t be – serving aperitifs. I’ll serve lemonade or green-sherbet punch, and root beer floats a-plenty, instead. Sorry.
But there will be nibbles. I could not and would not have guests without nibbles. Of this you may rest assured.
Because yesterday, I was feeling completely ill-prepared for an important meeting with people whose time is very valuable. I really wanted to cancel, even though I knew I would be enriched by them.
Then this simple Donald Miller post, just spotlighted my rather exuberant tendency to treat any bump in the road like a major wreck , to beat myself to smithereens when I have not achieved perfection. How did he know what I was thinking this morning? The conclusion:
“The next morning I got up, made my to-do list and pushed on. It’s a long season, after all. You’re going to drop a couple games on the way to the Superbowl.” -Donald Miller
Thank-you, Donald Miller. And so I am pushing on.
They just don’t make TV like they used to
My silly little secret is that I loved music so much, any kind of music and song, I used to watch Lawrence Welk on TV every Saturday at 5 pm – when I was 14! I knew his bubbly brand of American standards and Martini music weren’t “cool,” but if there were going to be singers with bouffant hair in fancy dresses and fabulous, colorful sets and antics, I was going to watch!
Last Saturday evening, PBS was airing a Lawrence Welk “special.” They sometimes take a theme and air the best of his many years on television. This particular theme was the month of April, all bright and spring-y and hopeful and romantic.
I totally got sucked in to the special. Of course, it still isn’t “cool” for some one of my generation to be watching Lawrence Welk, but I was thinking – these people, these singers and dancers and the orchestra – they worked so hard to entertain. They are certainly considered quaint by any of today’s standards, but I found the show beyond enchanting.
Check out the “rain” in this video. So low-tech, So perfectly charming.
Effort. Lights, Pretty clothes. Color. Sentimental songs. I loved.
I love those silly Lumosity things. It’s my brand of gaming. Sometimes I do the daily suggestions then try them several times to beat myself. :)
I assumed my weakest area would be “flexibility.” But it is my highest scoring area, with speed and problem solving right behind.
Attention (What? Where were we?) and memory are tied for my weakest areas. I used to have this amazing memory, like – AMAZING (In 1974 April 17th was a Wednesday – that type of memory)…but I can’t quite recall when that was…before the flood or something.
Sometimes I just don’t know what to do.
Or what to say. Or what to think. Or which way is up or right or the best. I feel surprised at this age and stage to not know as much as I once thought I did, to not know what is expected of me or how to make hard things work. Sometimes I just don’t know…which is tough on a striver like myself.
And this is really the bravest thing I will admit today. Or maybe over the course of many days.
I did try to give up perfection for Lent. But…
I was remembering my younger self – back when I thought I knew an awful lot about a great many things. And even if I didn’t know, I still had a strong opinion. I really miss those days, sometimes. I really thought I was going to conquer everything before the end.
Now I know much better, which is to say I know very little. In my life, there is so much I will absolutely never know, ever learn, never experience. And while it wreaks havoc on my pride to know less than ever, to be less certain and able to tout my absolutely correct and utterly right viewpoints and finely tuned belief system, I’m wondering if that isn’t the point, anyway?
But it boils down to this, I really want to know {need to know} and never forget this thing: Jesus loves me. I am in my 50s and I have yet to comprehend the depth and breadth and width and height of it – this lavish love. “Jesus loves me, this I know,” and that knowing is still where I often find myself stuck. I am glad the Ephesians needed understanding for this, too. :)
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Eph. 3
Anne Ortlund, in Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, said she jotted in her Bible margin next to that passage, “How do you put the ocean in a teacup?” That is the question!
His love
Amelie was practicing her cutting and gluing skills in pre-school with Nonna today. I masked off the shape of the cross and we talked about all the things for which we thanked Jesus – besides dying on the cross for our sins and then beating the devil by being raised from the dead.
I may or may not have misspelled “Easter.” Proving my point. Ha!
But as she cut and glued and looked through the newspaper and found more images, she just kept saying, “I know Jesus would love this – let’s give Him this!” Instead of thinking about what He has done for her, her love response was to give Him something in return!
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4.19 NIV
