I am a Real Mom

Through my work at Hearts at Home, I've been thinking a lot about Real Moms. I wrote a column about what it means to be a Real Mom that was in our local newspaper a few weeks ago and Hearts is having a contest to collect stories of real moms to be published on our blog.

I had one of those real mom moments this past weekend at the Kids Expo.

Asher and I went to the expo with some friends. Even though Asher and Moses are almost exactly the same age, Moses displayed a no fear attitude when it came to climbing on the bouncy toys. Asher needed more encouragement to try them out.

We eventually convinced Asher to climb to the top of the mountainous bouncy slide. He did a great job climbing up... and that is where he stayed. Whether he was afraid to slide down or just was having fun up at the top of the slide, I'm not sure. But it soon became apparent he was not going to be coming down until they started letting the air out of the slide at the end of the expo.

That left eight months pregnant mommy with few choices for retrieving her little boy. We tried sending his friends up to coax him down, but they weren't convincing enough and he remained way up there bouncing around near the ceiling.

So I did what a real mom would do. Yes, Baby and I climbed the bobbing and swaying ladder to the top of that slide in front of the thousands of onlookers (well maybe there weren't quite that many in line at the time). I grabbed my fearful son and slid down that bouncy slide to safety.

We both suffered plastic burns on our arms, but we were soon safely on the ground. I'm thinking I was the only pregnant woman to ride the bouncy slide that day!

But the choice to embarrass myself didn't require much deliberation - because real moms rescue their children from the tops of bouncy slides!

Loving our weirdness

In grade school, I proudly wore a "I love being weird" pin on my frosted jean jacket. My friends and I daily told each other we were weird and took it as a huge compliment. I don't know how I feel about being weird now, and Walter has asked me not to call Asher weird. So, I'll change my choice of words to unordinary.

I haven't posted pictures for a while and as I scrolled through our folder trying to decide which one to choose, I became overwhelmed with how unordinary they are! First, I don't have too many choices to post because in most of them, Asher does not have pants on. We are still working on the potty training thing and I've gotten too lazy and my belly is too big to put underpants and long pants back on him every five minutes.

But I did find a fun one of Walter and Asher when they played in the snow a few weeks ago.

I think a couple of clarifications are needed.

1. Asher is not singing, just smiling in an "unordinary" way.

2. Walter is not incapable of building a snowman that actually looks like a snowman. This is not a snowman actually. It is a chess piece, built by request. A king to be exact. Can't you tell?

I know every family has their own unordinary ways. Aren't these what make us love each other all the more?

It's a Baby Day!

My friend had a baby today.

I've celebrated when many of my friends and family members have added babies to their families, but today is a special celebration that deserves nothing but pure joy.

This little baby represents redemption. There is good in this world and God does not abandon us even when it seems He has.

Over the past couple of years I've shared with my dear friend Rita as she walked through so much pain coming to terms with a miscarriage and then letting go of sweet Henry who never breathed a breath on this earth. And then through the past nine months, we've continued to share our amazement and unbelief that good will really come to life even as we can no longer drink caffeine at our coffee escapes and our bellies grow.

Until today it didn't seem real that she would ever finally have a baby in her arms. But I've seen his picture. He is perfect and beautiful and breathing. I will go to visit him tomorrow and don't know if I'll be able to hold back tears, especially as I wonder if it actually will be real that I will soon hold another baby in my arms.

Where oh where does the time go?

Where does my time go??

At the end of the day when my to do list still has ten items left without a line through them, I constantly try to justify why I didn't have time to do everything. The list usually makes me feel guilty because I still didn't write thank you notes from Christmas, haven't emailed my mom for a week, and still haven't started reorganizing Asher's closet.

For my own sanity and because I just like to do research, I decided to start a log recording my activity every 10 minutes. This is my fourth day of analyzing how I spend my time and I'm actually not too surprised at my findings.

1. I've confirmed that I do take a lot of mini-breaks to check email, read blog posts, and check for new Facebook friends.

2. After I put Asher to sleep at night, around 8:00, my energy to even record what I'm doing next is zapped.

3. When Asher is awake, I have a hard time recording what I am doing because it switches minute by minute from eating breakfast to getting dressed to eat more breakfast to go potty to gather water cup for school to write check for school to clean up breakfast... Doing something for more than 10 minutes only happens when we are out of the house or Asher is "sleeping."

I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with the findings of my little research project. But it does make me more anxious to live outside of time. I forget where, but I recently read thoughts from C.S. Lewis about time. His basic idea is that we were created to live outside of time.which is why its so hard for us to grasp the passing of it.

We are eternal beings and it is not natural for us to be confined by time. He suggests this is why time never feels right to us. We are either saying Where did the time go? or When will this season of life finally be over? Time rarely seems to be ticking by just as it should be. It's always too fast or too slow.

Asher is obsessed with clocks and time, but he always wants to judge the passing of time by the clock on his tool set which never moves without human intervention. He promises me he will come get dressed when the clock on his tools gets to the four or maybe the eleventeen.

If only all clocks could tick-tock just as we dictate.

Sweet Reward!

We have been working on potty training and without going into the stinky details, Asher reached a major goal last night! As a reward, he got to eat the marshmallow penguin sucker we've been looking at for two weeks. What a morning to remember! Yes, this picture looks super blurry. I'll put the blame on too much sugar before breakfast. The sweetness in this special penguin took effect quickly and Asher had trouble standing still even for a quick picture.

Facebook Excitement

In December, my sister finally convinced me to join Facebook. I had previously dragged my feet because I was convinced it would join Google Reader, finding coupons for free things, and strawberry fruitbars as one of my obsessions. I'd have to ask Walter to find out if it should be added to the other must have things in my life, but I will admit that I checked it last night before going to bed at 10:30 and then when I got up this morning, just to make sure I didn't miss out on someone's exciting life happenings during the hours that I slept.

It hasn't amazed me so much that I can now read about what the friends who I keep in regular contact with are doing every hour. That's cool too.

But it is amazing that within minutes of finding old high school friend's names listed I can become connected with them and learn all about their lives. The faces of cousins who I see in person a couple of times a year are now displayed on my computer screen everyday! Suddenly I've learned the answers to my questions of "whatever happened to...." I wonder if she is married, if she has kids, does she travel the world? Now I know!

It's even more amazing to think about how my college student brother uses FB compared to how I do. Last week, he told me how mom wrote an embarrassing "non facebook" type post on his wall. I had to admit I almost embarrassed him with the same type of message (it was a mushy one with the word "love" in it).

So if Sam uses FB completely differently than I do, how much more will Asher's life be different as a result of using it!? Always being connected with any friend he has ever met will keep him from ever needing to think that thought of, "I wonder what happened to..." He will always know.

This is where I will reveal how my amazement has maybe gone too far.

I can't get it out of mind of how I feel like I've been given a tiny glimpse of Heaven. Not so much because I'm now connected to my best friend from grade school (which is really cool), but because the separation from friends and family which is often so painful is lessened knowing I can stay connected and instantly reconnect with anyone. Goodbyes are so painful and I hate them with a passion. Never having to say goodbye is an aspect of Heaven I can't wait to experience.

While people still move in a Facebook age, and there's nothing like having a cup of coffee with a friend face to face, I now find myself even more in touch with people who I am no longer close to geographically because I can see what they're doing on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.

OK. I've thought about this analogy between FB and Heaven for several weeks now so even though its a huge stretch, at least maybe now I can get over it and think about a different part of Heaven I am looking forward to (like maybe temperatures above 10 degrees and not being tied to a house with a 2 1/2 year old for days on end).

Guitar Stage

It wasn't a suprise to anyone, least of all Asher that he got a guitar for Christmas. Almost two weeks later, he is still obsessed with "rockin and rollin." Neither Walter or I are big performers so we have been surprised at how our little boy runs around the house dancing in true Elvis fashion while playing his guitar. Really, he didn't learn it from us!

We took this picture of our rock star son from the nose bleed section on the other side of the bed. Even as his parents, these were the best seats we were able to get from the scalper. The concert was a rockin' good time - you'll notice the "guitar stand" got knocked over with all of the dancing around. But here our son is slowing things down for the night by playing a more mellow song . This was Asher's debut performance on the new BBR (Big Boy Room) guitar stage. Celebrity sightings included Elmo, Pucca the Penguin, Albert the Alligator, and many many more.