A few weeks ago Justin suggested that every week we should each make two goals for ourselves. Accomplishment of these herculean feats would result in a venturing out for delightful delicacies of some kind. (And since the Husband hasn't pulled a paycheck since October [despite the fact that he works harder than most of the population], Taco Bell and Chik-fil-a are the delicacies we are talking about.) These aren't global-axis-altering projects, just stuff we meant to do at one point six months ago and never got around to. My goals for last week were two and a half hours of Bible Study and making two scrapbook pages. I am starved for food that I don't have to cook, so I try to make my goals very attainable. If I said something like run for three hours every morning and develop a workable plan for the eradication of Ebola in West Africa, I wouldn't get my chalupa on Sunday. Priorities, folks. If you aim high you miss the nachos.
I saw a few days ago that my singularly sensational sister-in-law has a chalkboard up with goals for her family as well. Kiddos are not immune, and her trio of delightful munchkins have lofty objectives too. Her son's goal is to be kind to his sister. Her daughter's goal is to eat all of her dinner. And Baby Max's goal is to sleep through the night. While I find this brilliant, I cannot include the children in our goal making process; because I would like to get the chance to eat out at some point this year. If I did, I imagine our aims would look like this:
Justin: go running 3 times, 2 hours of Bible study
Abi: clean out the storage room, 2 hours of Pilates
Mr. Noah: Don't open-mouth kiss the bulldog, show a little backbone
Baby Hannah: Don't terrorize your brother, limit falls to one every ten seconds
Dumpster: be fat and lazy in more than one room of the house, don't eat anything that doesn't belong to you (including remote controls, gift bags, Christmas lights, shoes, measuring cups, and batteries)
Friday, January 30, 2015
Hurricane Hannah hit the Olive Garden
We like spaghetti. Too much perhaps...
The joy on her face whilst eating gluten free, soy free, milk free pasta is just wrong. Only things made with chocolate should cause this much rapture.
Not sure what this look is. Maybe it is her 'spaghetti-eating, end-zone, touchdown dance.'
Look! A ham eating spaghetti!
Meh, enough of this camera nonsense. We have Italian to slurp.
I love this girl. Too much perhaps.
Monday, January 26, 2015
The Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Hurricane Hannah is practicing her harmonica for lonely nights out on the range.
And just so we're clear, Noah is asking for veggies (meaning Veggie Tales), not anything else it may sound like.
And just so we're clear, Noah is asking for veggies (meaning Veggie Tales), not anything else it may sound like.
Joy, Unspeakable Joy!
I am studying the book of 1 Peter. Hopefully, it will be a ministry opportunity, so I will try to share without too many spoiler alerts. It seemed too fitting that just as I was studying joy in trouble, our pastor preached on joy in trouble, and many dear friends found themselves in trouble and chose joy. I suppose that is the first point. Joy is a choice. Love is a choice. Peace is a choice. These are not feelings. These are ways you choose for your heart to be; these are attitudes of obedience.
If you have been keeping up on my blog, you know that I have a problem: I am in love with my husband. I am just wild about him. In his presence I have great joy. I know that I can rage in his arms. I can weep in his embrace. I can vent anger, mourn the darkness, and experience a broad range of emotions in his presence. But I always have joy with him. When we weep together, we are in joy. When I seethe with anger, I still choose joy. Because of him. Because of who he is. Because he chose me. And because tomorrow the hurt will be less, the light will break, and he will be there, unchanged in his promise. I have joy with my husband because he is a good man, because he loves me, and because we have the hope of new days ahead.
How much more with the Holy One, Whose love is rivers, Whose heart is bold and unchanging, Whose promise is surer than the mountains that rise around us? How much more joy can we have in the presence of God: the One Who is only ever good, Who loves with the shedding of His blood, and Who gives a hope that is surer than the rising of the sun, that there are new days ahead?
I choose joy; because He chose me.
This is not faking it. This is not putting on a good face, putting up a wall, dawning a mask. You can be real, you can be authentic, and you can have joy in suffering. Christ's vision is reality. His character is truth. And His character, His promise, and His heart bring joy.
If you have been keeping up on my blog, you know that I have a problem: I am in love with my husband. I am just wild about him. In his presence I have great joy. I know that I can rage in his arms. I can weep in his embrace. I can vent anger, mourn the darkness, and experience a broad range of emotions in his presence. But I always have joy with him. When we weep together, we are in joy. When I seethe with anger, I still choose joy. Because of him. Because of who he is. Because he chose me. And because tomorrow the hurt will be less, the light will break, and he will be there, unchanged in his promise. I have joy with my husband because he is a good man, because he loves me, and because we have the hope of new days ahead.
How much more with the Holy One, Whose love is rivers, Whose heart is bold and unchanging, Whose promise is surer than the mountains that rise around us? How much more joy can we have in the presence of God: the One Who is only ever good, Who loves with the shedding of His blood, and Who gives a hope that is surer than the rising of the sun, that there are new days ahead?
I choose joy; because He chose me.
This is not faking it. This is not putting on a good face, putting up a wall, dawning a mask. You can be real, you can be authentic, and you can have joy in suffering. Christ's vision is reality. His character is truth. And His character, His promise, and His heart bring joy.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Spinning
I awoke last Wednesday morning to my usual alarm at 4:30am. Ruefully wondering what could be accomplished in this world if everyone had to crawl out of bed and emerge zombie-like into the cold shadows of morning at such an ungodly hour like my own nearly undead self, I threw my covers back and landed my feet on the floor ... and then I fell head first into my closet. Thankfully (?), the door was closed to keep out unwanted bulldogs and other vermin. I suppose this means I did not fall into my closet, but rather against my closet ... with my skull. And somehow the thunk did not wake the husband, nor did my subsequent crash-tastrifies. If I hadn't been otherwise occupied, I would have checked him for signs of life.
After recovering somewhat from the concussion, I turned and walked into the bathroom. Like any woman, I sometimes struggle with self-esteem. I say 'walked' because that connotes refinement, which makes me sound spritely and graceful. In truth, like a pinball in an arcade game, I bounced off the the foot board of the bed, smashed into Justin's closet, ricocheted into the dresser, and finally, hands clutching desperately at the walls I stumbled into the bathroom like a hungover frat boy. (No alcoholic beverages were injured in the making of this blog. Remember? I'm running a family blog here.)
Now, I had a decision to make: answer the usual morning call of nature, or vomit profusely. (Okay, not so family. Sorry.) After throwing up nothing (because there's no sickness like empty stomach sickness [which any proper kind of pregnant woman will confirm]), I crawled on my hands and knees back into the bedroom. With trembling muscles I scaled our bed (which thankfully Justin fixed just last week, so that instead of a mattress on the floor I could fall gratefully into, the solace of sheets and pillow stands a loft a pinnacle on a lonely Japanese mountain, only ascended by the most pious of meditators). As I fell to my back and squeezed my eyes shut, I watched the darkness swirl in great curling loops above me. It goes without saying that at this point I felt I had a temperature of about 2804 degrees Fahrenheit, and was deep-breathing, trying to settle my raucous and confused anatomy. The breathing woke Justin.
Insert eye roll.
After a few bleary-eyed moments Justin shifted into nurse mode. He got me water, orange juice, and cereal in case it was related to dehydration or low blood sugar. He proposed that perhaps my blood pressure dropped, and we should try a change of position. (Which, when Abi is not all spinny and nauseous, would have earned him a suggestive little joke and an eyebrow wiggle, but at this point just earned him a couple groans and a dirty look.) And he kept starting to say 'nauseous', but always quickly replaced it with 'nauseated'; because at 4:30 in the morning when the universe decided Abi should wake up on the Mad Tea Cups, she really cares about grammatical propriety. (Sadly, not an entirely sarcastic statement.) Very professionally, he asked me if it felt like I was still and the room was spinning or if the room was still and I was spinning. I answered with a dry heave, and that mostly put an end to the dizzy morning interrogation.
Despite all of this, Justin was truly wonderful. He got both kids out of bed, changed, and fed. He took them to my folks, he checked in on me every two minutes, and he called around to find a clinic open. We drove down to the clinic, and he didn't complain when I kept bumping into him on the way in. By this point I was starting to feel better. The nausea was gone and the spinning was intermittent now. We saw the doctor, and he told us he suspected that it was benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, but wanted to rule out anything more serious first. This ruling out of possibility mortalities included a neurological exam.
If any of you have had a neurological exam, you probably know the purpose is to test the 12 cranial nerves in your brain which control motor function throughout your body. And while this sounds all very prim and proper, the actual performance of a neurological exam is most like participating in a five-year-olds' dance improvisation class after flunking a breath-a-lizer test.
At this point I am too dizzy to sit up straight, and Doctor Dance with his tutu and magic wand is asking me to touch my nose, and wiggle my eyebrows, to kick out the right leg and the left leg, and perform the Macarena (which by the way I am awesome at, dizzy or otherwise). About halfway through the exam I got the giggles. I am sure after we left, Doctor Dance began softly pounding his head on the wall. The finale of the neurological performance is to stand up, feet all the way together, eyes closed, and arms extended out in front of you. At this point I am shaky, spinny, and giggly. I closed my eyes and immediately tipped to one side. I tried again and immediately spilled to the other side. Justin had to stand behind me and set me back on balance every few seconds until Doctor Dance was assured that I did not have a stroke, a tumor, or a brain cloud.
So there was the diagnosis: BPPV. No idea where it came from, how I got it, or when it would subside. So for the next week of my life, I spun. Lots. And I threw up. A couple times. And I got the giggles. More often than I'd like to admit. This Wednesday morning, just as suddenly as it arrived, BPPV made it's exit. With just as little explanation. (Although I suspect, Noah tackling me and smacking the back of my favorite head into the floor while Hannah threw herself lengthwise over my face may have been part of the cure. Thank goodness they don't understand gentle yet.)
After recovering somewhat from the concussion, I turned and walked into the bathroom. Like any woman, I sometimes struggle with self-esteem. I say 'walked' because that connotes refinement, which makes me sound spritely and graceful. In truth, like a pinball in an arcade game, I bounced off the the foot board of the bed, smashed into Justin's closet, ricocheted into the dresser, and finally, hands clutching desperately at the walls I stumbled into the bathroom like a hungover frat boy. (No alcoholic beverages were injured in the making of this blog. Remember? I'm running a family blog here.)
Now, I had a decision to make: answer the usual morning call of nature, or vomit profusely. (Okay, not so family. Sorry.) After throwing up nothing (because there's no sickness like empty stomach sickness [which any proper kind of pregnant woman will confirm]), I crawled on my hands and knees back into the bedroom. With trembling muscles I scaled our bed (which thankfully Justin fixed just last week, so that instead of a mattress on the floor I could fall gratefully into, the solace of sheets and pillow stands a loft a pinnacle on a lonely Japanese mountain, only ascended by the most pious of meditators). As I fell to my back and squeezed my eyes shut, I watched the darkness swirl in great curling loops above me. It goes without saying that at this point I felt I had a temperature of about 2804 degrees Fahrenheit, and was deep-breathing, trying to settle my raucous and confused anatomy. The breathing woke Justin.
Insert eye roll.
After a few bleary-eyed moments Justin shifted into nurse mode. He got me water, orange juice, and cereal in case it was related to dehydration or low blood sugar. He proposed that perhaps my blood pressure dropped, and we should try a change of position. (Which, when Abi is not all spinny and nauseous, would have earned him a suggestive little joke and an eyebrow wiggle, but at this point just earned him a couple groans and a dirty look.) And he kept starting to say 'nauseous', but always quickly replaced it with 'nauseated'; because at 4:30 in the morning when the universe decided Abi should wake up on the Mad Tea Cups, she really cares about grammatical propriety. (Sadly, not an entirely sarcastic statement.) Very professionally, he asked me if it felt like I was still and the room was spinning or if the room was still and I was spinning. I answered with a dry heave, and that mostly put an end to the dizzy morning interrogation.
Despite all of this, Justin was truly wonderful. He got both kids out of bed, changed, and fed. He took them to my folks, he checked in on me every two minutes, and he called around to find a clinic open. We drove down to the clinic, and he didn't complain when I kept bumping into him on the way in. By this point I was starting to feel better. The nausea was gone and the spinning was intermittent now. We saw the doctor, and he told us he suspected that it was benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, but wanted to rule out anything more serious first. This ruling out of possibility mortalities included a neurological exam.
If any of you have had a neurological exam, you probably know the purpose is to test the 12 cranial nerves in your brain which control motor function throughout your body. And while this sounds all very prim and proper, the actual performance of a neurological exam is most like participating in a five-year-olds' dance improvisation class after flunking a breath-a-lizer test.
At this point I am too dizzy to sit up straight, and Doctor Dance with his tutu and magic wand is asking me to touch my nose, and wiggle my eyebrows, to kick out the right leg and the left leg, and perform the Macarena (which by the way I am awesome at, dizzy or otherwise). About halfway through the exam I got the giggles. I am sure after we left, Doctor Dance began softly pounding his head on the wall. The finale of the neurological performance is to stand up, feet all the way together, eyes closed, and arms extended out in front of you. At this point I am shaky, spinny, and giggly. I closed my eyes and immediately tipped to one side. I tried again and immediately spilled to the other side. Justin had to stand behind me and set me back on balance every few seconds until Doctor Dance was assured that I did not have a stroke, a tumor, or a brain cloud.
So there was the diagnosis: BPPV. No idea where it came from, how I got it, or when it would subside. So for the next week of my life, I spun. Lots. And I threw up. A couple times. And I got the giggles. More often than I'd like to admit. This Wednesday morning, just as suddenly as it arrived, BPPV made it's exit. With just as little explanation. (Although I suspect, Noah tackling me and smacking the back of my favorite head into the floor while Hannah threw herself lengthwise over my face may have been part of the cure. Thank goodness they don't understand gentle yet.)
Thursday, January 22, 2015
The Smallest Thing this Side of Asia
My ideal weight is 108 pounds. Or maybe just a little more than that. Random, much?
Allow me to explain. As a child I loved Batman.
... Doesn't that clarify everything?
I don't mean the modern Batman, who takes himself so seriously that he can't spurt flames out of the back of the Bat-mobile. I also don't mean the ridiculous Batman who hangs out with Chris O'Donnell and makes movies so bad, I literally had to turn it off after 15 minutes and rock back and forth in the corner until Marvel came to save me. (Oh yeah, we're gonna nerd out here. Let it go there.) I mean the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and just enough 'really?' to make sure an eight-year-old Abi didn't have nightmares until she was thirty. (I still do have Batman nightmares. However, at eight-years-old, the Joker leaving me love notes and bringing me baguettes with WAY TOO MUCH butter on them [He's trying to kill me. Even at eight I knew that much butter would kill me.] before chasing me across Niagara falls on a high-wire seemed like the most terrifying thing possible. Now it's more amusing, and I have a little sit down with my brain in the morning and give it the eyebrow quirk. Nightmares have become much less fun as I age. Stupid real life. Ah, for the days when comic book villains were the only thing I had to fear.)
At one point in the movie, Vicky (ugh, that name just screams botox) gets herself in a mite bit of trouble (which skinny blonds in superhero movies never, ever do. So out of character.). Batman attaches some kind of vertical zip line to her (which if I were a real nerd I would know the name of and not just call "the-Bat-Vertical-Zip-Line-Thingy"), to whisk her out of danger. He asks how much she weighs (and really, if the "Bat-VZLT" can't haul Kim Basinger off the ground, why does he even carry it? Does he really think there's any chance in Hades she weighs more than him?). She replies "108, I think."
Somewhere in my little girl brain, something latched onto those numbers 1-0-8. My eight-year-old self determined that 108 pounds was therefore the ideal weight for a woman, who at some point in life might be interested in being saved from mask-wearing thugs (or Yankees fans) by a grown man dressing in tights. (I actually had someone correct me once, saying, "They aren't tights, they are fitted rubber pants. ... wow, that's so much better. I wouldn't dare question the masculinity of a dude in skin-tight rubber pants. Notice how they never show Batman getting dressed? This is why. There is nothing more repulsive than a man putting on tights ... or rubber pants. ... I'm a dancer; I know these things.
After the subsequent butt-kicking and reunion of Batman and our D.I.D. he quips, "You weigh a little more than 108." Little Abi decided that, perhaps then, a little more than 108 was acceptable. Although, I never reached a satisfactory conclusion on what that mysterious acceptable bulk was.
Sadly, Little Abi passed 108 long before she was available for rescue. For some reason I can't shake the idea that this is a good weight. If I was attached to a lie-detector and asked what my ideal weight was, 108 would be the only non-needle-jiving answer. And this with a complete disregard for everything I know about health and body types, and growing up and not acting like a toddler at some point.
Since my weight stabilized after having Hannah I have lost 25 pounds. I now weigh 10 pounds less than I did before both of my kids. As I continue to work at fitness, this obsession with 108 (or a little more) has returned. I'm not living via the scale, I'm not doing anything unhealthy, or disregarding the temple the Lord has blessed me with in any way. I'm just saying if I woke up tomorrow and the scale said 108 pounds, the little eight-year-old girl inside me would raise the roof.
At church on Sunday a friend mentioned that I was looking quite slim. Tiny, in fact. Like I had never had two babies. And like, I was, perhaps, the smallest thing in the world. She paused after this declaration and then clarified, "Well, except maybe for Asian women."
"So, I'm the smallest thing this side of Asia?" I queried.
"Exactly," she replied, relieved that I understood.
I don't weigh 108. I don't weigh a little more than 108. But I just might be the smallest thing this side of Asia.
Which is not a concerning statement at all.
Allow me to explain. As a child I loved Batman.
... Doesn't that clarify everything?
I don't mean the modern Batman, who takes himself so seriously that he can't spurt flames out of the back of the Bat-mobile. I also don't mean the ridiculous Batman who hangs out with Chris O'Donnell and makes movies so bad, I literally had to turn it off after 15 minutes and rock back and forth in the corner until Marvel came to save me. (Oh yeah, we're gonna nerd out here. Let it go there.) I mean the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and just enough 'really?' to make sure an eight-year-old Abi didn't have nightmares until she was thirty. (I still do have Batman nightmares. However, at eight-years-old, the Joker leaving me love notes and bringing me baguettes with WAY TOO MUCH butter on them [He's trying to kill me. Even at eight I knew that much butter would kill me.] before chasing me across Niagara falls on a high-wire seemed like the most terrifying thing possible. Now it's more amusing, and I have a little sit down with my brain in the morning and give it the eyebrow quirk. Nightmares have become much less fun as I age. Stupid real life. Ah, for the days when comic book villains were the only thing I had to fear.)
At one point in the movie, Vicky (ugh, that name just screams botox) gets herself in a mite bit of trouble (which skinny blonds in superhero movies never, ever do. So out of character.). Batman attaches some kind of vertical zip line to her (which if I were a real nerd I would know the name of and not just call "the-Bat-Vertical-Zip-Line-Thingy"), to whisk her out of danger. He asks how much she weighs (and really, if the "Bat-VZLT" can't haul Kim Basinger off the ground, why does he even carry it? Does he really think there's any chance in Hades she weighs more than him?). She replies "108, I think."
Somewhere in my little girl brain, something latched onto those numbers 1-0-8. My eight-year-old self determined that 108 pounds was therefore the ideal weight for a woman, who at some point in life might be interested in being saved from mask-wearing thugs (or Yankees fans) by a grown man dressing in tights. (I actually had someone correct me once, saying, "They aren't tights, they are fitted rubber pants. ... wow, that's so much better. I wouldn't dare question the masculinity of a dude in skin-tight rubber pants. Notice how they never show Batman getting dressed? This is why. There is nothing more repulsive than a man putting on tights ... or rubber pants. ... I'm a dancer; I know these things.
After the subsequent butt-kicking and reunion of Batman and our D.I.D. he quips, "You weigh a little more than 108." Little Abi decided that, perhaps then, a little more than 108 was acceptable. Although, I never reached a satisfactory conclusion on what that mysterious acceptable bulk was.
Sadly, Little Abi passed 108 long before she was available for rescue. For some reason I can't shake the idea that this is a good weight. If I was attached to a lie-detector and asked what my ideal weight was, 108 would be the only non-needle-jiving answer. And this with a complete disregard for everything I know about health and body types, and growing up and not acting like a toddler at some point.
Since my weight stabilized after having Hannah I have lost 25 pounds. I now weigh 10 pounds less than I did before both of my kids. As I continue to work at fitness, this obsession with 108 (or a little more) has returned. I'm not living via the scale, I'm not doing anything unhealthy, or disregarding the temple the Lord has blessed me with in any way. I'm just saying if I woke up tomorrow and the scale said 108 pounds, the little eight-year-old girl inside me would raise the roof.
At church on Sunday a friend mentioned that I was looking quite slim. Tiny, in fact. Like I had never had two babies. And like, I was, perhaps, the smallest thing in the world. She paused after this declaration and then clarified, "Well, except maybe for Asian women."
"So, I'm the smallest thing this side of Asia?" I queried.
"Exactly," she replied, relieved that I understood.
I don't weigh 108. I don't weigh a little more than 108. But I just might be the smallest thing this side of Asia.
Which is not a concerning statement at all.
Life is precious, from the moment God knew of it, we are human
There is a little girl in the arms of Jesus. And He is the luckiest being in creation. Because the rest of us are broken-hearted.
My dear friend found out in November that they had been selected as adoptive parents for Kate, a beautiful baby girl, due March 12th. We gave her formula, and a bouncer chair, and a swing, and a piece of our lives. On Monday Kate's birth mother delivered her, stillborn.
Now my friend is consoling a birth family, holding together her own family, choosing a two-foot coffin, and grieving with a pain too deep for words.
In the midst of it, she is being refined, and is being proved to have a faith purer than gold.
I keep trying to comment on her facebook posts. I want her to know that I am there for her, that I have lost a baby too, and my heart is weeping oceans for her family. I keep trying to say simple things: I am praying for you, you are loved, after all things God is only good. I just can't seem to manage to do it. There are no words. When your arms have ached to cradle your daughter, but now they will be empty of her until heaven's gates, then, there are no words.
I don't know what her story will hold besides faith beyond measure. My story is that the grief dulls, and one day you can think of your baby and not hurt. One day you will look excitedly to heaven and know a face, a giggle, a little human being will await you there. One day here, there will be joy ahead of pain. And one day there, there will be no grief at all. The darkness does not endure, nor do we mourn forever. My story is that God is good, and only ever good, and His faithfulness is new every morning.
My friend will have her own story. It will be beautiful and simple. And in eternity she will introduce me to Kate, her amazing daughter. And I will introduce her to my baby, who never had a name, but still had my heart.
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