Quote of the Day

"I thought it was play-doh!"

-Ellie, hand smeared in Eric's poop. Never letting that guy run around naked again, no matter how much he likes airing it out.

Perspective

It gets harder with each successive pregnancy to be in the moment. The first time around, it’s all a mysterious journey navigated with great anticipation of what’s around the corner. Labor seems almost worth it for the sake of finally getting to meet the baby. You can’t imagine what it’s like having someone drink milk from your body. It’s all slightly mystical.

By the third time around, it’s like I see the pink strip on the pregnancy test and boom—I see the thirty pounds coming on over nine months before taking another six months to lose it all. I feel the contractions again, the engorgement, the grouchiness of sleeplessness. I can guess what the baby will look like when it comes out: a pink, scrunchy elderly Asian alien. If I squint hard enough I can even see the months of pureeing and spooning food, the inevitable toy-throwing and bickering, the potty training.

It’s not that I wasn’t happy to see the pink strip—all our pregnancies were highly planned-for, desired events we didn’t take for granted—but somehow in this aerial, fore-shortened view it’s easier to see the hard things. I have to work harder to see the good moments; to remind myself that those moments are different each time, and not let them pass me by.

I guess that’s how it is with parenting in general—you get so eroded by the mundane, difficult things that it takes effort to recall the good things. You have to develop ways of doing that, like cataloguing those memories through writing or pictures, making an effort of sharing that with your spouse instead of complaining, or just getting a break away so your perspective shifts.

In Psalm 139 it says, “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them”—he truly sees everything, not as we think we do through our pride or jadedness or postulations—yet he is fully present with us in every moment. He doesn’t discount what is happening because of what will happen; he doesn’t see what happens to us relative to what happened to someone else.

I think that’s where I’d like to be with this pregnancy. To not just see the baby as the reason it’s harder to be rested at night, to clean stuff off the floor, to hold the other two in my lap. To be more in the moment, good as much as bad. To arrive at a place of anticipation not out of ignorance, but even knowing all the difficulties that will come, is harder, but I think means more. One day I may look back and even miss all this. Or maybe I’ll just be glad I can fit into my old jeans again.

One and Three Years Old

I finally in some spare time caught up on blogs from a few friends, admiring their pictures and realizing that I haven't posted, well, in general for a while, but certainly nothing of the kids-- so here they are:

This is what they look like most of the time, goofing around together:

The Universe According To E

1. A band-aid, preferably a porous one, must immediately be applied to all hangnails. The band-aid must cover the posterior cuticle but not the anterior two-thirds of the nail bed.

2. Band-aids must never contact water.

3. Boogers are an emergency. They must be extracted in some fashion even when too far back to be visible from the nostril.

4. No door to the house can be open for more than a few seconds to prevent the possibility of bugs entering the house.

5. All bugs within the house must immediately be killed. Personal visual confirmation must be obtained that they have been manually crushed.

6. Pajamas are acceptable wear for any outing.

7. Formal dresses are acceptable wear for going to sleep at night.

8. The blanket on the floor of her room must be flat with no visible wrinkles.

9. Most numbers in the world—how many stories can be read before bedtime, how many stuffed animals can be brought on a trip, how many bites of food must be eaten—are negotiable and can be changed through clever, mathematical bargaining.

10. Anything that has a peel must have the peel completely removed before it can be eaten.

Litmus Test

I am sitting here contemplating the difference between the past two days. Yesterday, it was one trial after another with the kids. I had stayed up too late reading an unedifying novel and woke up tired. E seemed to continuously whine and be picky, and I nearly lost it a few times. Perhaps as a result, she became clingy, wanting to sit on my lap permanently the whole morning. Dee-dee threw several tantrums. At one point I just sat back holding them both in exhaustion while they were trying to push each other off my lap so they could get it for themselves. Neither of them seemed to eat well; I finally put on Dumbo to get them both to be quiet enough for me to prep dinner and do a few chores before leaving for work.

Today, we all went to Bible Study Fellowship. After we came back, there were the usual moments of whining, spills, accidents, clinginess, but we got over them quickly. The fridge seemed empty but I threw together some pasta, tomatoes, cucumbers and peas that they ate with relish, then chopped some fruit. We invented some naked games: naked sit-in-the-brown-box-with-the-packaging-paper (E: “something wet is on my hand. I think dee-dee peed”), naked Cheerios games, naked dancing time, naked bath time. Boy, does he love airing out his bum.

Parenting is such a spiritual litmus test. You are what you eat, spiritually speaking. There are the usual variables like amount of sleep, health, etc, but in general I find that when I’ve been feeding myself spiritual junk, when I live a grubby thought life, I tend to find the kids annoying and difficult. When I have spent time with God, or talking or hearing or thinking about the bible, then the kids tend to be pliable and enjoyable. Whatever’s in me, the reserve that doesn’t get tapped under usual social norms, gets squeezed out around the kids, good or bad. It comes out in what I say, in my tone of voice, in what I mutter under my voice, in my expressions and body language. And I think the kids not only react to my speech and actions, they reflect my internal emotional moods and spiritual state. I would go so far as to say that the entire mood of the home, the atmosphere of the house, reflects it.

It’s high stakes that way. What I do with the rare hour or two a day I get of free time, and what I think about when I have spare mental space, is important. If I fill that time with mindless leisure, selfish or sinful thoughts, then I tend to get days like yesterday. If I spend some time with God, enjoying nature or music, writing or crafting, thinking about someone else, praying, then I get days like today. Before, this stuff just meant I had a moderately crappy or pretty good personal day. Now, it means I have two bawling kids and a husband who comes home to complaints, or two laughing kids and a cheerful, peaceful space for said husband to enjoy.