Sugar and Spice

Apparently the best laid plans of mamas are much like those of mice and men. Last night was no exception. We've been sucked into the polar vortex. It's freezing. It's hard to get out of bed and all I want to do is drink hot chocolate. We're already jamming Christmas tunes in the car. It's that cold. It's so cold, in fact, that on the way to school yesterday I told Pumpkin I was already thinking about getting back in my jammies. So I made big plans for the Browns to get home from work and get in jammies, light a fire, and have grilled cheese and chili while we watch Christmas movies. So, I got home. We took baths. We were in jammies before 6 PM.  Hubby made grilled cheese and chili.  Holiday Inn was on Turner Classic Movies. The scene was set for my perfect cold night in. The girls, of course, had other plans. They were berserk. They couldn't get along for more than two minutes. They wouldn't eat. They were tired. They were hungry for anything...

It will never cease to amaze me how two sisters from the same parents, raised in the same household, who even look alike can be so very different. Yet in their differences, they have the same profound effects on their little old mama. They exhaust me to the point of thinking I might drop while simultaneously keeping me on the tip of my toes, and my heart full. Browns Unplugged has been a success. We have had quite a month, as Boo Boo turned two and fall began to roll in. Pumpkin was telling the sitter that she was going to attend her first football game earlier this week. With hands, hip, and head bobbing she explained to her that it will be her first football game and told her matter-of-factly: "I've been having a lot of firsts. I had a first school bus ride, a first football game..." She didn't note the irony in my voice when I told her that happens when you're four. She continues to push and stretch me as I learn to parent by parenting her. As much...

There's something renewing about Sunday morning. The Christian Sabbath. It's the one morning we have nowhere to be until Church. There's extra cups of coffee. Playing before the chores of getting dressed and ready. Time is a little slower on Sunday morning. We sit down to breakfast. We talk and laugh. This particular Sunday feels particularly hopeful. There's a crisp cool air outside. We are coming off a good week. Things are clicking again. Cautiously, but clicking nonetheless. Hubby has taken the girls for their weekly donut date this morning. It's usually on Saturday but we had an early morning 5K, so they're cashing in their rain check. That leaves mama here with a cup of coffee and silence. My first prayer when I sat down was to thank God for his blessings. I keep coming back to that feeling of being blessed. And every time I do I think of this article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-dannemiller/christians-should-stop-saying_b_4868963.html S...

Losing control is not always as easy to spot as one might think. If you're still and quiet enough - present enough - you will notice the frenetic beat of your heart, but the chaos is not always as obvious as one might think chaos should be. I recently found myself in the middle of that sneaky dark chaos. I actually found our entire little family there and we didn't even realize where we were. It started innocently enough. I had surgery. It was a success (thank God) but I'm still recovering. Mama-try-to-do-everything became Mama-can't-do-anything. I had tons of wonderful help, including Hubby, but it wasn't the same. There was nothing concrete - the girls were fed, bathed, played with, loved. I thought they were fine. But it wasn't the same. Then school started and with school, football. Hubby had obligations outside the home. I encouraged him to do it despite his better judgment (he considered taking the year off while I recovered). I still had the mind...

I have learned so much in the past week.  I have learned that I am not a superhero.  I have learned that I cannot do everything.  I have learned that sometimes you have to let others do for you and that I have lots of others who love me enough to just that.  I have learned that I am married to a pretty darn amazing man.  And I have learned that humble pie doesn't taste that bad. See, I thought this surgery was going to go down differently.  I thought I was going to be the super-patient who leapt off the surgery table and danced a jig. I thought I'd be home in record time.  I thought I'd be able to do things myself as soon as I got home.  I thought I'd be back in the office on Monday. Instead, I had blood pressure complications and ended up not walking for much longer than even the "normal" APLF patient (much less the super ones). Instead, I had blood loss issues that made me stay in the hospital and away from my girls a day long...

I always try to be brutally and painfully honest here, so I won’t hold back this time.   I have a confession.   I am a control freak.   It is probably my single biggest flaw, because it manifests itself in horrible fits of anger, anxiety, and impatience.   I’m not good with things not going my way.   It is a true battle of faith for me that I struggle with every single day, but never more than when Pumpkin referred to me as “grumpy mama.” Specifically we were joking about Hubby being grumpy and Pumpkin’s matter-of-fact response was, “Daddy doesn’t get grumpy, only mama is grumpy.” Well, that felt like a hundred well-deserved knives in my heart.   I do not want my children growing up with a grumpy mama, or one they think is grumpy. And how dare I be grumpy in light of my innumerable blessings each day.   My battle is now one for my children’s happiness. Ironically, it is a battle that I can only win by laying my shield and my sword before God and su...

Every evening when we sit down for dinner, Pumpkin leads us in saying grace and then asks each one of us to "say your favorite part of the day." Yesterday I told her, without exaggerating, that the entire day was my favorite and I simply could not pick one single part. It started with us being late to church because of an unidentifiable death-smell emanating from our garage. After church, in temperatures nearing 100 degrees in the shade, we cleared and cleaned the entire garage from top to bottom with Clorox. After a family-wide nap, we brought Gigi lunch. Any of you that know Gigi realize that her home is the antithesis of child-proof, so after several (hilarious to me only) minutes of Bug destroying, banging, and throwing, we left there to get milkshakes and head home to swim. By the time we got diapered, suited, floatied, and sunscreened, the heavens opened up and thunder dictated we evacuate the pool. After getting cleaned and jammied (at 4:30 PM), we ordered pizzas, s...

Life is crazy. Life is unexpected. Life should be simpler. Many of you know by now, but my back is broken. Literally broken. Two vertebrae. The bottom vertebrae that support all the others; thus, all the others are collapsing. The x-ray of my spine looks like a giant C. It was so simple to diagnose - a simple x-ray - the dinosaur of modern diagnostic testing. So simple the local docs missed it. Sometimes parenting is like that. The simple things are so simple I sometimes miss them. Funny how a scary diagnosis from a doc makes you look at things differently. Notice things. Pumpkin is only four but I think she understands something. In the hustle and bustle of this first morning post-diagnosis she stopped me amidst my topping-off-coffee-packing-lunch-chugging-a-protein-shake-needing-to-get-dressed frenzy and asked so sweetly, "will you snuggle with me for one minute?" How could I say no? I curled up with her on the couch, breathed in her hair, felt her inhale and exhal...

Perhaps the biggest mystery of parenting is how life can be spinning so rapidly and out of control that you feel like screaming while time simultaneously drags on second by second as if each minute is an eternity. As you can probably already tell, this season of life has been trying for me. Nothing is going on of any importance to cause the "trying", it's just life. We are busy. Wee ball, swim, dance, Pumpkin turning 4, new puppy, work and trials and deadlines and expectations. Oh my. The funny thing I have realized about stress is that it is self-perpetuating. It brings out the ugly in you. You get upset about the ugly; red hot angry upset. That turns to stress. More stress. It's maddening. All of this is particularly true when you have a 4 year old who is just like you. She feels my stress. She reacts to my stress. She pushes back against my stress and then I meltdown. Then she melts down. Then I feel awful, embarassed, angry and...stressed. It isn't fa...

Bug has been struggling at swimming lessons. As much as she loves to take a bath and splash in puddles, she seems to hate being in the pool; or at least hates being at swimming lessons. She cries, screams, whimpers, clings and acts afraid of anyone who speaks to her. It is all very un-Bug-like. It got so bad last week we actually got out of the pool and went home. So last night there we were again, in the pool, kind, doting teachers surrounding us and mama trying like hell to act gleeful and chipper singing "Babies in the pool go splash, splash, splash" while Bug cries uncontrollably. Now, despite the hysterics, Bug dutifully fulfills each of her pool tasks. She walks the wall sobbing. She knocks down the turtles whimpering. She holds her breath and "swims" under water with tears streaming down her face.  She just seems to hate every minute of it (as do I). As we are checking off tasks on her chart, the teacher gets the idea to let her start jumping in to me. I ...

After what can only be described as a frigid winter (3 ice/snow days with actual ice/snow!!!), we are happy for longer days and sunshine!  I can finally quit having the same argument with Pumpkin every single morning before school ("Can I wear a dress today?", "No, it's too cold," "What if I wear tights?", "No, it's too cold," "What if I wear a jacket?," "No, it's too cold, maybe next week," "What if I wear boots?" "Fine, but it has to be a long sleeve dress," "But I'm wearing a jacket...") I've said it before and I'll say it again (but only here, where she can't hear me), there are times (many times) when I feel truly out-smarted by her. She is only 3. I have the advantages of vocabulary and literacy now, but sometimes I wonder what I will do when we are on more even ground (like, when she learns to read next year). A perfect example of her outsmarting me came as I...

Oh to have the heart and mind of a child. I know I say it all the time – it’s the siren song of this blog – but the thought hits me more than a few times every day that I share with my two precious girls. Pumpkin is 3 going on 30 and, although she thinks she knows everything, she still WANTS to know everything and an hour with her is guaranteed to present an almost endless stream of questions.   This was our conversation the other night while watching the Olympics (during the part of the games that she wasn’t passing out tickets to and engaging in her own performance in front of the television): Pumpkin:              Why is that man dancing with that flag? Me:                         He’s happy that he is at the Olympics representing his country. Pumpkin:      ...