Did I grumble about being a SAHM? I was crazy!

I have a new appreciation for being at home full-time. I worked full time for a year, and it seemed I never had time for anything. I was gone from the house for almost 12 hours a day. Birthdays were a huge hassle requiring efforts in minimizing fuss, and food was fast, processed and not necessarily healthy. Errands were squeezed in after work or took up precious weekend time. Sick days or doctor and dentist visits were a question of "who did it last time?" or "who has more sick leave?" Childcare was a nightmare this summer, patched together pieces of vacation time, kind friends, even kinder relations, and a ridiculously expensive option provided by our employer. Our younger son also struggled in school last year, and I think me working was part of it. My hat is off to anyone who manages this all the time.

Most of all, however, Christmas was one more thing to check off of a list. I hated it. Anything I decorated would just have to be taken down again, and I had a horrible attitude about it. I don't remember one present I was excited about giving last year, and I am usually big on matching the perfect gift to the recipient. I did a lot of getting through it. This year, even with school, the pace is slower and we planned ahead of time what we wanted to do. We're finished shopping, and the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. I've started cooking and freezing appetizers for our Christmas Eve finger food feast. Maybe it's the closet control freak in me, but it feels so much more peaceful. The boys are happier, and so are the rest of us.

I am reflecting on what Christmas really means this year, and for me, it's this: peace. Before Jesus, it's impossible to know real, lasting peace, because carrying around a lifetime's worth of sin is such a heavy burden. Knowing Jesus, appreciating His birth and sacrifice for me, lifts that burden and replaces it with a peace, with God and with those around me. This year, forgiveness is the Christmas gift for which I'm most thankful, and I hope you have found it, too.

Has It Been a Month? Really?

The job is great. Challenging, but pretty undemanding in terms of deadlines, overtime and such. The schedule, however, is taking some heavy adjustment. I'm getting up at 5:30 every morning, otherwise referred to around our house as dark-thirty, because really? I'm so not a morning person. I have always thought that a 3-11 shift would be about right for me. When I was a teenager, I used to be merciless in making fun of my mom because she was ready for bed every night around 8:30. Now? That is so me. However, the after school care has worked out in a way that's a real blessing, the Hawkeye and I have been able to work out a schedule that has the boys leaving about 7 and getting home about 5, and otherwise the whole thing has been pretty painless. We have our first real test tomorrow - Little Brother has the makings of strep and a 102 degree temperature, and Hawkeye will be taking his first sick day for one of the boys and making his first sick appointment with the pediatrician ever in the morning. I think it's good for him! I do, however, hope Little Brother feels better soon. He is the most pitiful sick kid you ever saw.

Feeling Thankful and Thoughtful

The boys and I had a picnic this week with another lovely family, a mom with two boys (unrelated note to our school system: the early dismissal days in the middle of the week are the dumbest of a long line of dumb ideas that anyone has ever generated. End of rant). The mom helped with Big Boy's den during day camp, and her son and Big Boy really enjoyed each other's company. This other family homeschools, and it's been a couple of months before we could get our schedules together.

I tend to focus on my boys' faults - the ways I wish they were different. I get overly concerned about their ability to focus, listen, and obey all the time. It can really lead to a critical spirit and I'm sure makes me not a lot of fun to live with at times. I think it's because I tend to turn the same magnifying glass on myself, and find many of the same faults. So, what drives me crazy about myself drives me crazier when I see it in them. I don't appreciate enough who they are - the neat gifts God has given them, how much fun they are, how loving and kind. Sometimes I spend too much time worrying about what they do instead.

What about the picnic made me think about these things? This lovely mother has two sons, and they are both autistic, and at different places on the autism spectrum. I can't even imagine how difficult daily life must be for her, much less managing homeschooling and her own needs and those of her husband. They are great kids with sweet spirits. But what I have thought a lot about in the days since our picnic is how positive and accepting she was of those boys. How patient, and kind. She did such a great job of redirecting her sons when they were out of bounds and adapting to their needs. In a couple of hours, she showed me where I fall short. Not intentionally, and I doubt if she even noticed any of the things that impressed me, but they did.

I've wondered what makes us able to extend patience to others, with greater or lesser degrees of success. Really, I think it's about appreciating grace more. It's amazing that God is so accepting of us. He loves us completely no matter how atrocious our behavior (and mine is, sometimes). He forgives us completely when we mess up and ask for another chance (and sometimes I really stink at that). I imagine he'd like me to conform a lot more closely to his standard, but he appreciates and understands that growth is a slow and steady process. I think if I can truly appreciate that grace, maybe I can extend it more freely to others, particularly those who live in this house with me. Maybe it will help me remember my life is not nearly as hard as I sometimes make it out to be.

Maybe it will help me see how full of good things my life really is.

School has arrived!

Summer vacation is officially over. And . . . hmm. I thought I'd be glad, but this has felt like a season of endings the last few weeks. I'm looking for a job (and wow, that is much more difficult than I expected, but that's a thought for another day). I haven't held a full-time job in ten years, so this is a real titan of a change for us. This was probably my last summer at home, and I wonder . . . did I enjoy it enough? Did I appreciate the gift of being home with my boys the way I should have?

Big boy will be looking at middle school next year. Little brother will be looking at third grade, and really isn't a little boy any longer. Although he'll always be my baby, he's growing up, and seven is shaping up to be a good year for him.

Maybe I should look at what we accomplished this summer:

* The boys and I spent about three weeks working through age-appropriate Bible studies, which was some precious time learning more about God's word. They loved it, and so did I.

* Little brother really got comfortable with chapter books this summer. We spent lots of quality time with library books and all enjoyed reading.

* I've seen the boys change in their play. They are imagining together now, and it's such a treat to watch them. They have hideouts and are really enjoying one another's company.

* We spent wonderful time with our families this summer, helping them celebrate milestones in their lives. My grandmother celebrated her 85th birthday, and Hawkeye's parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

* Hawkeye and I celebrated our 15th anniversary with a relaxing, wonderful cruise. I enjoy his company more now than I ever have, and we appreciated the time to enjoy our marriage. Thanks, Mom!

* I learned to can. I've canned salsa, tomato sauce, and today, watermelon rind preserves.

So, maybe this has been a good summer. Busy, but with good things. Fast, but packed with memories to savor. The boys are excited about school, so on with the school year!

The Sounds of Summer

I heard my first cicada of the summer a week ago. It’s such a distinct summer sound, especially since they call in the daytime, usually in the heat of the day. I don't hear them nearly as much in Tennessee as I did growing up in Georgia, so this was a treat.

That sound screams ‘summer’ to me. It is forever wrapped up with long, lazy, hot Georgia days spent mostly in the shade of deep woods, climbing trees or swinging from them, building trails or playing made-up games. I remember what a drink of water tasted like before water bottles, when it was right out of somebody’s hose. I smell freshly crushed pine needles from climbing saplings. I see the deep, almost black purple juice that comes from poke salad berries when you crush them (it’s really purple on your clothes, though. And it doesn’t come off, either). I remember the smell of scorching hot pavement, wet from a summer thunderstorm, and playing in the garage with the door open, listening to rumbling thunder and pounding rain hit the driveway outside.

Cicadas are for bike-riding days, when we raced up and down the street, putting our feet on the handlebars as we flew down the hill, the wind cooling us when nothing else would. They’re for days of playing on the slip-n-slide until it was a puddle of red mud at the bottom and we all had swimmer’s ear by that evening. Evenings of catching lightning bugs and imprisoning them in a mayonnaise jar with holes poked in the top, just for an excuse to run around in the dark.

Cicadas are childhood to me, I guess. I hope someday they mean the same to my boys, wherever they end up, but somehow I think their memories will be different. Tennessee doesn’t have pine, it has cedar. We don’t live in a subdivision, but in the country. Their friends are mostly each other. I can’t let them roam nearly as freely or as far as I did. But the games of childhood haven’t changed - they enjoy riding their bikes and swinging from trees. They run and chase one another in the gathering dusk, and lightning bugs are still fascinating. Long, carefree days can still be magical. I do love summer, and its short duration reminds me: this is a season of life to hold on to with both hands.

The Summer of Extreme Traveling (TM) is now over

. . . . and we are officially tired. I tend to be a terrible traveler, and get cranky and sore, and I'm not sure that I ever want to travel that much, that closely packed together, ever again.

However. I have to say that we had wonderful, sweet visits with family. The kind where everybody is laughing, kidding around, and just enjoying each other's company. The ones that make you wish family vacations or something like them were an option more often, because we love our families a lot, and we just don't see them enough.

The boys had a ball playing with all of their cousins, doing silly kid things that they will remember fondly someday. Things that involved lots of giggling and running around and noise. The kinds of fun things I still remember from my childhood.

There was also some swimming in hotel pools (because as far as they are concerned, that is why we travel), and spending quality time with the travel DVD players. Because when it comes to traveling, I am a wimp, and let them watch more TV in a week's time than they watched in the previous six months. Which might leave them a smidgen, tiny bit, overstimulated and cranky. (Note to self: come up with some better TV rules before the next road trip, which better not be any time soon).

So, summer is now winding down for us. We finish Vacation Bible School tonight, and then there's about two weeks until school starts. What a summer!