on caring for sick children

For the past six weeks or thereabouts, on any given day, it seems that someone in this house has been sick.  Sometimes even two or three people.  It's not fun, it's not glamorous, and at times, it messes with your head and you start to believe there couldn't possibly be anything worse than caring for sick kids and being sick.

{Then you read a news headline and get a much-needed reality check and wipe those runny noses gratefully, of course.}

The thing about caring for sick kids, I've realized, is that it reduces your daily tasks down to the utmost of basics: keeping the children alive and caring for them tenderly and holding them and loving them and meeting their most basic needs.  On the sickest of sickly days, there is little to no cooking to be done except the simplest of nourishing things.  There are no big projects, and no extra cleaning or tidying gets done.  The sewing projects or home improvement tasks are put aside.   Work might have to be canceled to be made up later.  Fevered brows are felt and kissed, temperatures taken, natural healing remedies attempted.  The entire household forgets what it's like to sleep at night, and longs for the days when the healthy baby only awakened every three hours all night long -- a luxury compared to both children's seemingly ceaseless wails throughout the long, sick nights.

In February, when the first bout of illness struck, the suitcases from our recent travels were left unpacked by the door for three days as I walked circles around the house to get the baby to sleep against my chest in the Ergo, wiped a toddler's runny nose 1,000 times and gently applied lotion to her chapped nose and lips despite her protests.  There was no getting anything of substance done; all but the most necessary of work-related tasks were put on hold.  No errands, no getting out of the house.  No paychecks to show for my overtime mothering hours.   My existence was reduced to the barest of minimums and by only the second day of the first bout of illness I was asking myself, "what is the MEANING of life?"

These minimal things don't feel easy to do.  Sometimes, they feel really hard.  It is hard to change sheets and launder them again and again.  It is hard to hold children constantly for endless days.  It is hard to wipe dribbling orifices and go without sleep night after night.  It is hard to eventually succumb to illness yourself.  But part of the hard-ness of it is the frustration of all the other things that aren't getting done.

If what you have to offer isn't a symphony orchestra performance or a violin lesson, if it isn't a Pinterest-worthy home-cooked dinner, if it isn't a passably clean home or at least the children dressed in clean clothes each day, then what are you offering?  What is left, really?  There have been days this winter when I felt devoid of anything to offer.  With nothing tangible to show for my long days and nights, what was I accomplishing?

And then my toddler would wrap her arms around my neck when I lifted her warm little body to carry her from the couch upstairs.  "I love you so, so much, Mama," she'd croak, too sick even to whine very much at that point.  Or the baby would snuggle close against me, finally relaxing into slumber as I held her upright so she could breathe clearly.

And I would remember that what felt to me like long days of nothingness was everything to these little ones.

{I call this art piece Disheveled Mother With Her Sickly Young}

I don't remember how clean my own mother kept the house when I was sick as a child.  I don't know if she cooked elegant meals for the rest of the family downstairs when she was bringing me a piece of buttered toast in bed.  What I do remember is how soothing her hands felt on my forehead, how good it felt to sink into a freshly made bed after the sheets had been changed for me, and the calming sound of her voice as she reassured me that all would be well again soon.

I don't have very much to show for this flu and cold season in our lives, but I have two children whose noses shall go on being wiped and whose hair shall go on being smoothed and who shall know that they are deeply loved.  And perhaps that isn't such a small thing, after all.

the attic renovation project

It's been the spring and summer of the great construction project.  The third floor attic renovation that has curiously managed to take over my entire house, and left me wondering how it can be that we are paying a sizable mortgage payment every month for a five bedroom house, and yet somehow I don't have a quiet place to lay my baby down for naps anymore.

The air compressor, the nail gun, and the drill blast through Nell's nap time every afternoon.  She wakes too soon and decidedly too grumpy, day after day.  A large shopvac blocks the hallway, preventing me from coming and going to Nell's room except by turning sideways and squeezing past, inevitably squishing a foot or an arm of whichever child is in my arms and eliciting squawks of protest.  My kitchen pantry cabinet, instead of holding steel cut oats and almonds and canned goods, was home to a saw and other sundry tools for a week or longer recently.  My living room wall boasts four small drilled holes, a means of searching out some electrical question or other, and small piles of plaster dust in nearly every other room of the house belie similar explorations having occurred elsewhere, too.

I've given up trying to sweep the stairs or the upstairs hallway.  I've given up trying to vacuum anything, either, but only because the vacuum is literally inaccessible.  It is put away neatly in its corner in the guest room... and now covered with the things of our new tenants, my poor long-suffering brother- and sister-in-law who will be living in our newly renovated attic space as soon as it is finished.

A queen sized mattress leans against a wall in our TV room.  The second bedroom upstairs, intended to be Nell's "big girl room" soon, would be an ideal place to put a dresser for her clothes so that I wasn't cramming everything for both girls into the one smallest bedroom in the house, into the four little baskets of a changing table.  Yes, it would be ideal -- if it weren't currently filled with stacks upon stacks of things belonging to these new housemates of ours.

Even the garage is filled with things not mine, filled to capacity and beyond, so that entering it is nearly impossible and certainly walking from one side to the other would be inviting personal injury, and I can't store Nell's outdoor toys there this summer.

Our master bedroom, probably the only room not directly affected by the renovation and the new housemates, is messy.  "Messy," really, seems inadequate to describe it, in fact.  But with no other room available to lay the baby for her naps, she naps there, on our bed, and thus every time that my arms are free and I could tidy the bedroom, instead I must vacate the bedroom to let sleeping babies lie.

It's possible that a person might find these events upsetting, even aggravating.  Another woman might have reached her limit weeks ago, or even months ago.  And I can't say there hasn't been frustration over the course of this project.  But it wasn't the enormous saw stored on the nursery floor for several days that challenged my sanity -- no, that just made me laugh.  It wasn't the constant noise of the power tools leading Nell to wander the house saying, "Daddy, BANG BANG BANG!  BANG BANG BANG!" to describe the process unfolding upstairs.

It was the smell of cigarette smoke on the plasterers' clothing today as they came and went from my house all day long today, slamming the door repeatedly with no understanding of the importance of quiet for children napping.  That smell, that wretched smell.  It was today that I felt, for a brief moment, as though I might have reached my limit.

And then I poured myself an iced coffee and reminded myself that I have a house, a roof over my head and the heads of my children.

We have a future, this little family of mine, and one where we won't fear for our lives daily.  We plan for this future with extravagant ideas like buying furniture someday for those extra bedrooms because we have incomes and we can do things like buy things occasionally.  We dwell within these walls, we have food on our table each night, we bow our heads in gratitude.  We practice our faith with freedom and without fear.

We have family, these in-laws who are our new tenants, a dearly loved aunt and uncle to our kids, here sharing our home with us for the time being.  There are families twice this size not so very far across the globe from us who live together in just one room, and us?  We have ten rooms.  We have shared pizza nights and glasses of wine and laughter together.  We have in-house babysitters who love our kids because they are family.  We have a finally-almost-finished (!) attic that will improve the value of our home should we decide to sell it someday, or give us a lovely play space someday if we stay here for the long term.

Perspective.  Family.  And grace to endure a few more days of chaos.  That's what I chose to breathe deeply of today when for a moment I thought all I could smell was the cigarette smoke.

your image is not your legacy

I was doing some thinking this evening while I was out running -- well, jogging, anyway -- okay, lumbering might be the best description of what I look like out there these days.

My thoughts this evening were about these oft-elusive things we pursue through exercise, about my desire to shed eight or nine pounds of baby weight, about God as our creator and about body image and raising daughters and other such things.

The truth is that it is hard for me to really believe what God most likely believes about our bodies: that God doesn't find a 5'8" woman more beautiful than a 5'4" woman, that he doesn't think a model is more beautiful than an average mom.  And that it is God's thoughts on these matters that, well, matter.

And this is a problem, because I have two daughters and I need to be able to teach them from a place of sincere conviction the truth about these things.

So, it was probably a good thing that after my jog, I happened across this piece by Glennon Melton: Your Body Is Not Your Masterpiece.  Some good thoughts there.

* * *

"Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it's all you've got to offer the world. Your body is not your art, it's your paintbrush. Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life..."       ~ Glennon Melton of Momastery

* * *

It is easy to feel, in this age of cell phone cameras, Instagram, digital photographs, and blogs with perfect pictures galore, that what you look like is your legacy.  It isn't.  

I am a big advocate of healthy eating, healthy moving, healthy living.  But health shouldn't be the only end goal. Pursue health so that you can go out and do all the things you want to do, be it playing in a symphony, taking your kids to the park, reading, spending time with family and friends, fixing up an old house, gardening... you get the idea.  Those are some of the thing I love to do, anyway, and I'd better make sure my desire for a certain kind of 'paintbrush' in this life doesn't keep me from doing the 'painting' I'm supposed to be doing.

There you have it, friends.  Go ye therefore and get painting!

Envy is Like Socialism

Recently, sitting in an orchestra rehearsal of Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony, I had a realization:  Envy comes from a similar place as socialism.  It's like socialism of the heart, you might say.

I don't often get super political on this blog, but I am not a person who thinks that the more the Bill Gateses and Steve Jobses of the world have, the less I have.  On the contrary, I think that people like that are creating jobs for others, creating economic growth, and allowing not only the potential for economic flourishing, but also for creativity to flourish, for advancements that foster all kinds of far-reaching growth.

I may be struggling to pay my mortgage some months, but I don't think a doctor driving a BMW is somehow causing my problems.  And I actually do pretty well with not envying those hypothetical people, the folks running big businesses, the men and women I glimpse from afar in their designer clothes and expensive vehicles.

Your friend that lost 30 pounds?  She's not making you heavier.  Her new clothes from Nordstrom aren't making your thrifted clothes any worse for the wear.  Someone else's nice car isn't the reason my husband drives a Honda that is falling to pieces, and another man's Armani suit isn't why Nathan's two suits he's been rotating for years are in sore need of replacement.  We're not eating home-cooked beans because someone else is dining out three meals a day.  And the gorgeous house across the street from ours isn't the reason ours came with such a long list of things needing repair or renovation.  I know all of that.

But I am totally, absolutely, definitely guilty of envying others their gifts and talents.

That guy is getting better gigs than I am!  Growl, fume, sigh, etc.

She has a better violin than I do!  Bristle, stew, seethe, etc.

I'm exaggerating, of course, but haven't we all felt the bitterness of jealousy creeping into our hearts at times?

His tone is better than mine!  She started younger than I did!  He went to a better school!  He won that audition I should have tried for!  She just knows the right people, that's why she's more successful!  He has more time to practice than I do!

The truth is - while there's an element of scarcity in the market of talent, and sure, there are only so many orchestra jobs to be filled - another violinist's beautiful tone, or superior sight-reading skills, or amazing bow technique don't make me a worse violinist.  His $60,000 violin isn't making mine cheaper.  Her wealth of talent or ability isn't making me poorer.

On the contrary, you might say that those abilities are bringing about a flourishing of the economy of ability.  One violinist's sensitive phrasing inspires me to play more beautifully, too.  A musician with a particularly beautiful subito pianissimo makes me want to practice mine.  Hearing a violinist behind me race through a particularly tricky passage cleanly motivates me to practice it so I won't keep messing up that one little spot. 

Another violinist may be, in a sense, the reason you or I are not in that symphony we wanted to be in.  At the end of the day, there are only a few seats open, and a hundred violinists vying for them.

Or maybe it's the guy at your work who got the promotion or the raise you wanted, or the woman who landed the job you had hoped for.  Sure, on the surface, maybe you didn't get it because he or she did.

But the skills or abilities they have that led them there... those gifts are not making you or me poorer, are they?

There's enough talent to go around.  Our differing gifts and abilities make the world a more beautiful place.  And there's enough beauty to go around.

So thanks, Mendelssohn, for the moments of beauty, and for the realization that socialism in the economy of talents is as silly as it is in the economy of finances, and that, after all, I'm pretty rich just the way things are.

Don't be jealous.  It's such a waste.