If You've Wondered

The toddler has been flipping out for days.
Arching her back.
Banging her head on the floor.
"What does your shirt say?" Talia asks her, in a pleasant voice,
in an attempt to distract her from yet another fit.
"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!" she screams back at her.
She tries to hang on the open secretary desk.
"No, no," I say gently. "You can't hang on that. It will hurt you."
She melts down, slapping my leg and weeping,
and then attempts to climb me.

Her third tooth is in,
birthed through another sleepless night of thrashing and much Orajel.
She still has her charmingly sociable personality,
only it's been joined by an alter ego that is furious and mean.
She runs like a whirlwind through the house,
climbing things that scare me, and undoing all order.
She tries to climb the bookshelf.
She's taken down, and flings herself angrily at the ground.
When I try to read out loud, as our homeschooling lifestyle demands,
she yells through the whole experience.

She does not want her hair combed.
She does not want her diaper changed.
She does not want her nose wiped or her face washed.
She wants to eat, and rejects all offered food.
She spent several days in a war between her mouth,
which didn't want to put anything in it,
and her tummy, which cried for hunger.
She would only eat enough to take the edge off,
and then would be crying again shortly because it wasn't enough.

Nap times are respites.
Except we are reading through most of them lately,
since she interrupts so much of it earlier.
Why am I writing this?
Because maybe you wondered where I am.
Why I write so little lately.

I am tired.
We've had company,
and while I know they are people who love us, and aren't expecting the Hilton,
it seems reasonable to me that sheets be washed and basic cleaning be done.
And I can't keep up.
We are pressing on to finish school,
because that is one of our very top priorities in life.
And we are doing the dishes and feeding people.
And we are trying to keep from drowning in laundry.
And please don't even talk to me about my children's bedrooms.
Just shut the door.

As if drowning in dirty laundry wasn't bad enough,
WHY are the clean clothes being put back into the laundry again?
Please explain how the hampers in your bedrooms, 
the three hamper sorter in the hall outside your bedrooms, 
AND the large basket hamper in your bathroom just off the hall 
ARE NOT ENOUGH HAMPERS TO DEPOSIT YOUR DIRTY CLOTHES IN?

Life operates in seasons, and this is one of exhaustion.
When I have a few minutes, I mostly stare at a wall.
I miss writing more often.
I miss not stepping on toys and discarded food.
I miss time to think.
I miss reading books of my own choosing while not falling asleep.

High and Low

I could be doing something important with my life,
instead of living out the normal --
feeding, sleeping,
working, playing,
going, staying,
fixing, and correcting.
But then I read:
"Do not set your mind on high things, 
but associate with the humble."
And who is more humble than a child?
Their self-importance does not stop them from dancing
when the music plays,
crying when they hurt,
eating when they are hungry,
even though they might get food in their teeth.
When I give them gifts, they wiggle in delight,
and let their faces share the joy with me.
They don't hide their drawings
to save themselves from criticism.
They leave their scraps of poetry littered through my house,
instead of shoved into a binder
in the back of a private shelf.

Perhaps it is for the important people to say,
"I could be wiping someone's nose right now,
or coaching them through using a toilet.
Why didn't I take that chance
to read a book to a five-year-old when I had it?
I could have had conversations about crayons and Play-doh
instead of these mundane philosophies
I have occupied my time with.
My life has been wasted in high places,
when I might have learned more
tying shoes,
and helping people out of their jackets,
and putting lotion on rashes,
and lying on my stomach watching ants,
and rubbing my hands on the bark of a tree,
and folding underwear."

Because I am a Woman

I am not supposed to love the smell
of orange cleaner on my floors
if I mopped them myself.
It is beneath me,
because I am a woman,
and domesticity enslaves me.
If my husband mops the floors,
or a legal alien in an apron mops my floors,
and I pay her/it/him for it,
I am allowed to enjoy it.

If I plan a meal and buy the food,
and prepare it,
and set it on the table
the ideal thing to do,
if I am a real woman,
is to resent the effort spent.
Because I am a woman,
and feeding people is beneath me.

I am not supposed to like sitting down to nurse a baby,
because the breasts that baby needs
and the womb it came out of
are the symbols of my servitude,
of my lesser pay.
Because I am a woman,
and nursing a baby is beneath me.
Paying someone to give it a bottle empowers me.
If the baby needs me,
it makes me smaller
than if no one needs me,
because I do a job that any man could do.

I was not supposed to like it
when a man wanted to make a home for me,
and asked me if he could keep me forever,
and buy me dresses,
and would I raise his children for him?
He wouldn't have asked if I was a man,
and that should anger me.
I should only like it if he offers to use me and throw me away,
because I am a woman,
and marriage fetters me.

I am not supposed to walk around barefoot,
because bare feet show my poverty.
I am supposed to wear high-heeled shoes,
so he can't sit down and take my feet in his hands
and rub the soreness out of them,
because I am a woman,
and my happiness is dependent on shoes and a power suit
and money.

I ought to feel guilty
when a butterfly in my stomach takes flight
as I pin clothes on a line
and a breeze blows on them.
Bad woman.

I should be embarrassed that I planned to cook for them,
instead of getting a job
and using my paycheck to buy them some frozen chemicals.
Or telling them to get a job and buy their own chemicals.
It's medieval for me to do it.

But Today

If you didn't already know, we are a homeschooling family -- which means that my house is messier than I would like, because we have to get to work on school, and when we finish school, I am often drained. We're regularly behind on laundry. We don't have a dishwasher in the house, so I do dishes three times a day. If I skip a time or two, there are a lot of dishes to catch up on. We moved less than a year ago, and my dining room is still full of boxes we haven't unpacked. We updated the living room, the laundry room, the guest room, the fire alarms, much of the electrical in the house, and put in a new furnace. Those boxes have moved in and out of three rooms while we fixed them. Our table is in the kitchen until the dining room is cleaned out and finished. Next week, our downstairs bathroom begins its transformation. It will have its walls removed and replaced. There will be tile on two walls. Clean, white tile. The water damage behind the tub will be repaired. It will get a new floor, and eventually, paint on the cabinet and the untiled walls. A working outlet. The upstairs bathroom will also be getting a new floor. And a section of fencing will be installed shortly.

But today, we will enjoy our first full 'day off' of the summer. We finished our curriculum last Friday. And we finished our testing yesterday. On my plate for the summer: that dining room; finally cleaning out and organizing my bedroom, which has been a depository for extra mattresses and boxsprings, books on makeshift shelves (until the completed bookshelves were installed in the living room), and various other junk that did not yet have a home. I did clean and organize two of the three kids' bedrooms, but you can no longer tell. We will tackle the closets. Eventually. Set up the dining room hutch we were given, and fill it. Find places for the games, and the craft supplies, and the pictures on the walls. There is more painting to do everywhere. Oh, and I need to teach my youngest to read. And of course, the laundry will continue to outstrip us, and the dishes will be constant, and the meals will always need making, and the plants will need watering, and I am not going to go through this summer without tracking in a lot of beach sand which will need sweeping and vacuuming. Half of the family will leave toys in their wake, and every one of us will leave a trail of books through the house. I'll be ordering new curriculum soon, and wondering where I will store the years not being used. And I have those fourteen curtains I have to make for the porch windows.

Some day it will feel like we can just do maintenance and enjoy it. In the meantime, we battle the mess and try to get ahead just long enough to get something lasting accomplished. And sometimes we will close the door on the house, and go appreciate the beauty God gives us for the short season that we have and not miss out on the memories we'll treasure longer than our clean toilets.

Hither By Thy Grace I'm Come

(This is not Ebenezer.)

This has been a year of upheaval. 

Jeff has been at a new job for four months, 
and was recently promoted. 

He spent a couple of months without a job, 
and then from September until February 

working part time for very low wages.

God has been good to us.  

Friends we had not seen or spoken to in over a dozen years 

found us and sent money which miraculously 
always arrived in the nick of time. 

Thousands of dollars were mailed to us, handed to us, 

refunded to us, or snuck into our mailbox. 

Roughly $13,641 over the last year, as best I can tell. 

Food arrived on our doorstep. 

Friends invited us over to gather from their gardens. 

We expected a sparse Christmas. 

But on Christmas day, the tree was surrounded with gifts. 

There was never a surplus, but we had enough. 

Just as the spontaneous gifts dwindled 
(from multiple sources all over the country), 

and the part time work was about to end, 
he got a phone call asking him 
to come to work for a company 
two and a half hours south of our home. 

We had been praying and waiting for some time 
for the Lord to give us direction.

Jeff began this season of commuting, 

living with my sister's family during the week, 
and coming back to us on weekends.  

The day before Jeff began his commuting we had to junk his car, 

so I had no transportation if I stayed in our house.  

The kids and I moved into my parents' house 
so we could finish the work on our house 

and put it on the market. 

The stagnant buyers' market. 

The market no one can sell in. 

One week after we put it on the market, 
our house sold in a bidding war 

(which I might add, my mother, sister, and children were praying for). 

And we got full price. 

Our realtor was stunned. 

(Actually, both our realtors -- we had one down south already 

who hadn't seemed to believe us when we told her 
we would be selling our home shortly 

and wanted to start looking down there.) 

On April 15th, we closed. 

We paid off the mortgage, the home equity loan, 
our auto loan, and everything else in sight.

When we talked to our loan officer and he pulled our credit report, 

we laughed out loud. 

Our credit score was extraordinarily high. 

Higher than we are capable of generating 

in a year where our income was less than half of what we've had 
for many years past. 

Higher than it was when Jeff had a steady job with a regular income.

The bank has decided we are a good risk. 

The love of God is a good risk. 

Our realtor observed that, 

"It's obvious Someone is looking out for you." 

Our loan officer wrote to me, 

"He’s watching over all of this to make sure it’s happening."

About the time that we gave up on finding a livable home 

large enough for us, in our small price range, 

in a location we could bear to live in, 

Jeff noticed a new listing. 

I was not in the area at the time, 
and asked him to photograph it well so I could see it. 

We made an offer via cell phones and email. 

I hadn't seen it yet. 

About the same time we were submitting the offer, 

a dear friend of ours sent Jeff a text 

that referenced the verse we had on the chalkboard 
in our bathroom for a long time. 

It was a verse the Lord used with Jeff in the middle of the night 
when we needed direction. 

I don't think our friend knew its significance to us, 

and I know he was not yet aware that we were offering on the house.

It has four bedrooms. 

Five if you count the one without a closet. 

Two bathrooms (a rarity among old New England homes -- 
the only ones we can afford to buy). 

Curved walls. 

Ceiling fans. 

And a lot of painting and floor replacements in our future. 

And it needs new wiring and a new furnace, 
and replacement windows. 

But it is livable after we mop. 

And it was shockingly priced 
considering the others we have seen in that price range. 

And we have it under contract. 

At lower than the listing price. 

And it will have a craft/guest room off the dining room. 

The BIG dining room.  

And a bay window. 

And lots of closet space. 

And good light. 

And it is within walking distance of two of my sisters. 

We are scheduled to close on it Friday morning.

I think I am going to name it Ebenezer.