motherhood Archives - Page 6 of 7

day in the life

February 02, 2016

It’s 5:30 when my first alarm goes off, and I hurriedly turn it off and go back to sleep.

About 35 minutes later I wake again, stirred by the sound of Jeremy’s shower. at about 6:13 I get out of bed. I’ve already decided that I’m staying in pajamas today–the prerogative of a thirty-something-weeks-pregnant woman. I also leave the bed unmade because I’m planning on washing EVERYTHING today.

I put on my makeup–even a pajama day calls for makeup–spray some dry shampoo in my hair, and go downstairs to make coffee. I make Jeremy’s in his travel mug as I’m already too behind for us to sit down and drink it together. I make mine, along with some Cream of Wheat, which is my current pregnancy craving.

I sit down with breakfast, a Bible, and the journal I’m using to copy down the Psalms one by one. I’m doing it because I’m terrible at reading the Psalms. I don’t remember to do this everyday, either, but today I do.

I finish the copywork and my breakfast and some brainless internet surfing, then head upstairs. On a whim I decide to curl my hair; I dyed it the day before, and that always makes me want to actually do something to it. I curl it, then put on a blouse and a skirt, even though I’m going nowhere today and just planning on washing EVERYTHING. I wait for the boys to get up. [Read more…]

heart (on perfection and grace)

January 07, 2016

It was almost more than this mother’s heart could handle, watching them there in the aisle of the grocery store: my oldest son, just weeks away from his fifth birthday, and the elderly gentleman who has asked for his help.

I’m not really sure if the man saw Ephraim’s eagerness to help me put things in the cart, then decided to give the boy another opportunity, or if he really couldn’t bend and reach the item as he claimed. But he asked for Ephraim’s help, and Ephraim bounded over to him eagerly, carefully making sure that he understood which item to select and place in the cart–a bag of egg noodles on the very lowest shelf–before doing just that, then running back over to me with a huge grin on his face.

“Mama, I helped him! I love helping!”

And I beamed with pride, at his politeness, his willingness to aid others, and the clear joy he derives from being useful.

It’s a moment that is easy to catalogue in the folder of “Motherhood Mission Accomplished.” And it does represent a good amount of work–there was a time not very long ago where Ephraim was surly and rude to people in the grocery store, where I stopped the cart and required he and his brother to repeat a polite response to a person’s greeting, rather than the childish and uncivil one they had chosen initially. I saw our trips to the grocery store as an essential component of real socialization. It helped that having a cartful of children drew the attention of many other shoppers–we were never in want of people to practice on. Now that he’s older and “out of the cart”, as I think of it, he spends our grocery trips helping me load and unload the cart, engaging the other shoppers in conversation, picking out the right item from amongst its neighbors after I tell him how it’s spelled. He has learned to be conscientious of blocking or bumping into people around him, and he excuses himself when he does. He is easy to take out.

After we’re all loaded back into the car, I thank the kids for their behavior in the store. I thank Ephraim especially for his help–it is right that I should. But while I’m proud of him, in my heart I also know that this is only half the battle.

[Read more…]

everyday

January 04, 2016

Edit: For a continuation and completion of this train of thought, see this post on slow living and rest, and its second part, here.

On our drive home from Kentucky, I read the book The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris.

As a full-time homemaker and mother, the frustration of the repetitive nature of everyday tasks is something I’ve grown incredibly familiar with. The doing of something only to have it immediately undone. Washing dishes to have them immediately dirtied. Sweeping the floor only to find a few minutes later it would need re-sweeping. The laundry basket that never, ever stayed empty.

toy organization. looks fun, doesn’t it?

[Read more…]

slice of life, may twenty-seventh

May 28, 2014

Coming downstairs to a room full of light

We eat oatmeal for breakfast every day

Ephraim always has his milk in an owl glass

And Clive’s bedhead is a thing of wonder

Anselm watches everything with awe

He’ll get his own bowl of oatmeal before we know it.

self-portrait, may twelfth

May 12, 2014

I set up my camera and tripod and set the timer for ten seconds. I brought the kids in to look at the red blinky light (which they loved) and got a few pics of all of us, them looking lovely and smiling at the camera (or the red blinky light on the camera) and me looking like I’m trying not to think about how the sun just went behind clouds and now the light is gone and the room is too dark. It was just a practice run, and I’ll try again.

I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t like to share things that haven’t passed my rigorous examination of “worth revealing to the general public.” (On a related note, even things that pass this exam almost immediately fail the same exam after their having been revealed–it’s just part of the cycle. There’s always next time and I’ll do better, then. I hope.) I don’t want to put motives in God’s mind, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that perfectionism is the reason why I have three strong-willed boys three-and-under.

To show that I’m learning, I’m sharing a fragment of a photo from a practice run, where the room suddenly went dark as the sun ducked behind clouds, and the two-year-old suddenly dashed out of the picture, and I have a comical look on my face because the baby started crying just as the red blinky light started pulsating and I’m holding his pacifier in his mouth and saying, “Don’t start crying now!” And he did, anyway.

What I like about it is that my hands look somehow weathered and older than they really are. They are the hands of a persevering, semi-recovering perfectionist. It’s not a very good photograph, but it’s a very real one.

self portrait, april twenty-sixth

April 26, 2014

My side of the room.

My interests, finely displayed: antiques, green things, home decor (in the form of dark blues and florals, two favorites at the moment); motherhood. And–since this is a photo–let’s list photography in there, as well.

There’s an old brass lamp that we found at an auction. Its twin is sitting on the end table next to my husband’s side. I had the urge to paint them not long after we first got them, back when painting things was the en vogue thing to do. I didn’t, and I’m glad. No reason. I just like them the way the are.

The plant is visiting from Anselm’s nursery. I’m letting it borrow the light from our window for a bit.

On that table you can see the monster cup they give out at the hospital (Ephraim is obsessed with the footprints on it). I will use it until I lose the straw. That’s what’s happened to the last two cups.

What you can’t see on that table is the couple of used tissues and a diaper that I probably changed in the middle of the night and managed to place on the end table instead of throwing it away. I’m not sure how that happened and we’ve already covered newborn-related memory lapses in a recent post, so I’ll move on.

Speaking of newborns, that bassinet has been used for nine children and counting: all three of mine, four of another friend’s, and two others. When we’re finished with it this time, it’ll go on to someone else. It’s been a frequent companion these past three years. I will miss it when it’s gone, but I’ll be glad to have the space back.

The newborn is not actually in the bassinet in this picture. He’s beside me on the bed, just out of view of the camera. He’s making googoo eyes at the ceiling fan. You’ll have to take my word for it.

self-portrait, april sixteenth

April 16, 2014

Myself, as I am at around 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16, 2014. It is cold in my house, and in the kitchen (where I am standing,) so I have a sweater on. It’s over a shirt that is supposed to be a pajama shirt, but I’ve never worn it as such, yet. I do get dressed every morning as a finely crafted habit, but don’t let that fool you in to thinking I somehow have things together. Once I decided to take this picture, it took me a solid five minutes to remember where I put my camera. When I remembered and went to the closet where it was located, it took me another five minutes to remember what I had gone there to get. Insert coined phrase about newborns and sleep deprivation here. It’s 8:00 a.m. and it’s all downhill from here (memory-wise.)

There’s decaf coffee in that mug. Actually, there’s nothing in that mug, since the coffee was still brewing at that point. But there’s decaf in it now, and will be for the next twelve months or so while I’m breastfeeding, since I’ve discovered my littlest is highly sensitive to caffeine. It’s not too big of a deal. The caffeine headaches are mostly tapering off. Is anxiety a sign of caffeine withdrawal? I don’t know. Is taking self-portraits coupled with borderline narcissistic blog narrative? Maybe.

I realized recently that I really don’t like red. In decor, in clothing, in cars. When I play trains with Ephraim, I always pick the blue one. When we play cars, I choose the turquoise Corvette over the red Porsche. There’s something about red that is too predictable, too bold, too bright, too likely to color-cast. I don’t care for it. Except this mug–I like this mug. Maybe its bold predictability will make me forget that there’s no caffeine in that coffee. Or, contrariwise–maybe it’ll jog my memory.

the new normal

March 20, 2014

On Thursday, on the first day of Spring, you are two days into your New Normal; you decide to stay in your pajamas for once, and to keep the kids in theirs, too. Tomorrow you’re going to tackle the grocery store for the first time with three littles in tow, but today you’ve nowhere to be, and you’re going to take advantage of it.

You wonder if you’ll seriously regret taking a picture of yourself in pajamas, but rationalize that you can’t see your face and you never take self-portraits, ever, though you have a new remote shutter release that you’ll be trying out soon to capture some pictures of yourself and your three boys and you’ll be dressed properly for those so hopefully that’ll make up for it.

You don’t make your bed because you’re planning on washing the sheets, which you then forget to do because you have spent the morning nursing the baby and playing trains with the Big Brothers.

You think to yourself that you’ll have to write a post soon explaining the art hanging above your headboard.

Your three-year-old spends the morning asking you to come make train tracks, and then sits in your lap while you build. When he isn’t, you take pictures of him. He’s gone from older to eldest and you still can’t quite believe it.

Your newly-christened Middle Son is content to play by himself and won’t look at the camera, possibly because he is still miffed that you won’t let him hang on to the side of the pack-n-play and bounce up and down, shaking the whole thing while yelling, “Baby, baby!” while his new baby brother is trying to sleep inside.

You make it up to him by reading twice as many books as normal before his naptime. He kisses you night-night, and all is forgiven.

Of course, the New Kid liked trains before trains were cool and shows his disdain by just sleeping through all the fun, a pouty expression on his face.

He’ll come around.

on mother’s day, pt. ii, or how I met my mother

May 13, 2013

If you frequent 18th-century forts, fireside chats, or trade fairs, chances are you’ve run across a dirty, raggedy, snaggle-toothed Irishwoman named Maggie Delaney who cheerfully demonstrates colonial laundry methods or educates the public on the horrors of indentured servitude.

If you haven’t met her, then you and I are in good company. I’ve actually never met her, either.

Now this is sort of complicated. Maggie Delaney is my mother. But no—she isn’t my mother. My mother is Carol Jarboe—who sometimes comes to my home wearing Maggie’s clothes, kisses me and my husband and my babies quickly before running upstairs to wash all that dirt off, then come back downstairs the lady I have known my whole life as Mommy.

But it occurred to me recently that maybe—just as I know of Maggie, but haven’t met her—maybe this woman I call “mom” is just as unknown to me. Not because I haven’t met her (obviously) but perhaps because my own naivete and self-centeredness has simply caused me to see her through a darkened lens. Like the child in that touching Mothers Day video, I have always seen her through the frame of my own life.

Let me explain.

Last week I was standing in the kitchen, cooking lunch for the family and reading this article on the growth of the homeschooling movement. According to research, the number of homeschoolers in the US has increased by 75% since 1999. (Aha! I think to myself.) Currently, 4% of the population teaches their children at home.

Woah, woah, woah. My kitchen and everything in it came to a screeching halt. 4%? That’s it?

Upon reflecting, it does of course make sense that the number would be small, but since I was raised in the homeschooling community and am still mostly surrounded by it, I never really considered how rare it actually is. And if the number of homeschoolers reaching 4% of the population is considered an “uprising”, then what must it have been twenty-something-odd years ago when my own mother took it upon herself to pull us out of our private school and teach us at home?

Suddenly I was doing a double-take at my memory of Mom teaching us the three R’s in our living-room-turned-schoolroom and it’s like I had suddenly realized she’s wearing brass knuckles and a leather jacket. Because taking on homeschooling when hardly anyone you know does it, when your family isn’t supportive, when there’s no blogs and no Pinterest and hardly even curriculum fairs because there’s only, like, three different ones to choose from anyway is NOT FOR WIMPY PEOPLE.

I would use a word right now, but because my Mama raised me better I’ll just say “bad-backside” instead. It’s pretty BAD-BACKSIDE.

Once my perspective shifted, I couldn’t stop it. When you grow up in a particular environment, you can’t help but take it for granted because it’s all you’ve known. But I could see now that things I considered normal or even commonplace were hardly that. Oh, I’ve known for a long time that Mom was different. Don’t get me wrong. But now I get it—I really get it. I get what she did.

When my sister and I were babies, she memorized a poem a week to recite to us. (Even today, when I read “The Willow Cats” to Elder Muse, it’s her voice I hear.) She went back to school to finish her degree so she could quit her job to stay home and teach us. She also ran the farm during the day while Dad was working full-time. She taught us the classics and exposed us to Music, real Music, the kind you can sink your teeth into and set your clock by, not “Devil Music” (that one is for you, you know who you are.) She taught us to swing dance in the living room with the green carpet and showed me how to make fried chicken. She drove me to ballet when I wanted to become a Prima Ballerina; later she drove me all over God’s green Earth to find a college with the major I wanted. Also, she once broke up a fight outside a mall when no one else would intervene. I’m telling you.

All this time my mom was a ROCKSTAR for crying out loud, and I didn’t even realize it because it was my “normal.”

Someone asked me recently what I had gleaned from my homeschooling experience and I didn’t answer because the answer was “EVERYTHING.” And that sounds like a cop-out answer, but it’s true. For me, there is no line between what schooling was and what it wasn’t our home life was our school life was our work life and Mom made it her priority and without it I wouldn’t be the person I am.

And right there in my kitchen, I had to laugh, because all of a sudden I remembered Maggie and I realized I knew her all along, that cheery, wild woman who overcame devastating hardships for the education and betterment of those around her. She’s my mother. And I love her.

To learn more about Maggie Delaney, click here, or here.
Photos swiped from Mom’s facebook and belong to their respective takers.
Baby in the last picture is my sister, not me, but who’s counting?

on mother’s day

May 12, 2013

Mother’s Day is a funny thing. If you’re a mom, it’s about you–but it’s also about everyone who makes you you. It’s about your mom, your grandmothers, your sisters and sisters-in-law, your mother-in-law and her mother and her mother-in-law, your husband and your kids, your friends and their husbands and their kids. I could go on.

I feel, sometimes, the invisible web of relationship and heritage and legacy is so thick and tightly woven and astonishingly beautiful that when you try to single out one thread to raise it and celebrate it, you unavoidably must raise all the attached threads along with it. I think it should be that way.

As a mom myself, I have spent the past few days thinking (even more than usual) about these people who have brought me to this stage in my life. In case the first paragraph wasn’t entirely clear, that means I have been thinking about everybody.

With three people in particular:

Because I owe them an awful lot for their contribution.

Happy Mother’s Day to you and to me, and to your mom and her mom and so on and so forth–Happy Everyone Day to Everyone and for Everyone.
🙂