Live Where You Are

Life can get messy.  I'm tired this morning after a night full of Chatterbox and Baby taking turns in waking me up.  As I cough up what feels like chunks of my lungs, I'm thinking it's waaaaay too long sinceI visited either my own grandmother, or my husband's grandmother.  But I shouldn't visit them while I'm sick...

And a hundred thoughts of what I would like to do if I could are swirling around in my head.  But I'm finally learning something which I wish I'd really understood a looooong time ago.  I need to accept today for what it is.  As long as I give brain space to all the coulda, shoulda, wanna thoughts, I'm wasting this day that I'm living in right now.

As a kid, I spent so many years waiting to be a grown up.  Then, as a uni student, I was killing time waiting for the love of my life to come along.  Well, not completely - I had other plans too, but it wasn't until I was into my second year of uni that I finally "clicked" that I was living life, not waiting for it to begin - that I needed to live where I was, rather than waiting to be somewhere else.  That I needed to choose to live with purpose now, rather than drift in a sea of what-ifs.

But it's easy to forget that while, yes, I need to make plans and have intentions, in the end I can only actually live where I am right now.  If I want to be somewhere else, then I need to actually go there, rather than just waiting to magically arrive.

In other words, instead of longing for the day when my kids are more independent, I need to actually equip them for independence today... or, if that's not an option, I need to switch off the pointless longings and work on something that I can actually do.  I need to live where I am.

Yes, there is a place for healthy grief when our dreams are blown out of the water.  I've been there more than once.  But if grief is threatening to swallow me alive, then something needs to change.  I need to accept today as it is and live where I am.  Not where I wish I was.

Today, for me, that means resting, praying, reading the Bible, eating well, getting out in the sun, sitting here writing... wedged in between the reality of being a mother of four still-young girls.  Instead of fighting that reality, I need to embrace it, accept it and do it with all of my might.

Nope, there's no glamour and glory in laundry and dishes and brushing hair and guiding four little people in a hundred mundane and barely-visible ways.  But that's where I live right now, so that's what I need to do with all my might.

So how about you join me today?  Live where you are.  Accept today for what it is and live it for the glory of God.

Purposeful Parenting

If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to "be intentional" as a Mum. Of course, my younger self (similar to my current self) would probably arc up and ask what made me think she was just bumbling along without a direction and purpose. I still wish I could say it to her, though.

It's only recently that I've "gotten" that the little, everyday decisions all add up to an enormous future. Three times now, I've had a child hit about two years old and been suddenly overwhelmed with the enormity of the task of teaching them ... everything.

It's only with the Baby that I realized that learning how to treat other people begins at birth. I allowed three young babies to claw at my face and pull my hair. By the fourth it finally occurred to me that "unteaching" a toddler these habits was a lot harder than gradually setting reasonable boundaries for a baby from the start (e.g. gently taking her hand away and saying "that hurts Mummy" when she got too rough in her "explorations" of my face and hair).

That's just one small part of the big picture, of course. I'm not just talking about hair-pulling and pinching. I'm talking about having a plan (and I don't mean a detailed chart with daily goals and hundreds of bullet points - although if that's what moves you, don't let disorganized me put you off!) for where we're taking these kids. And then actually acting on that plan.

Theoretically, I guess, most of us Mums don't have a plan for our children to become helpless leeches... but we act like we do! (OK, so maybe it's just me who sighs and puts away the toys and sweeps up the crumbs and takes the bikes off the driveway because that's easier than having a "discussion" with a nine or seven or five-year-old about why they should do it. Or, even worse, having to teach them how to clean up properly... I know, I know - I'm a homeschool Mum, I'm meant to love teaching my kids stuff!)

Theoretically, we don't have a plan for our eldest child to be terrified of ever making a mistake ever (did I say ever?) . But we act like we do... Or am I the only one who circled (in red pen) every spelling mistake her five-year-old made when writing a story about "The volcano and the secret creatures" (yep, I've still got the story to prove it) - written off her own bat - complete with pictures of burnt up skeletons of the birds which didn't escape the raging inferno of the volcano?

Theoretically, we don't plan for our children to grow up believing that the louder you yell, the more likely you are to get your way. But we act like we do... Or am I also the only one who tells the older siblings to leave the baby alone when she screams ... without actually finding out what it was all about (like, is she screaming because her sister took back something she snatched from them?)?

So now (now that I'm becoming the magazine-cover-type mother with never a hair out of place, and definitely not even the slightest hint of being frazzled) I'm giving myself thinking space. I'm stopping to breathe, and to ask myself - am I actually living out my plan... or am I just reacting again?

OK, I know that sometimes life is so suffocating you can't seem to take a breath. Sometimes I'm just survival parenting. But I've discovered even in those moments there is the potential for better. Better might mean crying in front of the kids instead of screaming at them. Better might mean saying sorry when I "lose it"... And saying it again, and again... and again. Better might mean pasting on a smile over the headache (not pretending the pain isn't there, but saying "sweetie, my head is really hurting, but I'm still happy to see you this morning.").

So what's my plan? To live a life of growth. To infuse my kids lives with joy and hope and love. To teach them that there is Someone infinitely bigger, stronger and "lovinger" than me who they can turn to any time - especially when Mummy has a heachache. To admit my mistakes so they can learn to admit theirs. To be willing to let go of everything I hold dear in order to hold onto something infinitely more precious. To live for God so our girls can learn to live for Him too.

That's my plan, time to go and live it.