Sweetheart, you're so cruel

After telling my Peanut she was making me frustrated and that she needed to go get ready for bed or go to time out. She said, "You are destroying my heart. I can actually feel it breaking in half." Yeah, nice try. Go brush your teeth girl.

But sometimes I do wonder if I am breaking her heart. If I am crushing the free, exuberant joyful spirit she has by all the times I tell her to give me space, to leave me alone, to stop doing something, to just go play by herself. So her words hit hard straight to that place of self doubt in me. The mommy guilt churns around in my gut. She's breaking my heart.

I feel so pulled apart by this girl. There is no one who makes me this angry. No one who pushes my buttons like she does. No one except her father. Yet, I love them both so passionately. Peanut's name here on the blog describes nothing except her physical stature. She is such a free bird and she takes up a lot of space. A lot of my psychic space. She fills the room with herself. She pushes in and over my boundaries, physical, emotional, spiritual. She is amazing though. Truly. Thinks out of the box, creates, invents, tells stories...wonderful stories. She is the girl in highschool I wanted to be with and be like. She's the girl in college whose art I wished I could imitate and whose life I wished I could lead. She's the woman now that makes me laugh, get outside myself and remember to enjoy life. She will be all these things to someone someday. She will drive me crazy and make me so proud. I pray I can hold it together to be there for her. Please hold me together.

Found this wonderful piece online

Art by Kirsti Ottem Langeland

I had the feeling it was out of control

Two very dear children in my life are facing serious loss for the first time. The are 10 years old. They are sweet kids. They are facing the serious illnesses and even possible deaths of loved ones--close friends and family members. I wonder about them and how they will make it through this time. I am thankful they have supportive families. I worry about them. I pray for them. I hope I can be a help to them because I have been there.

When I was ten years old my best friend's mother died of cancer, another family friend's mother died of cancer while my own parents spent their evenings fighting behind a closed bedroom door. My world was in chaos, but I could not have told you that. I was afraid, but I could not have told you that. I was actually panicking, but I did not even know that myself. I was very close to my parents, but I did not tell them what I was feeling because I didn't fully understand it. It was too big for me to let myself feel it. I was a shy and quiet little girl. Very quiet.

As a result of all that was going on I got the stomach flu. For a month. That's when we knew it wasn't really the stomach flu. Chronic vomiting spells for weeks on end. Upset stomach, abdominal pain, lethargy, lack of appetite, increased reserve at school. Yes, my first fight with depression and anxiety at age 10. That's when I started therapy.

I felt intuitively that I wasn't supposed to talk very much about the counseling with very many friends. It was somewhat of a secret outing downtown to Chelsea and I was usually able to swing some kind of street loot out of the visit (a new woven bracelet or headband). I think perhaps my parents just wanted to protect me...I don't remember ever being explicity told not to tell people, I was just very intuitive and picked up on the fact that we didn't have to really mention it unless I wanted to. So I'd go meet with "Lois". White noise whirred. Lois gave me crayons, markers and paper at the coffee table. She calmly asked me questions as I colored. I don't remember one thing we talked about. Not one. The only thing I remember is a relaxation exercise she taught me involving floating on white clouds. I used it repeatedly in the school nurse's office the remainder of the year. As the year went on the nausea and stomach pain stopped. I remained quiet, but grew more cheerful again, more content, more myself. I was helped through a grieving and separation process that I could not navigate. That was probably the beginning of my interest in complimentary health fields, stress management and holistic health models.

I returned to visiting Lois for more therapy at age 13 when I was given the choice of which parent to live with for the remainder of my school years. Again, I don't really remember what we talked about. I remember sheets of yellow composition paper covered in lists of pros and cons. I remember at the end of it all being able to safely voice the decision my heart had made when I was first asked which parent to live with. I am thankful for Lois. I don't even know her last name and I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her, but she probably changed my life.

My hope is to someday be able to get the Pediatric certification in Cranio Sacral Therapy so that I can help children that may be struggling physically or emotionally as Lois helped me. So when I say I'm looking for a sponsor on my Facebook update that's what I'm wishing for. Someone to put me through those trainings so I can get to that work sooner, but I am trying to be patient. Waiting for my time to give back...

Meanwhile there are plenty of little hearts that need my hands to hold them up...without needing me to have any formal training.

Belated Wordless Wednesday

Rainy Days

I have to find the courage to walk out

A while ago I wrote about my struggle with finding or prioritizing time to step out and serve others. Our pastor says that ideally we would not need constructed service projects, but that the church would simply be living and walking like Jesus, loving and serving our neighbors everyday. This indeed would be ideal, but for me I also really value the group service projects. It brings our church community together and we worship together through serving. The couple I've been able to attend have been encouraging to me spiritually plus we got so much done as a group.

I have missed several opportunities to attend a service project I signed up for, but there always was another need present. Once my daughters got sick with a stomach bug. Then a good friend needed us to hold their family up and watch their children. Another time I simply could not find anyone to watch my children. Still another time I showed up to visit someone in need and they just weren't home. I was feeling kind thwarted in even my feeble attempts.

I have started to realize that sometimes my place to serve is sometimes at home or just for friends. It certainly does not have to be an organized activity or something I was planning. I must be able to respond to needs as they arise-to listen to the Spirit who calls me to hesed, loyally serving with loving kindness, grace and mercy.

On the other hand I don't want to use the idea of serving at home as an out either. It would be easy for me to say, "Hey I have two little kids, a husband in grad school and I work part time. So I can't help anyone else right now." That is what my reality feels like. And yet everyone's life is full and mine are not the only needs in the world. There are things I can do. I can hold up my friends and watch their children, I can pray for others, I can bring my kids along to paint somebody's house. But sometimes my place to serve is just with my children. The place I still struggle is really listening to the Spirit to discern where and when He wants me to be.

I remember being in college and having what felt like endless hours to sketch, journal, read and pray, I didn't have many friends or extra curricular activities, so that's what I did in my free time. Now finding 5 or 10 minutes each day to do any of those meditative practices can be a challenge. I am trying to build this time into my day more. I've prioritized exercising my body so now for another part of me. I just tend to not like to have constructed spiritual times, but that would be the ideal to spontaneously be worshiping in whatever I do, but I need a little help considering the two little pixies who buzz around interrupting my train of thought all the time.

Perhaps as I practice I will be able to integrate this listening to the Spirit, worshiping, serving and filling sippy cups better.

What I want is to live this way:

Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can't defeat
Neither down or out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now

~Bono, U2

Wordless Wednesday

Potty Training is more fun with a big sister.

My heart melts when Peanut shows affection for Sweetpea...
if only it happened more often.

Seven, Eight, Nine, 90x

I've been working really hard for the last 3 months. I've been doing P90x. I know! I can't believe it either! It's not my typical style. I do like most of the workouts though. There are lots of things in it that I still can not do, but I've really improved over the past few months. My fitness level is great. I tried doing another workout to mix things up and ended up doing 2 of them because I didn't feel like I'd done anything. I am not doing their nutrition plan or supplements.

The first month I was really hard core about it. I only missed one workout. Then reality started to catch up with me. My daughter had trouble with her quiet rests again. My husband's grad school load got heavy again. I ran out of personal time. I got my period. My Sweetpea got a stomach virus. I got a bad head cold. I hurt myself during my performance of "The princess has been fatally wounded" dance. I got my period again. I have persisted with the workouts, but they do not happen everyday anymore. I am probably averaging every other day. So this will be more like P180x. I am not actually aiming to get "totally ripped." I am however enjoying being in the best shape I've been in in years. Also, my anxiety and stress levels are much lower then they have been in the past so this really regular and quite vigorous exercise has been really good for my mental health too. I am also less fatigued overall.

I did not loose any weight the first month. The second month I lost a few pounds. Then last week I noticed I'd lost a total of 7 pounds. This week...it looks like the number has gone to 9 pounds! This is really encouraging to me because I was weighing in the heaviest I've ever been aside from being pregnant. I am now in a much more comfortable weight zone for myself. I would even say that I don't need or want to loose more. I do however want to keep toning up and keep exercising for all the emotional and physical benefits I've been experiencing. I have not ever exercised this regularly in my adult life. Certainly not since I was in dance classes as a kid.