Say It Enough, You'll Start to Believe It
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My house exploded over the weekend. It is in serious need of some TLC so, naturally, my first inclination was to make an iMovie preview.
Because I firmly believe in the motivational power of procrastination.
So what about you? How do YOU like to avoid cleaning?
“So, Kelli, how’s that home schooling thing going for you?”
Oh, how sweet of you to ask!
This is our last official week of home schooling (homeschooling? is it one word or two because I’ve seen it both ways and I can’t figure it out…). Honestly?
This has been the hardest year of my life.
Selling a house, saying goodbye to friends who were more like family, paying for our own move cross country, starting a new job, buying a new house, home schooling, visiting countless churches over the course of ten months, struggling to find our place, living under strain and stress…
This year has exhausted me.
I noticed something interesting in Africa. The women there are tough. Despite life’s adversities, they know how to dig in their heels and keep the home at any cost. Remember how the Maasai women actually build their family homes? It’s interesting, isn’t it? God has equipped us as women to know when it’s time to dig in, clench our teeth and do what needs to be done to keep life moving forward. He has created us with an inate ability to survive, not for ourselves, but for everyone around us.
In some regard, this past year has been something like that for me. I’ve been in survival mode, heels dug in, holding up the walls of the home. Because life was bumpy there for awhile. I just needed my family to be okay - I needed us to be safe and together and whole.
Home schooling provided that safety in a way. I’m so glad I had the kids home with me because I needed them near me and I think they needed each other. But as the dust settles and the light at the end of the tunnel widens just slightly, we’re evaluating and praying and trying to decide what’s best for next year.
Tools of survival...
I will be totally honest and tell you I’m really proud of what I accomplished with my kids this year. I didn’t really know if I could do this home schooling thing. In fact, I never ever wanted to do it. Ever. Ever, ever. Like most people I assumed that I wasn’t cut out to teach my kids at home.
But it’s not true. We are all fully equipped to do whatever needs to be done when it comes to our children. So if you’re thinking about home schooling, or wondering about it and you fear you can’t do it, just know that you can. I’m not saying you should. But I am saying you shouldn’t sell yourself short.
We women are tougher than we think.
Now that we are on the other side of the year, we are looking at different options. Home schooling isn’t out of the mix by any means, but neither is public school. Those are pretty much the two options we have at this point and it’s kind of scary, this decision to be made.
Part of me is hopping from foot to foot, Rocky style, trying to pep talk my way back in to the arena. I saw the benefits of what the kids and I accomplished this past year. I completely back the educational positives of home schooling. There is, by far, nothing like it. There are so many things I’ve loved about having the kids home with me.
However…
I also see the benefits of a school setting and there are things I haven’t enjoyed about having them home. There are pros and cons to both choices and it all comes down to what we think works best for the kids AND for me. So we pray and wait and prepare for whatever comes next, because after this year I’ve kind of decided there isn’t anything I can’t do.
Except maybe build a mud hut out of cow dung. I’m not sure I could handle that.
So what are you doing for school next year? How did you come to your decision?
Do you know what responsible adults do? They stay home, skip the beach on a gorgeous Sunday, and do respectable things like mow the lawn and trim the hedges.
That’s what responsible adults do and that’s what we did today. Despite a ridiculously amazing day and more than one invitation to head to the beach, we waved our hands proudly and said “No thanks. We are going home to do responsible stuff.”
So it was that after church we made our way home where we were greeted by a ready meal in the Crock Pot (responsible). Apparently it’s Star Wars week ’round these parts so a marathon was playing on TV. I set up a picnic for the kids in front of the TV because not only am I responsible, but I’m also fun.
Oh yes I am.
After a bit of relaxing, we put on our super responsible hard work caps and set to cleaning up the yard. A few days ago we discovered that our leaf blower and electric hedge trimmer had been stolen out of our garage (awesometown) so I grabbed a pair of manual hedge trimmers and spent the next two hours painstakingly clipping away at the bushes.
I’m typing this post with my chin because I can’t feel or move my forearms.
As I worked at taming the hedges that were slowly choking the life out of our house, Lee hopped on the mower and cut back our jungle of a yard. My, what a respectable pair we made, cleaning up the outside of our home, making it a haven for all who come to visit.
(Please come visit us.)
(Seriously. Florida is awesome.)
(And our hedges are trimmed.)
On one side of our house, not only had the hedges grown to embarrassing impressive heights, but so had the weeds. I think at one point I may have cut down Jack’s Beanstalk.
As I leaned in to pull out a rather pesky weed I felt something prick hard into my skin. I thought it was a branch so I moved to the side, but the stinging grew more intense and then I realized that I wasn’t near any branches and I looked on my shoulder and saw a wasp the size of my head staring at me.
He was all, “Wad up, yo? I’m stingin’ yo a…”
I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence because I started to scream and swat and run high legged through the yard and the wasp was screaming too, probably because I was screaming, but maybe also because I was hitting him. After he flew away I ran a few more circles around the yard for good measure and to send a message to all the other wasps that I was not to be messed with.
It’s at this point that I began to wonder what the neighbors must have been thinking.
Oh, and for the record, wasp stings hurt. A lot. If you tell your kids they don’t hurt, you’re lying.
Anyway, back to the hedges. I picked the trimmer back up and snapped away at the bushes with a vengence. Anger motivated me to push past the pain and trim the heck out of those branches. Then the kids came screeching around the corner.
“SNAKE!”
I had just been stung by a wasp so I had no interest in dealing with another of God’s creatures.
“IN THE GARAGE!”
“Tell your Dad,” I said through clenched teeth.
A few minutes later, the mower stops. We all remember what happens when Lee feels the need to defend the homestead from predators, right? If you haven’t read the story I will give you a short, two-word synopsis:
Possom. Crowbar.
So I wasn’t surprised when Sloan came running around the corner with wide eyes. “Dad needs you,” he said.
My husband wanted me to help him catch a four foot snake. I felt it would be more helpful if I just took pictures of him capturing it. Then the kids and I screamed endlessly as he chased it down and hacked at it with the passion of a man defending his family against the greatest of beasts.
That’s when our brand new neighbor came running across the street. And when I say brand new, I mean they moved in yesterday. Apparently screaming women and crying children is classified as “comotion” these days. He found me snapping pictures of my husband hacking the head off of a snake (and yelping) with our three children crying in horror around us.
Responsible.
Respectable.
We firmly believe in making a good first impression…
Yes, that's the snake's head...
In my house...
I didn’t have the chance to speak to my kids at all last week while I was gone. Really, it was for the best. It’s easier on them if I don’t call and…well, it’s easier on me.
Upon landing in Atlanta, I called my family and for the first time in eight days I heard my first born’s voice over the phone. He has always has the sweetest voice and this phone call was no exception. On the phone he is still little, the high pitched nature of his melody singing through the phone and straight to my heart. I would have cried if he hadn’t made me laugh.
“Hey Mom,” he said. “You sound different.”
“I do?” I asked. “How do I sound different?”
“Well…,” thoughtful pause, “You sound Chinese.”
Boys. No matter where you are in the world, boys know how to have a good time and make you laugh.
Scott Williams had all of us fist bumping all week long. Is there anything more universal than the fist bump?
I’m slowly reintegrating into everyday life. We started school today, much to the kid’s chagrin. We’re almost done with the year, but there’s still work to be done.
As we prepared to come home, Shaun warned us that we may experience feelings of frustration, confusion, anger and sadness. I’m so happy to report that I am apparently totally normal because I have experienced every single one of these emotions.
Every. single. one.
Prayers are coveted. For me, for my children, for all the bloggers who went on the trip. Shaun laid out some specific prayers in his post today. My poor children are, unfortunately, bearing the brunt of my emotions. I may, OR MAY NOT, have plopped a glass jar on the counter yesterday and told them they will have to pay me .25 every time they complain about something.
My nerves are a bit frayed.
Jet lag hasn’t helped.
We will adjust to this change. It’s funny, every single thing around me is exactly the same as when I left (well, except for my house, because my mother-in-law, who is an awesome decorator, redecorated and organized my house while I was gone and Sweet Mercy it looks nice around here). But while everything looks “relatively” the same…
It all feels so different.
Even blogging.
Bear with me Pray for me as I adjust.
Oh, one more thing…
We ran out of Nutella today. THIS DOESN’T HELP THE SITUATION!
That's 12 pounds of awesome that somehow disappeared...
*sigh*
Photos of everything but Nutella by Keely Scott
Ever have one of those days? You know, the kind of day that you text your husband at 3:45 and say something to the effect of, “I’m losing my mind. Tell me you’ll be home soon.” You probably follow up said text with a little yellow emoticon that looks something like this: 
I mean, this is a hypothetical example of the kind of text one MIGHT send, of course. *nervous laughter*
On one of those hypothetical days, your husband might reply, “6:00.” That’s it. Just some numbers. No sad faced emoticon to show how deeply he might commiserate with your impending breakdown. 
I mean, if we want to take this “hypothetical” exchange of texts a step further, you MIGHT reply with something like, “Ack! Um…okay.” Followed by another grimicing emoticon.
Really, how did any of us ever communicate without emoticons?!
If your husband is valiant and grand, he will likely respond with, “I will try to make it home earlier. I can be there by 5:15.”
To which you will (hypothetically) respond, “We’ll be alright. Don’t rush.” You will send this text while secretly hoping that he does, indeed, rush.
When your hypothetical husband walks through the hypothetical door at 4:45, you will hypothetically find him to be more handsome than ever he was before. He might as well be riding a hypothetical white horse and wearing a shield of valor.
So this may come as a bit of a surprise to you all, but this situation isn’t really hypothetical. That was my day today and my valiant husband actually DID walk through the door at 4:45 and promptly took the children to the park when he saw that desperate deer-caught-in-headlights look of mine that says, Sweet Jesus be near ’cause Mama’s gonna lose her mind.
After he announced the impending trip to the park, one of the children (who shall remain unnamed) (the one bearing the X-Chromosome) replied something to the effect of, “No thanks. I want to stay here with Mom.”
“Nope.” My response was immediate and firm. And maybe a little loud?
“Why?!” she cried, her face falling.
And before I could stop the words from spilling out of my mouth I replied, “Because Mommy needs a break from you guys. I need to be alone and I don’t want to be needed for a minimum of thirty minutes.”
And then her face fell and I immediately felt a flood of guilt because what a horrible thing to say. But of course I tried to brush off said guilt under the guise of my firm belief that “God does not operate out of guilt and therefore I will not operate in guilt either.”
But you know what umbrella God does operate under? Conviction. And there is a paper thin line between guilt and conviction that sometimes gets blurred and if we’re not tuned in to what’s happening around us we may get the two confused. I could assume genuine conviction to be nothing more than self-imposed guilt and brush it off since, you know, I REFUSE TO OPERATE IN GUILT. Ah, but I can likewise so often mistake guilt as conviction, thereby indeed OPERATING IN GUILT without even really realizing it.
Today what I experienced was conviction, though I tried with all my might dismiss it as “Mommy Guilt.”
The thing is, the sentiment I expressed to my child was true. I DID need a break and there’s nothing wrong with that. My kids possessed an extra measure of neediness today and on top of my massive to-do list and a house that seemed to have thrown up over night I was feeling wildly overwhelmed and caged. I needed to breathe.
I just wish I wouldn’t have made her feel like she pushed me to that point. Because she didn’t. It’s just the nature of motherhood and I don’t ever want my children to feel as though they are too much for me to handle. I don’t want them thinking I need a break from them so much as maybe every once in awhile I just need some time to clear my head.
When they returned, I fed everyone dinner, then closed myself in my office to continue said alone time. But not for long. Tia walked in shortly after just needing to talk. For as much as I seemed to need some time to myself, she seemed to need time alone with me.
And so we sat and talked and I learned a few things about my daughter in the process. She wants to have six kids, but she only wants to carry three of them in her tummy. The other three she wants to adopt from Africa and Asia. She wants three girls and three boys and she wants the doctor to cut the babies out of her tummy because some time ago I told her how babies are born and she’s been horrified ever since.
We talked for an hour, we snuggled, we read a book and I realized that I didn’t really need that time alone after all. Because honestly? It feels really dang good to be needed.
So to recap:
- My husband is my knight in shining armor.
- Guilt and conviction look an awful lot alike so try not to mix them up.
- And I am apparently raising a tiny Angelina Jolie.
The End.
I set my alarm for 5:00 AM this morning. Go ahead. You can laugh. It’s funny.
I really thought I could handle it. I even went to bed at 9:45 last night. I felt very responsible when I turned the lamp off before the 10:00 hour. How grown up of me, right? But what seemed like mere moments after closing my eyes, the alarm on my phone start screaming in my ear.
5:00 AM?!
I don’t know what I was thinking.
Incidentally, I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect alarm sound to wake me up. I listened to every option provided on my phone and I painstakingly chose the sound that was least offensive. It sounded like little fairies ringing bells, gentle and serene. When I chose it, I pictured myself leaping out of bed in song. Like a musical.
Good Mornin’. Good Moooornin’.
In this vision I tap danced through the house, happy and free as a lark. I don’t know how to tap dance, although I did take lessons a few years ago and had the time of my life. I should do that again…
But, oddly enough, when my alarm went off this morning, it didn’t sound like fairies ringing bells any more. IT SOUNDED LIKE THE DEVIL HIMSELF CLANGING SYMBOLS IN MY EAR.
It was angry and harsh and I wanted to punch someone, not sing.
Then I got back in bed.
“Is that your alarm to get up and work?” Lee asked. He wasn’t really interested in the answer so much as he just wanted to acknowledge the offensiveness of being awakened by evil bells at 5 in the morning.
I grunted in reply and promptly closed my eyes. For the next 37 minutes, my brain and my body warred against the morning. It went down something like this:
BRAIN: “Get up. You have a lot to do this week. If you don’t get up now you won’t have time to get anything done this morning.”
BODY: “Shut up.”
BRAIN: “Seriously, just get up. You will be fine if you get up and move around. You can have coffee. You won’t regret it, but you will regret staying in bed and not getting anything done.”
BODY: “Shut. Up.”
BRAIN: “Alright that’s it you lazy BEEP. Get up! Get up! GET! UP!”
BODY: *sitting up at squinting at the clock that reads 5:24* “Ten more minutes. Now shut up.”
BRAIN: “Check the clock. I think it’s been ten minutes. Check the clock. Seriously. Your window of peace and productivity is shrinking exponentially. Check the clock. CHECK IT!”
5:37.
Sighing, I rolled out of bed and landed with a thud on the floor. Stumbling to the kitchen, I noticed how beautiful and serene the house felt. Dark and quiet, patiently waiting for the hustle of energy to roar to life. I liked it. The peace of the moment made me happy.
It did not make me feel like singing, though. Or dancing.
If any of you need me later, I’ll be on the couch taking a nap…
While I’ve got you all captivated here with my amazing and deep words of wisdom and grace, I might as well show you a few pictures from our Easter weekend, don’t you think? Wouldn’t that make your day? You’re welcome.
We spent the weekend with my cousin, Sean (whose book I hope you all purchased and are impatiently awaiting its arrival) and his wife, Addie, and their two cuties. The huge waves at the beach Friday made for three hours of crazy fun for the kids.
Glow in the Dark Easter Egg Hunt. Too much fun.
Sloan and his pet fox...I mean, dog.
I hope you all had a Happy and Blessed Easter filled with love, laughter and lots of chocolate.
I will preface this book review by telling you that I am unashamedly biased toward the author. Sean is my cousin and I’ve always thought he was the Bee’s Knees. When we were younger, I was fairly certain that Sean hung the moon in the sky. He was quiet and kind and you should have seen him play Frogger on the Atari.
It was nothing short of awe inspiring.
So yes, I’m biased, but here’s the deal. If I didn’t genuinely find this book to be amazing and fascinating and thought provoking, I wouldn’t review it. So while I have an obvious bias to Sean himself, I certainly didn’t have any thoughts on the book until I read it.
And then I had to read it again and, honestly, I think I need to read it a third time.
This is coming from a girl who doesn’t like to read non-fiction.
People Who Sing Jesus has given me pause for thought these last few weeks. It’s no secret that this move has been a difficult one for our family. In nearly twelve years of marriage, Lee and I have rarely struggled, but this move has made us work harder in a lot of areas.
We’ve had to work harder as husband and wife.
We’ve had to work harder at parenting.
We’ve had to work harder at seeking Jesus.
I started praying the scary prayer not long after we came down here. “Lord, don’t let me know you for who I think you are. Help me know you for who you really are.” Each time I pray that prayer I try not to grimace and I force myself not to put several hundred caveat’s on the request.
Lord let me know you for who you truly are, but…
Don’t take away the people or things I love,
Don’t make the refining fire too hot,
Don’t let my vision shift be too painful.
I’ve had to learn again to sing Jesus and to understand WHY I sing His Name. And in the process I’ve been so deeply humbled that I’ve had a bit of vertigo.
This week, as the kids and I prepare for the sacred remembrance of Good Friday, we’ve been reading the story of Jesus’ walk to Calvary and it’s given me so much pause as I soak in His sacrifice wholly and fully. Why do I sing Jesus? Why do I stand in awe of Him?
Sean opens the first chapter with this paragraph: “You may find this hard to believe, but your life is significantly attached to the original score of music. The most ancient expression of creativity began not in notes and scales but in the formation of life. As the Creator set the cosmos in motion, the framework for melodies originated, and those early formations are linked to your story. God’s creative work binds together your life with your purpose to sing new songs that connect to the Creator’s original score. Your life continues adding notes to the original melody.”
The first time I read these words I went over them twice, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. To know that the Creator of the Universe, the One I so desire to know for who He truly is, created me with a purpose that links to His original score of Creation sets my heart trembling. And the resulting action toward which I feel compelled is to sing.
Creation already sings His praises. The thunder is His bass and the oceans provide the rhythm. The mountains are the strings that echo the harmonious chorus of the animals that grace their paths. The wind blows and whispers his name while the lightening provides the clanging symbol of His glory.
And inside that melodious track, we have been given the gift of words to put His Name to music, singing along with all of Creation. We, you and I, are all a part of the song and, as Sean explains, we have been since the very beginning of time when He set the melody in place. Knowing and understanding this not only gives cause for more praise, but also turns us more toward the One who released the first chord. The Conductor.
People Who Sing Jesus is theology wrapped in grace-filled prose. It’s a book that will cause you to stop and question – Who is God and who are we?
There is so much more I want to tell you, and so many more quotes I want to pull from the book and share. But it would be better if you read the book yourself. Because in 800 words or less, I simply cannot do justice to the power of this beautiful book. All I know is when I finished it, I wanted to sing.
“God’s truth is revealed in every aspect of life: science, technology, health, economics, creation, politics, and all human interactivity. What you see and know is only a fraction of the picture. The Creator has much more in store for you than you can possibly imagine.” Sean Cooper, People Who Sing Jesus
You can purchase People Who Sing Jesus here.
“We sat on the bed and cried,” she said as the rest of us listened quietly. “And my husband looked at me and reminded me that that part of our lives is over.”
My neighbor is preparing to drop her second child off at college in a couple of months and she and her husband will be empty nesters and it struck me as I listened.
This part of my life will end.
Some days it doesn’t seem that way. Life seems to drag forward at a snail’s pace and I feel like bedtime will never come. But before I know it, they’re tucked in and sleeping soundly and one more day has flown by, the dark quiet a reminder that this part of life has an end. The raucous noise and unsquelchable energy, the snuggles and hugs and kisses – they all have a stopping point.
And then…
I’m going to miss it. Like really, really miss it. Heck, I already miss it and it’s not even over yet. There’s a chance that could have something to do with the effects of the hefty dose of Nyquil I just took, but it’s hard to be sure. The fact is, I am going to miss this time in our lives so very much.
It’s not really fair that the first few years of child rearing are done in the fog of sleepless nights because it’s so much harder to remember when you’re a zombie. Just ask any zombie you know and they’ll tell you the same thing – you memory is the first thing to go when you enter zombiedom. You have to check it at the door and you don’t really regain it until your baby hits about 3 and you are afforded consistent sleep on a nightly basis.
And then suddenly your baby is four and you realize that you can’t really remember him like this anymore:
And you think, “How did I get here?”
It’s not like I didn’t know life flew by and I would miss these young moments. I have moments like this all the time, though, where it really strikes me – this time is short. I’m so glad I’m enjoying it.
Not every moment of every day, of course. That’s impossible. I don’t enjoy the constant bickering and having to repeat myself 152,641 times a day and the dirty feet on the couch and the crying over Lord knows what…I don’t enjoy those things. And I don’t think I’ll miss those things.
But I will miss this time, those minor annoyances included. I wish it didn’t fly by so quickly. I wish I didn’t love bedtime so deeply. I wish I could bottle up their laughs for ever and ever so I could listen drink in their innocence from now until eternity.
I really am going to miss this.
There’s also a chance, however, that if I don’t go to bed immediately I’m going to regret this little moment of nostalgia altogether. I need to sleep so that tomorrow I won’t be longing for bedtime the second my feet hit the floor. Sometimes the missing is entirely my fault.
So what about you? What are you going to miss? Or, if you’re already past the child-rearing years, what do you miss the most? What should we younger Mom’s be trying to hold on to as long as we can?
In eighth grade, three of my cousins came to live with us for a year. My cousin, Meagan, and I had always had a pretty unique, sisterly kind of bond even before she came to stay, so having her there for a year was like having a real sister for a time. We laughed, we fought, she took my clothes…
One thing Meagan and I always conspired to do together was try to get sick at the same time. If either one of us started to feel bad, we would drink out of the same cup, chew each other’s gum (I know, gross), cough in each other’s face in an attempt to both end up sick at the same time so we could stay home from school together.
It worked more times than it didn’t.
This is the part where you start to pity my mom.
One of the times we did this compeltely backfired when we both ended up with the nastiest case of strep throat imaginable. We were not enjoying our time off together. In fact, we kind of thought we were dying together.
We ran such high fevers that my mom had a mild freak out and we all trekked to the doctor, Meagan and I moaning the entire way there. Her fever was in the high 105′s, mine was in the 104′s. And we had done this to one another.
So maybe it’s a bit of cosmic payback that I have children who run fevers that settle in the rafters. I dunno, but last night as I cradled my daughter’s feverish body, her temp measured 105.5. Cue freaking out. Cold bath, cool rag on the forehead, medicine. All of it worked together to bring her fever down to…
103.5.
Not good enough. More medicine, another cold rag and a bit of prayer seemed to help. I laid down with her in bed, her little body all shaky and achy. “Mom,” she croaked. “I had a scary dream.”
“What was your dream?”
“I dreamed that I was dying.”
Cue double freak out. Poor, sweet baby girl.
We prayed and she quickly fell asleep. When I checked on her about an hour and a half later, the fever had broken. Of course she woke up at 3:00 hot again. She snuggled up next to me in bed and it felt like spooning a radiator. She talked in her sleep and I held her hot little hand. Together we weathered a long, fitful night.
This morning her fever is low and her eyes less glassy.
And this Mama, though exhausted, is quite relieved.
I also feel the need to apologize to my mom for giving her multiple heart attacks over the years when I spiked high fevers. So I guess this is where some of the grey hair comes from?
Anybody else have kids who like to run super high fevers?
Are you all not completely blown away by my stellar titles this week? Pure genius.
A few photos fotos for you this Friday morning. These were all taken by our friend Sarah who, along with her friend Kristiana, spent the week loving on our family. Awesome? I think so.
Check out those tiny little muscles. My four year old is ripped.
Sweet girls
We have watched this sweet girl grow up and love her so much.
Happy weekend, everyone!
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