“I need help to throw up...”

it was 12:30 in the morning. 

i woke up to my oldest hovering over me...”mommy, i threw up.”

to be honest, my first thoughts were not about his well being. they were about where he threw up so i would know what i needed to clean it up.

selfish, i know.

turns out he managed to get it on the floor, and the bed was spared.

i head downstairs with him and plop him on the couch with a blanket while i arm myself with cleaner, towels, a spatula (very convenient for lifting vomit off the carpet...you’re welcome) and a bucket.  a very large mess awaited me.  took me a while to clean it up.

in the meantime, he is moaning on the couch.

finally, i can focus on him and his needs.  we decide he can sleep in his room, as long as he has a bucket handy.  i head upstairs to wake up dad and tell him i will be sleeping on the couch downstairs to be close by.

turns out, it was a good thing.  he threw up every 15 minutes for the next several hours.  we fell asleep around 5am.  with everyone else in the house getting up at 6, it didn’t leave me much opportunity to sleep.  he continued to throw up after that for another hour or so. 

one thing struck me later on. he kept calling for me to “help me throw up.”

what??

i can’t help him throw up.

it isn’t as if he needs me to hold the bucket or hold hair out of the way (remember when? i wasn’t always a good girl...)

but he wanted me... his mother... to be with him.  to wipe his mouth.  to rub his back. to be near.

to be honest, i have been failing at this more often than not. it is why i have been avoiding writing or sharing with others about my truly personal life.  i have been quite absent. 

oh, i am here physically.  on the computer or kindle fire or facebook.  doing tasks like making dinner and laundry and cleaning.  yelling at them to do what they are told.

not here for them.  what they need is me, close by, involved with their play, their interests, their failures. 

and they need me to be a loving, grace-giving mommy who isn’t irritated all the time by being interrupted.

i am ashamed to write these words, because in doing so, i am reflecting on how much i have neglected my children (and my husband, to be honest) in being here, but not here. 

i am not quite sure how to “check back in” except to just become more intentional with spending time with them.  finding ways to include them in the little tasks that consume so much of me.  devoting more of me to their schooling than just breaking out a few workbooks for them to do. 

one day at a time.

i think sometimes i don’t do those things because i might (will probably) fail miserably.  and instead of letting them see that side of me, i give them the less attached version... how backwards is that??

Heavenly Father,

i know i am not living up to a godly example of a mom to my children. i have neglected my relationship with You, and it is spilling over into every aspect of my life.  the people i hold closest in this life, i am also holding at bay so i don’t fail in front of them.  in doing so, i am damaging relationships. please help me to restore my relationship with You, so that i can restore relationships with them.

sheltering his heart

my heart is breaking for my dear little boy. 

the one who isn’t so little anymore.

the one who like to pour through any and all books.

he was looking through a collection of New York Times front pages today. it is a book his daddy got as a present several years ago.  it is truly fascinating to look through, and he does so often.

today, i heard him quietly crying from the downstairs. 

i called to him, and he said it was something he had to show me, he couldn’t explain.

i went down to him and he showed me a picture of a building that had been bombed.  below that graphic picture was a horrifying picture of a man holding a small child, not more than a few months old. 

the man was cradling a limp child and getting ready to hand the babe over to an EMS worker.

even in black and white it was evident there was blood on both the man and child.

and my own child had tears streaming down his face.

oh, that i could protect him from the terrors of this world.  that i could shelter him from the evil things that people do to each other.

but i cannot.  bad things happen.  our family will likely survive a tragedy of some sort.  probably not on such a grand scale, but a tragedy nonetheless. 

how do i prepare his young heart and mind to absorb it all? 

we don’t watch TV, they don’t see the news, and they rarely hear anything other than HisKids or audio books. 

but i still cannot protect him from everything.

i had to tell him that i was sorry he had to see that picture, but that bad things happen.  evil exists in this world because of the fall.  we live in a sinful world.

the good news, i told him, lies in Jesus Christ.  that He came to save us from our own sin, from our own selves.  He lived a sinless life, died a horrible death, and was resurrected by the Father God.  He now stands in the gap that sin created.  He spans that great chasm for us, so that we might stand before God and be free from the wrath that comes from our sinful lives.  He takes our place. 

my son doesn’t quite understand this yet.  he wants to mete out his own justice and seek revenge on the people who caused the death and destruction he saw in those images.  i can only pray that i will continue to be able to direct him gently and show him who God is and how Jesus can be his Savior. 

that and cry with him when his heart hurts so much he cannot even find words to speak what is on his heart. 

lesson on the fly...

...ing bird, that is!

as we are preparing to move, i am emptying out our freezer. we had a 10 lb turkey hanging around from last Christmas just waiting for a good time to be roasted, and yesterday was the day!

after dinner, tic tac hung around the table, begging scraps of dark meat and watching me clean the meat off the bones. i usually loathe this task, even though it is so necessary to get all the really sweet meat off the bones. but on this night, it turned into school!

we dissected the bones, from legs, to wings, to breast bone and talked about tendons, ligaments and the (ick) veins running through everything. tic tacs favorite find though was the ...

spinal cord!

yep. we found several lengths of the spinal cord sticking out of the vertebrae, and he was entranced by them! we were able to get one segment about 3 inches long out of the neck, and it still had the nerves attached!!!

i thought it was pretty cool, too (must be the RN in me).

daddy...

well, let's just say, he stayed in the other room! he wouldn't come in to take pics for me, either... bummer. my hands were way too greasy to go near the camera!

tic-tac's library pick of the week...

we spend a lot of time picking out books at the library.

quite a bit, actually.

i am always looking for new books to read that my kids will be interested in. it never fails that the ones we read over and over are the silliest out there. sometimes i don't get the humor. like why my husband actually likes the old Monte Python series...but i digress...sorry...

since i am always looking, i thought i would share our library pics of the week for tic-tac (boy, age 6) and bonobo (boy, age 4). i am highlighting tic-tac's since bonobo hasn't settled on anything thus far.

tic-tac's read of the week is (drum roll, please...)

Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit, A Billy Sook


as the title implies, it is indeed a very silly book. it is incredibly difficult to read aloud for my overly trained adult brain (not to say i am super smart, but our minds get used to seeing words in the right order, the right spelling, etc, and to see them jangled a little with only switching out the first sounds of a few words in a sentence, well, the mind plays tricks on you and you try to read it right, not in Runny Babbit fashion).

my children all laugh and giggle uncontrollably at phrases like "sea poup" (pea soup) and "his taws are sticky, poo" (his paws are sticky, too). imagine a book full of poems that are written in this fashion! so much fun to read and try to puzzle out, especially for early readers.

it is written in classic silverstein fashion, and the illustrations are right in line with other silverstein books. he worked on this book for over 20 years, and his family published it after his death. it is a must-read, and even a must-have on your bookshelf.

and here is a poem from the book to whet your appetite:

Runny Heeds Fimself

When Ramma Mabbit started teachin'
Runny how to eat,
He ficked his pood up with his ears,
He wasn't nery veat.
The sood all flipped, the drilk all mipped.
"That's pot nolite," said Maw.
"Never use your ears, my dear-
That's why Pod gave us gaws."

see what i mean? spell check is really irritated with me right now!

have a great wednesday!!