Collecting Satisfactions

Lily holding up various objects to my large tummy and saying "see bruhdeh? see bruhdeh?"

I love it!

Collecting Satisfactions

In another week life will be very different once again around our house. So right now I'll enjoy sitting quietly on the couch, eating "m's" and drawing boats with Lily.

Something to Think About

"People say the domestic life is narrow and stultifying, a prison for the intellect. Feminists have long made this claim. I guess you could say it’s true, but only if you think human history is boring, the laws of nature are boring, love is boring, birth is boring, children are boring, personality is boring, the mind is boring, morality is boring, death is boring, male and female are boring, sex is boring, illness is boring, kisses are boring, prayers are boring, philosophy is boring, poetry is boring, God is boring, the seasons are boring, gravity is boring, song is boring, trees are boring, sunlight is boring, the stars are boring, snow is boring, dew is boring. If all this is true, the home is not what it appears: a fount of ideas and truths, a university and a museum, a laboratory for the curious, a gallery of all that is human. If the home is boring, life itself is a desert."

Laura Wood The Thinking Housewife

The "Figure It Out" Philosophy

Excellent post here! With a growing household I'm seeing how it is increasingly necessary to have a lot of structure, discipline and oh yes, little maids.

Nesting

I was so tired of all the hodge podge of 'tupperware' I have. Most of it I hadn't used in over a year so it had to go. And I hate the way it's all stacked and falling over in this cabinet so I decided to get rid of the junk and put the rest in the pantry using a basket to store lids. Now snacks and baking supplies have a tidy new home I can get to a lot quicker.

The rest of the pantry will have to wait.

It's definitely time to get rid of some of the cooking magazines I've had sitting around for a few years. I started removing all the recipes I'll want to keep in a separate notebook once I get one, then I'll send the magazines on to my neighbor.

All I can say is that if I could bend over, had more energy and didn't risk going into labor (ok, labor at this point wouldn't be the worst thing!) I would have one clean and organized house right now!

Messy Reality of Life With Little People

I found an interesting article here on our culture that seems to be becoming more "purposely 'child-free'".

I especially like this quote toward the end:

Given the nature of real life and real children, this perfect parenthood experience eludes even the most prepared among us. Yet the expectation endures, alongside our cultural assumption that fulfillment lies in maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. The result is a growing number of adults for whom the perfect time to have children never arrives.

Childless adults miss the drudgery of parenting: the 3 a.m. wake-up calls, the terrible twos, the tantrums in stores, diaper disasters and teenage angst. They also miss those breathtaking moments that sneak up on parents amid the daily grind: the surprise of that first smile, the thrill of those first steps, the wonder of realizing that this little person has captured your heart in a way that will leave you forever changed, and that despite the trail of chaos he has cut through your once-orderly existence, you cannot fathom life without him.

Those moments sound trite to skeptics and count for little in a cost-benefit analysis. But for those who trade their fantasies of perfect parenthood for the messy reality of life with little people, the mystery unveiled in those moments — that genuine joy springs from sacrifice — makes it all worthwhile.

Very well said! Tis very true, little people are not easy to raise but is it worth it? Yes. Does it please God? Yes. Yes, there are days when I don't know how I'm gonna make it through. When everything is a fight with Lily and at times even Clara. Days when bed time can't come soon enough. When I feel like (ok, know that) my brain and body have turned to mush and all I know how to do now is wash diapers, dishes and spaghetti faces and suddenly one of my babies will melt my heart, make me so proud or give me such a laugh and I realize that those are the things that matter.

Those are moments God has given just to me by giving me these particular children to raise and I would never have known these moments if I had "decided" not to carry them, bare them and raise them. How could I have ever said "No" to all this? And truly even if these wonderful moments don't occur God still gives children to parents and because He does it is still good, meaningful and worthwhile to bring them into the world and raise them.

Big Sister

Lily and Tummy Baby G, August 2010

It seems like so long ago that this little girl was a baby herself about to be a big sister for the first time!

Baby Lily and Tummy Clara, May 2009

A Good Daddy

Phil let the girls walk with him to the post office the other day.

In ten years it will be pictures like this that will make me all teary remembering how small our little girls were...

Sigh...