Easter Morning

And when before the throne

I stand in Him complete

Jesus died my soul to save

My lips shall still repeat

This verse hangs like a banner over my Easter 2015 memories because it is the distilled essence of my Easter 2015 memories. The night before, I stayed up late getting ready--preparing the craft for the kids' church, ironing clothes and readying food for my family. The day dawned early, and Dave was out the door before 6:00. The children and I were supposed to leave at 7:15. Short on sleep and short on time, I nonetheless wanted everything to be perfect on this Easter morning. Our outfits, our breakfast, our attitudes would all be perfection! Surely not too lofty a goal for the pinnacle day of Christian joy and celebration, right?

Right?

It was probably about 7:05 when my cotton candy airship began its nosedive. I gathered my kids and tried to lead them in one brief moment of resurrection rejoicing. One of the kids responded poorly, and I throttled down hard, turning on my child to remonstrate bitterly, grossly overstating my case. Then someone had the nerve to complain about a certain item of clothing, and I all but ejected from the cockpit. If you had a transcript of my heart for the next two minutes, it would read something like this: "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PERFECT! THIS IS NOT PERFECT! THIS IS IMPERFECT AND HARD AND WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE AND IT'S EASTER, FOR PETE'S SAKE, SO WHY ARE YOU NOT PERFECT? AND WHY AM I RESPONDING SO IMPERFECTLY TO YOUR IMPERFECTION??"

Later in the car, when I had reconciled with my children, I was still wrestling with guilt and confusion. Why did I freak out so bad? On Easter, which I love so much? That's when my idol tipped his cap. I've been worshiping my ideal of the perfect Easter morning, I realized. But the only perfect thing about Easter, just like every other day, is the person and work of Jesus. 

The rest of my Easter morning continued perfectly imperfect. But there was some measure of peace in my heart, especially as I remembered: He is the only perfection. Through all of history, it's never been about people worshiping or celebrating Him perfectly--to the contrary. That's why we needed Him. That's why He came. That's why He died. And He is risen.

I only have one picture from the morning, and it's a goofy one.

This is Esme and Graham at church near the Discovery Land supply closet, where I spend a small percentage of my work hours. In this closet lives a striped bag containing one of Graham's great joys: a knight costume, complete with sword and shield. Every time we go to the closet, Graham immediately pulls out this costume and plays Mike the Knight. If Esme is nearby, so much the better, 'cuz she can be Evie, Mike's sister.

So even my one picture is sweetly imperfect: minus two kids, and with one of the remaining two mostly obscured by plastic armor. But what does that matter?

Christ is risen.

How to Induce Bright Pink Vomiting and Other Genius Parenting Skills You Won't Find Anywhere Else

This is the time of year when Dave works an insane number of hours to get ready for our church youth group's musical. Our family is grateful to have the opportunity to support this production, but... we miss Daddy a lot. And despite the newly beautiful weather and the chance to be outdoors more lately, we were feeling a little cooped up today. Since yesterday Esme woke up with a painful muscle spasm in her neck and it rendered her immobile, we weren't able to make it to church. So today I wanted to plan a small but fun outing for the kids. Cheer all of us up, get us out and about, bring smiles, make memories.

We drove over to one of our favorite playgrounds and enjoyed the swings, the slides, and the sunshine. Then, all sneaky Mama, I drove toward home but passed right by our neighborhood. "Where are we going??" the kids demanded, instantly on to me. Minutes later, we arrived at Baskin Robbins, where we had a gift card. Ice cream for Meg, Matthew and Esme, iced black coffee for me, and a smoothie for Graham.

Graham is our allergic baby. Meg has celiac and can have no gluten, but Graham is basically allergic to everything else, including dairy. Now, I know that they put frozen yogurt in the smoothies at these places. I know that. "But," I reason, "he's always been ok with smoothies in the past." We used to get him smoothies at Panera while traveling (before I realized they contained dairy), and the worst that ever happened was a little rash around his mouth. So come today, a smoothie totally seemed like a better option than ice cream. And Graham loved it. "Maybe he's grown out of his dairy allergy, as people keep saying he will," I thought.

Fast forward 30 minutes. We're home, we're getting the mail and opening it, some neighbors drop by to sell us Girl Scout cookies. Graham goes upstairs to get his pajamas on. (Probably his fourth set of clothes today--boy still loves his clothes with a passion.) The next time I see him, he's standing at the top of the stairs clad only in a diaper and swim goggles and looking bewildered. There's some kind of gooey pink stuff dripping from his hand. And... wait. It's on his diaper too. It's sprayed on the walls on either side of him. It's bright pink smoothie-puke. Graham has projectile vomited all the way down our carpeted stairs, right to the very bottom step.

It is at this moment that I remember in vivid detail the last time we got Graham a smoothie while on the road. He threw up all over himself and his car seat, and we had to clean it up with baby wipes. I remember exactly where we pulled off and how long it took us to find the highway again after the stop. I even remember the huge Panera with the cool loft where we got that smoothie and how someone complimented me on my dress as I went up the stairs. I remember how patient the cashier was as I placed our complicated order, requesting gluten-free prep on this and no mayo on that. In short, I now remember everything about this incident that I needed to remember--that I really, really should have remembered--an hour ago.

I rinse my boy's hands, pop him in the bathtub, and dose him with Benadryl. I spend the next hour scrubbing carpet, checking to see how Graham's allergic reaction is progressing, and feeling like a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad Mama. Here I wanted to bless my kids and I end up making one of them sick. I should have known better; I did know better! I even thought about having him try the one dairy-free ice cream option they had, but I thought the flavor sounded nasty. Bad Mama! Bad! Bad!

There is no moral to this story. I'm not really a bad Mama... usually. I am a fallible creature who is prone to lapses in judgment (among other failings). Today I made a mistake. I will surely make many more. God was very merciful and helped Graham through his allergic reaction. We didn't have to to use the EpiPen. We didn't have to go the ER.

But I won't get any more smoothies for Graham. And I hope never again to have to scrub every single tread of my carpeted stairs.

Pictures

We interrupt this lengthy succession of postless days to bring you... as many posts as I can squeeze in before February of 2015 shivers its way to its snowy bier and sleeps forevermore. (And, yes, I realize that today is February 28th. I might only get to two posts. We'll see.)

Let's start with a couple of photos from my phone.

Esme mugging:

"Mommy, come look! We put ten things on Meg's head!"

And what I found when I went in to check on our post-lunch quiet reading time the other day:

(How I love these two best buds.)

Did you catch that I wrote "photos from my phone"?? One of the most notable events of this month was that I finally, finally joined most of the rest of the first world and obtained a smart phone. Until very recently, I was making do (more or less contentedly), with my very old, mostly broken, bright red, Samsung flip phone, circa... probably 2007? It took very bad pictures, so I didn't use it to take pictures. It took me five minutes to send a brief text, so I avoided texting. I didn't have apps; I could only look at my email when in front of my laptop--in short, my life was very similar to most people's lives in 2005. And I was ok with that. But we finally lost the charge cord for the dear, old, red Samsung, and... it was time. Hence, pictures from my phone!

And while we're on Matthew...

...I must share one of the best things anyone has ever said to me.

"Why," Matthew asked one day, squinting at a coloring page that featured Barbie in work-out garb, "are girls so skinny?"

(I might point out that this was the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard it, but that would be beside the point of my story.)

"Why," continued Matthew, almost to himself, "can't all girls be like Mommy? She's not skinny! And she's not fat. She's just right."

Most days, I confess, I am still far too avid for the world's ideal of "skinny." But the fact that there's a little boy in my house who thinks I am "just right" might be the most powerful inducement I've ever known for giving up my losing comparison game.

Back to Work

So here's the thing about me and blogging: it's something I enjoy, and it's something I value for my family's sake, but perhaps more than either of these things, it's a creative outlet. This means that when I have another creative outlet, blogging slips down the priority list a little bit. I still try to keep up with it, for the sake of preserving memories and keeping folks updated, but when I have some other project the blog doesn't call me quite as loudly and persistently.

I tell you this because I know the frequency of posts here has fallen off considerably in the last month. Initially, this was because of Dad's death, which stunned and sapped all of us for a bit. Then, the week after Dad passed, I took on some part-time work for the children's ministry at our church. My job is to plan the weekly small group activities for the 1st-5th grade class--discussion questions, games, crafts, that kind of thing. I'm only working a few hours a week, but I spend a good bit of mental energy spinning ideas even when I'm not on the clock. It's been tons of fun so far, and it's a direct investment in the kids at our church, so... win-win.

Wait, did I title this post "Back to Work?" I just realized that might imply that I haven't been working for the last nine years. Come to think of it, "Back to the Work Force" would be a much more accurate representation of the facts. Can I get a witness, fellow stay-at-home moms?