When You Need a Time-Out to Balance It All

March 20, 2013 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

A re-publish of one of my Embracing Motherhood posts. Linking up with Kayse today for Balancing Marriage&Mommyhood.

I’ve written about time outs before. The difference between mommy time outs and kid time outs here. How sometimes life hands us a time out that’s not necessarily what was planned.

I’ve learned to embrace a lot about motherhood, time out for myself included.

So why don’t I use it more often? Instead I stretch myself to the breaking point, I build up frustration, and I collapse under pressure.

I know that at the end of the day, no one is going to congratulate me because I finished everything on my to-do list, and no one is standing by with a stopwatch to track how many moments I actually played with my kids.

But at the end of the day if I’ve been cruel with words or short with patience or drained with fatigue, there are four little pairs of eyes and ears who have noticed and who have been hurt and who deserve better.

So if better means that sometimes I take a break from being a mommy to spend some time alone, or with the Lord, or with my friends, or even with their daddy that is being a great mother.

Do you hear me? Take a break. Don’t be a martyr. The laundry will always be around, the puzzles will eventually get put together, and most kids delight in being left with someone else for a bit, especially if that someone else has different toys or books or snacks.

When I chose to embrace the wonder that is motherhood, I also chose to accept that somedays I would need to walk away from crying and diapering and whining.

And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.” For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.

~Mark 6:31

Isn’t that a picture of motherhood? Jesus knew. He knew what it was to be pressed in on all sides and to need a moment to breathe. He knew what it was to have no time to even eat.

So put yourself in time-out every now and then. Breathe. Eat. Sleep. Rest.

birthdays · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

dear annabelle {today you are seven}

March 19, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

Dear Annabelle,

Today you are seven and Madelynne is exactly eight-and-a-half and Amelia is exactly three-and-a-month, and Gus is left out of the perfect counting because he was born on the 1st and not the 19th. That sets him apart, just as it binds you and your sisters and makes 19 something of a special number for us.

But I want you to know, today, on your 7th birthday, that just because you share your days with one older and one younger, you do not ever have to be just like your sisters. You only ever have to be you.

You’re pretty good at being unique. You’re the only one who really likes to work the garden with daddy, but you’re also the only one who hates being dirty. You’re the only one who falls asleep the moment you lie down, and you’re the only one who gets up when your alarm rings. You’re the only one who doesn’t like Chic-fil-a, and you’re the only one who would request meatloaf for a birthday dinner. You’re the only one who can wear skinny jeans, and you’re the only one with an Angry Birds shirt that you wear at least twice a week.

You’re the only one who’s more stubborn than your daddy and more sensitive than your mama. You’re the only one who never gives up, not on spelling words, not on two-wheel bike riding, not on memorizing verses for AWANA.

You’re the only one without tonsils, and you’re losing teeth much more slowly than Madelynne did. You’ve only lost one and I think the new one will be in completely before you lose another!

You’re the only one who doesn’t complain when hiking with Marmie, even though you’re still too small for a real pack. You’re the only one daddy trusts to help put up the tent, and you’re the only one who remembers to take off your shoes before you go inside.

Daddy thinks you’ll be an engineer or an architect who pays great attention to detail; I think you’ll be a tenacious lawyer righting social injustice. You want to be a teacher like Mrs. B and right now, your greatest goal is for everything to just be fair.

I’m sorry to tell you that can never be. Life isn’t fair and as much as we try, nothing is ever exactly equal. But I hope you are coming to realize that despite those truths, there is another greater one: Jesus is fair and His love is equal and lavished upon you everyday.

Happiest of birthdays to my Annabelle Faith, may your name remind you always to keep the faith, and may your strong-will remind me always that I want to do more than just raise a good child. I want to raise you to change this world.

Love,
Mama

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · Manic Monday

No More Manic Mondays {link up}

March 18, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

I originally started this post to be a real, true link-up. But I confess: I’m struggling a bit.
with what I want this blog to be
with what I believe is really important
with what I really want to write about and be known for
with eliminating from this post all of the struggles of the past week because I’m becoming too concerned with creating something else

I’m struggling with the technicalities of blogging, how in the world do I create a button? should I just pay someone to do all this for me?

But mostly, the past two hours (give or take the ups and downs to get milk and applesauce and change a diaper) I’ve spent working have not been fun. They’ve been stressful. They’ve been frustrating. They’ve been work. I didn’t create this space to be work. I created it to be freeing, to be my voice, to be real. Today it’s not being real. So forget the link up. If you want to tell me about your Monday, leave a comment and a link back to your site. If you don’t blog, leave a comment anyway. I know I don’t always respond back, but I read all my comments (here and on facebook) and treasure them all.

Here’s a bit of my Monday for you. I’m off now to actually do the things that can make it less manic.

It’s raining. Again. But I guess rainy Monday is better than rainy Saturday, right? Plus keeping us inside should be helpful in my quest to cross “tag consignment clothes” off the never-ending to-do list.

Around here, Mondays have always been a bit manic. Productive usually because I’m fresh from weekend extra rest and daddy help, but manic nonetheless. But today I thought, what if I made an effort to change that thinking? What if instead of rushing through the manic, I reveled in it? At that point wouldn’t it cease to feel like a burden and instead become a blessing? Maybe….

So welcome to my first-ever linky party: No More Manic Mondays! Let’s build a community together and let Mondays become days we anticipate rather than days we agonize through. Write up a little post about your Monday plan to keep life simpler and link up below. And, listen, I know sometimes we’re still going to have that day, so let’s write about that, too, and then you can take a deep breath and let it go.

where I spent a little time before I got this party started
working always on patience…

I discovered this morning that I am definitely a creature of habit. Tucked in her carseat for the brief ride over to our early morning workout, Amelia lined out our day, “First we got to jazzercise, then we go to grocery store, then we go to bank.” Well, if last week had been payday, she’d have been 100% correct, but as it is, today was just a bare bones grocery run and no sucker from the bank.

I think routines are good and the teacher in me knows how much kids thrive in routine, but the scattery-disorganized-overwhelmed mama in me struggles with forcing routine upon myself. Because what inevitably happens is life and then I get all flustered and can’t figure out how to get everything done that I had planned. But routines that grow naturally out of everyday habits suit me well, like Monday morning workouts followed by Ingles donuts and Starbucks.

The best thing I’ve done so far to keep Monday (and all the other days) from being less manic is menu plan. This week is incredibly simple and tonight is leftovers from Sunday dinner.

This is Tuna Bake with Cheddar Cheese Biscuits from Jane over at Thy Hand Hath Provided. Joshua gave me her cookbook for Valentine’s Day and we’re trying new things. Verdict? A great success with all the kids and even the daddy, who doesn’t love tuna. I used 4 cans instead of the 2 called for and made my biscuits from scratch. I also used homemade cream soup substitute and frozen peas and homemade baking mix…..otherwise it was exactly the same as hers 🙂

So tell me, what would make your Monday less manic? And if it’s already there, tell us all about that, too!

Next week I’ll work on a button…one thing at a time, folks.

faith · motherhood

When We Just Want It to Matter

March 12, 2013 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I was on top of my game yesterday. Managed jazzy childcare, grocery store with both little ones (and stayed in budget), homemade bread in the oven and dinner in the crockpot, middle school play practice with all four, homework done, bath for peed-on-herself Millie, Community Bible Study with a completed lesson, rough draft of blog for today, endured screaming baby for an hour without having a breakdown myself. Like I said, got this.

Enter Tuesday.

Usually Tuesday doesn’t mess with me so much. It’s quieter than Monday and a lot less hectic because I’m down three kids, instead of the usual two, thanks to church preschool. Gus naps a lot and I write a lot or plan a lot or pinterest things I’ll never do. But this week I had resolved not to waste my time, but rather to make the most of it, to treat this gift of a couple uninterrupted hours during morning nap as my scheduled work time. I don’t want to just play with these words anymore, I want to use them for good. So, I had a plan.

Someday I’m going to stop expecting my plans to work out like I expect.

Bet you can guess the worse glitch in my plan—
the wonder of technology. Everything I was going to work on centered on my access to the internet. It’s where all my posts are archived, where I monitor submission requirements, where I find ideas for promoting what I’m trying to do. And it’s how I keep up with really important information, you know, like what my sister had for dinner and when my friends are watching Downton Abbey.

Except the all-consuming internet was down. Again. Our line through the phone company is known for being unreliable and not working if it’s sunny. Or cloudy. Or rainy. Or windy. Basically, it’s a never-ending problem. We’ve been signed up for the new fiber optic network since Thanksgiving, but hadn’t been turned on, so when I realized the connection was out again, I was readied to call both companies and complain. Then, out of the blue, electrician man turns up to connect the service! I figured God was smiling on me. (Electrician man also admitted they had lost our request somehow. Knew we should have been calling more.)

However, if you know me, you know I’m not tech savvy in the least. My solution is always just to turn something off and then back on, and if that doesn’t work, I leave it up to my husband. The man’s a saint about this, really. Because when I couldn’t use either connection this morning after following tech support directions and my own bumbling instincts, he got the weepy call.

Of course I cried. I cried because I was frustrated, I felt stupid, I felt inadequate, and I had that enemy who sows seed of doubt whispering in my ear: See? It doesn’t matter what you do. What you think is important is nothing compared to those who have real jobs, who are making a paycheck, who are supporting their family.

Since I’ve become a stay-at-home mom that’s been the hardest voice to ignore. The taunt that what I do doesn’t matter. That blogging about the grace in my trials, that planning seven days of meals, that clipping coupons and shopping sales, that baking instead of buying, and consigning instead of spending, all these things I do right now to fill my days and feed my family spiritually, physically, and emotionally matter to no one but me.

But they do matter. They do make a difference. They do build my family in a way that I wasn’t doing before. What I do is important to me, and, I believe it is, therefore, important to my God. He heard my rant this morning and He felt my tears, and He assured my soul that this season He has called me to is for His glory, even in my mess.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 5:6-11 ESV

I think here it’s easy to feel like the motherhood routine doesn’t matter, especially when seen in the light of the suffering and poverty fellow mothers face around our world everyday. But I promise–

Today, whatever you do matters. It matters to the ones who have skinned knees and messy backpacks and leftover lunches and snot noses and swinging ponytails. It matters to your family. And it matters to God.

Who knows? Maybe what Jesus is doing with you today will change the world 50 years from now instead of 50 days, but the point is, it will change and you will be part of the plan.

What you do matters. To God. To your family. To me.
Rock on mamas, He’s got this. We matter.

Uncategorized

Instagram, Free Stuff, and StitchFix! {miscellaneous Monday}

March 11, 2013 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

I’m trying out some new technology around here in these parts. {that’s not how people really talk in my sweet little southern town unless they’re being featured in a movie that claims to take place in Alabama but is, in actuality, being filmed in Georgia, but I’m feeling a little backwoods lately}

I discovered Instagram! As in, there’s my feed over there to your right, feel free to follow the not-so-great photography that pairs so sweetly with ice cream and big smiles. Now, how do I use specific pictures from Instagram in my blog post? Seriously, please, help a girl out.

I’m writing a book. Well, I’ve been writing a book for awhile, and I’m going to eventually finish it, but this is another project that I’m hoping will be simpler and then motivate me to finish the much, much bigger and infinitely scarier task of a novel. Right now, I’m just working on a little e-book, a collection of some of my favorite randomness so you don’t have to search through the blog to find the posts most worth reading. Got a favorite? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do 🙂 Once I’ve got this all figured out, I’m borrowing inspiration from this girl and offering it up to subscribers for FREE!

Who doesn’t love FREE? Speaking of, did you enter the giveaway? I hope so! Winner announced tomorrow, so come back then, when I’m going to be posting a little list of ten ways to make your mornings better. Then I’m going to print that list out and hang it on my fridge, so the next time I have a monumental meltdown like I did on Friday, I can look at it and remember, oh yeah, do this instead.

One of my issues the other morning was about clothes. I’m trying to fix that using this great service called StitchFix. I think it’s really cool {i.e. total time and mind-saver} that a stylist will pick out everything for me because, let’s face it, if it can’t be bought at Old Navy or Target in the kids’ section, I’ve probably never seen it. Unfortunately, I sized myself wrong because I’m in-between and some of the incredibly gorgeous tops I was sent were tighter than I prefer on post-baby-#4 belly. But a friend of mine bought a top out of my box because she loved it so. In fact, when I took it out the first thing I thought was, “This is so her, and I can’t wear this because she’s moving far away and then I’ll cry every time I put it on.” I did try that shirt on, though. It was super cute and nicer than anything else in my closet. So, I’m trying again. New Fix to arrive next week sometime, hopefully not before I’ve run out of the birthday money I’ve been hoarding for this.

I’m not posting my menu this week because when I post about food it causes my mother to ask if me if my sister and I are in some sort of cooking competition. {we’re not.} Also, because it’s not all that exciting this week. I’m trying some new recipes from this cookbook, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Finally, you should know that I had most of this post written last night with grand intentions of posting early, because I’m pretty sure when I post has some effect on my pageviews, but then life happened. It was totally and completely a manic Monday. Overslept, Amelia wet the bed, last minute childcare fill-in at Jazzercise, grocery store….you get the picture. But I’m linking up over at lowercase letters today and starting next week I’m thinking about having my own little linky party about Manic Mondays. I know I’ve said that for ages, but I said I was having a giveway for ages, too, and look! I finally did it!