Looking Forward

March 5, 2012 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

I’m lying wide awake in bed tonight at 3 a.m. (welcome back, pregnancy insomnia) and start thinking about all that’s coming. March and April are packed full of activities and plans and needs-to-get-done, and when they’re over, there will be a new baby boy waiting in my arms.

I’ve posted about this journey. About my fear. But tonight, for the first time, I thought maybe I can do this.

I started thinking about our summer, all the lazy day fillers the girls and I enjoy and how I could make them work with another little one, and I think I can.

Days at the Unicoi lake will look different, but Daddy works nearby now, so we can wait and go after naptime and stay through dinner time and he can actually come join us. That’s never happened before. And if that means we have to stop on the way home and have the best BBQ by the river in Helen, so be it.

Sometimes I think I’ll have to go to the grocery store alone. As in by myself with four kids. Which means I may have to save big couponing stock up trips for days when I have a little help, or I may have to use the sweet seven and six year old help I have. Either way, those trips won’t be the (mostly) easy breeze they are now, but hopefully the won’t be horrible.

I can do this. I can.

And there’s VBS and MOSAIC and art camp for the big girls and always popsicles on the hill with some of our favorite people.

Summer will be different this year. But in this moment? I’m looking forward to it.

Just for a Moment

March 1, 2012 Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

Sometimes in the midst of all that seems too much, we have the sweetest moments.

Annabelle fell asleep on the couch tonight after a long day of school and church and fellowship supper.

I can’t lift her when she’s dead weight.

But her big sister can.

Madelynne picked her up and carried her to her bed and we tucked her in together and then she told me how sometimes lately Annabelle is grouchy so Madelynne doesn’t tell her goodnight.

“I think God tells her for me, Mommy.”

I’m sure He does, baby, I’m sure He does.

Sometimes it’s just for a moment that the world seems perfect. But it’s those moments, those small glimpses of Heaven, that renew my faith everyday.

amelia · motherhood

And Then She Was Two

February 20, 2012September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

Dear Amelia,
Two years ago you made a sudden appearance surprising nurses and my midwife and me with your quickness. Only a couple of hours before I had told your Marmie not to hurry because you certainly weren’t. How wrong I was! And how wrong were so many who thought surely you would be the first baby boy Brackett.

But you made us a family of five and ushered Daddy into that unofficial “three girls” club. Men shook his hand and told him to find a man cave when you all became teenagers. I pulled out all the saved baby girl clothes, the pink crocheted blankets, the bows to tame the wild mane of dark hair you have always had.

And now you are two. It’s hard to believe so much has changed in so short an amount of time. You (and your sissy monsters) have grown and developed and everyday become more of the person God wants you to be. I pray for your safety, your development, your sensitive feelings. I need to bow my knees more often and thank God for your sweetness, your presence, your sticky hugs and butterfly kisses.

Your smile that makes my world go ’round.

I thought you’d always be my baby. And you will. My baby girl, my baby we asked for from the Lord. How I love you. How I miss you being so small and snuggly in the Bjorn tucked away safe against my chest. How I love you being two with your infectious laughter, lispy “yesh”, great love of Winnie the Pooh and horses and puppies. How I love being with you everyday, listening to you sing as you color, sharing your favorite peanut butter and jelly, cuddling with you before naptime.

Maybe sometimes you think I don’t love the Llama Llama books as much as you. And maybe sometimes I beg you to lay down quickly so I can rest this body that’s bringing you a brother soon. There are times when I can’t watch anymore Pooh Bear or I get frustrated with you or you are too defiant and have to be reprimanded.

But I love you so. I hope you know that today in your little heart. And I hope you know it everyday for the rest of your life.

2012-02-19

“>Happy Birthday Millie Moo!
Mommy

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · motherhood · Working On Wednesday

Working On Wednesday

February 9, 2012September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

What are you working on this week?

Glue.

Belle is working on not tripping in class, resulting in a split chin, necessitating a call to mommy that was missed, requiring a call to daddy at work, sending mommy into a slight panic of “how could I miss the one call that mattered”, meaning we spent yesterday afternoon at the ER. Superglue is a fabulous invention. Even if they call it something fancy at the hospital so they can charge my insurance lots more money, it’s still a fabulous invention.

She’s fine, of course. But she would be really mad if she knew I posted this picture because she doesn’t want anyone looking at her boo-boo.

Birthdays.

I’m working on Amelia’s 2nd Birthday party. Usually I’m not one for over-the-top birthday parties because they make me crazy and cost me lots of money and I figured out a long time ago that my kids were happy with cupcakes, cheetos, and presents. Well, friends too. But last year, Amelia really got jipped. Her birthday party was cancelled in the wake of the FDIC takeover of the bank Joshua worked for, and so I spent her birthday home with just the girls.

We did walk up the hill and share cupcakes with our favorite boys, but that was it.

Of course she doesn’t know any different and doesn’t care…but apparently I do. So we’re having a big-ish Winnie the Pooh themed 2nd birthday with lots of family, a few favorite friends, and plenty of Pinterest inspired decor. Speaking of which, I should really get started.

Crafts.

I’m also working on embracing my non-craftiness in favor of my chef-ness. I’d much rather saute than decompage, dice than scrapbook, bake than sew. But I want to be able to create some craftiness sometimes. I really am going to make this.
I am. I am.

Source: danielleburkleo.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

Patience.

Tell me I’m not the only one whose kids can’t play Mousetrap alone because they can’t figure out how the pieces go. I know I’m not the only one whose children hear the ringing of the telephone as some sort of signal to immediately begin arguing and yelling and needing mommy right that very second. I’m sure I can’t be the only mom whose five year old almost has a meltdown when the valentines she’s writing get moved a quarter of an inch so her sandwich can be added to the overcrowded table.

What are you working on this week? Let me know!

motherhood · reflections

When You’re Spinning

February 8, 2012 Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

Sometimes we are spinning out of control and don’t even know it. On Monday I took my big girls to the park (because winter is never coming to Georgia) and despite the plethera of expensive slides and monkey bars and rock climbing walls, all they wanted to play on was the Merry Go Round. Probably the same one that’s been in parks since I was a kid.

Around and around they went. Them and the other five kids who were there. “Faster, faster!” Shrieked Madelynne. “Slower, slower!” Echoed Annabelle. Can you tell how they are different?

They seemed in perfect control. They would jump off and take turns spinning and jump back on. They would lean over the bars and lift up their legs and make mommy holler, “DON’T DO THAT!” They were happy as can be, wind in their hair, flying through the air. Unrestrained.

Then I made them get off and stumble to the car so we could go home and start supper and on the way home Madelynne threw up in a McDonald’s bag.

“At least I had something to catch it in,” she says mournfully collapsing on the living room floor because she was way too muddy for furniture.

And I thought, what a picture of life. Sometimes we’re spinning way too fast and way too much. We feel like we’re in control, enjoying the ride, laughing.

Then we lose that momentum and everything catches up to us and suddenly we don’t feel so good anymore. And I remember, that’s why we should slow down.

Just slow. Just watch. Just breathe.

Enjoy the ride but know when to get off.