Category: motherhood

motherhood · reflections

A Little More Margin, Please

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

The irony of this post is that I only have about ten minutes to work on it because it’s almost after school time and while sometimes they are content to watch a movie or play with their dollhouses or color and let me work, the reality is that too often I get interrupted and lose my train of thought.


Sort of like right now.  


For the past couple of days I have been trying to find enough time when my mind was clear and my kids were occupied and my husband was not home to write this post.  But it’s hard to find that extra time in a day cluttered with errands and commitments and phone calls from “paid area solicitors” and dishes and laundry and email and did I mention I subbed two full days this week?  


On Tuesday night when I was hyperventilating a little bit because I hadn’t folded the girls clothes and I hadn’t followed my own chore schedule and I hadn’t had a bath and I was just so tired and I wanted to blog but my mind was too frazzled—it hit me.  I shared a tip with my MOPS girls the other Friday that I hadn’t been following myself.  


Life needs margin.  As in white space.  Extra time.  Decompression.  A few moments every day to breathe.  And I had overbooked myself this week and was rapidly spiraling downward into perfectionist-induced meltdown.  


Insert margin.  I just needed some time to be mindless.  To chop vegetables or fold towels or sweep a floor or read a few pages of a book or write a blog.  Just a bit of time when I didn’t feel so compressed by my not-so-need- to-do list.  Time when no one was pulling on me or at me.


Then today I opened my well -worn copy of this book and read these words:


As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God – to give God “elbow room.” We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. 


We forget to make room.  Room for the Creator to remind us of all He has created that is good and perfect.  Room to process how He will work even through the difficult and mundane.  Room to let Him breathe into us the breath of life.

So today I found some margin.  May you be blessed with some too.

motherhood · perfectly imperfect

Beyond My Control

Lindsey P. Brackett7 Comments

I am aware that even as I write this I have friends who are longing for a baby, a call from the adoption agency, two lines on the stick, the opportunity I’ve been given.

I pray for them and long for them and hope for them and wait with them.

And when I sit in the examining room waiting for my midwife, crying because I’ve already reached my ideal weight gain for this pregnancy and I still have sixteen weeks to go, I am racked with guilt that I am not more thankful for this blessing.

But sometimes one person’s blessing is another’s trial.

Please don’t think I’m horrible because I’m unhappy to be pregnant again.  I want this baby.  I really do.  We’ve named him.  We’re designing a nursery. His sisters kiss my belly, and I proudly tell people we’re having a boy after three girls.

But for a person who has always struggled with self-image, with weight, with being compared to everybody else, pregnancy can be a burden.  People assume I’m due soon.  Not really.  May is three holidays, a winter storm, and lots of rain away.  People assume I’m having twins.  Newsflash: Ultrasounds are pretty high-tech these days.  People tell me not to worry about it because it’s a boy and they’re just different.  People tell me I’ll lose it after.

But I’m still crying.

I avoid pictures.  I don’t feel beautiful, and since I rarely did before, 25 more pounds isn’t helping.  I have no confidence in any decision I make.  Eat a salad?  I’ll be hungry again in an hour.  Eat a cheeseburger?  I’ll swell up from all the sodium.

Today I counted carbs.  That actually helped a bit.  At least I was aware of what is too much.  At least I felt a little bit more in control.

Which is ultimately what this is about.  I constantly feel like my life is out of my hands.  That no matter how good a wife and mom I try to be, something is going to come around to remind me that I will never be good enough.

Linking up to Capturing Motherhood today and planning to read the article she’s linked to because clearly I’m out of sorts today and need to remember Who is on my side.

cooking · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · motherhood · pinterest · pregnancy · savor

Lately

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment
Inspired by Julia, I’m linking up with Amanda today.  
Well, and I haven’t blogged in a week and my scattery pregnant brain that tried to make coffee
without water this morning is having trouble focusing.
I like linkys that give me a focus.
and a list.  
I like those too.
So, lately I’ve been enjoying many random things…
One.
Like my new cookbook.
I’ve blogged a bit about some of the recipes I’ve made, but let’s just say, it’s been great to use whole wheat flour in pizza dough and waffles and not have my kids or my husband complain.  And we cannot wait for our garden this summer to really use this baby.

Two.
On that same note, I’ve really been enjoying this blog lately.  I like the simplicity and the motto and the reminder that living simply can also mean that you eat really well.  Today’s post is on my menu for next week.

Three.
The lovely Biltmore Estate
We visited this weekend to take advantage of our passholder appreciation discounts
and to take a behind-the-rooms tour.
Unfortunately, this baby didn’t want to climb six flights of stairs and I had to quit.
Oh, well.  Guess we’ll have to go back.
And I’ll have to post on how to enjoy Biltmore with little ones because my girls love it.

Four.
Getting Organized
I’m trying, really I am. I have a list of 32 things I want to get done before my 32nd birthday in February.
So far, I’ve done six of them.  For some reason, though, I keep finding more things to add to the list which seems kind of counter-productive don’t you think?

Five.
My Family Notebook

We made these at MOPS this past week and I’m using it.  Really, I am.  and I’m going to.
I just have to remember it’s there.  Today I made a list of the little chores (dishes, laundry) I want
done daily.  And I did them.  Yay, me.  But then I ate lunch and now there are dishes in the sink again.

Six.
Family Pizza Night

I started making homemade pizza several months ago and now I’m addicted.
What are your favorite toppings beyond the usual?  I made chicken and spinich last week, sausage and green peppers this week.  Joshua said I should take the picture after I put the cheese on but I thought the peppers were pretty.

Seven.
Food.  Recipes.  Cookbooks.
I think I might have an obsession.  I have decided to embrace the fact that I’m not crafty.
But I can cook pretty decently and I really like that.
So I think I’m trading in my modpodge
for a spatula that spreads icing.
But will my freezer ever look like this?  Probably not.

Eight.
(trying to) Live Simply
I made my own laundry detergent.
and I’m not buying napkins until I can get them for (almost) free, so cloth will have to do.
After all, I have a 5-gallon drum of laundry detergent to use.

Nine.
I wish I was enjoying my laptop.
Joshua bought me a used ibook off craigslist for Christmas.
I can’t get it to connect to our wireless.  It tells me the password is wrong. It’s not.
Apparently we have a WPA and it needs a WEP?
I don’t even know what I’m talking about here.  Help, please.

Ten.
Planning a Nursery
It’s taken me a while to get used to the idea that soon there will be another one.
and this one isn’t a girl.
We finally agreed on what to do about a nursery and Amelia will be relocating to our office and sharing this larger-ish space with baby brother when he relocates from the pack-n-play in my bedroom.
So we’ve got months to work on this idea.
Thank goodness for Pinterest.

amelia · Friday Five · motherhood · reflections

Five Minute Friday

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

This is a great idea from Gypsy Mama.  Now let’s see if I can write uninterrupted for five minutes.  It’s supposed to be more stream-of-consciousness than edited and perfected posting.

Because I ever have time for editing and perfecting.

Here goes….

The first Friday of the New Year.  The topic is roar…

Roaring for what exactly?  And how?  Amelia likes to roar.  Especially when she’s strapped in the grocery buggy for longer than thirty minutes and the line is long and she’s bored.  Then she starts roaring.  So I say, Amelia are you a tiger?  And she says in that sweet little almost-two lisp, Yesh.

Then we pretend to be an elephant, a pig, a cow, a duck, a chicken, an owl (with flapping arms and hoo-hoo) and a lion (which is basically a tiger again).  It’s adorable and makes me feel like a roaring mama.  Fended off that tantrum, that’s right.

Sometimes she roars and chases her sisters around the house.  They squeal and run and climb in and under the kitchen table and make lots of noise that I sometimes get annoyed by.  So then I roar like a mean mama.  And they get in trouble for—for what?  For being kids?  For having fun?  For distracting me from something that can’t possible be as important as they are?

Their daddy roars with them too.  He chases them all around the house and they play and play.  Always right before bedtime.  And I’m usually in the kitchen wiping down the table and wishing I had the courage to roar just for the fun of it.  Just to hear my own voice and their laughter.

ROARRRRRR……I’ll work on it.

motherhood

Who is perfect, really?

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

I’ve been blog skimming and deep reading killing a bit of time this morning before Amelia and I head out on errands a day full of errands and activities that pull me away from the piles of laundry waiting patiently on my bed and the casserole dish in the sink and the floor sticky from this morning’s cereal rejection.

Everyone seems to be writing about perfectionism today.  And these are people, who, from my vantage point of the other side of the net, seem to be pretty perfect.

Tara makes those wonderful family rules signs but admits she struggles with contentment in a house that doesn’t feel like home.  Been there, my friends.

Rachel is super-mom to six kids but writes boldly about how she’s let perfectionist tendencies rob her of those precious moments in which she finds joy.  Don’t I know all about that.

And then there’s Ann Voskamp documenting her trip to Ecuador by telling about the beautiful scarf her six-year-old daughter knit for their sponsored child and I know, beyond a doubt, that perfect things don’t matter as long as what’s given is wrapped in love.

Compassion Bloggers: Ecuador 2011

But isn’t it hard?  We look at pinterest and facebook and bloggers who seem to have it all together.  Moms who are handmaking gifts and coordinating elaborately themed parties and using burlap for way more than it was ever intended.  But are they perfect?  Surely not.  Surely no one is.

Perhaps the measure of our perfection is in the eyes of our children.  When we stop cleaning to play with them.  When I stay on the couch half-asleep instead of in my bed because Annabelle wants to sit in my lap to finish the Friday night movie.  When I leave the dishes and the laundry and the sticky floors for one more day so we can go for a walk or to soccer practice or to play with our friends.

I’ve felt so imperfect lately.  Did you know my house was actually cleaner before I started staying home?  And we certainly had more money so I didn’t have to ration the cheese for pizza night so we’d have enough left for lasagna.  But the other day our children’s minister told me that she’s noticed a change in my girls since I started staying home.  They just seem….happier.

So maybe I’m not perfect.  But my kids are happy.