Category: motherhood

birthdays · madelynne · motherhood

10 Things I Haven’t Learned in 10 Years of Motherhood

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I would have thought by the time she turned ten, I’d have been a bit of an expert.

Motherhood? Got it.

Yeah, right.

Instead, last Friday she turned ten and I ran myself ragged trying to please everyone ten times over and maybe I was successful. Or maybe I’m just kidding myself and we’re never really a success at this motherhood gig because the world doesn’t measure success with the immeasurable.

There’s no way to tally up points and determine if I’ve got it right after ten years because every new day is a journey and a milestone and another twenty-four hours that might mean I’ve gotten it wrong all over again. Rewards are in the form of tight hugs and sleepy kisses and late night whispers of “I love you” that come after the day is done and the tempers lashed and the mess ups just keep piling up.

But they are sweet when they come.

I took Madelynne and four friends camping for her birthday. We hiked the gear in, pitched a tent (Joshua helped), and spent nearly twenty-four glorious hours in the woods with perfect fall weather. Except for the brief 11 p.m. rainstorm that wasn’t on radar so we hadn’t put up the rain fly over the tent.

Yeah, ten years of motherhood and endless rainy camp outs and I’m still not getting it right. But she told me I was the coolest/bravest mom ever.

Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s just true that I’m the craziest mom ever.  I do know this. In ten years of motherhood, what I haven’t learned often seems to far surpass what I have.

I jotted down this list the morning of her birthday when her daddy made homemade cinnamon rolls and I wrote in her Letters with Mama book and tried not to have a panic attack.

10 Things I Haven’t Learned in Ten Years of Motherhood
I haven’t learned how to keep my temper.

I haven’t learned how to keep their rooms clean.

I haven’t learned how to say no. 
Actually, I can say this to my kids. Just not to everyone else.

I haven’t learned to remember a diaper stash for the car.

I haven’t learned how to cease amazement with each child at each new development.

I haven’t learned how to make time stand still so I can savor the moment.

I haven’t learned how to know my capacity.

I haven’t learned how to give each of them enough of me.

I haven’t learned how to keep my insecurities from influencing theirs. 

I haven’t learned how to believe I’m doing a good job.

The only lesson I’ve really learned in ten years of motherhood is grace. Pile upon pile of grace heaped up after the hard days, the bad days, the I’m-unfit-for-motherhood days. The saving grace of motherhood is that each day is a new day. A new day with no mistakes in it. 
So in ten years, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got that I know is true everyday. The other is what I’m still learning, still trying, still hoping. 
But on Sunday afternoon, do you know what I whispered to the mom with two close in toddling age who run her ragged and stretch her limits? 
It gets easier. 
And it does. So maybe I’ve learned quite a bit in ten years after all. 
family · living local · motherhood

Simple Family Fun at the Chattahoochee Mountain Fair

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment
Originally published in The Northeast Georgian, September 12, 2014
I have a confession. Every year when the fair comes to town, we try to keep it a secret from our kids. We avoid highway 17 or taken the circuitous route around so they don’t see the action. The few times in the past they’ve caught glimpses, we’ve managed to change the subject quickly and distract them with other activities. 
It’s not that I’m opposed to the fair, and actually I think we did take them once when we still had only two, and they were too young to care or even notice the carnival. But we avoid it because, gracious, like I told many when we went for the first time, I just about need to sell a kidney to take them. 
That’s what happens when you have four kids. Simple Family Fun becomes Expensive Family Disagreement.

To keep this adventure affordable, we went on Family Night and were the last to make the cut at the gate for discount admission (thank you, Lions Club!). The Monday night crowd was light and there was plenty of entertainment without the rides. In fact, I could happily go again just to wander the agricultural heart of this true county fair. But my kids had a collective mindset. 
Carnival rides. 
So three armbands and a few tickets later we were out of cash and ready to go. I’m going to remember this experience as training for when we finally get to Disney because I learned a valuable lesson. When you have four kids of varying ages and temperaments and fears, carnival rides do not equal family time. 

My oldest is scared of heights which meant she wouldn’t ride anything her sister wanted to ride. So then my second daughter was mad because we wouldn’t let her go off with a friend (family time remember?), and by the end of the night she hadn’t gotten to ride any of the big rides she wanted.  Since we were literally out of money, I couldn’t buy tickets to ride with her. Which made me a little sad, too. 
Not my husband, though. He’s about the same as our oldest when it comes to carnival rides. 
Then we had a four year old daredevil who wanted to ride big rides by herself, but she needed a “responsible person” and her sisters were riding the only thing they could agree on together. So there might have been a tantrum or two about that. 
Finally, we had to divide and conquer with one of us referring the carnival and the other taking two year old Gus away from the rides since he was out of tickets. That’s when I really had fun. We petted the cows and watched the acrobats and he made a new friend. The sweet pup standing guard at the milking demonstration received lots of love that night from a little boy who was reminding his mama to just enjoy life’s simple delights. 
Like Family Night at the County Fair.
living local · motherhood · reflections

When All You Really Need is 10 Quarters to Do Laundry

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I came home from the beach a week ago to this greeting from my husband who likes to try and reduce my stress.

“So, you want the good news or the bad news?”

Hmmm….well the bad news was the washing machine had been broken since Tuesday. But he thought he could get it fixed.

With at least $85 and a technician.  Luckily we had this conversation in my parents’ kitchen over pizza after I had napped in the car while my daddy drove two kids, me, and lots of our stuff back home from a week at my favorite place.

Cushioned the blow. And my dad chimed into this conversation with, “You know I think I saw a YouTube video on how to fix that problem.”

Really, sometimes I wonder how people survived before YouTube and Google were actions that can solve anything.

But…fixing it required more hands than Joshua has and more patience than our eight year old has when she’s out of shorts. Plus, I honestly wasn’t sure if this would work (much as I wanted it to) and I had the crazy notion that the laundromat could be a good experience.

Yes, I think taking all four of my kids into a laundromat on a Monday afternoon sandwiched between school and Family Night at the Fair could be a good experience.

I wanted them to see how the other side lives. What it’s like not to have a washer/dryer handy for your favorite shirt at any time. What it means to choose between after school ice cream and clean socks. What it is to mingle with people who look a lot like us but don’t walk in our socio-economic circle in which a laundry room is a necessity and not a luxury.

I wanted to have a smidge of an experience of what it might look like to live out words I penned nearly a year ago.

Because we don’t really know each other until we do dirty laundry together.

So we did. We got an education from a kind gentleman who wasn’t put out that they had taken over the folding tables in order to complete homework. We exchanged smiles with a Hispanic father whose daughter was infinitely calmer than any of mine. We marveled at those who do this on a regular basis and are pros.

But mostly we just learned about Georgia’s habitats and fourth grade algebra and listened to the refrain of the Daniel Tiger app. Being stuck in the laundromat meant I couldn’t escape into the internet or my bedroom or even a novel because between four kids and four washers with timers, something constantly needed attention.

Which was the real heart of this experience for me.

In my own home, I often hole up and overlook the outside world. Including the world of my kids, sometimes. It’s easy to let them retreat to their rooms to complete homework or a project or a book. It’s easy to flip on a show and call it “family time.” It’s nice to fold laundry by myself in my bedroom with a podcast going.

But sometimes that means I’m out of step with all that’s going on around me. I want to see. I want to experience. I want my kids to know how good we really have it.

Even if that sometimes means I need 10 quarters for every load of laundry that needs washing.

What about you? Any new experiences lately? 

Oh, and YouTube worked. He fixed the washer. And after seeing Madelynne’s photo on Instagram, I had no less than five friends tell me I could have used their machines. Which was kind and a lesson to me about remembering it’s okay to humble myself and air my dirty laundry with a friend, too. 

living local · motherhood · summer

In Which We Camp at Don Carter State Park

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment


I am clearly a crazy person. Do not confuse what I am about to tell you with the idea that I’m a great mom or a fun mom or a brave mom.

I am none of those things.

I am a crazy mom who gets wild ideas and then with the same incorrigible stubborness I despise in my 8 year old, I continue to pursue said crazy ideas even when the odds are stacked against me.

Oh, and then I whine about how the odds are stacked against me and I just can’t ever seem to catch a break.

Sheesh. I am a crazy person.

I took my kids camping last week. Yes, all of them. Yes, tent camping. Yes, it was raining the day we set out. Yes, we had to hike in to our site.

Yes, crazy person.

But they were so excited. And so helpful. And so thrilled to be camping and swimming in the lake. By the way, it’s perfectly acceptable to be wet while swimming, but getting wet because rain is pouring down while your crazy mother tries to set up the broken canopy is not acceptable and results in massive screaming.

Just so you know.

We had decided to check out Georgia’s newest state park, Don Carter on the shores of Lake Lanier. It’s only about 25 miles from home and has a great beach area the kids are in love with. And the most awesome playground, ever. However, it also has a truly primitive campground. They were in love with that too.

Twelve sites are nestled back in the woods and along the lake shore. They’re fairly separated from one another, so you definitely don’t feel like you’re camping on top of someone else, but the trade off? All sites require a walk in. Some more so than others. Last weekend when we scoped it out, they picked out one of the farthest sites from the parking lot. It was about 100 yards down a paved trail and another hundred or so yards up a trail through the woods.

“But, Mommy, we won’t wake up anybody else when we get up early!”

Well, there’s that for a positive.

Really, it was a great site. My only complaint is not actually the walk in, but the lack of a picnic table in the primitive sites. I for sure wasn’t carrying one of those up that trail. Our two-room twelve-person tent was enough of a load, thank you very much.

So we walked it all in. I had repacked all the gear to make it as easy as possible, planned meals around minimalist needs and cooking (Pop-tarts for the first time in months!), and steeled myself for the potential complaining when they realized just how much work this really is.

But I didn’t prepare myself adequately for ME.

You know this happens to us all the time as mothers. We plan and pack and prep for everyone else. We overlook ourselves. We forget to account for our own capacity and abilities and instead fall into the belief our kids have about us: we think we can do it all by ourselves.

Crazy person.

I can’t do anything by myself. And the last lesson I want my kids to learn is that I can. Instead, I want them to learn that the only reason mommy can do anything is because the first place I go in the morning is my knees and the second place I go is their daddy.

Problem is, sometimes I skip those two places and go straight to the throne of myself. That’s when I fall apart. Because the pressure I put on myself is infinitely greater than the expectations my Father God or my precious husband have for me.

On our first day out, I prayed and had a Bible study with my kids before we left. We talked about the verse I had studied that morning.

12 Clothe yourselves therefore, as God’s own chosen ones (His own picked representatives), [who are] purified and holy and well-beloved [by God Himself, by putting on behavior marked by] tenderhearted pity and mercy, kind feeling, a lowly opinion of yourselves, gentle ways, [and] patience [which is tireless and long-suffering, and has the power to endure whatever comes, with good temper].–Colossians 3:12 (AMP) 

So, Thursday was a good day despite the rain that came down and the canopy that didn’t come up and the flood that soaked all our clothes.  Thursday I had called on power outside myself to endure whatever came so that my kids would not have a crazy mama. We had all agreed to work on being patient with one another no matter what.

But apparently, I forgot all that by Friday morning when I was getting all worked up over a visit from my sister and the idea that Joshua would come in that afternoon and what if they thought I’d done everything wrong? There was dirt in the tent, no table, and Gus’s kneecaps couldn’t be found under all the scrapes and bruises. Not to mention Amelia wore the same clothes for two days because hers were still wet despite a visit to the the dryer in the posh RV campground.

I forgot, again, that not everything is always all about me. And not everything I do has to be filtered through the screen of what everyone else might think.

Expectations are not absolutes. Life is so often a series of expectations that are unrealistic and unachievable, yet we crush ourselves under the weight of failure when nothing seems to go according to plan. All week people have been asking me if our trip was fun, if it was worth it, if we had a good time. I tend to say it would be more worth it had it been longer, had I been more patient, had it not rained.

But my kids? Just like that time we hiked Tallulah Gorge, they figured it was worth it all along. You know why? They’re expectations were simple: we camp and we swim. Only mine were outlandish.

We camp. We are happy the whole time. No one fights. We sing in the rain. We do everything right so no one can find fault or say they’d have done it differently.

You know what? I’d be really crazy not to like the expectations they have of me a lot better than the ones I have of myself.

Yes, I’ll do it again sometime. But this time? I’ll raise my hands in praise and lower my voice of expectation.

Don Carter really is a great place for families to camp, hike, swim, and play. Check it and other wonderful state parks out here.

motherhood · writing

From One Extreme to the Other

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I spent the first four days of last week just being myself. I went to a writer’s conference. I met agents and editors and successful published authors. I had insightful conversations with incredible people.  I focused my writing and took volumes of notes from a man who knows how to tell a story.

I read a book.

It was incredible and soul-filling and light-a-fire encouraging to my hopeful writer self.  While I was there, I was a blogger, a novelist-to-be, a social media guru others asked for advice.  It was thrilling to say the least.

But then I came home. And I spent the weekend being the mom I most don’t want to be.

Rather than that mom who has found her footing, I was right back to being that mom who was drowning in the weight of expectation.

Let me tell you there’s nothing heavier than the expectation you heap upon yourself.

On Saturday all four of my children were in a family wedding. After I had been gone for nearly a week, I came home, did last day of school honors and parties, packed again, and all of us headed to Atlanta for the weekend.

The sweet bride marrying my husband’s cousin is easygoing and a great believer in family. She never once made me feel like I had to do anything extra than put them in their dresses and have them show up. But of course I felt like I had to do so much more.

Here’s a piece of advice if your daughters are in a wedding. Know your own capacity for handling fancy hair and fancy clothes before you think you can do it all yourself.

I called in reinforcements in the form of my baby sister. She was great.

I was a basket case.

The bride was calm and completely unnerved by the idea that the two year old ringbearers may bolt before they got down the aisle.

I was a bundle of nerves.

So somehow I went from playing the “sure I know what I’m doing” writer mama to the “what have I gotten myself into” mama who was undone by curling irons, hot rollers, and a splash of Sprite.

Of course that splash of Sprite landed directly on the skirt of Annabelle’s dress and when I yelled about the stain, she cried great big crocodile tears that landed directly on the bodice of her dress.

And that’s when I knew I had swung the pendulum of motherhood from one extreme to the other.

I simply can’t be everything to everyone. What I can be, however, is good at who I am and aware of the situations that make me stressed because they are outside my comfort zone.  Most of these situations involve instances when I’m sure I’m about to be judged on my children’s behavior and appearance.

Are you catching a theme here?
It’s never about them. It’s always about me.  That, friends, is the problem.

Saturday wasn’t supposed to be about me. It was about how a wedding can bring a few hours of pure joy to anyone lucky enough to share it. It was about how Michael and Ashley are high school sweethearts who’ve dated for as long as Joshua and I have been married. It was about how God can cover over all our messes and steam them back into something beautiful–which is what the God-bless-her coordinator did with Annabelle’s dress.

I reached behind me in the minivan and held Annabelle’s hand while we drove to the church. I told her I was sorry and she was beautiful and no one cared if her dress had a little stain because she is more than a dress.

She is beloved by the King and a princess of heaven, and her mama is just a sinner in need of grace.

And a glass of sweet tea. Which I had at the reception while my children danced their hearts out like no one was watching.

They didn’t learn that from me, thank you Jesus. But maybe someday soon, I’ll have the courage to dance like that too.