I’m Compassion. How Do You Do?

Yesterday we missed a wedding.  I’ve known the bride my whole life.

Granted, we were never close.

And we weren’t actually invited to the wedding.

But I picture it taking place in an apple grove, with some sort of ivy winding up and over a wrought iron arch.  A gorgeous Autumn ceremony.  The minister is just getting to the heartwarming stuff at the climax of his speech.

Suddenly all you can hear is

AP’M!

AP’M!

AP’M!

AP’M!

AP’M!

AP’M!

AP’M!

That’s Riley yelling “APPLE!” and waiting for someone to notice his brilliance in suggesting the name of the nearby fruit at the top of his lungs.  There he goes, scooting in between rows of guests, squealing and laughing.

Then there’s another noise, sort of quietly violent, as Riley’s mama starts losing her cookies.  Must have been a bad apple.  Someone catch that kid!  He’s getting too close to the bucket!  He’s getting too close to the bride!  He’s as curious as a cat and as fast as boiled Crisco!

I bet they wish they’d invited us.

The point is, I learned a lot in the last day or two.  I’m joking about the wedding.  Someone I know did get married, but my 1:30A.M. mind just thinks it would have been hilarious if our comical circus had showed up. 

You see, I never thought I’d be the parent with the rambunctious toddler.  MY children were going to stay perfectly in line. 

And I, not having actually thrown up in 16 years, never had much compassion for those who got stomach bugs.  It was more like, “Oh the poor thing.  Glad I didn’t get it…”

But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.  Psalm 86:15.  I posted that as my verse for the weekend, and funny thing – God’s been teaching me to have compassion – to sympathize with those who struggle or suffer.

After all, I was one of those rambunctious toddlers whose heart was good and happy and whose bum never hit the chair.

And now I was one of those poor souls hunched over the garbage can while my loving husband rubbed my back, and my parents whisked our children from the room.

Thank you, God, for your love and faithfulness – for getting me through and reminding me how much I need you.  Maybe I’ll have the chance to reach out to someone soon in compassion.

I feel like now I can say sincerely, “I know what you mean!  Let’s get through it together.”

Belly Full of Life

No, this is not another pregnancy post. 

It’s a very LATE post, that’s what it is…  But for good reason.

Today my Sweet Babboo climbed back into bed next to his exhausted-looking and -feeling wife and said, “I have an idea.  Why don’t you go to Lens Crafters and get your glasses fixed, and I’ll watch the boys.  And while you’re out, have the REI membership money that’s left over, and go shopping.  And don’t come back for at least an hour.”

And when I agreed, he read my mind and said, “…and you’re not to do any Mommy stuff while you’re out either.”

This was us on the day we got engaged:

He still makes me feel that way. 

I’ve been mulling over Proverbs 15:15 this week: “For the despondent, every day brings trouble.  For the happy heart, life is a continual feast.”

I love how there’s nothing in that verse about circumstances.  It’s all about the choice a person makes: How will you look at life?  How will I approach it? 

What will my attitude be at 5:00 a.m. this week when the alarms (plural) start to go off, I can see the moon shining between the slats of the window shade, and not even the birds are excited about the morning?

A happy heart will say, “I am waking up next to the man of my dreams, and God has given us another day together.”  It will rejoice that our offspring are sleeping just down the hall, and both are healthy. 

On days like today, when my Sweet Babboo encourages me to sleep in and take a morning off, it’s easy to see life as mashed potatoes with gravy, turkey, French bread with little garlic pieces in it, and perfectly salted green beans.  Thank you for my feast, Jon.

On days like the normal kind, when my sweet babies are teething and bonking each other in the face and not napping well, may I choose to eat the delicacies of the Lord in a life blessed with both trial and peace. 

His feast is ongoing and the last course will be the best, forever and ever.

p.s. We’re sitting on a Yankees pillow in that photo.  I must say, when two lovebirds get engaged, they tend to lose their heads.  Go, RED SOX!

Household Heroes: Husbands

Very often I find myself musing, “I use this thing ALL THE TIME…” about some object in our home.  Things that make life easier, or more fun, or cheaper.  For the past several Mondays, I’ve been spotlighting these household heroes and inviting them to take a bow.

But there’s a hero I haven’t mentioned; and believe me, I saved the best for last.

Household Heroes, Part 6: Husbands

Each tool or ingredient I’ve covered in this series has had great value to me.  They’re things I use all the time and really appreciate.

There is no way this series can end without mentioning the most valuable and underappreciated hero in our home: Jon.

Step over, baking soda.  You’re not as versatile as my bass-playing, history-teaching, child-raising, sandbox-building husband! 

Forget it, KitchenAid!  You can’t whip up anything as fine as the fun and smiles Jon creates around here.

No baking stone is as strong as the mettle in my man, who can hold his own in a difficult time and give strength to his wife when she really needs it.

A spray bottle holds wonderful solutions to tricky problems and big messes…  But my hubby holds such a generous nature and sweet, thoughtful spirit inside, he trumps those over and over.

The family spapoola may be able to clean distugsting messes, but my husband has actually caught our son’s poop in his hand, midair, and laughs about it.  Now there’s a keeper.

You can’t place a price tag on someone who takes out the garbage without being asked, who stands by you when you’re sick on the toilet in the middle of the night, or whose smile lights up the whole room on a dreary day. 

It’s not just what he does – and he does a lot between yard work, chores, teaching 9th grade social studies, raising our kids, handling finances, and handling, well, me.  It’s who he is! 

My hero has a wacky and hysterical sense of humor. 

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

That was on our honeymoon!

He makes up songs on the fly about everything from bodily functions to food to people’s personalities.

When I first met Jon, I noticed his eyes immediately.  They twinkled!  They were full of life and laughter while being quiet and self-assured at the same time.  A man who knew who he was and didn’t need anyone’s affirmation about it.

But I like to affirm him.  I don’t do it enough.  I’m too casual about the good graces of the man who puts up with my stubbornness and quirks, who shares with me a bed, a fridge, countless chocolate milks, and a lifetime of problem-solving, memory-making, and love.

Suffice it to say, I wanted to take the chance to say,

I love you, Jon.  You’re my hero.  And everyone ought to know.

If you’d like to brag about your sweet babboo in the comments section, be my guest.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go kiss the REAL household hero.

For Power

This week I made a cooking pit out of bricks and a grill cover and heated our dish and laundry water over an open fire.  I felt like a pioneer woman and it was fun!  Call me Fire Queen.

Our nights were candlelit, nursing sessions included.  Jon read the Chronicles of Narnia aloud while I knit or sewed by hand.  I actually felt like Marty from the Love Comes Softly series. 

You could hear crickets outside our house.  The street was dark and quiet.  Until 3 neighbors started up generators.

But now the storm has been over for 5 days, and we finally have our power back!  Let me say, people – I am SO THANKFUL for power! 

Of course I have to say that I’m thankful for God’s power to meet these circumstances and for His strength and protection.  Especially since 3 of the four of us were sick in the middle of it.  I never get sick like this, but had a fever, chills, and aches.  Yuck.

It’s all over and we’re out the other side.  And we didn’t get slammed like folks down South.  Please pray for those who are still out of power (most of my family included) and for those who got hit with storm when it was much worse. 

Hope you’re doing well, hope you have power, and hope it’s both kinds.  🙂

Pregnant Cooking: Smoothies or Sorbet

So here are on Wednesday again!  It’s hot, it’s the middle of the week, I’m tired, and I’m craving sugar as usual.  Plus, I’m recovering from having a baby and would really like to NOT be on my feet for a long time making dinner.  Enter BRINNER!

Pregnant Cooking: Smoothies

For my still-preggo sisters out there, you owe it to yourself to down a smoothie with your feet up.  I felt that at least one post in the Pregnant Cooking series ought to be an actual recipe, and this one is so simple and nutritious, I’d make it in any trimester – for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or dessert. 

Breakfast for dinner is one of my most favoritest things in the whole world.  I realize “favoritest” isn’t a word, but it’s in my vocabulary for things like smoothies, packed full of fruit, curing sore throats, dinner at the touch of a button, fresh and healthy and… you get the picture.

The best part of it all is that my husband likes to do the blending.  So I’m free to whip up flapjacks or waffles or eggs and bacon, and dinner takes half the time.  Sweet! 

This recipe doubles as a sorbet recipe.  My nieces and nephews request it when they come over.  To make sorbet, just pour the blended smoothie mix into a container, and freeze it until it’s the consistency you like. 

Enjoy!

Ingredients (measurements are approximate – sometimes I use more yogurt and less fruit, for example)

1/2 C. yogurt (homemade plain or vanilla if possible)

1/3 C. sugar

1 lb. fresh frozen fruit (if you pick strawberries or blueberries this summer and have it coming out your ears, freeze some and thaw it for smoothies later)

Method

Layer your ingredients of choice in the following order: 1/2 the yogurt, all sugar, all frozen fruit, remaining yogurt. 

That’s basically the same picture as the first one, but this shot shows the sugar layer better.  Mmmm, sugar.

Blend thorougly, stopping to stir and scrape the sides as needed.  If the fruit refuses to de-chunkify, add water 1-2 TBS at a time.  Do not let it liquefy.

Result

Your smoothie is ready when there are no chunks of fruit left, and it’s a uniform color.  Pop it in the freezer for later if you’re jonesing for sorbet. 

I’m sorry.  There are no gorgeous photos of a full glass of smoothie.  We always start drinking it as soon as it hits the glass.  Usually right off the stirring spoon too.  Sometimes I’ll add it to Riley’s milk at dinner.  Boy was THAT a surprise the first time he sipped it!

The perfect Brinner accompaniment!  Sllllllllllurp.

A Birthday Story!

Thanksgiving Thursday is the perfect day to share Quinn’s birth story.  I have so much to thank God for, I hardly know where to start!  It’s one of those things – if I don’t write it down, my holey memory will lose all the details before long.  So here goes.  In chronological order, this is how Quinn arrived in our family last week, and how God helped me through it.

Elephants Cause Labor

This just in!  Standing too close to the elephants at the zoo MAY induce labor!  So said the Del’s Lemonade man who served us there.  Apparently the elephants scare him a little, and he wanted to be sure we didn’t have a baby at the zoo if I became suddenly terrified.  No worries.  Quinn wasn’t making his appearance on his due date, which found us at the zoo, watching animals and walking and walking and walking.  It was a fun day, and a great memory.

False Alarm

Around dinner time the next night, contractions began and settled in to a rhythm quickly.  I’d been cautioned not to wait too long before heading to the hospital, as things could go much faster with my second delivery.  We arrived at the hospital around 11pm and I was monitored for an hour.  1cm dilated and no changes on the horizon.  Rats!  Home we went, and so did my older sister Kimberly, who would be part of the delivery team, and my mother-in-law June, who had driven out in the middle of the night to watch Riley.

It was a good dry run.

Sigh

I now know that showering will not speed up labor one bit if it is FALSE labor.  For the next three days, labor pains began toward evening and increased in intensity toward night.  But sleep was possible, and a morning shower killed all progress.  Each time the cycle repeated, the contractions were more painful than they’d been the day before.

“You will keep her in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because she trusts in you.  Trust in the Lord always (forever).  For the Lord, the Lord, is the eternal Rock.”  Isaiah 26:3,4

Those verses were my rock – God’s strength pumped into me like an I.V.  He gave me the grace to enjoy those few days of mental and emotion strain, and not to waste the summer.  The house got very clean too.  🙂  Scrubbing floors helps to modify feelings of anxiety.

The Real Show

When it’s real, you know.  On the fourth day of madenning and painful nothing, we visited the midwife.  She pronounced 3cm and helped things along by stripping the membranes.  Immediately after, contractions began again.  This time it was real, and by 9pm, we were in the hospital again, admitted, and ready to WORK.

The delivery room.  It’s amazing how it goes from a place of pain to a room full of joy!

 

Jon rubbed my legs, which shook uncontrollably, even when I was warm.  A very strange sensation.

4-5cm.  Sigh.  All the day’s pain and 4-5cm?!  Sustain me, oh God.

I had the BEST labor and delivery team ever.  Jon, Kimberly, a wonderful nurse, and Deb, our midwife.  She is a Christian, and prayed for me during labor.  Jon and Kimberly read verses to me that strengthened my resolve and kept me focused.  My prayer had been that I would not focus on the pain, but on Christ and on Quinn, on relaxing and worshiping and thanking God for His help and His plan.

He answered mightily! 

By about 6cm, well into the night, Quinn still had not “dropped” into my pelvis.  Little bugger 🙂  Deb’s timing was impeccable, breaking my water at just the right moment, ensuring that he dropped into place in the best possible birth position.  Absolutely amazing skills.

Lots of breathing and swaying and showering and praying later, I started to feel “pushy.”  Here we go!

NOT. 

7-8cm.  Inside I raged.  COME on!!!!  I thought I was almost done!

The last two cm were the hardest, and it was by the grace of God that I was able to finish strong.  Suddenly, it was time to push and in ten minutes, believe it or not, Quinn was born.  Looking down at his emerging head was one of the most special moments of my life. 

He lay on my chest for a while, snuggled in perfectly, and I told him over and over how much Mommy loved him.  What an incredible miracle!  Early in the morning after days of agonizing waiting and working, we became a family of 4. 

Daddy got a great tattoo and at the same time. . .

. . .a great second son.

Thank you, God, for an amazing and normal delivery and for the strength and courage you gave me, when I thought I couldn’t go on.  You truly are my eternal Rock and I worship you as I lean on you still. 

Thank you for an incredible sister, whose support also meant the world to me…

…for parents who sat in the waiting room, praying through the wee hours, and many others doing the same at home.

Thank you for my boys!

 

And thank you for the grace to become a family, figuring out how to keep making each other feel special.

Time to go take a nap.  I want to be fresh and cheerful for those boys when they wake up from their afternoon slumber.  What could be better than this?  Family is the most special thing on Earth.

A Very Full Vine

If my life is a vine, it’s very full.  Not just with lots to do…  My life is full of blessings!  I can’t thank God enough for my husband Jon, our son Riley, and our newborn baby boy, Quinn. 

 What an incredible Creator!  Thank you, God. 

We’re really enjoying being a family of four, adjusting and relaxing together.

I’ll post Quinn’s birthday story soon.  In the meantime, welcome back to The Full Vine!  I hope you’ll enjoy the set of series I’m starting on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays:

• Mondays: Household Heroes – everpresent and overlooked workhorses
• Tuesdays: Inspired Shoestrings – decorating with more imagination, less money
• Wednesdays: Pregnant Cooking – 9 months of food and funnies

Hope you’ll join me!

Food-Induced Giddyup

Jon calls this a “food-induced giddyup.”

Give me a nice, rich whoopie pie and I feel the same way.  🙂  At what age does it stop being appropriate to smear it all over your face?

Feet-Up Lunch

Gross.  “Feet” and “lunch” should not be in the same phrase…

…unless you’re a young mom whose Mommy is babysitting your 14 month-old so you can relax for the afternoon.  I am eating lunch WITH MY FEET UP on the couch.  I can’t remember the last time I did this! 

Actually, I’m dropping lunch all over my belly, with my feet up.  But we’ll… uh… ignore that little detail from here on.

I love my little boy – and the little boy growing in my belly too.  They’re not burdens.  They’re delightful!  But an afternoon “off” is a glorious thing, especially since life is going to get even busier very soon.  Thank you, Mom!

Random picture of relaxing outside:

I think that was taken during a game of Pool Ball, which I’ll have to explain in a later post.  I’m playing outfield here.  This strikingly similar, way-too-relaxed stance looks exactly like me playing softball when I was 11.  Except back then I would have been picking clover.

You never know what a difference a gesture of kindness will make for someone.  It may not be a feet-up lunch that they need (GA-ROSS!  Feet and lunch!).  But there could be a person in your life who needs a little pick-me-up.

I say this to myself also: Let’s look for opportunities to bless each other’s socks off.  🙂 

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.  Galatians 6:9

I must also add how thankful I am for the past 4 years of marriage to my husband Jon:

It’s our anniversary today!  I love this man so much, and my love and respect for him grow day by day.  What a great Dad, Best Friend, and Man of God he is.  Love you, sweetie.

Have a great day!  And put your feet up, if you can.

Home Again, Home Again

I don’t know why, but this photo makes me think of Dad’s old saying:

“Home again, home again, riggedy-jig.”

I say it all the time now when we pull up in the driveway.  A basket of laundry, a pile of toys, a 35-week belly, and my boys.  Definitely home.