Carla: It seems like every article I read about motherhood focuses on this elusive idea of “balance.” I’m all for it, if only someone could step into my life and show me what exactly it might look like.

I don’t think my life is any more complicated than anyone else’s. In some ways, it’s less complicated than the lives of many women I know. I work from home, so that eliminates a whole batch of stressors like daily childcare and commuting and what to do when someone gets sick and having to look presentable by 8 in the morning. I have a husband, so that obviously helps A LOT. I have all kinds of good and wonderful things in my life that make my days far easier than those of 98% of the world’s population. 

And yet.

Click here to continue!

That little foyer is now organization central. He is ready, I am ready, yet I can guarantee you, I’ll will not be this on top of things and organized for the poor guy again until this time next year. By Tuesday, I’ll be scrambling his lunch at the last minute, yelling at him to look AGAIN next to his bed for his shoes, and wondering where I put that thing I was supposed to sign.

But for now, tonight, I’m feeling like a great mom, who’s got an unbelievably great boy (yes, I know: and a girl and another boy, but we’re not talking about them right now. They don’t get the sap treatment until they go away for nearly eight hours a day!).

Happy First Day of School!

But it’s so hot out; I’m so tired; and I gotta tell you, I got nothing. So this is just an update for updates’ sake.

I’ll try to post something more creative or insightful or amusing later. But right now—if it doesn’t start raining that is—I really just want to ride bikes with my fam. 

My mom’s had a particular love for the 1968 movie version of Oliver! (yes, Mom, sometimes I DO write about you!). Overall, I shared her love—with the exception of one small thing: Oliver himself. In an otherwise well-cast movie, the kid playing the title role drove me nuts. Never more than in the scene where he sits in the undertaker’s basement, propped up on a pile of hay (if I remember correctly), when he looks out the window longingly and sings, “Where Is Love?” in what I always considered to be the most annoying voice ever.

From the time I was little until not too long ago, I’d do mock renditions of this scene and my mom would click her tongue, roll her eyes, and say, “I don’t know what your problem with that sweet song and that sweet boy is.” And I’d continue on with my mocking.

So imagine my surprise when last night, when I took my kids to see a local production of Oliver!, I choked up during that very scene, with that very song. Maybe it was because this Oliver was more yelling than singing and therefore seemed more desperate. But more likely it was because as I sat watching the scene this time—with one kid on my lap and the other next to me (with yet another at home)—my “momness” kicked it.

This momness is the thing that makes me realize how much being a mom and raising my awesome kids has changed me—in this case, how much softer I’ve become, how much more open my eyes are. Because now, I understand why my mom loves that scene so much. Who cares how annoying that boy is! The boy is singing about looking for love, specifically, the love of his mother, something he’s never known.

So while before kids I could somehow mock the (actor) orphan’s voice, now that I’m a mom, I can’t. Because no matter how gauling the voice, it’s a song that still too many kids are singing and it’s not funny.

While many days as a mom my kids drive me nuts and I feel totally frustrated by my role as mom, Oliver’s pained song is a good reminder of the importance of what we do, what we offer our kids.

Today is finally March. I had thought by now surely my cabin fever would’ve subsided, but alas, it rages on! This has been the longest winter I can remember and trying to keep three kids under six occupied while plunking out a book has been no easy task.

But yesterday, I finally followed my own advise for how to “treat” cabin fever: i.e. getting out into the elements that make you feel trapped. My son and I worked for a long time on the glacier he’s been building all winter alongside our house (for what it’s worth, I’ve often thought of inviting Al Gore to show An Inconvenient Truth on the side of said not-so-melty glacier!). It was wonderful. After we finished working on it (my job was to build a wall for the “dungeon”), we both sat, rested, and chatting seven-or-so feet above ground on its top, all the while watching the sun set. It was one of my favorite moments this winter.

But anyway, this advice I have? It came from an article I wrote for MOMSense earlier this winter. Here’s a bit of what I wrote in “Cabin Fever: The ‘ins and outs’ of this seasonal condition,” which first appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of MOMSense magazine:

Last winter, when my preschoolers discovered fighting, I thought I’d lose my mind. I remember sitting in front of our bay window, rubbing my very pregnant belly, looking out into the whirling snow as they fought over something in the next room. I figured their newfound fighting was just another fierce symptom of what had plagued our house for weeks. We were experiencing one of modern motherhood’s greatest winter-weather maladies: “cabin fever.” I started longing for springtime.

If you’re reading this article on your sunny portico in San Diego or somewhere else with perfect weather, you’re probably thinking, Cabin what? But you know what I mean if you’ve ever struggled with being cooped up and feeling trapped as driving snow, pouring rain or blowing wind keeps you from enjoying the world beyond your home. And you also know the craziness cabin fever can inflict on a family with preschoolers!

Winter brings with it some wonderful family fun with snow-filled hills and frozen ponds. But during long, gray winters, the times of truly enjoying the season are few and far between. It’s in this “far between” time that cabin fever strikes a household. And as you try to remedy the symptoms with endless fun indoor activities, you can experience agitation, frustration, boredom and gloom.

But anyone whose family has been stricken with cabin fever knows while we can find temporary fixes, we look forward to springtime. We know that bursting through doors (coat-free!) into the warmer spring weather, running wild with our kids under a wide sky and bright sun, and breathing in fresh air will help cure us.

If only these solutions worked so well for the other kind of cabin fever. Because, of course, cabin fever doesn’t only hit when we’re cooped up in a house with preschoolers. Cabin fever can occur when we’re cooped up in life with preschoolers! As much as we adore our children, the demands of mothering them can leave us feeling a tad closed in ourselves.

I’ve struggled with this kind of cabin fever since I left full-time work to stay home with my eldest son. I’ve never regretted this decision. But I’ve frequently felt the sensation of life moving on without me as I sit “stuck” in the house waiting for one child to wake up while trying to get another one down. I’m often anxious to burst out into wide skies and sunlight (ah, freedom!). And when I feel like I’ve left the “real me” back at the office (because this near-crazed, frustrated and exhausted woman can’t possibly be me!), I long for springtime.

Unfortunately, wishing for spring means wishing away a season I don’t really want to go away. As challenging as this time of my life is, I love these years with my kids. They’re as full of wonder and fun as they are tantrums and time-outs. While this may be the season of feeling cooped up, it’s also a season of freely offered hugs, snuggles, silliness and play. And unlike actual seasons, these times with our preschoolers don’t come back. We only get one shot.

To avoid cabin fever, experts advise getting out into the very elements that keep you housebound—and enjoying them. I love this wisdom. Turns out, the cure for cabin fever is contentment—enjoying what we’ve been given when it’s given. That’s God’s advice, too—learning to be content with whatever my circumstances are because he gives me the strength.

I make no bones that these suggestions are easier to type than to follow (especially since springtime didn’t cure my kids of their fighting!). However, this winter—and in each “winter” of motherhood—I’m giving this a whirl: keeping my eyes off spring and trusting that the cure for cabin fever is in living and loving the season I’m in. I hope you’ll join me. Now bundle up and enjoy!

When her teacher said this, I joked to my husband, “Poor thing. She needs to play out the home life she doesn’t have.”

Of course I was only half-kidding here. I do, in fact, keep quite busy taking care of my “babies.” The other aspects of housekeeping? Let’s just say these aren’t my gifts. So I’m always intrigued by the ways my very “girly” daughter does play house. And, at home, she doesn’t play it as stereotypically as she does at school. Probably because they just don’t have the right equipment.

At home, she’s known to sit on the sofa and “nurse” her baby with her toy laptop at her side, typing away one-handed. Or she’ll be in the middle of cooking at her play kitchen and announce, “Mom. I gotta check my ‘emil’” (as she calls it) and run over to her laptop (or mine) and start plunking away at the keys.

While part of me feels guilty (of course) that her image of a mom is that of someone not 100% concentrated on any one activity at a time (but when were moms like this?), most of me really likes seeing her play like this. I like it because she’s growing up with a fuller view of what a mom is—that some do keep busy and happy decorating and cleaning and others keep busy and happy “checking email.”

I hope before she’s a mom herself that she sees the wide array of ways we can be moms, and that she finds and is comfortable in the way God calls her to mother.

“They’re for people who can’t afford to buy food,” she said. “But those people are rich in other ways.”

Her daughter asked, “What ways?”

And she answered, “I have no idea. Let’s get home.”

I laughed out loud when I heard this. Not because it was a funny topic or that she didn’t have an answer (though I don’t know why she added the “rich in other ways” comment if she wasn’t prepared to throw out some reason). I laughed because her daughter caught her in one of those cheeseball lines we tend to toss out at our kids.

I know I’ve said things like this as I try to explain to my kids why some people have plenty and some nothing, why we give toys to needy kids at Christmas (”Doesn’t Santa go to poor people’s houses?”), or why sometimes kids, pets, and adults get really, really sick. I’ve tried to give answers that seem godly or meaningful somehow, even though I think my kids see right through them. 

While this mom may be right, that those who do not have enough to eat may in fact be ”rich” in other ways—certainly there are blessings of sorts that come with poverty, a dependence on God for daily bread most of us will never understand, for example—come on. So often I think we throw around words like this to make ourselves feel better about the lives and lifestyles we lead.

It’s just a thought; I don’t have too much more to say on this. Except that I know for sure that the opposite of what this woman said is true: That those who have too much to eat are often poor in many other ways.

• Find a better outlet for my stress (Read: stop yelling at my family because I’ve got too much on my plate. Not their fault I like to bite off more than I can chew!).
• Find a better way to deal with anger. Without thinking too hard, I can rattle off five things in the past year that really p****ed me off and that I ended up acting out  in ways I shouldn’t have. While anger can be a good thing, I don’t always harness it well.
• Be more patient with my kids. I love them like crazy, but having three little kids vying for my attention during the 15 hours a day at least one of them is awake can make me insane. I have plenty of good, patient days so I know I can do this. But it’s hard.
• Be more positive. Negativity and pessimism are in my genes, and it’s hard for me to fight against. But it’s a LOUSY way to live! Maybe I need to read some Joel Osteen. (Yeah right! At least I’m positive that won’t happen!)
• Be kinder, more appreciative, and more loving to my husband. If you hadn’t noticed, the above list of things I need to work on wouldn’t always make me the easiest woman to be married to! But he loves me anyway, and I can do better as a wife.
• Stop feeding the dog so much. So now I’m getting silly, but our once-sleek Rottie just walked by giving me that “feed me” look and he’s really getting fat, fat, fat!
• Walk the dog more. This would help with all of the above.

Happy New Year, everybody! I’d love to hear your resolutions.

—Luke 2: 34-35

Last night these verses were part of my very random devotional reading. While I’ve probably read those words—spoken by the “righteous and devout” Simeon to Mary when she and Joseph presented their new baby, Jesus, in the temple—a hundred times, before I became a mom, I must confess, I never really thought much about them. Yada yada.  Just another prophesy, is pretty much how I saw them. Sorry, but it’s true.

Then, I had kids. Now,  Simeon’s haunting words chill me each time I read them. (Can you imagine bringing your new baby to church and having someone turn to you and say your beautiful baby will pierce your soul?!) Becoming a mother opened my eyes to what was being said to Mary. As a fellow mom, I felt the anxiety and deflating pain she must’ve felt as she heard these words. I think feeling this deepened my understanding of the entire story of God’s redeeming love for us.  From what it really meant and entailed for God to send his son to save us (sorry for you non-Christian readers—I know I’m getting really jargony here. Bear with me!) to what it meant for Mary to bear and raise her boy, the Messiah, to what it means for me as mother to raise my own boys and girl to grow to love and know that same Messiah.

While perhaps I was just dense in my reading of this passage before (and surely you don’t have to be a mom to catch the significance), this isn’t the only passage or instance I’ve noticed that my being a mom heightens my understanding of Scripture along with my understanding of (and questions for!) God.

While I expected motherhood to change me in many ways, getting to know God better by being a mom surprised me. I’ve got to be careful here, I know, because I’m treading dangerously close to the teachings many women have heard (particularly from churches) that they need to be moms to be complete—I don’t mean that at all! God can use all our experiences in life to draw us to him.

But this reread has put me on the look out for other ways motherhood has helped me get to know who God is. And it’s gotten me curious about the ways others have gotten to know God better by being moms. I’d love to hear your stories. 

“Huh?” I asked back.

“Your PEB-BLE,” he said. “You know, like how my left foot is smaller than my other one…” 

I resisted the “huh?” again, even though I had no idea what he was talking about—pebbles or foot size (his feet are the same size, essentially). 

So I tried a more interested approach: “Tell me more about what you mean.” And he went on to tell me about a speaker they had had in chapel that day (he goes to a Christian school) who talked about his “pebble,” which was that he had one leg “WAAAAAY” shorter than the other and how that pebble made him talk to God a lot.

Ah, the “thorn in his flesh.” Got it. While I still didn’t understand how the pebble fit in (though I imagined “The Princess and the Pea” somehow), I gathered that their chapel had been about how God uses our weaknesses for his glory. And that by knowing each others’ weaknesses—and how we’ve triumphed despite them—we can understand God’s power. So the speaker had encouraged the kids to get to share their “pebbles” to share in God’s glory.

I thought this was so lovely—and counter-cultural. So my son and I spent some time talking about our pebbles (for the sake of my son’s short attention span, I chose one of many—my temper!). And we got to know one another —and God—a little better (although, unfortunately, he is well aquainted with this particular pebble). 

So that’s my little story, but I do wonder what it would look like if “What’s your pebble?” became as regular a question as “How’s your day?” And how much better off we’d be if we could get to know each other better through our weaknesses–and through God’s strength.