The Moon

Mike's been joking lately about how Manly is my moon. He "orbits" around me constantly, never leaving me far behind. If he does venture away for some exploration, which he enjoys, it's not very long before he comes moving at an unsteady toddling-run with his arms wide open to give me a hug and a pat. Personally, I love it. He's the world's most perfect "family baby", and I love my little "moon".

But then I stopped to think a bit harder and further on what his being my "moon" meant. That means, if he's my moon, then I'm his Earth. His world. His. World.

Whoa.

I'm his world.

That was a bit more humbling than I expected it to be after four babies coming into our house. I thought I'd gotten used to the level of mama-neediness that comes with being mommy to four. For some reason, though, as I thought about being his world, it knocked the wind from me.

If I'm his world, what happens to him, when I'm not strong? If I'm their world, what happens to them when I fall apart, have an "off" day, am found woefully lacking in some important quality like patience, grace, mercy.....?

Then all of a sudden, the rest of the analogy hit me, too. I am his world, their world, but I'm not the real center. Just like the real moon orbits around the real Earth, the real Earth orbits around the real sun. So, if I'm the earth - if Mama is the Earth, the gravity, the pull, the focus of the babies - then what really needs to ground Mama is the sun. The Son.

If I'm grounded in Him, then the rest of it falls into place. These babies can all orbit me and know that no matter what - no matter what craziness or crankiness or confusion or chaos might occur - that no matter what, their world - our world -  is tethered unbreakably, unshakeably, to the Son. And that, that will keep the whole order of the whole system. The order in the chaos is not kept by me. Not by my strength.  By His.

March

Maybe these two look alike?

In the above photo, Mighty Mouse (lower photo) had just finished making a play-doh car. Well, I'd made the car under his direction while I was reading a history text with my other eye (apparently I can separate my eyes for separate tasks these days!), and he had added a trailer on the back and then plopped another play-doh toy on his trailer and announced, "There's the dead deer!".  Notice how proud he is?!

Sometimes it is just too much being the youngest of this crowd.

I'm not sure where my tiny baby went.

And by the look on his face, he's not sure either!  These pictures show his personality so well. He's such a sweet, tender little fellow. Gentle, most of the time, and easy-going and loving and snuggly and pretty much content to watch what the rest of the tribe is up to.  We have been so blessed by his presence the past 11 months. He is loved beyond belief by every single person in this household.

This is one happy child. Happy, happy, happy.  He has missed the outdoors, craved the outdoors, salivated for mud and slush and fresh air.

He is sooooooo very much his father!  I would honestly have been content with a few more weeks of under-blanket-afternoon-snuggly-reading-books-aloudness.  Not that I'll turn down this gorgeous weather, but it does almost feel unnatural up here in the Northland so early in March!  It's an interesting observation I've found in the past couple of years, that I'm more content now in each season to just absorb that particular season instead of aching so badly for the following one. I attribute it to the kiddos' presence - I treasure their delight in the holiday seasons from Halloween through New Years; I love watching them write out their love for each other in homemade Valentine's; I love snuggling and board games and reading aloud on long, dark, snowy afternoons; I love watching them make project after project, even when it means you can't step for the stray perler beads on the basement floor; I love spring gardening with them and hosing them off before supper; I love long summer afternoons in the sprinkler and on the swingset and following them on their bikes and carting the smaller ones around on my bike "train system" and harvesting the garden and enjoying produce and the rhythm of our learning year, teaching new subjects in time and diving deeply into particular subjects that spark their interest and breathing prayers for patience and peace as I coach and encourage an emerging reader to sound out c-a-t just one more time. Aaaahhh. There is nothing like this life.

So, it's either my children or that I'm just getting old, but winter doesn't seem nearly so interminable now as it did ten years ago.

  Here's my little proofling that I had something to do with our children. She looks so much like me....just better.

 Our 8-year-old scientist. She was feeding the birds. She was horrified that day that I had forgotten to buy the lard she needs for making bird cakes; we had actually both completely forgotten that our homemade recipe calls for it in the first place. She's insisting on making them all.by.herself. including the use of the stove for boiling the yucky things. I'll hover, but she's so responsible, she'll do fine....as long as I make sure she turns the stove OFF when she's done!

There's the finch feeder that she had just topped off. I couldn't crop it out of all the pictures, or they just didn't seem completely natural!  She had also just finished shoveling snow around the yard in an effort to make it melt faster. Mighty Mouse helped her. Sunny just swung and swung. She learned how to pump effectively, so swinging is her new favorite pastime. She had previously known the correct movements, just not how to use her muscles well enough to make it effective. She sure does now!

Dance

Thursday nights are our hectic ones these days, and, really, compared to a lot of families I hear talking, ours aren't all that hectic at all! I shuttle the girls to three different dance classes, but it's not too bad since they are close to our house. I've gotten spoiled, too, since fairly often our neighbors will watch the non-dancers so that I can run with the dancers. On nights they aren't around, Mike often is. However, there have been a couple nights where I've needed to load up the whole crew to go for the late-pick-up. It's not bad, but it's a fair amount of work to feed the masses, wash the masses (some nights - it's not every Thursday that everyone in the house gets a "wash"!), semi-clean up the dinner mess, pajama everyone left in the house except myself, and load us all up alone only to arrive at dance, unload my workbeast of a stroller, and haul us all in to reclaim our dancer.

Well, the first time I did it, I actually enjoyed it; Manly Mouse, who has been teething seemingly since the day he was born (no, basically this fall is when he started), hadn't slept all day and finally fell asleep on the way to dance pickup, stayed asleep while the girls performed for us parents, and stayed asleep while I did bedtime with his older siblings! It was pretty fun to have done pickup that night with my little company of kiddos. Sometimes things like that get lonely alone when one is used to being surrounded by warm little bodies! Anyway, it was a fun night until Manly woke up from what apparently was a "nap" and stayed awake until 2 a.m.

Fast forward to last Thursday night. I was left doing pickup alone again; I had high hopes of not turning it into a 2 a.m. bedtime this time (that was way back before Christmas), and I was concentrating on appreciating the fact that I can physically load and unload my workbeast from the van (even with the deer-hauling-trailer still attached!).  I'm being quite serious in appreciating that fact. If I weren't able to lift and haul that thing around, the girls could not have signed up for any dance class where I might have to pick them up with their siblings. It's a true blessing to have the strength to be able to lift heavy carseats and heavy strollers. I don't take that for granted.

But I do sometimes feel sorry for myself.

And I almost started to that evening.

My new little niece was born on Wednesday, and I want to snuggle her fuzzy, little curls and kiss her scrumptious little chin so bad I can taste her baby cuteness from these 400 miles away. My Mom and Dad were (thankfully!) meeting her that evening.  And I was alone, hauling my cute-I-like-to-nibble-and-kiss-them-kiddos to dance pickup at bedtime. Alone. I was feeling alone.

And starting to feel sorry for myself....but just barely starting. It was sort of just a little "itch" in the back of my brain.

It started to become a little more evident of an "itch" as I realized Manly needed to eat but that I wouldn't have time to feed him before we needed to be there. My heart broke a bit as I strapped him in his seat, crying for food. I told myself I'd offered him lots of solids that he'd refused. But I felt that mama-guilt kicking in....telling me how I wasn't enough.

His sad little cries as I loaded them all in the car reinforced that guilt. And that guilt is always what lets the pity party out of its cage.

Until.

I heard a sweet, soft little girl voice from the back singing to her sad brother: "Brother, Brother, I love you".

And then I heard a sweet, soft little toddler boy voice try his best to chime in: "Wuv You. Wuv You. It okay. Wuv You".

Melt.

Immediately, the pity party was re-caged; the mama guilt evaporated; and I thanked God for the moment.  Certainly it would have been easier to leave the siblings home for pickup with Mike or our neighbors. They'd have had a better time; it would have been easier for me. But, would it have been better necessarily? The easier route would have meant we wouldn't have shared that moment.  I appreciate all the weeks where we can enjoy the "easy route"; honestly, we wouldn't do this dance class if I had to take them all for pickup every week. But sometimes there are vistas and high points on the hard route that make it all worth it. This was one of them.

A really neat addition is that I remember Miss Mouse being the same age Mighty Mouse is, and I was on my way to a friend's wedding - alone with the girls - and when Baby Sunny began fussing, Miss Mouse sang her the same "Wuv you" song as Mighty had chimed in on now for Manly Mouse. It's precious to me that I now have a companion memory of even more sibling love.