Stress

Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

~Jane Wagner*

Let's just say today finds me enjoying the gorgeous weather outside (67 degrees today! sunshine!) with my children, the house nicely cleaned and ready for the next showing, and supper in the oven.  Let's just say that, because it's nowhere near true. And if the above quote is correct, the antidote to stress is a good imagination.

Right?

My head has been throbbing lately -- throbbing from lack of sleep and from the thoughts of all the things I can be justifiably stressed about:

• our house has to be ready to be shown at a minute's notice
• the children need to be schooled so that they are not total idiots when they grow up (they're not behind the ball yet, but only because I subscribe to Bill Cosby's theory that "all children have brain damage" and so they still fit right in)
• how to do the taxes this year when everything was completely different last year (and the thousand-page Clergy's Guide to Taxes is only minimally reassuring)
• we are packing to move -again- in another month
• we have to find a place to move in another month
• who gives a housing loan to people who can't even afford a minimum down payment?
• who rents to people with eight kids (and a dog!) (oh, and two cats, but they're negotiable)?

And once I start getting worked up about all the *big* things, I easily get worked up about all the *little* things:

• what's for breakfast?
• who left these toys OUT IN THE OPEN?
• why is the stroller out of the back of the van?
• why is the back door open on the van?
• is somebody IN the van?
• I KNEW someone would get sick tonight. No, it has nothing to do with the friends they played with or the dinner we ate tonight (clementines perfectly complement the milkshake that followed). It has everything to do with the fact that I changed and washed her bed this morning.

I am no stranger to pressure. Most of it has been self-inflicted, but I have always thought that I work best under pressure. I've always waited until the last minute to do something because I have always been convinced that my performance excels when the heat is on.

Except now. I CAN'T do it all now. I can't keep the house clean, school the children, do the accounting, fix the meals, love on eight children, find a new house, and smile warmly to my husband at the same time. Or even at separate times. I. Just. Can't.

As I was musing (OK, fuming) about this this morning as I bustled through the bedroom, straightening shelves and grabbing diapers and clothing for the screaming newborns (shortly after I said to my husband, "If I die early, I want you to know it's from stress" to which he sleepily mumbled from his place on the pillow, "Me, too"), it occurred to me that we handle stress very differently. My way is loud and headachy and thundering.

His is pretty quiet, and involves lots of playing with children and sleeping. His way is pretty similar to my mother’s way.

This got me to thinking about stress in general. Why do I have to be the one to make everything run smoothly, the one to make sure everything’s under control? Then it hit me: I don’t, and I don’t. I don’t have to be the one, and anyway, I don’t make it all run smoothly and under control.

I really need to get a handle on this. But I can’t. This is so frustrating to me, honestly. My theology is definitely warring with everyday life. I believe God is in control. How do I act like it? I believe His grace is sufficient.

But what does that mean?

And what do I do – or not do – because of it?

I don’t have the answers. Just ask my kids, who had to listen to me bellow this morning and then apologize this afternoon. Actually, don’t ask them. They’ll probably be a little too dramatic in their retelling.

But I think part of it has to do with what is Real. Because this life on Earth is, yes, very real. It looks real and it sounds real and, blast it all, it smells real (especially right here, where there’s a baby on my lap squirming to be changed).

But the standards I keep kicking myself for failing are all self-imposed ones. So what if my children eat cold cereal for a week? Or a month? Or their entire lives?

So what if we have leftovers tonight instead of a fresh meal?

So what if there are no side dishes?

So what if my babies get the occasional bottle of formula? So what if they always got formula? So what if they never did?

And so what if there’s a stray sock (or more) lying on the floor when someone comes in?

We are real. And more importantly, we are Real. There is a Reality that is above and beyond this reality … yet it’s one that doesn’t ignore this life. In fact, that Reality wholeheartedly engaged in this one.

Whenever one of our kids starts fussing, my husband asks (after he admonishes about the whining), “Did you mean to say, ‘Thank you’? Do you mean to be thanking [whoever] for something?”

So I’m thinking maybe the antidote to stress is giving thanks. Because if God is sovereign, and every good gift comes from Him, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand, what else is there to do?

That’s where I am. Thinking on this and trying to thank on this and starting to breathe deeply again.

 (a time I remembered to smile ... photo credit: Lily)

    

*I’m just using her quote, not endorsing her.

Well, when you put it like that ...

    

    

... it kinda does look like a mess of kids.

  

You three on the end, fingers out. OK, Miriam-Little-Miss-Let's-Be-Precise, fingers and THUMBS out.

  

And Salem, uncross your eyes, please.

  

And Gideon, you do. not. have. to. cry. every moment you are awake and not nursing!!! (Do you?)

  

And let me just say that having my mother-in-law here for the week was wonderful. Except for the part where we all would go out and EVERYONE mistook her for my children's mother. I felt like the dowdy nanny whose sole job it was to keep the 20-month-old entertained by giving him reasons to say, "No. [S]Top that. [S]Top talkin' to me."

   

Can you believe that woman on the end is their grandmother? I married into a family with great genes.

   

I will try to be more regular about posting ... let's just chalk this lack of writing up to the fact that our lease runs out April 30 and our house is being shown "anytime between the reasonable hours of 9 to 7, with the kind 'heads up' of MAYBE fifteen minutes." Fifteen minutes? It takes me four times that long to find all the kids' shoes and get the dog in the van!

  

If THAT doesn't stress you out, well. Good for you.

  

Oh, and the babies turned five weeks last week. Turns out five weeks doesn't look a whole lot different than four weeks.

  

        

   

 

Four Weeks (or a Month)

You know, usually the whole, "How old is your baby?" thing throws me when the answer is Four Weeks. Because I feel stupid saying "Four weeks," when I could just say, "A month." But the problem is that four weeks does not equal a month, not in the sense of "They were born on the 2nd, and this is the 2nd of the next month." That's usually four weeks and a few days.

  

Except this time. Because they were born in the 28-day (conveniently, the same as four weeks) month of February, yesterday was the babies' Four Week day and their One Month day.

  

Aaahhh. One of life's little annoyances avoided.

   

There are some other annoyances that have not been so neatly thwarted. The sound effects of the last month, for example.

  

  

 

  

   

    

     

Of course, there have been some more endearing moments. And this is why we decided to keep them.

  

       

   

   

   

 

Uncropped

   

I was going to crop myself out of this, but my husband threatened to crop himself out of our pictures if I did. He is Stunningly Handsome and greatly improves the value of our pictures, so I didn't want to risk it.

Besides, it will probably be good for my children to know that they did, indeed, have a mother who held them and loved them.

Since I may very well be Clinically Insane by the time they grow up.

I did, however, change the picture to grayscale. You don't need to know that I hastily threw on a red sweater over my green shirt, or that my husband failed to tell me I looked like a lumpy Christmas tree.

In my defense, notice the baggy eyes, poorly ponytailed hair, and drooping cheeks? We are functioning (HA! How loosely I use that term!) on very, very, very little sleep.

But our driveway is officially The Mud Bog. Which means the sun is shining and melting inches and inches of snow.

And we did (yes, we did!) get out in the sun and enjoy a short walk around the nearby brand new subdivision. Even the dog was happy.

And ... miracle of miracles ... during the entire walk, BOTH of the babies slept AT THE SAME TIME.

Because he makes us laugh ...

My mother-in-law introduced us to Brian Regan's humor. Now we're addicted. Even the kids get a kick out of his sketches. I was looking for a certain sketch of his for my friend Kendra yesterday, when I came across this one. I had seen it before, but in light of the recent board book reading I've been doing lately, it seemed especially pertinent. And why does this strike me as funny?

Jokes.com
Brian Regan - Baby Books
comedians.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

Two Weeks

This post is officially overdue, as the newest twins are really two weeks and two days old. I am discovering that much of life takes me significantly longer than I think it should. Getting ready for church? A full two hours. Two hours? How could it take two hours?

  

But it does.

  

And I just figured out today that, apart from my own grooming, I am cutting 160 fingernails/toenails a week. No wonder I hate numbers!

    

The last two weeks have been full of sleepless nights. We finally seem to have gotten the babies to a quasi-regular schedule of "This is day, when we mostly sleep," and "This is night, when we mostly sleep." Of course, their having caught the vicious cold their siblings are so readily sharing has not helped matters. They cough and hack and look pitiful. And I go too quickly to pick them up in the middle of the night. And then spend the next hours trying to get them back in their bed.

  

I'm tired.

  

These pictures are poor. Our lighting is bad here, and I never think to take pictures while there is still daylight. But AT LEAST we are taking them!

 

Gideon, doing his impression of a flower blooming:

  

   

Gideon soaking in the "tub":

   

   

 

   

Salem and Papa:

    

    

   

This next one is just because it cracks me up. We set them in the nursing pillow, where Salem screamed in protest, and Gideon promptly fell asleep. He's asleep in this picture. It was taken less than a minute after we set them in there.

  

    

 

That's Life

    

Once again, I find myself here in front of the computer at a loss for words. Or, perhaps more accurately, at a loss for the right words. Impressions, frustrations, pressing needs, future needs, worries, excitement, doubt … a cacophony of wordless head noise plays endlessly, half-formed contemplations and deliberations bouncing off left-behind sentence parts and disjointed wordings.

 

No doubt a large part of this is due to the past week of glorious sleepless nights in which the lack of sleep has been due to the presence of two new lives in our household, in our bedroom, in our bed. As my post-pregnancy (what a wondrous prefix “post” is!) hormones battle to regulate themselves, my dazed brain tries to wrap itself around the fact that there are eight children who call (or will call) me “Mama” (or, honestly, seven children who will call me that and one who will call me only “Mommy,” but I love that about Jonathan). And there is one man who calls me “Beloved,” and figuring out how to best be loved and love in this ever-changing-yet-ever-the-same role keeps my thoughts churning even as I am comforted by his faithful, steady love when I am so unsteady.

  

And we can’t forget the snow. After preparing our children so carefully for the fact that “Virginia doesn’t get snow,” we have spent the last two months cursing the elusive tub of winter essentials (boots, hats, gloves) that sits somewhere at the bottom of upended boxes in our storage shed out back. There is a definite stir-craziness that surpasses the usual in this house. The house seems smaller and the children more restless. Oh, for some sunshine! For some thawing! For a chance to dig out the truck and take the probably 20 frozen trash bags off the back porch! For a third bench in the van!

 

And part of my internal gyrating is due to the death of my grandmother, my father’s mother. A sudden death this was not, as she was in a near-death state for many months. And yet doesn’t the moment of death always jar, always startle? And so while I am comforted that she rests in heaven, in the very near presence of her Lord and all the saints who have gone before her (including one of her daughters), the sadness of this side of heaven’s loss whirls in with the confusion of who I’ve diapered last and which one is nursing and “go ask Papa – for some reason I can’t remember what a flow chart is.”

 

There are specific things I want to remember about my grandmother so that I can pass her story – their history – on to my children. The way she meticulously wrapped her hair dryer cords in empty toilet paper rolls in the bathroom cabinet. The hundreds (thousands?) of meat trays she washed and dried and stored in her basement to be ready at a moment’s notice for any local school’s call for craft supplies. The way she gave hand-sewn nightgowns to my sister and me every Christmas for years. Her piano-playing. Her pickles. Her pies. Her carefully filed fingernails, short enough to can rhubarb but shapely enough to be feminine. The way she always held back tears and hugged us goodbye when we left her house at Thanksgiving. Her dedication to the faithful marriage she and my grandfather shared for 61 years. Her dedication to prayer. Her dedication to good grammar.

 

Not that she was perfect. She wasn’t, and I’m not. We disagreed on many things (my use of the word “darn” outside of socks, for one, and certain tenets of theology, for another). But we are held steady by the same God, the same “Beloved” Who loves us perfectly and holds us in the palm of His hand even when we are unlovely (and apart from Christ, when are we not?) and provides the sure foundation of our faith.

  

But enough. Enough of the words and lack of words and the thoughts that won’t sort themselves properly.

  

And on to the pictures.

 

LIFE!!

   

  

   

Gideon Vos Allison

7 lbs., 4 oz.

Born February 2, 2010 at 6:35 PM.

When the kids asked what his nickname was, Ethan replied, "He doesn't have one. I didn't have one. Well, my uncle Steve called me E-bop or Eepers." Which, of course, leaves us with G-bop or G-eepers. You guessed it. We have a Jeepers.

      

    

     

Salem "Sally" Sadie Allison

9 lbs., 7 oz.

Born February 2, 2010 at 6:59 PM.

  

The entire labor – from its start with water breaking in the van after we picked the kids up from my parents (oops, let’s take them back) until its end with Salem finally screaming – was 2 hours and 12 minutes. It was intense, it was annoying (in the operating room with a billion doctors, nurses just in case), and it was everything for which I had prayed – VBAC, natural, and quick, with two healthy babies.

 

Our family story continues.

   

(Salem and Eden)

   

(Salem, Eden, and Jonathan)

   

(Salem and Miriam)

  

(Salem and Abraham)

  

(Benjamin and Gideon)

  

(Lily and Salem -- the Polka-dot Princesses -- we didn't realize this until I was taking this picture)

   

(Gideon at 1 week)

  

(Salem at 1 week)