Thursday, December 22, 2011

Midnight Middle Mamas

It’s late and you turn in to a cold bed and fresh magazines.

You wonder why on earth you read more ways to burn fat when the fat you have has gone into hibernation for the long Winter.

And just when you had everything chronicled in your veggie tray in your fridge to plan to shed more pounds by adapting the new improved meals in the magazine you hear it.

“Mom? You come lay with me and talk wiff me?”

And you wonder how on earth a two year old can understand the verse in Judges 8:4 that reads, “FAINT YET PURSUING.”

And you are tired and angry that you snuck a bite or two or three hundred of chocolate cake and something about their sweet asking makes you want to give THEM all the cake their little belly can hold.

So before you can clip another recipe there they are, between you and Dad and try as you might, they want YOU in the middle and not them.

You ask them to shut the door so the light doesn’t shine on your face. They do and then two beady eyes are searching and asking please for the door so they can “see you.”

And on cue the wind catches the door and cracks it and two eyes smile like you had something to do with it opening and lie there satisfied.

For the time being.

One hand under your vanishing pillow is now asleep and so is Daddy and you get excited that you found a good place for your feet that are at this present time touching nobody. One small perk of this squishy situation.

And one snores softly and one whispers to themselves and you smile as you find that you are once again in the middle.

Men’s cologne greets you on the left and Johnsons and Johnsons on the right.

Life is so much about the middle.

You live day in and day out eating middles of sandwiches abandoned, you are in the middle of arguments, settling, praying. You even have the middle of the couch during devotions so the other kids can dangle some part of them off the arms while listening to Dad read.

There are middles of messes to clean when the culprit is hiding somewhere, middles of checkbooks when some has come and some has gone and middles of menus when you thought you had two more cans of tomato soup in the pantry for Wednesday night’s dinner.

And though we fight for the ends, somehow we always gravitate back to the middle.

And as I lie there listening to one steady heartbeat and one fast I think that the middle is not such a bad place to be.

Sure your nightgown will always be twisted and you’ll know to be on guard for feet sliding up, up and up to your face, and you’ll master the art of brushing baby hair off of your cheek with one finger,

But the middle is a good place.

It’s a good place to think and recharge and be thankful for being smothered by ones who love and need you to be, well , in the middle.

And the wind howls and Daddy coughs and the little asks what that was and you tell them it was Daddy and they proceed to touch your neck just to make sure you haven’t moved too far away.

You smile.

As if there was somewhere to move to.

And the chubby fingers move to your cheek for a squeeze and a pat and then to your closed eyelid for a poke or two, or three or four,

And then you move their hand off of your face to their side and shush them again.

And it’s the middle of the night and you slip out of two sleeping beauties to sneak downstairs with a pillow in hand.

It is cold and yours and that makes you happy.

You put another log on the fire and make a cocoon on the couch to blog for a few

About being in the middle.

And as the keys start to fly you hear it

The patter of feet down the stairs

And you walk upstairs to be the middle Mama again.

Which isn’t such a bad place to be

After all.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

7 adorable reasons to be jolly this year.....

Isaac
Abigail
Our little one spending this Christmas in Heaven...
Caleb
Nathan
Anna Lee
And Alayna

Saturday, December 17, 2011

The show must go on........



At a craft show..

My ONLY craft show of the year.

Displaying Chai Tea and Pumpkin Butter and enjoying my sweet husband as he tells passerbys that it is "Deee-licious" and that we eat a gallon of it at home.

Love that man.

And I sit and knit scrubbies and he leaves and I begin to unwrap the life of the woman next to me. She knits a rug while I knit green toole and try not to eat all the key lime hard tack that Joel bought me with his own 5o cents.

Love that man.

And she is sweet and her curls brush her face with a comfortable style. Not too prim, not too lax, just right for conversation that flows and we giggle over needles and things we love to do and how crafting has kept us from snacking at night.

I don't stay surface long.

I always go deep, fast.

Sometimes too fast. :-)

And before I know it I am telling her how much I love prunes and "The Nativity Story" movie.

See what I mean? :-)

And vendors are making hats while I make a scrubbie, yet they think my mound of toile is more impressive and I laugh inside that they are amazing and I am just single crocheting but do you think I will let them know that???? They are making hats for Pete's sake........ I nod to them as they look on in wonder and half yawn out of pretend exhaustion.......

And I watch people come by and worry that I will NOT be able to give them correct change, and why on earth did Joel leave and why didn't I think to bring the calculator instead of the heap of prunes, and I await the kids and darling husband to rush in and make me look like Mother of the year to these folks.

And they DO rush in, all smiles, coats flying every which way and squeals of delight emminate as each child in order of age figures out that the gracious Lord has positioned Mom's table RIGHT NEXT to the two sweet ladies who make the chocolate treats.

That are not only close but in easily accessible bins and apparently screaming to the kids, only it's like the dog whistle kinda thing and only they can hear it and it will not stop.

Isaac slips behind the table and morphs into the slickest salesman you have ever seen. He must have inherited that from his Father.

He grabs a neck wrap and while he is OOOing and Ahhhing to the lady walking past, he motions to me to go and enjoy looking around. "I got this." he boasts with a wide cheshire grin.

And "got it" he did. He is changing money before I can even figure out how many chocolate pops Alayna has run off with.

The kids scatter like gumballs on a hard floor, mingling, munging (a Grandpa Poor word for touching without permission.....) and manhandling snowmen and wooden toys.

I begin the round-up and before I do I hang up my newly aquired "Mom of the Year" sash on an elementary folding chair.

One of the vendors, a sweet Christian lady makes me an offer while Anna is munging in her direction.... "If you want I will exchange you snowmen for Pumpkin Butter." Hmmmmmm a match made in heaven! So I came home with three adorable large bulky cheery snowman, plus three minis for the girls and one lady will be eating a lot of butter this Winter.


Probably won't get that offer again. Or at least until she finishes eating it all.....

And I am glad she is a Christian because it takes some serious fruit of the Spirit to have patience with Alayna who EXCHANGES her snowman for a NEW SNOWMAN every few minutes from the lady's pile.

After she has slobbered on them kissing them to death.

And the day goes on, and I meet people who tell me their stories, and a local couple we have met come to our table and one of them in talking to me laughs a " showing her teeth smile" and I haven't gotten her to budge in over a year, and I am feeling kinda pert about that and amazed how many people love Pumpkin Butter.

And it is all in a days work.

And I pack my things with a lot less butter in boxes.

And a lot more chocolate in bellies, and hard tack, and no prunes.

And we file out in a clump loud and strong, and laugh our way to the van,

And await next year.

And I am not sure if a craft show is supposed to be such an experience because this is all I know.

All I know is my loud, mischevious family full of chocolate grins, slobbery snowmen and best selling boys.

And I am tired and happy and Hubby offers to take me out to dinner and goes to hug me and I stop him with a grimace and a "I am sweaty from trying to figure out change!" and he laughs, and laughs, and laughs and just keeps on laughing........

And I laugh too.