Take a Number ...

This past weekend, my kids got to download a couple of new tunes.  Which as you know, means that we have been listening to them on constant repeat.  The songs are really quite fun, but by the ninth time through, the lyrics start running a bit thin and the bee-bop-rhythm starts to give me a twitch!  I found myself making up my own words to one song in particular ... lyrics that come so easily to my mommy-lips.  And gave me a good chuckle, too.

You know you're a Mom, when you're tempted to ask for one of these for your birthday:

photo courtesy of SuperStock

I'm sure you fellow-Moms will appreciate this re-mix of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me, Maybe".

And if you don't have this particular song playing ad finitum at your house ... here's the link so you can!

I’ll Get to You, Maybe

I threw the wash into dry,

That’s when I heard a sad cry.

I looked as you try to fly,

and now you’re in my way.

I shake my head at your whine

Feeling your hands clinging mine,

I need to get free from this,

but now you’re in my way.

Your grip was holdin’, Ripped jeans, booboo showin’

Long day, too much moanin’

What am I gonna do with you, baby?

Hey, you just biffed it,

and this is crazy,

but take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

It’s hard to help you,

so many babies,

but take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

Hey, you’re a big kid,

It’s still crazy!

Please take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

And all these other kids

try to chase me,

Please take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

You took your time with your chores

You’d think we’d finished these wars

You have done nothing at all

Your clothes are in my way.

I beg and borrow and pray

“Pick up your toys, please, today.”

Do you think I will pay ...

To get them out of my way?

This power struggle’s holdin’, Ripped jeans, Legos showin’

Long day with too much groanin’

What am I gonna do with you, baby?

Hey, I just asked you,

and this is crazy,

but take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

It’s hard to find toys

Under so much, baby,

but take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

Hey, did you hear me?

This is crazy!

Take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

Who are all these other kids

trying to chase me?

Please take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

I hear you hollerin’ my name

Whadya need so bad

You need so bad,

You need so, so bad?

You’re still hollerin’ my name

Whadya need so bad

You need so bad,

You need so, so bad?

It’s hard to keep smilin’

When you’re so needy!

So take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

Let me go potty,

This is CraZY!

Please take a number,

I’ll get to you, maybe?

Please tell your sisters,

Not to chase me,

Please take a number,

I’ll get to you maybe?

I need a number-thing just

Like at the deli.

I need it so bad,

I need it so, so bad!

Yeah, you know that number-thing,

I need it so bad,

I need it so bad ...

Now serving #16.

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#3 - You know you're a Mom when ...  I hope you'll read this post in the silly spirit it was intended.  I love my kids .... but sometimes I'm just so very, very outnumbered!

Still, Still, Still

Happy Sunday!

Do you have your Holiday to-do list ready ... with those satisfying little checkboxes?
Do you have your shopping list mapped out by store ... and by gift recipient?
Do you have your 20% coupon for Kohl's in your wallet ... and their Night Owls and Early Bird hours sketched out?
Do you have all your ingredients sitting on the counter ready for cookies ... and and cutesy little tins for all your yummy goodies?
Do you have your bag of wrapping supplies ... tape, ribbon, wrapping paper, tissue paper, extra fingers?
Do you have your house fulling decorated, inside and out ... spruced and ready in case a photographer from Real Simple stops by?

Yeah ... me neither.

It's terribly tempting to take today to knock out any number of Getting-Ready-for-Christmas-Tasks.  With Brett home (and the Broncos playing) I could easily tackle cleaning, make a few gift purchases and even work on my adorable snowflake garland that is stuffed in a folder and stuffed in my pantry.  And maybe I could sneak upstairs and wrap a few items so our tree doesn't look so empty.  And maybe just one batch of cookies ... and some chocolate dipped pretzels.

Uh-oh.  See what happened there?  My Sunday went from a day of resting and enjoying some family time to a day of frenetic, frantic, festive flurriness!

It's time to be still.  Maybe this will help.  Take just a few minutes, listen to this song and read along the words ... and be still.

Still, Still, Still

Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.
For all is hushed,
The world is sleeping,
Holy Star its vigil keeping.
Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.

Sleep, sleep, sleep,
'Tis the eve of our Saviour's birth.
The night is peaceful all around you,
Close your eyes,
Let sleep surround you.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
'Tis the eve of our Saviour's birth.

Dream, dream, dream,
Of the joyous day to come.
While guardian angels without number,
Watch you as you sweetly slumber.
Dream, dream, dream,
Of the joyous day to come. 

Better?  Me, too. 

Now it's time to look at today a little differently.  Those Christmasy details aren't bad all by themselves. It's when we attach to those fun and special traditions a long train of ought's, should's and we'dbetter's, that things take a turn for the worse.

Don't miss understand me - It's not wrong to do any of those things today!  Just as long as we have the right attitude and the right perspective ...

Transforming your house into a Christmas cottage because it brings you joy ... and blesses those who enjoy its coziness.

Baking delightful tidbits because it makes your heart happy ... and you love to share these delicious treats of Christmas with your loved ones.  And the mail carrier.  And me.

Wrapping presents with an abundance of ribbon and flair because the presentation is precious to you ... and you love the look on the recipient's face when they say, "For me?!"

Buying the perfect presents for your family and friends because your love language is gifts ... and you want to spread that love around.

There is great joy in fulfilling the traditions of the season.  Just maybe not all them.  When we try to do it all, it's too easy for us to fall into seeing Christmas as a task to accomplish.  A conveyor belt of Holiday hassle!

Instead, let's be still.  Let's keep our eyes on the "Holy Star its vigil keeping".  Let's keep our heart close to the manger and "our Savior's birth".  Let's anticipate this "joyous day to come"!  Let's each of us celebrate this Christmas in our own way ... the way that brings us each the most joy.

And remember to keep it simple.  With plenty of time to be still and to sleep and to dream.

I'm off to take a nap.

How Many Feet Do You Have?!?

We all have those areas of our houses that make us want to pull our hair out.  Okay ... to be perfectly honest, I have about a dozen of those little nooks and crannies in my home.

There's the drawer in the living room hutch that is jam packed with all sorts of odds and ends:  candles, old pictures, holiday cards, dice, a matryoshka doll and frame with Aaron's baby handprint ... just to name a few.  I'd go take a peek to see what else is in there, but it's a scary little drawer!  When I need something from there, I quickly pull it open, search around for the needed item, stuff everything back in and close it quickly while poking back in the junk that's trying to escape and try not to catch my finger in the drawer.

My closet is also a disaster zone, but the good news is that there is nice strong door holding it all in there.  If that door were to ever collapse under the pressure, there would be an avalanche of clothing, suitcases, dusty shoes, my foot massager/hot water bath gizmo, a file folder full of preschool activities I never revisited after organizing them two years ago, a box of things I'm collecting for GoodWill, and a bunch of random maternity clothes that missed out on being stored with the rest of my prego wardrobe.  Those really need to go.

My sister helped me organize my pantry several months ago but it looks like I need to schedule another appointment with my private organizer. :)  It's amazing how quickly I can fill up the shelves with bags of random "important" things and lose any semblance of order.  We currently have a grocery sack of fish paraphanelia perched precariously on the top shelf, right next to our stash of tea, a hodge-podge of place-mats and Pete's birdseed.  And that's just the top right corner.  Scary.  Now I just stuff in my pantry items when I get home from the grocery, carefully close the door (we don't want any seismic activity) and hope that the next time I need to get in there, I don't end up with a box of ziplock bags on my head.

Then there is the goody drawer and silverware drawer, but I already lamented that mess!

Phew!  And that's not even taking into consideration all the kids' crazy nooks and crannies!  They are famous for stuffing small spaces with inordinate amounts of "treasures" and then stepping back and saying, "There!  Perfect!"  Most of those little pack-rat nests I have been willing to walk past, but if the mess starts creeping into our common living areas, I have to do something.  One such area is the laundry room.

The laundry room that houses so much more than just laundry!  Of course there's the washer and dryer and all the soaps and cleaners that go along with that.  With a little hunting you might find my dusty iron and ironing board ... maybe.  This is also were Gimi's house is nestled under a set of shelves full of crafts, and whole lot of other odds-n-ends:  citronella candles for summer nights, Easter eggs to hide in the spring, buckets of beads for the girls to make necklaces and my bucket of bathroom cleaning supplies.  What an interesting conglomeration of bits and pieces!

There is also a clothing rod that currently holds extra coats, snow pants, table clothes and a few random bags full of other random items.  Just below that is the vacuum and a box full of enough shoes to clad an entire kindergarten!  And just above that are ten little coat hooks covered with enough coats to keep that kindergarten class warm and cozy!  And that would be swell if this was a kindergarten class, but it's not. But if that's the case, why do our four kids need so many shoes and coats!?!

Brett and I tackled this little problem several weeks ago and discovered that while there was room for improvement, we couldn't actually get rid of much.  We just needed to organize it better.  Here is the before picture so that you can see that I wasn't making anything up:

Sorry I don't have a wide-lense camera
for the full effect!  There's an extra set of hooks
behind the door ... if you dare to take a peek!

We went through the shoes and tried to streamline what went in the shoe bin.  For each kid we tried to choose one pair of tennis shoes, dress shoes and slip on shoes.  Of course, that still amounted to a dozen pairs of shoes ... so it's hard to call that better. :)  We took the snow-boots and put them in a cardboard box and stored it on the shelf above the dryer.  That way those clunky guys are only out and about when we actually need them.

Next we had the kids each choose two coats:  a heavy one and a light one.  All the other sweatshirts and warm wraps went to live in the kids' closets.  This went a long way towards making the area feel more organized.  That meant that Lydia and Ashley each had two coat hooks for their coats and Aaron and Norah had a hook for each coat and one for their backpacks.  Completely do-able even for a kid in a hurry!

Finally we sorted and refreshed the current organizer on the back of the laundry room door.  I actually love this little hanger-guy.  It's an old shoe sorter that I picked up from Wal-Mart years ago.

Why there is a pool inner-tube in with the
winter stuff is a mystery to me, too,

It's perfect for all the little bits and pieces that we need.  In the summer we fill the sleeves with sun hats, baseball caps, sunscreen, bug spray, pool toys and visors.  Then, in the winter, we trade out the warm weather supplies for the cold weather parts:  hats, gloves, scarves, hand warmers and more of all the above.  Again ... we apparently have more than four children living here!  But at least they are organized.

Now our laundry room is a bit more functional and a bit less frustrating.  The door actually opens all the way instead of getting hung up on the coat that fell off the over-loaded hook or the back-pack that got dropped to the floor in a pile.

And now when you walk in there, you don't run the risk of getting ganged up on by a bunch of hoodies and held at glove-point! :)

Just Cram It In!

After dinner tonight, Norah blazed through her math homework in a frantic attempt to get upstairs before the apparent mosh pit party wrapped up.  From the kitchen we could hear thudding, giggling, squealing and the occasional "ouch!"  It was a simple math page, one she could normally do in just a few minutes.  But she was going for a record time of .43 seconds.  And got it wrong.  As Brett plopped her down to "try it again ... slower this time", it was evident from the many lines and numbers on her page that she was in desperate need of a super-sized eraser.

I had seen an eraser somewhere recently and pulled open the junk drawer in the kitchen ... maybe it was in here.  As I stared at the discombobulated mumble-jumble of things in the drawer, I heard myself say, "Aaahh ... this is a perfect example of my life right now!"  Then I quickly closed the drawer - as quickly as you can close an overfilled, disorganized mess of a drawer ... poking things back in with my finger while trying not to get anything pinched.  Fortunately, Daddy found a different eraser elsewhere and the duo got to work on the persnickety math problem.

I moved on to making school lunches.  As I pulled open the silverware drawer I heard a scraping sound.  Grrrrr ... as I peered in the drawer I could see that all the Pampered Chef and Tupperware receipts from the past 10 years had worked their way out from under the organizer and were making an escape ... taking several plastic forks, a bag of toothpicks and an Easter egg wire thingy with them.  Another perfect example of too much, too much, too much crammed into too little.  Again, my life in a drawer!

As I look at these two disorganized, stuffed-to-the-gills, over-flowing drawers I can see my life right now.  I see some craft supplies:  chalk for our kitchen blackboard, markers (the permanent ones I don't want anyone to find and use), the Easter egg dipper and an old sponge for wiping down the blackboard when we make a mistake.  I also see the stuff that holds things together:  glue sticks, staplers and staples, clothes pins, bag clips and several rolls of Scotch tape.  We have a box of batteries ... or at least, a box where the batteries should be.  We seem to be out ... a lot of little gadgets needing juice lately, I guess.  We have random scrapes of paper: coupons (probably expired), manuals to a variety of appliances and some unused sticky notes.  Then there are the 5 different telephone books:  Qwest, school, church, MOPS and Brett's work ... we're also holding onto passed years, too.  Just in case. :)  Of course there is lots of silverware, and plasticware and some chopsticks and a couple of random baggies of things.  Important, I'm sure.  Finally, way in the back is a baggie of keys - some labeled, some mysterious.

Hmmmm ... yep.  That's my life.

Creativity is something that is important to me and yet it's a challenge to fit it into life.  I have memories of making homemade cards and painting little trinkets.  With a full life and a full house, it's hard for me to find the time, energy and space to spread out and "get crafty!"  I still do, but it's much more planned and intentional.  Instead, I need to look for little opportunities to be creative ... and sometimes that means sitting with Ashley and coloring Strawberry Shortcake and Friends.

I definitely have found out how important my role is as the glue to help hold our home together.  Brett is a wonderfully hands-on Daddy, but he often looks to me for the rhythm of daily life.  I keep the family calendar (and work hard to keep some of it cleared) and keep track of the kids' school activities and notes.  I try hard to balance the lives of the big kids with the lives of the little ones ... making sure that nobody feels left out or bored stiff.  Helping the kids to be friends to each other and finding time for us all to connect and spend time together are my top priority as Glue-Stick Mom.

As for the batteries ... the empty box was a perfect illustration of my level of energy.  Lacking.  Of course, if I went to bed a bit earlier, I would probably have a bit more oomph ... but then I wouldn't get to hang out with Brett.  So ... I'll compensate some of my loss of sleep with a little caffeine partway through the day.  A little battery charge, so to speak.

The random bits and pieces of paper would represent the thoughts flitting through my brain during the day:  Christmas gift ideas, emails to write, things to do, popcorn prayers, questions to ask Brett later and worries & concerns about friends and family.  The busy-ness of my scatterbrained ... uh, brain.

The telephone directories would probably be all the information that I try to store and keep track of in a more organized manner.  Events, birthdays, likes and dislikes, needs and wants, upcoming visits and future trips all logged into my brain, calendar and iPod.  Remarkably, for the amount of info that I need to keep together, not too much gets forgotten.  Thank goodness!

Some of my "drawer" items are helpful tools (i.e. forks, spoons and knives).  I have a few gifts and talents that God is using right now:  am a great administrator, a good helper, an encourager to fellow moms and my sense of humor gets me through many a tough day.  These useful parts of my life are invaluable and its fun to see how God puts each one to task.

Then we have those pesky receipts in the silverware drawer.  A stack of packing slips and records of things I've purchased ... or in the case of my life:  my oopses, gaffs, mistakes, regrets and disappointments.  Unfortunately, I have a memory like a steal trap for emotional hurts and heart wounds.   And they're all stuffed down underneath the busy, productive parts of my life ... waiting for an opportunity to slip out and surprise me.  There is a great song by Sara Groves called, "All Right Here" that talks about how we carry all our life experiences along with us, day by day.  There is a terrific line in the chorus that says, "And I'm not God, I'm a girl, I confess that I don't have sea of forgetfulness".  Nope, I don't forget the hurts that I have experienced or the hurts that I have caused.  Even with heart-felt apologies and sincere forgiveness, those hurts seem to live just below the surface.  Truly I should just throw them out ... they are dated and passed, but that's hard to do.

Finally, we have that baggie of random keys.  I would say that these keys represent the opportunities I have in life.  When faced with a door of possibility, I have the choice to either open it and try this "new thing" or move on to the next door.  If I move on, I might miss out on something great.  However, sometimes the experience behind the door isn't all I'd hoped for either.  The mystery of "what's behind the door" is part of the excitement of life.  It's what keeps things interesting and it's what keeps me growing.  Not every door holds success.  Not every door leads to fun.  But every door has been fashioned by God and He has given me the key to open it.  Since I know that He is good ... I'm trying to open more of the doors He has presented to me.  Writing is one of these doors ... I'm not sure where it will lead, but I've opened it and am trusting Him to show me which door to open next.

Yes ... my life (and kitchen drawers) are filled to capacity.  But apparently, all with things I need.  When I try to clear anything out of the junk drawer or my day-to-day life, I end up with an important reason to keep everything.  I'm certain that I could simplify if absolutely necessary, but for right now, I'm willing to poke and cram just a little bit ... to keep my life like it is.

But next week might be a different story.  I'll let you know! :)

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We had KEBL this week ... be sure to check out our Family Night O' Fun! :)