So far summer vacation feels like war.

I will admit I was not prepared. I made no plans or schedules. Camps are too expensive times four. Everything is too expensive times four. I naively thought we would all somehow float along, sleep in, lunches no longer having to be packed meant that our noonday meal would just appear on the table when we were hungry. I thought we would all get along and play and I would find the chance to sew and write and chop down bushes in the backyard. It's not like that. It's more like I am sincerely wondering why God in all his wisdom would give me four children. It's more like me hoarse from refereeing and explaining to the two oldest that it (every single thing) is not a competition and then I cry in the shower and the two youngest kids come and find me and climb in. This is exhausting and hard and I feel tricked into this career of mothering. I was aiming for artist and somehow landed in child development hell. I was considering working out a payment system to bribe the girls to go the gym with me because Charlie is the only one who likes it, however Sadie actually understands money now so she wants $5 a visit. I'm sure that in a few days when the pool opens and life settles into some sort of routine I will feel better. I think right now I have what divers get when they come up to the surface to fast. I have the bends. This has all happened to fast and when you are 2 and 4 and 6 and 8 listening to your mother really does feel like an option. To all parents of four everywhere please send prayer and advice my way because I am absolutely positive you have this more figured out than I do.

We are in the single digits now folks.

Size 8 jeans. Despite the Ding Dongs I am suddenly now addicted too. I think it's my mothers fault for never giving us that crap as kids. It's like grown up guilty crack. So I am not doing any extreme diet. I am trying my very best to unwire the way I was wired from birth. ALL or NOTHING. You had a Ding Dong? Eat three boxes and screw this losing weight thing. You are tired of lettuce leaves with fat free dressing? Too bad lady, eat like an honest to goodness rabbit or else.

So, moderation.

It goes against every cell in my body that screams, "More is better!" To this day I can not make coffee without adding just a few more heaping giant spoons because more is better even if you end up with black sludge. I am an extremist. If I can't do something perfectly or with some amount of guaranteed success at a not too much later date then I'm done with it. It is a miracle I kept throwing clay on that wheel in college because two years of throwing and my pots even at 2 inches tall weighed 20 pounds and that my non pottery acquainted friends is NOT a good thing. I think there must have been cute boys in those classes to motivate me.

So here is some more gut wrenching truth in case the Ding Dong confession wasn't enough. I can clearly remember sitting on my living room couch googling weight loss surgery and calculating how many pounds I would have to gain before I qualified. It wasn't that many......

So now I am going to talk about God. This is your chance to scoot on out of here if you are not super into that sort of thing.

Here we go. For the past few weeks whenever I got on the treadmill and ran ever so slowly at a 1.0 incline I hit a wall at thirty minutes (sometimes 15) and I had to stop. It has been infuriating and depressing and I tried every single thing I could think of to snap out of it. I ate a banana before or didn't. I tried more sleep, more food, less food, more coffee, less coffee, different shoes, extra water and every variation I could think of. When I thought about quitting I would praise myself for not being a quitter. This is how it went in my head:

"Greta, you are awesome, you are a real trooper showing up at the gym day after day. Even when defeated by running you keep at it. It will be better next time."

So I'm somehow still feeling okay and as I was giving myself props for not quitting to a very wise friend she gently asked me where my focus has been.

Oh.

It's been on size 8 jeans and Saucony sneakers. How to keep the hair out of my eyes and searching for a hand towel without embroidered pirates or bleached out Disney characters to bring to the gym. Whether or not my shorts are clean and how to bribe the younger kids to go to the gym without a lot of fuss. And to be very very honest I am at a point where I am comfortable and I'm not sure that I want to work all that hard.

So, me. The focus has been on me.

I have been trying to run under my own power. My own will and it has failed me over and over again. And because I am so caught up with being "one who exercises" I started to let that define me. If I run well I am a good person. If I run poorly there must be a way to fix it. I am that mom in spandex and I like it.

Last Friday I walked up to one of Sadie's classmates mom (who I have seen kicking ass running at the gym) and asked her for advice. She told me to aim for 31 minutes and then the next time 32 minutes and so on.

Yesterday I got on the treadmill and I prayed and it went something like this:

"31 minutes God. Please help me get to 31 minutes. I am first yours and then the other things. I am your daughter and you created in me a desire to run. You give me dreams where I run. You give me moments of peace when I run. Help me run. Help me not give up. Thank you. Thank you for getting me to this place. Thank you for reminding me through running where I should place my focus. Not on deeds or acts or miles and times. On you Lord."

There was also a lot of sweat and heavy breathing and The Police on the highest volume and some sort of home show on the t.v. screen in front of me just in case you think I'm some sort of awesome Christian. I'm not. I am the most forgetful of Christians. When life works I turn back to me and then when it gets hard or doesn't go the way I think it should I remember to pray.

Yesterday I ran for 35 minutes. I just wanted to get to 31 and God in his infinite goodness gave me 35 minutes. Tomorrow I'm going to shoot for 36 and more prayer. Then I'm going to put on my size 8 jeans, eat a Ding Dong and remember to thank Him.

When Weeds are Good

We bought our house almost 7 years ago? I was pregnant with Ruby at the time and remember lumbering up and down the sidewalks with Sadie, her doll stroller, and her baby. Because of that pregnancy and then two more the backyard was declared no man's land while the front yard was carefully cultivated and pruned, watered and fertilized. Isn't that so like life sometimes? Keeping what is visible carefully presentable while the dark things run wild. Over these years weeds grew up and while Sam kept a narrow path down the center mowed the rest went to dark tangles of vine upon vine upon tangled vine and the undergrowth became a dense haven for creatures I would rather not see.
This summer the girls are old enough to be outside on their own and I have made it my mission to begin the work in the backyard. With gloved hands and an ancient pair of clippers I went to work trimming. Carefully at first and then with wild abandon. Pulling at anything that would move. These vines have practically strangled out what once was there and ripping them off becomes a game. What lies underneath? When will they let go?
Today we paused and Sadie and I began gathering and weaving together a sort of fort with all of the pulled vines and as we did I began to think how every single thing has a purpose and then a time. Even weeds. Even those injuries of youth and childhood. I think maybe those hurts and misconceptions needed a quiet place to lie still for a while, just as these vines needed years to grow unfettered so they could be re-purposed into a place of joy for my children. I watch Sadie weave a "chandelier" for our new fort and know that I still have more vines and weeds to pull both literally and metaphorically but I am thankful for the ones already released and for a God who has perfect timing in all things.

To Gigi

Thank you for the pile of mulch delivered to our driveway every spring that lived there deep into the summer, our mountain. The spaghetti noodle fight where all of us screamed "Worms!" while laughing till we thought we would die. The encouragement to do what we loved, even go to art school. To dream. The hugs given. Your peachy paisley robe you wore at the old house and how you dried your hair with the old iron vent in the bathroom sometimes. For perming my hair and then cutting it asymmetrically in the fifth grade (it was cool then.) For finding us teeny sized woman's fancy shoes to play in and my magical Halloween costumes and dress up clothes that you made.

For my translucent Cinderella record that we would play over and over again. For teaching us kindness and compassion. For letting us try to dig our own pool every single summer and even giving us trash bags to line it with because we thought then the water would stay in. For letting us be OUTSIDE.

For teaching me to love the dentist and dogs.

And apparently wolves.

For teaching all of us to swim and love the water.

Thank you for attempting to teach me how to cook and I'm really sorry that never worked out.

Your generosity in all things. For all of the picking up and dropping off that I now understand to be an act of love each and every time, year after year. For never being late to collect me. Not once. For all of the help you give me now because surely I would not survive four kids without you. Thank you. I love you mom. Happy Mother's Day.

SOS Mom Down! And other things.

Yesterday was some sort of crash for me. I just wanted to wave a white flag and take to the bed. It started at the gym where no matter what I do I hit a WALL at 30 minutes and have to stop running. I am feeling beyond frustrated and discouraged and then the kids were WILD and BICKERING like it is an art form for which prizes are given at random. Next bad news for a good preggo friend who has to go on bed rest for three months and my heart just aches for her.

Today I woke up and somehow remembered that I am many things but I am not a quitter and above all I will just keep showing up. So ten minutes of terrible running and then an awkward weight training session that I had to leave early because darling Charlie would not quit hitting innocents in the head with heavy plastic toys. To be honest I was ready to leave because did I mention a while back I quit SLEEPING at night? Yes. But I will not call the doctor since each new day I keep thinking that tonight will be the night I sleep. Sam is not amused.

By the way we jumped on the Pinterest/Facebook bandwagon and made a fairy garden over the weekend which required much more work and shopping then I had anticipated. Also Sam dealt with a saw more then once because long ago abandoned rail road ties from the back yard seemed more economical then a brand new container.

Ruby lost her front tooth and it was so traumatic she refuses to deal with the other dangling front tooth that is pointing to the right and away from the rest of her still intact teeth.

During my crash day yesterday I finished a pile of work but was too bummed to work on listing it so I photographed and listed some of it today and more to come after I paint the girls toes because tomorrow they get to wear flip flops to school for spirit day.

My friend Kim tried on some of the necklaces and I was really happy with how they turned out.

The new headbands have felted and hand dyed flowers made of vintage baby sweaters. I have had a collection of them since high school and these were ones to damaged or shrunken to display that I couldn't part with. The rest of them now grace my girls wall upstairs.

I know that collecting vintage baby sweaters at 16 is kind of strange but that is how God made me. I think I needed to get back to dying fabric again. It is like a wonderful mischievous science experiment each time and you never quite know how they will turn out.

And then just to show you I have been paying attention, a rare moment of peaceful cooperation:

You are now sufficiently caught up on the last week of my life. Something deep tomorrow but only if I sleep.

Fierce and Love as Tyra Banks says on the totally car crash awful America's Next Top Model which I can not seem to quit watching even if it is all that is wrong with the world as we know it.

I Am Learning You

I used to call you baby spy. You would watch me, expressionless, calculating, and I was sure you were reporting to someone else, some higher up. You were transmitting my endless failings over a sophisticated and undetectable line of communication.

We have slowly left behind the pointing and screaming and grunting of a third child not yet with words and we are in some honeymoon phase of delightful whispered conversations where you rest your body on mine and melt into me.

You still pine for fruitsnacks and stomp your foot on the floor but you have mostly lost your disconcerting shrill.

Dare I say, you give in easier child.

You give way to reason where you used to grind reason to dust with your fancy long eyelashes and unrelenting persistence.

You tell me the peas in our garden say, "Yum Yum Yum" when it rains and you check all the growing things outside every day, especially the strawberries which you gobble up as quick as I can pick them.

When you sing you take all the words of the day so far and mix them up with off tune, once heard melodies. Like when you sang Ho Ho Banana with a sort of Lady Ga Ga exuberance after learning Hosanna in bible class.

You join in easily with other children. You launch in with effortless flight and play and laugh without hesitation. You don't wait for an invitation like I did.

You add a skirt I have sewn no matter what else is on and then you wear purple cowboy boots or your pink flip flops on the opposite feet.

You hold your ground with your two older sisters and then you mostly giggle or roll your eyes with perfect comedic timing at your silly little brother.

You are the kind of daughter any mother would be over the moon to have. You stir the long grown up parts of me and I often pause without aforethought to point out birds in flight or the shape of a new leaf.

I am learning you Poppy. I am learning to stop and hold your hand or sit with you as you explain to me the merits of mermaids and how God made them. I am learning to occasionally pause and gaze upon your perfect joy with life.

I am learning you Poppy and God willing may I never forget to stop.

Then We Fight

My father had a German father. What does that even mean? Silence? Sauerkraut? Is sauerkraut even German? His mother was also silent but not German, I think maybe Irish. Together they raised my father in silence. At least that's what I have gathered over my father's 67 years of mostly silence.

There is only one piece of advice my father has ever really given me:

"Remember, driving on wet leaves is a little like driving on snow."

He said it with an almost southern accent so driving came out driven'. He said that same thing to all my siblings so it wasn't special or geared towards me, the oldest. It was just this thing he said and it now echoes in my head every single fall. Maybe I hear it in my head year after year because there is nothing else. No other words of wisdom to jockey for position in my line of memories.

Ruby asked me the other day what we were. Where we were from. I listed the places her great great great grandparents once lived before their journey here. Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, Sweden, Poland, The Netherlands and probably many more I don't know of (because of all the damn silence.) I explained we were mixed up from places all over the world and now we are American. We are American because this is where we were born.

What I have thought over the past few days since she asked that question is that we are not just place and the places from which our ancestors come but the experiences carried through generations. We are joys and births, weddings and truths, achievements and first steps, talents and gifts. We are silence and adultery, secrets and hurts, lies and abuse, funerals and loss. We are what has pushed our ancestors down and what has lifted them up. The horrors and ecstasies of life cut in deep to the bone. We are the left over mysteries and sins seeking a place to hide. We are stories of love, of miracles. We are what is passed down and what is buried that we have no name for but feel anyway.

Then we fight. Then we fight to become the people we want to be. We bring it to the light. We try to leave behind the bad and carry on the good. We attempt to dig out and recover. We aim for redemption.

I am the least silent person I know. I despise silence. I sometimes wonder if it is my reaction to the silence of my father. I swing to the most opposite place I can find and I never shut up. Someday my children will write about me. Their mother who always had music or television on in the background, who talked and talked and talked. Maybe they will find some middle ground with their own children. Talking sometimes, silence sometimes.

I have seen my father change over the last few years. He sometimes smiles. He gave me a hugely meaningful compliment at my brothers wedding last summer. He has cast his brilliant mind upon God and pondered. I think he believes. He shows up at church Sunday after Sunday and sometimes even talks about it.

We are so much more than place.