Before And After Motherhood

  Before I had children, this is what I envisioned it would be like.  The perfectly behaved children, neat and clean, and my hair and make-up always done (not just when I went out of the house), and my children fascinated by what I was reading them. Oh, and don't forget the lake house and perfect summer weather.


After I had children, more often than not it looked more like this...


But to be completely honest, reality- motherhood falls somewhere in between these extremes--most of the time.

The title of this post is a bit misleading because once you become a mother, you don't ever stop being a mother, so there is no AFTER motherhood. When my children were infants, I couldn't wait until they could sleep through the night. When they were teenagers, I wished they wouldn't stay out so late because I worried if they'd make it home safely, and couldn't they just be little again? Little children, little problems. Big children (well, you know the rest).

When they were babies, I couldn't wait until I didn't have to nurse anymore. When they were older, I'd wish they still would want to cuddle and depend on me completely. Couldn't wait until they could walk and talk, then when they did I was exhausted from chasing them around all day, keeping them out of harm's way and answering all the constant "why's" and "Mom's".

My sister-in-law, who came from a family of five, said her mother got so tired of constantly hearing whiney "Mom!!!" that she told them half-seriously that she was going to change her name to a swear word and beat them for saying it. And she was a Christian woman!

So for any of you wanna-be moms out there, pictures don't tell the whole story. We all would like to think that the first picture (above) is the quintessential picture of motherhood. And the precious mother in the second picture, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, is how we should all look at one another. We all have our share of heartaches, some maybe more than others, but we can all just stop comparing ourselves with one another.

The AFTER motherhood, if we are so blessed, is called GRANDmotherhood. And. It. Is.

Lost MacGyver Episode

Today one of my daughters and I spent a good deal of time and effort transplanting some perennials we got from a dear sweet little Christian lady who was "downsizing" her vast collection of plant materials.  I envisioned beautiful purple coneflowers, hostas, and Gloriosa daisies amid drifts of forget-me-nots gracing our work-in-progress:  A landscape job complete with stone walkway and rock garden leading to the entrance of our screen porch.  Now, this has truly been a unified effort of blood, sweat, and tears, not only by myself, but my four strong and helpful offspring and two "hired hands" (that's another good story for later).  The project has been evolving over the past several years, and now it's beginning to actually LOOK like something.

So after going out to the clothesline to take down a few loads, the cats were acting and looking a little like Ethiopian refugees in need of a good meal.  "Here kitty, kitty!", and in no time, their poor famished selves are rewarded with dishes of kitty-kibbles.  After I go back inside with the loads of clothes, I turn back to see the cats are walking away from the shop area where I just fed them.  I think to myself, "How can they have eaten that so quickly?", so I investigate only to find the culprit:  Jed!  "Bad dog!!!", and Jed hunkers down to show his guilt.  I have pity on him and tie him up and give him his dinner AWAY from the poor starving Ethiopian cats.  I grumble to myself about all the critters around here that have no manners, and then I get an idea!

I had just minutes before walked into the shop and heard a distinct "beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!", then glanced over to what Paulie, the OTHER Macgyver, was making.  He had some contraption going off that  reminded me of some time-bomb or something, with it's flashing red lights, controls, and that alarm going off.  While I'm pretty sure it ISN"T a time-bomb, I think to myself, "I ought to get Paulie to build me some kind of critter alarm."  Soon after leaving the shop area and making my way back to the house, my thought was confirmed.  "@#$%^& CHICKENS!!!!!"  Blasted things scratched up my beautiful coneflowers, leaving their roots exposed to the air for who-knows-how-long!  That's it, I've decided.  The perfect plot for MacGyver--mastermind a scheme for all these conniving animals, and teach them a lesson once and for all!  "Paulie, while you're at it, what do you think about creating a robot to police all these animals-behaving-badly???"  So everyone, if there's ever a revival of the Lost Episodes of MacGyver, be on the look-out for this exciting chapter, or maybe you'll see the "Animal Police Robot" on some late-night informercial....stranger things HAVE happened!  

Great Balls Of...Lightning!

This is actually part two of the sugar snow blog, but since I was too tired to write more before, here goes.

Ahhh, a wonderful warm reprieve today complete with actual sunshine--I know, it's almost too much to comprehend after the oppressive low pressure blanket of yucky overcast gloom lately.  I don't think I'm the only one giddy with the spring "tease" again that we're having.  Today as I venture out on slushy roads, I find that everyone, it seems, is coming out of the woodwork.  We all smile at each other knowingly, as if we're co-survivors of yet another freak-of-nature incident, but thankful that it's over, and it could have been so much worse.  Only two days out from the Great Balls of Lightning...

I say "great" because A) I'm a science/nature geek, and 2) I'm easily amused by simple things.  I mean, Bill Nye is one of my heroes, sort of, and if I would have known him personally in high school, who knows how my destiny would have been forever altered...Anyway, Bill himself would tell you that there actually is such a thing as ball lightning, which is what I saw during this blizzard.  Apparently, this is a form of lightning that occurs when electrically charged particles fall to the ground, roll until they reach a solid object, then discharge with an explosive, but relatively non-dangerous flash of light.  My own dear grandmother told me long ago of such lightning rolling through her house through one window and out the other, and I have witnessed it myself maybe once before, but never in a snowstorm.  Yep, card-carrying science nerd here...

I had to go to my ancient encyclopedias (circa 1960's)--I know, geek again!--and verify that what I really witnessed was a scientifically valid event and not just a subliminal suggestion previously placed in my mind from my precious late grandmother.  Yes, and in the 1960's, though not fully understood, it was even documented with (black-and-white) photos.  Good enough for me!  Anybody else out there in the blogosphere witness ball lightning?  I'm considering forming a "meeting of the minds", a summit, of we privileged few who have witnessed the elusive wonder called (unimaginatively, I think, anyway) ball lightning, perhaps to give it a more sensationalistic name fitting such a wonder of the cosmos.  Okay, now you're thinking this is a dork gone to seed, for sure!  All right, settle down, everyone...it's probably not going to happen in my lifetime, but mark my words, someone will come along some day and give it a REALLY cool scientific name, not dumb old ball lightning.

So, now that you've been convinced that it really does exist (it does, HONEST!), I wonder how many folks reading this will actually go do a little research on their own?  I hope so!  God has made the simple things to confound the wise, and I'm convinced He actually delights in giving us even simple things like Great Balls Of Lightning to make us wonder what else in His creation we have yet to discover.  Never stop being curious, but along the way, don't forget to stop and thank the One who made it all possible.                 

Faithful Friend

I'm looking now at the picture of our family dog, Jed, who is a three-year-old purebred border collie and remembering his puppy days, which have so quickly evaporated like smoke on the cold March wind.  This morning as I venture outside, I find what the weather forecasters had predicted.  This time they were telling the truth:  warm, sunny, chilly wind, but no snow or ice!  Finally!  Still bracing for the cold I've been dressing for all this long winter, I open the door to spring just peeking around the corner of an old, bold enemy:  winter.  And this brings me back to Jed, my walking-to-the-mailbox buddy and faithful furry friend.  

I find it amusing as I walk out the door with letters in hand en route to the mailbox, that Jed and our three cats automatically run to their feeding spot under the lean-to of our shop.  Evidently I have habituated them to think that every time I walk out the door, it's either to feed them or to get in the van to go run errands.  I say evidently, because Jed and the cats first go to their food dishes, and when I don't head in that direction, the cats just saunter away, unamused, but Jed goes next to the van or whichever vehicle that he thinks I will be getting into, ready to do his "job" of chasing me down the driveway, turning two or three circles at the end of the driveway, then off to the left or right to chase along our property line faster than the my van will take me.

Of course, he has a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong as to which direction he leads, but he makes up for lost time by doubling back at breakneck speed, then finally dropping back, just for the sport of it all.  This time, though, he gets to follow me, instead of one of my kids, to the mailbox, and I can almost hear his little doggy brain saying "I wonder what she's doing, not getting in the van so I can do my chase game, my one main reason to live, and even better than eating doggie kibbles?"  At least, that's what I think he's thinking.  

I know for a fact that dogs have very simple mind-sets.  I learned this from the "Far Side" comic, which I highly admire and am easily amused by.  You know, the one where the dog is listening to his master saying "Come here, Ginger.  Sit down, Ginger.  Roll over, Ginger", or something like that, and the bottom half of the cartoon shows the same benign dog with the same benign master, thinking the dog understands, and what the dog really hears is "Blah, blah, blah, Ginger..."--so ridiculously true!  So I've learned that my actions mean more to Jed than words...hmmmm, maybe there's a good lesson in there for all of us?  I'd like to think that it's simple enough for my dog to understand, but he is teaching me far more about human nature just by being himself, so maybe he's not so simple-minded after all.  God uses the simple things to confound the wise, and so I am thankful for my Faithful Friend.