Friday, July 16, 2010

[Sticky] Bullets

My li'l Punkinhead received a handy little Nerf dart gun for turning 7, two weeks ago :gasp!: and I've YET to write him a birthday post - the HORROR!!! -  and he has been thoroughly entertained with aiming his darts, with velcro on them so they stick to clothing, at people, particularly on their bums.

Needless to say they stick quite well to my mesh running shorts du jour, thus I've been dodging sticky bullets all day.

But I miss writing, and have a TON of things to say but no time - what happened to all of the time?  It is mid-summer and I feel like it just started, like if I blink or sneeze it is going to be October and PTA.  So bullets will have to suffice for now.


  • Middle summer is a parenting plateau that pretty much sucks.  Regardless of any form of routine a mother would try to entertain, the fact that it is daylight until 9 makes it unreasonably difficult to keep peace, as it is an insurmountable feat to get Kelsey and Colton into bed before 10, due to said elongation of days.  The resulting crank factor - because a certain girl child just doesn't sleep in, even if her body desperately needs it - and accompanying triggers for a sensory meltdown, which lead to sibling blowouts and me playing referee rather than cook, maid, etc., pretty much make it impossible to accomplish the mundane and familiar, let alone the grandiose plans for us to capitalize on all the cultural/educational activities we can.
  • I'm returning to my MPA studies next month...I'm somewhat leery of it as I still often feel as if my mind is somewhere floating in the clouds.  But, I need to finish it - and when I do I'll [hopefully] have some more earning potential.
  • I've suddenly been seeing people and things in a comparative, albeit decidedly distorted, manner - and am not quite sure how to refrain from this trap.  E.g. all of a sudden, every woman at the supermarket is prettier, better dressed, thinner, better coifed, etc. than I may be at that given moment.  Or other people's homes are so much neater, well-decorated, bigger, etc. than my own.  Other kids are so much more respectful to their parents than ours have been with us of late, and so on down the road.  I know that this lens is quite simply, the wrong prescription through which to view life, but I feel stuck with it right now and am working on feeling content and competent with my life again.  Or should that say still?
  • Kelsey's going away to church camp on Sunday and we're all a bit apprehensive about that, given the above reference to an increase in meltdowns of late.
  • This funk I'm in has a bit to do with seeing the work I had the opportunity to be intimately involved with, but had to decline due to Li'l C's arrival time and the project start date being fairly simultaneous, take off.  It's a torturous game of coulda, woulda, shoulda and I need to quit playing, but I'm stuck.  And wonder of wonders, it happens to be occurring when Li'l C is at the age the others were when I started to work more out of the home - what does that say about me as a mother?  That I love babies but am ready to hand them off as toddlers for someone else to deal with?  Oh, it's more complicated than that for sure, and so there's a funk.


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Monday, July 5, 2010

In the still of a waning gibbous night

Written last Tuesday/Wednesday, the waning gibbous reference is not me trying to be all Lewis Carroll with language befitting the Jabberwocky but rather points to the phase the moon was in that night.


My soul was restless today.

As a thought would enter my mind, another would pop out, begging a desperate, "Look at me!" plea reminiscent of that from multiple siblings competing for mother's attention.  "No, look at ME!"  All.  Day.  Long.

Focus and clarity proved elusive despite being much sought after.

Until tonight.

After running errands, we came home and put the kids to bed*, put a movie in and settled in for the night.  It wasn't long into the movie that Seth nodded off, only to wake and trudge upstairs shortly after.  I finished the movie, feeling a wakefulness creep into my mind, and while I enjoyed the story, the soundtrack and the scenery of the film are what really struck my heart.

The quiet of the house sat with me pleasantly after a chaotic, if only mentally so, day.

I needed to get the dogs and let them in, so I went outside, where my soul sang for the night sky before me exuded that clarity for which I'd been so desperately seeking.

Inky and dark the expanse glittered with stars who had no need to compete with the opacity of any clouds - for there were none.  Though the clock read 11:40, the moon was just venturing a stretch off the easterly horizon.  Though emptied some of her recent fullness, she still retained all of the luster present during her peak.  She continued to rise, radiantly and proud as I just marveled on my patio at the ministrations my Heavenly Father was orchestrating to my soul.
 O LORD, our Lord,
       how majestic is your name in all the earth!
       You have set your glory
       above the heavens.
 2 From the lips of children and infants
       you have ordained praise 
[b]
       because of your enemies,
       to silence the foe and the avenger.

 3 When I consider your heavens,
       the work of your fingers,
       the moon and the stars,
       which you have set in place,

 4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
       the son of man that you care for him?
* Right about now my reveries were interrupted by hearing Seth and Kelsey squabbling above in my bedroom.  I went and snatched my daughter, who matched my insomnia and later rose me with 3 additional wakeful nights that week, and we shared the evening in silence on the patio.  She drew as I wrote this post the old fashioned way, with pen and pad.

Thoughts from a recent sermon returned to me...

As beautiful and bright as the moon appears to be, in and of itself it is not actually a luminary.  Merely rock and dust, it glows in our night skies because it was made such that it reflects the light of the sun, the true light and center of our universe.  I'm certain that our Creator fully intended the moon to be a light in a darkened world, and yet He deigned it to forever be dependent on another being to display light, unable to generate light of its own.

Humankind is no different.  Made originally of dust, sometimes with hearts as hardened as rock, we cannot generate our own light, yet our sole purpose is to reflect the light of the Son.

Pure.  Simple.  Clarity.
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
Would that we could always have a blank sky to twinkle on, but just like in the night sky, there are often clouds.  They all pass, in life and in the sky.  Sometimes they remain awhile, producing rain - vital to growth and life.  Other times these clouds merely drift aimlessly, shifting shapes, eventually blowing over.  Some follow a seasonal pattern and return year after year like the Santa Ana's.  Still others collide and cause friction, producing sizable storms; storms that sneak upon us and others that are easily predicted.  But, through all of the distractions that clouds bring to the night sky, one thing remains constant whether we can see it or not: the moon always reflects the light of the sun.

Unlike us, the moon doesn't have a choice to reflect the sun.

May I always be willing to reflect the Light of the world - come what may.