Beating through

There is a refrain that beats through me, its wavelengths tightening around my organs. You cannot balance this. You cannot excel at one without plainly sucking at the other. You will choose career over family. You are choosing career--

I choose my family.

*** Weekends are longer when you have small children. They are longer than the rest of the week. They are longer than any time you have spent waiting to see if your parents are running late or if they just forgot to pick you up from Key Club. There is not enough time in the weekend to mend the metaphorical hems you need to hem. There are small eternities strung back to back to do the same things you have done all week, which feel extra punishing because you have to do them on Your Weekend. With no overtime pay.

***

You find no joy in this. Maybe this is all too much for you. Are you choosing family? Choosing family?

***

This was not my motto before I became a parent, but I have adopted it as my anthem. If I expect things to go well, they will go well. It sounds Self-Helpy. I know. Will the real Pollyanna please stand up?

I tell myself that I have fun with my children.

I tell myself that my children are fun.

Know what? When I tell myself that? I have fun with my children. My children are so much fun.

*** I am trying to make a Pinteresty project for a friend's birthday. The distressed wood is not jiving with my bristle brushed effect; you cannot tell I am trying to paint a puffy dandelion blowing in the wind. Baby Girl wants to paint. She will grab my brush, touch the paint to the exact area I don't want to be touched--

***

You are trying to be good at everything. You're not even really mastering one thing. You can't juggle all the balls at once. You look like you're starting to slip.

***

The sun is warm, the shade is a haven, the breeze is a gorgeous tonic of perfection as I paint in the grass outside. I grab Baby Girl an oddly shaped scrap from the firewood pile. We paint next to each other, talk about the morning, our favorite parts of the special worship in the park. We let the paint dry and go for a long bike ride.

***

I am hairdrying the stupid piece of wood all soaked with every manner of glitterglue and chalkboard paint and I haven't even showered and Little Man is crying in his crib. I am supposed to be at the surprise party an hour ago.

***

You can't. You are kidding yourself. You are a mess.

*** I am at the end of the driveway, showered, lipsticked, carrying this dazzling piece of wood, when she calls me back. She busts out of the porch door in her nightgown.

MAHHHHM! MOM! YOU FORGOT THE PIECE OF WOOD!

No, I have it! I yell back.

NO, MOM! THE PIECE OF WOOD I MADE! I WANT YOU TO BRING IT TO YOUR FRIEND FOR HER BIRTHDAY.

I carry a glitter wood. And another piece that looks like a slop-painted reindeer antler.

The next day I tell Baby Girl how much my friend liked the present that she made her. (She really did. Said she was going to put her jewelry on it.)

"Oh thank you, Mommy! You are the best!"

*** This is the new voice beating through me. Beating through like a little nightgowned girl busting through a porch door to tell her to bring the antler to the party. The voice says I am sometimes, sometimes when I feel at my most defeated and depleted, the best to the littlest ones that matter the most.

Homebound

One of my chief challenges in this season of raising small children who depend heavily on their parents to source their education and amusement is the tremendous lot of time that I am homebound with them. Uggggh. Homebound. When you bound toward something, you imply that the object to which you are bounding is attractive, exciting, an icy sweet popsicle on a blazing hot day. But I oftentimes feel as though I am bounding toward Crazytown, when I am headquartered sans vehicle with these kids. Do anyone else's children like to reenact scenes from movies, over and over, such that you have now been cast as the part of Lionheart (when Kim and Jason reject the friendship of the Care Bears in the "Care Bears: The Movie") SO MANY TIMES that you may or may not believe that whole adage about there being no small parts is totally true because even small parts when played too often can be A REALLY BIG FORK UP YOUR NOSE?

The combination of being a person that prefers being out n' about and living on a road that is not connected to a neighborhood per se is driving me a little batty sometimes.

But recently I've been praying a heart transplant for myself. I've been reading the accounts of a friend's family whose son was born with what I understand to be a severe neuromuscular condition. He was in the hospital for a long couple of months post-birth, working with all manner of specialists and running all kinds of tests. The family has four small children and JP is their fifth. They are so ecstatic to have their baby boy home with them now. The mother continues to write about JP's great strides to wiggle his toes and prevent atrophy of facial muscles by smiling away. Seeing pictures of this baby is melting my igloo heart. He is reminding me what a privilege it is to be home with my children, children who can gamely move all of their limbs and communicate their needs. I am so encouraged by JP, his very presence is a gift and a reminder of the sweet breath of life we enjoy each day.

Thanks, JP.

*** It is good to be home because sometimes you look out your window and you see a big sister smotherhug-lifting an unsuspecting little brother.

You also get a free delivery of this guy. Keep the basket even!

You may not get a lot of privacy in the bathroom but you do get this:

Oh, and sometimes you are privy to moments like this where something is just terribly wrong.

Did you catch that?

Let's remove the obstruction to reveal Bottoms-up Bobby.

Yeah, that'd be sangria, but worry not because the label says "Sin Alcohol," which I assume means "without booze" en espanol, or that it contains the most vile sort of fermented wine known to mankind. But they do sell it at the Bible College mart, so I'm assuming it is the former.

Identity

Hi. My name is Kendra Stanton Lee.

I am an American-born woman, a wife, and a mother of two.

I prefer to go by my full name. The family into which I was born and the family into which I chose to marry are equally important to me.

I have a master's degree. I was able to attend graduate school because my husband supported me: my dreams and my finances.

I teach full-time. I love my job. I like it when people ask me whether I like my job. I like it less when people ask me who cares for my children while I am working. When my husband worked three jobs, people never seemed to ask him the same question.

I was nursing my baby boy until two days ago. I love tucking my children into bed.

I believe my husband is the spiritual leader of our home. I do not, however, believe that he is always right.

I receive a paycheck in my name that is more than my husband earns per month. However, I believe we are both earning the same amount. Whatever is mine is his. It is unimportant whose name is on the paycheck because we are both working hard toward a goal united: to support our family.

I am uninterested in identifying myself as a feminist.

I more interested in claiming my personhood as woman who struggles mightily to be more like Jesus Christ.

There are women like I am everywhere.

Someday there may be more of us; I am raising one of them.