motherhood Archives - Page 8 of 32

The White Crib

My first baby in the white crib

*100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 34

I remember when we first found the crib. It had been tucked away in the attic of our seminary apartment building and forgotten. We were the supervisors of the building, so when no one claimed it, my husband brought it home because my swelling belly reminded him that we were going to need it.

All the parts were there, so we cleaned it and set it up in the walk-in closet of our one-bedroom apartment because there was nowhere else to put a crib. I cried when I saw it and shut the closet door. I was not ready for what that crib represented.

Just a few months later, my first little baby was asleep in that crib. I would stand there next to her and watch her sleep, rolling the word “daughter” around in my mind as if to make the idea less foreign and more real. Some things just take time, I learned. But I didn’t know it then.

There was another baby soon, and another—enough to dull the edges of early motherhood until it did not feel strange to call another person mine.

Every single one of my babies slept in the simple white crib with the arched wood ends and the wheels that liked to fall off if I tried to move it. There were scratchy little teeth marks on the railings from slobbery, teething toddlers and places where the paint had been chipped off by Matchbox car wheels when the twins were supposed to be sleeping, but weren’t.

Years passed the way years do, and it came time to take the crib apart and move the twins into real beds. But I couldn’t do it. I kept them in their cribs even though I often found that Paul had climbed in with Micah. Once or twice, he even got his fat little leg pinned against the wall as he tried to make his escape, and once or twice, he even fell headlong onto the carpet and Micah had to tattle all about it in pantomime because he couldn’t say all the words for “That fool tried it again.”

They needed a real bed, and I knew it.

But there was that crib. The crib that held all the babies that softened my independent, selfish heart into the heart of a mother. How different I had become over the course of the years. How different it felt to set up that crib for the first time than it did to take it down for the last time!

The last time.

That was the thing. Every other time the crib had been vacated, it was because a new baby was getting too big to sleep in the bedroom with me. A new baby needed the spot occupied by a now-big-brother or sister. A new baby had come into the home.

But these little babies stretched up and thinned out and turned into little men right before my very eyes, and there were no more little babies to take their place. There aren’t going to be any more babies.

I took a screwdriver to the old white crib with the scratchy teeth marks and the chipped paint and the railings where five little babies had learned to stand up before they had learned to sit back down.

And I cried hot, mama tears for all of it.

My husband walked by and crinkled up his eyes at me and wrapped me up in a hug because I really am the most psychotic person on the planet.

The white crib has stayed in the garage next to a gnarly old bookcase that needs some attention. I came across it this weekend while I was attempting to organize and straighten out and clean up all the stuff that has piled up in this house. “You should sell that,” my husband said.

I should.

But I am the kind of mother who likes to keep the things that remind me of where I’ve been and what God has done. That simple white crib represents many years of God at work in my life. It is a symbol of my stubbornness and my redemption and the incredible mercy of God. It seems as if things like that should be set up and looked at and remembered. But you can’t very well keep an old white crib forever.

Or can you?

My mind started spinning when I saw the crib in the garage, and while I really didn’t intend to keep it, a crazy idea came into my head. Perhaps I could set up a stone of remembrance in the form of an old white crib. Perhaps I could find a way to keep a memory of the incredible miracle of God in my life. Perhaps the old white crib was not quite ready to move on.

Join me tomorrow to see what became of the crib I couldn’t seem to give away.

My last baby in the white crib

The Trouble with Rest

*100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 33

Two. That’s the number of times this week I set the tea kettle on to boil and walked away, only to return some time later to find it bone dry and smoking. The second time, the handle, which was made to be impervious to absentmindedness, melted off in slow agony and dropped onto the burner.

The children smelled the burning plastic and asked if I was making dinner.

I was not.

I stared at my tea kettle. The heat had caused the metal to swell abnormally. It was as fat as a little piggy and much more likely to explode. Black smoke drifted lazily up from the tar-like goo on the burner.

This was concerning to me, not just because of the fact that I very nearly gave my children an unplanned lesson on shrapnel, but because it said something about me that wasn’t good. A woman who burns her kettle dry two times in five days has issues.

My issue is this: I have trouble resting. I have so much trouble resting, I can’t even slow down long enough to brew a cup of “Quite Moments” tea. I run around like the house is on fire (which, ironically, was very nearly a reality) because I feel like I have to work my way to a place of rest.

But the work is never done and rest is always elusive because I live at work.

My “office” is strewn with socks and dirty dishes and way more Thomas the Tank Engine tracks than is professional. And while my coworker is cute and my boss is great, the subordinates tend to run around half naked and spill milk. Everywhere I turn, I see reminders of the things I have yet to do, have not done well, or have not done at all.

Sometimes, I just want to put on a pair of heels and commute. Preferably to Hawaii. Perhaps then I could find a way to be done at the end of the day.

But of course, being done is not the point and work is not the problem. The problem is not the dishes in the sink or the floor that needs mopped. The problem is I lack the faith to rest the way God commands. I lack the faith to be still, to be quiet, and to pursue the things that are more important than dusting the furniture.

I lack the faith to trust that my identity in Him is secure, even if my work is not done.

There will always be work. But here in the middle of the mess, I am commanded to rest. Rest, true rest, is what I need. Not like when I go to bed and dream about cleaning my kitchen. Not like when I finally get all the rooms straightened up on the same day and I collapse into the couch, exhausted. Not like when I finally check everything off the to-do list and feel like I’ve earned it.

True rest is a grace. It sees the work left to do and nourishes me anyway. It sees that I am not yet done and rewards me with strength for the course. It resets the priorities that have gotten scrambled and brings my focus up from the temporal to the eternal.

I forget that sometimes, and I fight against it. I act like God is punishing me, somehow, by calling me to a place of rest. I kind of think that if He wants me to rest, He should find a way to clean my kitchen first. But He doesn’t do that. He leaves the mess, and asks me to leave it too.

So I put the kettle on, but I struggle with the fear that if I take some time off, my entire world is going to descend deeper into chaos and disorder. Who is going to do the dishes while I sip my tea, God? I sneak off and try to put away some laundry while I wait for the water to boil and pretty soon, I find myself face-to-face with a charbroiled kettle.

The truth is, I can never work my way to rest because rest is an act of faith. It requires me to act on the promise of God that one day, the meaningless repetition of earthly work will end. All that is lacking in me will be filled up, and all that is undone will be completed. I will no longer live at work.

I will live at rest.

So tonight, I am putting the kettle on. It’s a little rusty now and I can’t quite pry the lid off because the knob burned off. I am not done with my work. I guess that’s why it’s the perfect time to act on the belief that even in my imperfection, God’s promises are true. Not being done is the best reason to practice being at rest.

First Love and Little Boys

*100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 32

My son’s blue eyes are shining. “I have a present for you, Mommy,” he tells me. A smile that holds a secret spreads across his face.

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. It’s for Christmas. When is Christmas?”

“Oh, Christmas is a long time away.”

“Like a year?”

“Yes, almost a year.”

He looks a little crestfallen. I can tell he’ s doing the math in his head and realizing that a year is about 23% of his total existence, and that’s a long time to wait. “Well…” he considers. “I wanted it to be for Christmas, but…here.”

He shoves his little hand toward me and uncurls five stubby fingers. “Treasures!” he announces and pours into my hand a bead, a BB, one found Lego piece, and a red bit of a Christmas decoration. “I been findin’ them for you,” my baby says with all the sheepishness of a schoolboy.

“Oh, Micah. I love them! Thank you.”

He points to the sparkly bead and shrugs, “That a diamond.”

“You know I love diamonds,” I say, fingering the bright pink jewel.

His blue eyes dance and he nods because he can’t think of what to say. Instead, he throws his arms around me legs and hugs me tight.

I hug him back and kiss him too. I just want to keep him there for a minute and savor the joy of being my little boy’s first love. Someday, he will forget all about pink diamonds and pretty buttons. But I won’t.

I take his treasures up to my room and put them on my dresser. I’m not sure what to do with them, but I can’t quite throw them away. I remember back to when my biggest little boy was Micah’s age.

At four, it was Jonathan’s singular purpose to find the prettiest rocks on the planet for me. Multiple times a day, he’d charge through the front door, recklessly kicking his boots off as he exclaimed, “Mom! Mom! I found a ‘pecial rock! It’s for you, Mom!”

I had to pause whatever I was doing to wash the rock and look at it under the water. I had to notice how pretty the sparkles were or how particular was its rock-ness. As sweet as it was, I sometimes wished there wasn’t so much gravel around the house.

Soon, I had so many rocks on my counters, I didn’t know what to do with them. I piled them around my house plants and the bird bath and eventually paved a pathway from the driveway through the blueberry bushes with special rocks. Sometimes, when he wasn’t looking, I’d toss the rocks back into the gravel and hope Jonathan wouldn’t notice.

Some days, Jonathan found other recipients for his rocks. Our tattooed next-door neighbor with the leather pants, dog collar choker and kind blue eyes was one of his favorites. As soon as Jonathan heard the beat of the bass and the belch of the Harley as it swooped up into our cul-de-sac, he got ready. “Mr. Tom! Hi! Mr. Tom! I have a ‘pecial rock for you, Mr. Tom!”

Sometimes I’d peek out the window at little brown-haired Jonathan, beaming up at burly Mr. Tom, who bent down and smiled back, ruffed some hair and shared a little common appreciation for God’s creation.

One day, after Mr. Tom had already received his daily rock, Jonathan’s screams erupted through the neighborhood. In a second, Mr. Tom was leaping over his fence and our retaining wall because he knew the little boy who loved him had been hurt. He had seen the discarded board and the rusty nail that had gone right through Jonathan’s tender foot.

Jonathan cried out and looked up into Mr. Tom’s face. “You’re okay, Buddy. I gotcha. It’s okay. You know I’m a doctor, right?” It was a little joke because Tom wasn’t a doctor at all. But you couldn’t tell Jonathan that.

Gently, he lifted my son into the car and sent me off to the emergency room without even letting me think or worry or be shocked at the sight of my child with a board nailed to his body.

A few days later, when Jonathan was up and around again, I headed up to Tom and Sandy’s green steps with a plate of cookies and a thank you. But I was stopped short by a neat pile of special rocks on the deck. Tom had saved every one.

One day, I noticed Jonathan had stopped bringing me special rocks. It’s not that he loves me any less, but he is older now, old enough to know that treasures go in shoe boxes and sock drawers. Treasures are for keeping.

But Micah doesn’t know that yet. He is young still, young enough to know that gifts are for giving, and the best gifts are for the one he loves most in all the world. The best gifts are for his mommy.

Unabashedly, he lavishes me with diamonds until I think I must be the richest woman in the world.

“When I get big, can I marry you?” he asks me.

“Nope, you can’t marry me, Micah,” I say as gently as possible.

“Oh. Is it because I’m too little?”

“No, it’s because Daddy would be jealous.”

Micah nods. He sees how that could be a problem.

“Well, then, when I grow up, will I still be your Micah?”

“Always.”

“Okay,” he shrugs again. “And, I will live right here with you.” Micah presses a glass marble into my hand and snuggles into my side. “’Cause I love you da best.”

It is a moment I want to hold on to, like a first kiss.

Someday, he might forget that I was his first love.

But I won’t.

Micah, 4

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