I’ve had a little extra time with my kids in the latter half of this week. My dad, who watches the kids on Wednesdays and then Friday afternoons, has been sick. Poor guy — he almost never gets sick (well, he used to never get sick, until his grandkids moved to town), so he’s miserable when it actually happens. Well after the crazy, distracted-with-work start to my week, I was okay with having some extra time with the wee ones. By yesterday we were in a pretty good groove, and the kids played together like the best of friends for long stretches of time while I dusted and swept and cleaned the bathroom and even set out a few wintry decorations. I felt more productive in terms of housework than I’ve felt in a very long time.

And then today happened.

Jeff had to work most of the day, which was a tough realization for me. By late afternoon, the house was cluttered with toys and papers and crayons, and I was so weary of picking up after my children. Charlie wanted my constant attention, but I desperately wanted to be left alone. And every time I entered the living room, I felt a heavy weight of fatigue at the mere thought of cleaning up the mess.

They say this season — these years of having preschool children at home — flies by. They say we should treasure it and embrace the chaos and let them make messes because that’s how they learn and they’re only little once! But this afternoon (and on more other days than I care to admit), this season of this particular breed of chaos felt like an eternity. I just wanted my living space to stay tidy for more than ten minutes. Even ten seconds. And the fact that my kids didn’t have the same aspirations — that their very mess-producing presence was in direct opposition to my aspirations — weighed. me. down.

Once the kids were in bed, I collapsed on the couch. Jeff was there reading his Bible, and I thought, “I need to pray.” But as I looked around me at the mess that had dampened my attitude for much of the afternoon and evening, all I could utter was, “Lord, I’m so weary.” And so prideful, too, as it turns out. I wanted to whine in my prayer, “It’s my home, and I want it to be free of all this crap that’s all over the floor, all the time!”

While I don’t think these are invalid complaints, I was reminded in the back little corner of my heart that this home, our home, is a gift from God. And it’s a gift to be lived in, a place to raise my children and teach them to love Jesus, a place where they have the freedom to be themselves and to learn and grow and explore and be kids!

And if they learned anything today — anything at all about loving one another, or about how the world works, or about seeking God — well then, I suppose the mess was worth it.

Our overall experience at Children’s Mercy was awesome. Lillian seems almost back to her spunky self, just with a bandage on her left side and a regular dose of pain meds. We’ll keep things pretty lazy for a few days, then follow-up will include an ultrasound in two weeks and an appointment with the surgeon in early December.

1) 1981: Born in Kansas, joining the family of Mom, Dad, and big brother Jeremiah.

2) 1984: My baby brother, Josh, was born. And I think this was the year we moved to the tiny town I would call home for the next 20 years.

3) 1990: Skipping ahead to 3rd grade, when I transferred from Catholic school to public school, a decision I had initially resisted. But I loved my new friends, who introduced me to The Babysitters’ Club and New Kids on the Block.

4) 1991: Without a clue as to what was happening, I and a small group of my classmates were led to the basement of the school and told we would learn to play an instrument. I chose the violin. And that naive decision was instrumental (ha) in the shaping of my identity through jr. high and high school.

5) 1993+: My (first) country music stage. I proudly sported T-shirts from the concerts I attended, and my mom kept me home from school one day so that I could have Billy Dean autograph my jean shorts.

6) 1993: I finally convinced my mom to let me have bangs. And contacts. That was a big year. Also in sixth grade, I adored my teacher, and for the next 7 years, was certain I too would be a sixth-grade teacher.

7) 1996-1997: Freshman year of high school. The year I received my only B throughout my entire high school career, in — you’ll never guess — P.E. The teacher was a punk.

8.) 1996 (I think): Started working part-time at the nursing home, which helped shape my love for the elderly and probably my character and outlook on life.

9) 1997: In the wee hours of a February morning, my dad came into my room to tell me that my brother Jeremiah had been in a car accident. After a day or two in the hospital, he died as a result of it. I, as well as my family, have never been the same, and I don’t think I realize, even now, all the ways his death has affected me. We weren’t close, but I did love him, and I always looked forward to the day when we would have families of our own and grow close again. Now I have lived almost as much of my life without him as I did with him.

10) 1997: Shortly after Jeremiah died, I went on my first ski trip with our high school youth group. A very poignant spiritual high in the very raw aftermath of family tragedy.

11) 1997-1998: My first of two years on the high school dance team. I really can’t dance well, and I hated the early-morning practices, but I loved the performances and the shiny outfits!

12) 1998: My first missions trip, to Monterrey, Mexico, ignited a love for missions and for experiencing other cultures.

13) 1999: A second trip to Monterrey, the time I held a teeny-tiny Mexican baby and knew I wanted to be a mother.

14) 1999: I became really close with my friend Cassie during our senior year. I had known her since preschool. We both grew up with only brothers, so we adopted each other as sisters. After a few years in college of chatting only occasionally, we’ve had weekly phone dates for the past 4 years. I think she’s pretty fantastic.

15) 2000: High school graduation, which seemed at the time like the most important and wonderful day of my life.

16) 2000-2001: Attended a missions school and spent two separate months in foreign countries. I formed some powerful and lifelong friendships that year — a year of personal struggles and identity questions and seeking God like I never had before — and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

17) 2001: Enrolled as a sophomore at John Brown University. Met a tall and handsome Kansas boy named Jeff.

18) 2002: Jeff asked me to be his girlfriend in January. I was totally smitten from the start.

19) 2002: Spent my junior year as an RA in the girls’ dorm, a role I had wanted to fill since the first day I started dreaming of attending JBU.

20) 2003: A whirlwind summer. I started out with 10 days in Thailand, flew home for a friend’s wedding, worked the summer at a family camp near Branson, then…

21) 2003: …said “Yes!” when Jeff proposed to me in the backyard of my childhood home.

22) 2003: Became Mrs. Reimer on December 27. My favorite day of my whole life.

23) 2004: Graduated from JBU. Then spent the latter half of the summer packing for Canada.

24) 2004: Moved to Vancouver, BC, for Jeff to attend grad school. Pretty quickly met a group of girls who would journey with me through the unknowns of living in a foreign country, being newly married, and working to support our scholar husbands. Those girls remain some of my dearest friends, and we all dream of someday living across town from each other again, rather than across the country.

25) 2007: Charlie Auden entered our world and changed everything about who we were and what the heck we thought we were doing with our lives. He is one of the best gifts I have ever received.

26) 2007: We moved to the western suburbs of Chicago for what we thought would be the rest of our lives. Or at least many years. Jeff worked for a small publisher, editing books by day and reading books for fun all evening.

27) 2008: I got my first freelance project from a local publisher, and I’ve spent many naptimes and late nights hunched over a manuscript ever since.

28) 2009: On Mother’s Day, Jeff announced that it might be time to move home to Kansas.

29) 2009: Lillian Christine joined our family, fulfilling and exceeding all of my hopes for a daughter. She’s a joy and a sassy-pants, and sometimes my heart wants to burst just watching her prance around the living room.

30) 2009: Moved to Kansas. Eventually bought a house (2010). I love our crazy life here, near our families and alongside other people in this same life stage. We’re grateful for the friendships we have here and for the roots we’re putting down in Kansas soil.

Well, I haven’t been writing this whole time, but now it’s 2 1/2 hours after I started this post, which means it’s September 29th. Happy 30th to me! I am blessed indeed.

Yet somehow, in the blink of an eye, he became this:

And this and this and this…

And even this:  =)

We’re all so proud of you, Charlieboy!

After dutifully gobbling up some pretend chicken he prepared for me, I said:
“Mmm, that has a very special spice on it. What is it?”

He responded: “Canadian.”

But Friday Jeff called from the golf course to say that some friends had invited us over for dinner. Sounds great! I said. Oh, and their invitation included staying late to play games. Something came over me, and I was suddenly bursting with confidence that the kids would surely fall asleep just fine in someone else’s home. So we gave it a try.

And it worked! It took Lillian awhile to stop calling for me, but eventually they settled down and slept like wee angels. We played a crazy, violence-inducing card game late into the night and had a great time. We carried the groggy kids to the car and endured just a minute or two of whining and flailing. Not too bad! I was worried most about moving Lillian from the car to her crib, but she snuggled right in and went back to sleep.

We have a new freedom! We just keep inching further and further away from the baby stage. It’s bittersweet, but we’re definitely enjoying the relative ease of both kids being a bit older.

It’s been one of those days. I’ve had a few very sweet moments with my kids, and I’m clinging to those when I really want to throw up my hands, walk out the door, and let them figure out the rest of this day on their own.

I took Charlie to the dentist this morning. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Charlie has always been sensitive in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar people. Being approached or, God forbid, touched by a stranger can send him spiraling into an uncontrollable episode of high-pitched whining and crying and gnashing of teeth. So last January, as we approached Charlie’s first-ever dentist appointment, I was extremely skeptical about his ability to last the entire appointment without a meltdown. But he was a trooper! I was blown away, and grateful to no end, that he did so well and wasn’t at all scared of the dentist. He got a new toothbrush and a cool matchbox car, and was pleased as punch.

Fast-forward to July. Early in the month, we attempted swimming lessons. Charlie was excited to go, even calm and happy as we sat around waiting for the lesson to begin. But as soon as he was given instructions, he went berserk. He refused to participate, even after I finally convinced him to at least get in the water. The failure of the day, however, was in my own response, which was obviously frustrated and disappointed at Charlie, two things that, in my ideal-mommy world, I would hope never to communicate to him so meanly. I was angry at myself, mad at the situation as a whole, and, to put it gently, a bit of an emotional wreck.

Later in July, Charlie was due for another dental checkup. I had no hesitation whatsoever, thanks to his stellar mouth-opening skills the first time around. So I was completely caught off guard when the appointment went downhill fast. He did great at the beginning. He climbed up in the chair, he was chatting with the hygienist, he opened up wide… but a few minutes in, the poor hygienist stuck his finger on the roof of Charlie’s mouth, unintentionally activating Charlie’s gag reflex, and the boy just lost it. No amount of talking or coaxing could convince him to settle down and let Mr. Phil get back to work. He was completely distraught. So we left, and I made an appointment for a month later.

Which brings us to today. Charlie and I have talked several times in the past few days about going to the dentist again, and he’s been great. He seemed ready to try again. I even had an appointment first, so he watched Mr. Phil clean my teeth and saw that it was no big deal. When it was Charlie’s turn, he started getting a little whiny and flaily like he does when he’s uncomfortable, and my heart sank. But at some point I must have said something that clicked with him, and he climbed up onto the chair, put on the cool sunglasses that the kiddos get to wear, and chatted with Mr. Phil about all the animals he had brought along. Things were going well. He opened up his mouth, got a few gentle pokes on his teeth, and I started relaxing. Then his tongue apparently bumped into the little mirror, which freaked him out, and all was lost. Whining, flailing, crying, squealing… A very kind female hygienist even came in to give it a try — maybe Charlie was just too nervous with Mr. Phil? — but to no avail. She was so sweet, and even “cleaned” the teeth of his toy dinosaur, snake, Buzz, and Woody. What a sport. But Charlie just refused to cooperate when it was his turn again.

And I’m completely flummoxed. I tend to think I’ve become pretty good at working with Charlie’s personality, but in these recent situations, I’m at a loss. And even looking back on them, I don’t know what would have been the best response from me. He needs love from me, most importantly, especially in situations where he feels vulnerable or afraid. But what does that love look like? Does it look tough, as in, “you’ll be punished if you don’t listen to and obey the instructor/teacher/hygienist”? Or does it look gentler, more compassionate? As in, “I understand that you’re feeling scared; let’s try again in a few months”? This brings to mind Ephesians 6:4 (“do not exasperate your children”): Am I not properly training/preparing Charlie for these situations, and therefore exasperating him by expecting too much? Or am I ultimately exasperating him by allowing him to control the situation with such out-of-control behavior?

I have no idea what to do. If this is a matter of his being too sensitive (Is it?), then I hope we can encourage him to be braver in these types of situations without squelching his sensitivity in other areas. Like, when he brings blankies and dollies to Lillian without prompting when she’s upset. Or when he thinks to pray for Lillian when she feels afraid. Surely this trait will benefit him someday and be a gift to the people he interacts with. Right now, though, it’s giving his mommy a headache.

Do any of you have sensitive kiddos and bits of wisdom to offer?

* Lillian does occasionally wear pants, I promise!

* These videos are a pretty accurate representation of how frequently we hear Charlie say, “Junebug? Junebug! Junebug.”

* From the time Lillian was 9 months old to the time she was around 20 or 21 months, I was pretty sure my children would fight and bicker and hit and bite for the rest of their lives. I just could not believe how unprepared I was for the whole sibling rivalry thing. But somewhere in the past 5 or 6 months, they’ve turned a corner. They still fight, as evidenced in video #1 above, but a lot of the time, they play together, they sing together, they comfort each other, they offer to help each other, they have whole conversations that do not include me. I love watching this. They have a precious friendship, and I’m grateful for this short season of their childhoods when they are together constantly and can grow with each other and learn with each other about sharing and caring and loving.

For a long while now, I’ve entertained thoughts here and there of the value of housework. I don’t love cleaning my house, and my house is certainly not the most tidy one around. But I was beginning to wonder if the purpose of doing housework might go deeper than the obvious result of having a tidy home. Isn’t there value in washing and folding my husband’s white shirts so that his drawer is never empty? Isn’t there something worthwhile about wiping down the dining room table so that it’s clean when someone sets down a stack of papers or attempts to set the dishes out for the next meal? If our family is a community of sorts, and our home is to be a place of welcome and safety and rest and sending forth, then aren’t the monotonous housekeeping tasks we perform day in and day out all a part of growing us as individuals and uniting us as a family?

Peterson speaks to these exact questions. I had hoped to write a pretty thorough book review, because I’m a nerd like that, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. So I’ll just post a few favorite quotes. If you’re interested in the subject and curious about the book but have no desire to read every single quote, at least skip down to the last two. They’re the meatiest passages.

“Housework is akin to these natural and human rhythms of the day, the week, the year. We fix lunch because it is lunchtime. We wash the clothes or the windows because it is Monday or because it is sunny….As we engage with the litany of everyday life, we engage with life itself, with our fellow human beings, with the world in which God has set us all, and thus with God himself” (p. 20).

“Every morning, people need something to put on. Having clothes ready to wear in the drawer or in the closet is part of creating an expectation that in this home we care for one another. Our needs are not a perpetual emergency but are anticipated and provided for ahead of time as a matter of course” (p. 100).

“Meals need not be individually memorable to be nourishing. Many of a congregation’s individual celebrations of the Lord’s Supper may be largely indistinguishable from one another, and yet the sustained practice of sharing together at the Lord’s table is one of the ways the household of God is nourished and built up together over time. So too a Christian household’s shared meals may include many occasions that are rather routine, and that is the point. It is routines like these from which the fabric of our common life is woven…” (pp. 140-41).

“Efficiency can be the enemy of hospitable housekeeping, especially in the face of small or large emergencies. All too often, efficiency is just another name for being spread too thin” (p. 155).

This one sums it all up for me:

“Things do not go as planned; they always take more time than it seems they should; they have to be done twice when it seems that once should be enough. And the more complex or difficult the circumstances, the greater becomes the need for the kind of basic nurturance that housekeeping seeks to provide. People need dinner even on good days, and on bad days they need it even more.
A truly human life is one that is lived not only in life’s strengths but in its weaknesses as well. A well-kept house is thus a house in which it is safe to be weak, because the members of the household take care of one another. And in a more everyday way, it is a house in which it is safe to be hungry (there is food in the cupboard), safe to be tired (there are places to sit and places to sleep), safe to need clean socks (there are some in the drawer, and if they all happen to be in the hamper, someone will put in a load of wash soon)” (p. 155).

So the repetition of housework does have a purpose: to provide a home of safety in which all members of the household can experience the “truly human life” of both strengths and weaknesses. And this passage I just quoted makes me tear up a little bit, because I desperately desire my home to serve that need for my family and for our guests.

Peterson doesn’t stop there, though. There is a greater purpose!

“A well-kept house thus possesses a kind of sacramental quality. It is no substitute for either the kingdom of God or the church. But it is a kind of foretaste of the kingdom. A nurturing and hospitable home can be a reminder that God has always been in the business of making a home for people, that God desires that people should have the food and clothing and shelter associated with home, that one day our tattered and partial provision of these things for one another will be gloriously supplanted by God’s perfect provision of shining robes and a sumptuous  feast in God’s own house.
This sacramental quality of home means that a well-kept house is a means to an end, not an end in itself” (pp. 163-64).

In discussing seemingly mundane aspects of sheltering, clothing, and feeding a household, Peterson has offered a challenge to view these tasks not as futile, but as exercises in faithfulness (p. 39); to establish routines that provide for the needs of the house and the people in it (p. 85). She’s quick to say that this does not require a large house or a hefty income or a subscription to the trendiest magazines for interior design. In fact, she speaks against these things, or at least our culture’s obsession with them.

And I like that. With our humble home and our limited resources, I can keep house in a way that provides for our needs, encourages us to care for one another and for others outside of our home, and directs our attention to God’s greater, gracious, undeserved provision.

It was just shy of one year ago when I sat with Jeff in his basement office and lamented (again) about my struggles with food and continual weight gain. He agreed (though hesitantly) that I could try WW’s online program. It was a decision that helped shape the course of my life, apparently!

I have to be honest, though. I’m not great at the whole “portion control” thing. I’m still terribly weak in the presence of brownies. But Weight Watchers gave me a sense of freedom with food that I had never experienced: freedom to say no, freedom to pile less onto my plate, freedom to think about things other than food. Unfortunately, some old habits have come knocking on my door with a vengeance. But I think that’s a natural and human part of making changes in one’s deeply ingrained lifestyle. Change is a tough and long process; it’s hard work. But I know that I have changed, and I am freer than I once was. And I’m grateful. I’m grateful that the WW program worked well for me, but even beyond that, I’m grateful that God has used it in my life as a tool for freedom and for discovering new passions and dreams that I never knew existed.

This newfound passion led me to an idea: What if I could work for Weight Watchers and support other people who are also wanting to change? On a whim one afternoon, I submitted an application through their website. I filled out an online questionnaire. I had a phone interview. And this morning I attended a local WW meeting and met the Territorial Manager to discuss the job.

I’ll be a meeting receptionist: weighing people, filling out paperwork, offering encouragement or ideas, selling products, etc. And I can’t wait!

If I like this role, I’ll probably consider training to be a meeting leader. The more supportive, “admin” role of receptionist seems to fit with my experience and personality a bit better, but who knows. Maybe after observing leaders for a while I’ll decide to give it a shot. But for now, I know for certain that I’m a Weight Watchers staff member, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!