buckets.

i intended to write about writing bucket lists.  i’ve always been enamored by the bucket lists, big long plans for a full & rapturous life.  but the baby is sleeping, which means i have 35 minutes at best, & i’m frying pancakes with only white flour (which i hate) because i ran out of spelt & forgot to buy more when i went to the co-op last time.  probably because i had the 4-year-old & the baby & only myself who really can’t put together a cohesive grocery list right now.  & speaking of the four-year-old, he’s asking me repeatedly when we’re going to the bike races, which are today, in an hour, & now my pancakes are burning.

which is why i can’t write about bucket lists, or how intimidating they are, or how really instead i wholeheartedly believe in making a whole heapload of time in your every day for the magic of memories & goodness to flow.  because it will.  because He promised.

but now the baby will wake up in 30 minutes & i haven’t even gotten the kids to make birthday & father’s day cards for andy, both of which large & fabulous events coincide tomorrow for my smart husband.

so instead, i’ll tell you that right now, while andy has taken over the pancake flipping for his crazy wife pecking at the computer when we’re trying to get going, & the baby will sleep for 27 more minutes, this here life is raining buckets of goodness from the Creator of all things good & holy.  i am lambasted in overwhelm sometimes, i am buried in laundry & dishes always, & if you talk to me on the phone, you will know my head is never quite on.  ever.

BUT.
this, on a necklace, sits over my sink, my meditative, hot, soapy, basin:

may you live all the days of your life.  –j. swift.

i have 22 minutes left.  i better go.

we’re trying not to.

we laid on our bellies
on the old persian rug in the living room
while the rain dripped off the eaves
& we played cards
four-year-old hands small around the deck.
we drank our hot cocoa
swiss miss strewn across the countertop
his with a straw,
mine without.
grown up?
maybe.

we are not busy.
or,
we’re trying not to be.

trying like the dickens to dig in & pay attention,
to fiddle with the transformer i have no time for
arms around his little self in plaid pajamas.
make time for the transformer
those bits i skip
when i rush.

we are not rushing.
or,
we’re trying not to.

this?
this is our life these days
a bit blurry, flying through the air,
all together,
happy.

we are not busy,
we are not rushing.
or,
we’re trying not to.

“Those who are wise won’t be busy,
and those who are too busy can’t be wise.”
― Lin Yutang

thanks for stopping here;  thanks for hanging on to me while i’ve been away.
i’ve missed you, here.

& two claps for my graphic designing husband with the new header, eh?
*clap, clap.
that’s my man!

inhale, outhale

she ran through the kitchen where i was frying pancakes on hot cast iron, little girl with blondish-brown ponytail trailing behind her.  she was running, that’s what they do, & as she pumped past the fridge she chanted, “inhale, outhale.  inhale, outhale.  inhale, outhale.”

i stood stunned, stainless steel spatula in hand.  hallelujah wisdom from my 7-girl.

isn’t that just it?

when i’m cramming breakfast into schoolwork into reading time into. . .too much.
inhale, outhale.

when the baby wakes up before i’m finished chopping & the 4-boy is crying as the phone rings.
inhale, outhale.

when again the numbers don’t add to a full account.
inhale, outhale.

when the bad news comes, the sick thickens, the laundry mounts, & you are left alone.
inhale, outhale.

in the words of an ancient, julian of norwich, a mantra i’ve circled around since college:
all shall be well & all shall be well & all manner of thing shall be well.

you’re not alone.
you don’t have to figure it out.
let the fear.stress.anxiety.wash over you.
come back to the Truth.

inhale, outhale.

in it.

so, i’m sitting on the edge of the bath tub, balancing leif on his tummy on my lap.  he has poo smeared down the back of his leg, a fun find at diaper time.  which is normally no biggie, child #4 you’ll remember, except that this poo necessitated a bath, & in this bath tub was a pair of another kiddo’s pants in need of laundering, along with the puke bucket which had seen recent activity. i considered the kitchen sink (sorry if i just lost half of you), but i hadn’t done the dishes from lunch.
yep, sterile as a hospital here.

so while i was balancing sweet, patient leif, i was going to need to clean out the bath tub.  & being the stubborn woman that i am, i sure as sugar wasn’t going to put leif down & do it like a sane person.  heck, no.  we’d do this circus-style.

as i’m trying to unscrew the cover of the hand soap i’ve got on the tub ledge, balancing leif now with my elbows?  forearms?  andy walks by.  i begin to consider my sanity.  i’m not sure at what point he started chuckling, if he did indeed wait until he walked by again & saw me standing in the now-clean tub, my jeans pulled up to my knees, behind leif to keep him from toppling over, or if he just got right to it there, as i s.o.s.’ed for help with the bottle cap.  holy grief.

i caught a glimpse of my self, then.  pure ridiculousness.  really, jill?  try to space out the crazy a little bit & save some for the rest of us.
& this crazy happens EVERY DAY.  not the poo part, or the collection of nastiness that was my bath tub, but something absurd & humbling.  this morning it was a kiddo drinking water & then burping, accidentally spewing the entire contents of his stomach onto my bedroom floor.  yep, that just happened.  i’ve been awake a whole 6 seconds.

if there is anything these children are teaching me, it’s stay loose & lighten up.

see how the one in the middle isn’t holding still, which makes his arm look disembodied & creepy?  that motion is kieran.  if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know.

[*also:  please admire my husband's fine carpentry/remodelling work.  this room used to be white white white.  top to bottom.  horrible, stained, gross white carpet, too.  now it's a lovely shade of coffee with extra cream (my favorite color) with trendy white trim & IKEA wood flooring.  wood flooring, how i love thee.]

so yes, i’m in for it.  in every sense of the word.  four children.  three of them boys.  a baby, soon mobile [oy, legos.].  i’m in for it all:  all the crazy, all the mess, all the can’t-keep-up, all the laughter & learning & humbling & love You can send my way.  keep me loose;  keep me lightened up.

i’m all in.

baby hugs & cat puke.

sometimes you gotta hang on to what you got.

leif reaches for me now.  when he’s sitting in front of me on the carpet playing with a slinky, & then he gets bored, he’ll arch his back & turn toward me.
“mom, get me outta this.”
when your baby, the very smallish person you own, starts expressing his desire, & that desire involves his love for you, your heart gets gigantic, & your head explodes.

which is good. sweet & lovely moments come to carry you through when you have mornings you wake to with a headache the size of wisconsin.  (today.)

or you wake up to someone throwing up (yesterday).

or to a diaper leaked all over your bed, the 3-year-old pointing out cat puke on the floor (“mommy, what’s THAT?”), & accidentally spraying the mattress with the bottle of pink water you made with food coloring for the kids to play with in the snow instead of the bottle of homemade disinfectant.  (the bottles are the same; well, they won’t be for long.)
(that was monday.)

so, when you find yourself front & center to a skull-splitting headache, or never enough sleep, or puke of any flavor, hold on to what you got.

it was given to you for a reason:  a lantern & a blessing.  you’ll need it.
say “thank You” & hold it up to your heart.

blizzards, brownies, & snowmobiles.

tonight i will sleep in my own bed with my uber-soft pillow after nine days gone.  this post was supposed to be sunday’s, but that’s how it goes around here.  anyway.

we tripped up to my parents’ place in north dakota, six of us in a minivan, for the annual snowmobiling extravaganza week in which we strap helmets onto our children, transforming them into real-life bobbleheads, & pack them onto papa’s snowmobile.  i dare say my dad lives for this bit of us, these days with his grandkids that strongly resemble him, for them to enjoy a hobby that he alone has for them.  (i know gram lives for it;  she tells us all the time.  :))

i love going out to my parents’ place, to the farm where i grew up.  this year we came in, just ahead of a blizzard delivering 15″ of powdery soft snow, my kids’ first real blizzard.  growing up in north dakota, a snowstorm isn’t a blizzard unless the snow flies horizontally.  check.  & you really can’t see.  check.  what better time to put your beloved little ones onto   a grown-up machine?

my children were undeterred.  one morning, as i pushed on mittens & clipped helmet straps, the temperature read 4 degrees.  before windchill.  (nodak-ers always refer to the windchill.  or maybe that’s transplants like me that feel fancy & smart referring to the windchill.)  those giganto, XXL-size helmets kept their little bean heads warm.  being outside kept their hearts happy.  check, check.

when the kids weren’t out burning papa’s fuel on the arctic cat, they were inside playing wii or some made-up game with one of my toys from when i was a kid.  talk about your solid dose of nostalgia.  the teddy bear kieran’s now claimed as his own.  the fisher price doll house with the light blue door bell that actually rang.  the tiny pink elephant someone gave me when i was born.  BORN, people.  like, 36 years ago.  those are some awesome toys.

at one point kieran says to me, “mom, punch me & then i’ll fall down & then take my picture.”  um. . . here’s he, NOT being punched by his mother.

one of my favorite bits of the week was an hour one afternoon my dad & i spent flipping through old photos of my grandma’s, passing them back & forth to identify that canadian cousin, that great uncle on my dad’s side, my cousin scott when he was little playing in the water beside the dock at the lake.  like i said, i was made for nostalgia.  & of course, mom’s marshmallow brownies, which were in full supply.

plus, we hotelled en route, to alleviate the “are we there yet?” of the nine hour trip.  so there was swimming.  snow gear packed alongside swim gear in the van.  how to spell vacation.

there’s so much more to unpack, for traveling is catharsis for me.  i talk my whole life through beside andy as he drives us into happy oblivion, a full family behind us, oblivious to the plans mommy’s making for their lives.  our happy, full, blessed lives together.

& those plans?  they will most definitely continue to include brownies & snowmobiles.
blizzards, optional.

friday’s picture(s), saturday (or, procrastinators welcome.)

i’m learning.  i hope so, anyway.  as a rule, i hate procrastination.  i do the dishes after each meal, i fold laundry fresh from the dryer (because i like it), & i’m teaching myself to make my bed every day.  i know, gag.

but in my goody two-shoes, i’m missing something.  maybe a bunch of things.

what if life weren’t about checking off my to-do list?  or better yet, what if my check list were all wrong?

my newest nephew’s tiny toes.  freaking adorable, eh?

what if i’m missing the great because i’m nose-to-the-grindstone busy keeping my house picked up?  i really do think the good life is more about noticing.    the freaking plethura before me every.single. day.  the little dimples just above the corners of javin’s mouth when he’s joking around.  kieran’s latest costume, bottomed out in rain boots. hearing thalia read calvin & hobbes to javin.  their sharing a laugh.  leify’s doughy little legs that kick-kick-kick all day long, especially when i’m changing him.  God in the details.

just lots of thoughts today, friends.
what do you think?  i’d love some discussion.