It’s So Girly

Recently, a quote from Chloe came up on my Timehop. It was probably almost 10 years old; she had said, on a particularly beautiful spring morning, “Mom, it’s so girly out today.”

That’s stuck with me over the past few weeks. There is nothing inherently wrong with being feminine.  Honestly, it’s our birthright, and we should own it. 

I grew up one of two daughters in a family full of boys. My dad will be the first to tell you— so this isn’t me calling him out— that my sister and I kind of fell by the wayside while he busied himself being the father of sons. The only reason I can say that without bitterness, or baggage, or what have you, is because my dad has worked his butt off to become a daughter dad in my adulthood, and it shows. In his life, and in mine. 

Growing up, I wished I was in the cool guy group. The cool guy group got my dad’s investment. I didn’t embrace my girly-ness because I didn’t know that my inherent femininity has so much value. Kingdoms have risen and fallen because of women. I didn’t know that back then. 

There’s good news— aside from my learning to love who I am— slowly but surely, the girls in my family are overtaking the dudes. Besides my two girls, I have SIX nieces (one on the way, due in October-- I just found out that my brother's new baby is a girl, and her name is Charlotte, Charlie for short!)... as opposed to the only two second generation boys. TAKE THAT. On my husband’s side of the family, there are nine grandkids. Only three of them are girls. 

Bear with me, I’m circling back around. Gals, there’s a reason we have songs declaring we run the world. Obviously we don’t literally run the world, but we have so much power and influence. 

And even more than that, becoming the mother of daughters, and the aunt of six nieces, I’m consistently reminded of one of my favorite passages in the Bible, Titus 2, instructing the older women to mother and mentor the younger women. I’m paraphrasing here, but it says older women are to teach “what is good” to younger women. It doesn’t give an age qualification. If you are older than any woman, young woman, girl, child— guess what? You can mother them. You can mentor a fellow woman. Nothing has brought that home to me more than living a life surrounded by girls from the age of 15 to the age of 6 days old, to roughly 6 months in utero: I can mother and mentor and strengthen and empower and cheer on and trail blaze and love and love and love.

It probably seems disgustingly narcissistic to quote myself, but several years ago I was able to go on a U.S. ministry trip, and towards the end, my group met with a few older women. I’ll never forget how struck I was, how small I felt, being surrounded by those women who had lived and loved longer than and farther than I had even looked ahead. The words I wrote regarding that meeting have been circling in my head for weeks. So right now, I’m reposting those passages for myself, for you, but most of all for my girls (all seven of them, daughters and nieces combined). 

“There are days when I think I won't make it. But then I see women like you... Your adventures, your faith, your survival, your hospitality, your tender care of your husbands, the way you've raised your children in Christ, your hunger and determination to seek out the word of God, your miracles.... You've made it. You've made it. You're making it. You're running your race, and you're winning. You're winning it. And for women like me, who are miles behind you in the race, you're an inspiration. If you're winning, I can win. I can do it. So thank you. Thank you." I looked at each woman, thanking her in turn, my throat swelling tight with awe and love. This, then, is the great cloud of witnesses referred to in Hebrews. How can I not run the race set before me? How can I grow weary in doing good? With these mighty women of faith cheering me on, women who have wrestled against the odds and won, women who have blazed new trails and didn't burn in the blazing of them ...... I'll run ahead for the joy set before me. The joy set before all of us. I'll run for the women who have run the path in front of me, clearing the thorns away and smoothing the ruts. I'll run for the women and girls behind me, whose cloud of witnesses I'll be a part of. Oh, I'll cheer them on, I'll cup my hands and scream their names, "You can do it! You're making it, darling! You can win, you can win, you can win!" 

Oh, we can win. Don't give up. Don't stop running. We can win.”

Chloe. Atleigh. Cassie. Hannah. Darcie. Isla. Banks. Charlotte. I promise you with my entire soul, with every corner of my mama’s heart, to be a part of your cloud of witnesses, cheering you on at every single turn. And if you turn in the wrong direction, I’ll love and love you and love you, gently grasp you by the shoulders to help you find your way again, and to help you lead the way with the rest of the women who have blazed the trail before you. Be brave, darlings. You are so strong. You are so worthy. You are filled to the brim with fire and with ferocity. You will thrive. You will grow in grace and godliness. And if you find a younger gal to love and lead and blaze a path for, don’t hesitate. You got this, babes. You are surrounded by so many women with so many stories and so much wisdom. You are a freaking trailblazer. Lead the way. We'll follow, and our love and overwhelming pride will be ever at your backs and surrounding you on all sides. 

YOU CAN WIN.

#momfail

One day, when Atleigh was a toddler, I noticed minuscule slices across several of her fingers, a little larger than paper cuts. I realized a few minutes later that she had waddled into the bathroom and grabbed my razor off of the tub. I started making sure I kept my razor on the side of the tub closest to the wall after that. 

Chloe was invited to a birthday party when she was about 7 or 8. She told me beforehand that her head itched— we were dog-sitting at the time and one of the dogs liked to sleep up on her pillow— I told her she was fine, brought her to her friend’s house, and discovered, upon helping her out of the car, that her head was covered in fleas. 

Ashton has an inch long scar hiding under his mop of hair, from the time he jumped off of his grandma’s couch and straight into the wooden molding around her fireplace and ended up with three stitches... While I was in the kitchen, probably doing something pointless like eating mashed potatoes or flipping through a Christmas catalog. Possibly both.

We use the hashtag #momfail as a joke, with the little things we’re comfortable sharing. The things we know people will identify and sympathize with (although the flea debacle is a stretch for me. I still cringe about that one).

Here’s something I’m discovering every new day with my kids as they morph into teens: #momfail is no joke. It isn’t forgetting to pack your kids’ lunch; it isn’t telling them they’re fine and to walk it off, only to discover later that they’ve broken a bone, it isn’t missing a teacher’s note about late homework, or leaving them in the kitchen only to find out they've eaten a quarter of a block of cheese. #momfail is a lot more damaging— to your kids and to you. 

I fail on a daily basis. An hourly one, sometimes. I fail hard and I fail ugly, and my kids suffer the consequences. I’m the PMSing mom who told my PMSing daughter, straight to her face, “Not today, Satan!”, leaving both of us to infer whether I was calling HER Satan, or saying she was possessed by Satan, or just speaking to Satan as a generality (the jury is still out on that). 

I’m the mom who got into a shouting match with her son, a shouting match so brutal that it left him locked in his room with a pillow over his head, and me locked in the bathroom with a bottle of wine.

I’m the mom who struggles daily, and loses the struggle almost just as much, to parent a child with adjustment disorder and anxiety, lacking patience and empathy and understanding.

These aren’t things you’ll see anyone posting with the cute little hashtag, #momfail. These are things we'll hide, things we’ll cry about in bed at night after everyone else is asleep, the things that rip us apart and make us question who we are, what we’re doing, and how much the therapy bill is going to cost one day. 

Which, as usual, is why I’m writing about it. I’m saying “us” and “we”, when I really mean to say, loud and clear, “ME”. 

Mea culpa. 

My kids are everyday still learning how to be humans. They’re walking a field of landmines, trying to navigate heads suddenly full of grown up thoughts attached to young, changing bodies, friends and enemies and frenemies pressuring them, tripping them up and pushing them down and pulling them sideways; they’re being raised in a bubble culture that preaches unconditional acceptance— unless someone disagrees with you, in which case they’re backward and close-minded and hateful. They live in a world full of confusion and chaos.

And my kids are everyday living with a mom who fails, a mom who is walking through a field of landmines with these growing humans. Sometimes she’s too far ahead, expecting them to catch up too quickly. Sometimes she lags behind, holding them back because she doesn’t understand or can’t follow the steps they take; sometimes she’s right on top of them, smothering them. Very, very rarely is she walking beside them, understanding them, advising them, finding that balance between compassion and coaching. 

Sometimes she accidentally writes a whole paragraph in the third person. 

Every new day I need grace. Every. Single. Day. And if I need room to fail, if I want and need and pray for redemption every day, after 35 years of learning to be a human, how much more do my kids need it— my kids who just woke up one day feeling like aliens in their own bodies, thinking alien thoughts and hearing alien words from all the other aliens around them? 

In the end— and in the beginning, the middle, and every moment in between, our kids raise us as much as we raise them. More, even. Who we are as parents- which, for most of us, becomes the cornerstone of our entire identity, because once you’re a parent, you’re a parent until you die- is so intrinsically tied into who our kids themselves are. Their personalities shape our parenting. They mold us even more than we mold them. So doesn’t it stand to reason that when our kids turn into these alien beings, we become a little alien, too? Everything we learned as parents of young kids is turned on its head as soon as those hormones kick in. We’re not raising kids anymore: we’re mentoring young adults. Whole families, entire households, shudder with the growing pains of one single human; or in my case, three humans. All at once. At the same time. Together. Just in case you were wondering.

In truth, failure, even a watered down #momfail, isn’t really an option. It isn’t even a Thing. Fierce love and forgiveness- for our kids and for ourselves- is our only path, our ONLY Thing. Keep failing, keep learning, keep fighting, keep moving forward. Landmines and all.

Fire and Frost

I'm back at the Bay. I'm sure none of you are shocked by this fact. The high for today is in the mid-50s, but there's a Nor'easter blustering its way toward us, so the wind chill is much cooler than mid-50s. The sandpipers are running in wild, dizzying serpentine lines, skipping in to the foam forming the shoreline, then scurrying away just as quickly. The waves are kicking up, the sand is cold and clammy under my bare feet, and I'm wrapped in the Mexican blanket I've had for 20 years. Braving and embracing it all, because I need this place, and this is where I come when I get full up of feels.

In a recent Instagram post, I said I hoped that someday soon I would find some words that are worthy of what this month has done. I don’t know if I’ve found anything worthy, but the words are dipping and swelling and spilling out all the same. 

October is my favorite month. It always has been. I adore summer, and Christmas is my favorite holiday, but October... October is new moments and old memories, the birth of change and the death of sameness. October is fire and color and frost and fade. It’s smoke and moss and wind and twilight. It’s air crisping up in your lungs and leaves crunching down under your feet, expansive clouds in blue and exuded clouds on your breath. It is everything. 

And my October, my beautiful October, has hurt me this year. Is it ridiculous to feel betrayed by a month of the year, by a calendar, by something that doesn’t know I exist and doesn’t know that I just.needed.peace? 

This year, I hate October. 

I don’t see the new beginnings, I only see the endings. I only see the loss. 

My stepdad passed away on October 10th, less than two weeks after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It happened so quickly. So quickly that it still doesn’t feel real. I know it happened. I watched it happen, day after day, watched him suffer and waste away, kissed him goodbye and whispered my love to him after he was gone. I watched, aching and heartbroken, and at the same time, perversely relieved that he was no longer in pain, as he was taken from his home for the last time. I was there for all of it. And yet all of those moments feel like a memory from a dream. It happened too quickly. Beyond my comprehension, beyond my ability to believe.

October has been hard. The fire of it has burned me. The frost of it has numbed me. And I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m tired of being needed, even when I need to be needed. I’m tired of not sleeping, I’m tired of not eating, I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of the heaviness of grief weighing me down to my very bones, weakening me in my joints and my shoulders and my spine and my neck. I’m tired of mediating, and monitoring, and mothering, and, oh, please, God help me, I’m tired of mourning.

And I’m tired of complaining. I’m sure there are those around me who are tired of me complaining, too. I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. I don’t want this to be the gravitational pull of my life that every day, every thought, and every thing revolves around; but this is what grief does. It consumes. It consumes as surely as the fire and frost of October consumes the last lingering days of summer. 

I wanted these words to be worthy of my stepfather. To tell the story of my life with him, my love for him, and why the loss of him is so monumental. And I will. Someday I will, I swear it. 

But today- just for today, I need to burn. I need to freeze. I need to die with the old and rise again with the new. I need to see the color and smell the smoke and live in what is left of my favorite month, and I need to forgive. Forgive what I can never comprehend, forgive what I can never forget, forgive that so, someday, I won’t be consumed. 

And then... then, the stories, the memories, the words worthy of a man who was a father to me, who lived a worthy life, will be born. Soon. 

Siren Song

I’m sitting—Surpriiiise! not at the beach— in the lone chair in my kitchen, my hair twisted up in sticky coils in my second attempt to make my gray dye stick (I'll update on that later, but whatever happens, we know the dye works on fingernails). I’ve got half a bagel in front of me, and now I’m debating if I even can stomach it.

A month or so ago, I wrote a blog that was vague and a little sideways and everything I hate when people write that way... that vague sense of humble superiority, the one that says, “I’m going through SO much and it sucks SO bad, and I want your sympathy but, sorryyyy, can’t tell you why.” I didn’t write it that way because it’s what I wanted. That’s not my writing “voice”, as we all unfortunately know. But at the time, there were things going on that weren’t definite, answers we were still waiting on, and fears I, in all honestly, did not want to give voice and shape and power to.
It’s been about six weeks now, and I have a few answers, although they aren’t what I’d prefer. At this point it seems that maybe giving voice and shape and power to it all doesn’t even matter, because it’s already there.


My stepdad is sick. He’s really, really sick. They’re throwing out terms like “mass on the pancreas”, “spots on the lungs are likely metastasized”, “keep him comfortable”. Bad things. Things you don’t want to hear doctors ever, ever say to you, and at the same time, part of me wants to reach out and hug the doctor, because my God, I can’t even imagine it being my job to constantly give these reports to terrified families.I’ve been blessed to have a stepdad I can truly, deeply love, whom my kids view as their grandfather, no caveats, no questions asked. The way my parents’ marriage ended almost 17 years ago has left its marks, that’s for damn sure. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t find a new normal, and we couldn’t create some love out of that chaotic explosion. And to bear witness to this, to yet another loss in my life, and, God help me, in my kids’ lives... it’s killing me. It’s the thing that keeps me awake at night, watching the ceiling fan spin around and around in the dark, wondering how am I supposed to tell them? Do I let them see him the way he is now, or let them remember the way he was and take away what is, in all likelihood, their chance to say goodbye? Do I ask them and let them decide? Are they even old enough to make that kind of decision? Why is this happening? I can’t bear it. I honestly feel like I can’t bear it.


Add to all of this something else I’ve only touched on here and there— Atleigh has struggled with anxiety and mood swings ever since the loss of Jeremy’s grandparents. Things got hard and kept getting harder ever since. Finally, after some bullying incidents at school and a disturbing drawing done during class by Atleigh, we’ve put her in therapy. And yes, I can hear a lot of you now, probably we should have gotten her into therapy sooner. We didn't know. We just didn't. And we aren't perfect. We made a mistake, and we're doing our best to combat that now. I'm grateful we've gotten her in to an amazing, faith-based local practice, where they work on healing as well as treating any issues that come up.
Emotionally reactionary.... that’s a phrase they used to describe her extremely volatile, up in the air emotional state, what they said to me as they told me they’d like her to undergo a psychiatric assessment. Out of all of my kids, she’s the one to whom I’m most terrified to tell this news about her grandfather. How do I do it? What do I say? How do we all handle the fallout together?

Jesus, this is hard to write out. Hard because it's vulnerable, it exposes me, it exposes her, it opens up a situation that strangers feel they can be experts on and give me advice about. But as usual, part of it is to let you know, you’re not alone. You’re NOT. I'm not alone either. We’re here in the trenches right next to each other. Maybe fighting a different battle, a different demon, with different weapons, but still together.


I’m so tired, friends. So, so tired. Even when I sleep, I’m tired. There’s a weight on me that feels like it can’t be lifted. The weight of grief, the weight of uncertainty, the weight of expectations and responsibility, the weight of disappointment, the weight of love. So heavy. So heavy.
There have been two things getting me through this week, which has been an especially hard week— two things that two of my brothers have said and given to me, complete unconscious of the gift they’ve offered. I suspect they’ll be getting me through a good many months.

This past Sunday, my brother Ben said in a prayer, completely randomly, completely without inkling of how hard it would hit me, “God, broaden their shoulders.” That was it. He prayed other things too, but after that I didn’t hear anything else. I immediately picked up my phone (yes, in the middle of a prayer, okay??) and typed into my notes is all caps

BROADEN MY SHOULDERS

Then I scrawled that same phrase at the top of the page of my notebook. Then I repeated it to myself every day, every hour, every minute of exhaustion, because. I can’t broaden my own shoulders. It can’t come from me. But my shoulders CAN be broadened. Even so, God. Even so. Broaden my shoulders.

The second strengthening came in the form of a few quotes from a story my youngest brother Isaac has been working on and shared with me. Actually, he shared the first chapter or so with me about two years ago, and I was so hooked I haven’t forgotten it since. I brought it up to him again earlier this week, and he shared it with me again, now new and improved with two whole chapters (HURRY UP, WILL YA IKE??). I won’t go into the whole plot, backstory, et al. Just a few short lines. The protagonist’s mother says to her, in the midst of hardship, war, gripping fear and gaping hunger,

“Hope is a song.... God’s favorite song, I think–beautiful when sung and played by His own grand choirs and orchestras, yes, but I think He likes it better still when you sing it.”

A few paragraphs down, there’s a reference to that first line about Hope, that says,

“Hope was a gateway to loss. God’s favorite song was that of a Siren.”

I don’t think I’ve ever, in my entire life, read anything that struck me quite so deeply. God’s favorite song is that of a Siren. According to mythology, once a person heard the song of the Siren, they chased it until they died. Until they dashed themselves upon the rocks. And isn’t that what Hope is? A Siren song that we so desperately need to grasp onto that we will dash ourselves upon the rocks again and again and again, in order to reach it? Maybe it’s a bit of that innate human selfishness we all have. We need that Hope. We’ll do anything to know a few lines of that song. Maybe we’re all a little greedy. Or maybe, God’s favorite song floats around us, in us, through us, waiting for us to recognize it and sing it with Him.

Broaden my shoulders. Hope. Broaden my shoulders. Hope.

Chasing each other around and around in my head, in my sleep, every day and night, every hour.
I’m tired. My shoulders feel thin. But I’m not without Hope. Dash me on the rocks, if that’s what it takes. I won’t be without Hope, I’ll be as greedy for it as I need to be. I’ll remember the song sung to me from the foundations of the earth and of my being and I’ll sing it back to the One who loves it best from me; I’ll allow my shoulders to be broadened, and I’ll be strong.

The Teenage Years

When Ashton was an infant, he had reflux to a horrifying degree. I’m talking so much puke that there would be a reverse silhouette (I guess that would just be an outline?) of my body on the wall when he burped over my shoulder. I carried full sized bath towels and multiple changes of clothing for both of us at all times.

One night, when he was about 10 days old, I couldn’t get him to stop crying. All night, I nursed him, rocked him, bounced him, patted him, and still he cried. I ended up lying on the couch, shirtless, Ashton nestled in the crook of my arm, skin to skin, with him screaming relentlessly against my chest. I sobbed with him, finally half shouting, “What do you want from me?? I’m not even wearing a ****ing shirt!!!” 

In that moment, I thought to myself, “It can’t possibly get worse than this.”

When I brought a newborn Chloe home from the hospital, Ashton had managed to contract double pink eye in the two days I was gone. Try telling a 2 year old that he can’t come in contact with Mommy or the new baby, all while trying to nurse said baby, and recover from giving birth, and comfort the 2 year old who feels miserable— at my ground zero as a mother of two. 

I told myself, “It can’t get harder than it is now.”

When Atleigh was born in a home that we had outgrown before we’d even moved in, to a family that was taken completely by surprise by baby number three, I suddenly had more children than I had hands. Those early months are a haze, punctuated by sleepless nights, an ER worthy bout of strep, and trying (and often failing) to figure out those dang sling carriers with the double rings, because baby number three could not stand to be set down, could not handle not being in the middle of everything that was going on at all times, and nine years later still has the most chronic case of FOMO I’ve ever seen. She would only ever let me face her outward where she could see everything. 

I said to myself, “I couldn’t be any more exhausted than I am with three kids under four. It’s all downhill coasting from here.”

And for several years, it was. We found a rhythm, I learned to not take myself seriously, and we carried on. 

Until about three years ago. When Ashton hit the preteen years. A year later, Chloe joined him across that line in the sand, the line that divides them against me and leaves me wringing my hands, a hairsbreadth away from the babies I nursed and coddled and cuddled, knowing that I can’t cross that line no matter how much I want to. 

And all of my metaphorical shoulder rubs and head petting, telling myself it couldn’t get worse than the infant and toddler years, were a cruel cosmic joke that came back to mock me everyday. 

Nothing— nothing— could have prepared me for the teenage years. So many mothers told me it would get easier: the toddler years wouldn’t last forever. They were right. Those years don’t last forever. But most days I’d pay good money to go back to those sleepless nights and the potty training and the fermented juice cups under the couch and the trying to keep them from accidental grievous injury everyday of their little lives. 

Being a mom of infants and toddlers is exhausting. Don’t get me wrong. I honor all you moms who are in the trenches I’ve clawed my way out of. But it’s a physical exhaustion. We’re tired. All the time. ALL the time. We’d give our kingdom for a full night’s sleep; we’d settle for a nap. 

Being the mom of two teenagers and a tween is exhausting on a level I never could have comprehended in those years I was sleep deprived, begging for reprieve. I’m exhausted in a way that no mother who has been in my shoes could have prepared me for. It’s a mental exhaustion, as opposed to physical exhaustion, and I’d take waking up four times a night with an infant over this almost any day.

It’s bone deep. It’s soul deep. It bows your head and hunches your shoulders and it turns you inside out with worry and weariness. It exposes all those ugly, weak spots in you, and it leaves you raw and shivering and wondering how, how, HOW, could that obnoxious, cheeky, clever little angel I hugged mere years ago turn into this. Could somehow embody all the worst parts of me, bleed it out, and shove it right back in my face? How? When? Why?

Nothing has made me weaker, nothing has made me question who I am as a person, and Who God thinks He is, like raising a bunch of teens. 

I’m tired, y’all. I’m so tired. I’m tired of being pushed against at every turn, argued with and questioned and huffed at. No amount of discipline sticks, no amount of reasoning gets through their thick heads— seriously, do their skulls get thicker when they hit twelve?? I may as well be trying to communicate with a cinder block, and honestly I’d probably get through to that more easily than I can to my kids. 

A thousand nights of sleeping clean through, a car sans car seats, a recycling bin full of sippy cups and lids, a wasteland of a living room (and bedroom, and kitchen, and bathroom) strewn from wall to wall with Matchbox cars and Barbies and sandals and Carter’s pajamas, all the toddler tantrums in Christendom were not enough to prepare me for the mental and emotional wasteland that I’m in now. The constant battle of wills. The role reversal, going from toddlers tugging on my shirt to beg for my attention— craving it, needing it, prizing it— to me knocking on a bedroom door, craving, needing, prizing one scrap of insight into their days, into their world. Any tears of physical exhaustion that I wept a dozen years ago have long since been eclipsed by the tears of mental weariness that I keep hidden, that I cry in the bathroom where they can’t see, that roll down my temples some nights after they’re asleep and it’s just me, me, me and my memories of those obnoxious angels that used to be mine. 

But don’t despair, Mamas. 

One: We are surrounded by a great and mighty cloud of witnesses, of mamas, parents who have gone before, who have walked and staggered and crawled through the minefield, the wasteland of being a mother to humans straddling the dimensions between childhood and adulthood. 

Two: Speaking of no comparison— that first gassy smile from your newborn, that first babbled “mamamamama” pales— pales— in comparison to a genuine smile from your teen, a voluntary, albeit mumbled, “love you” from a creature who, lets face it, at this age doesn’t love a whole lot. In those moments when you feel like if you have to face one more day of these brass heavens they build against you, you might just vomit from the sheer stress of it, if something doesn’t give soon— those are the moments when they look at you, really look at you, and smile. And those smiles, sneaking out from the corners of their faces where the baby still lurks, hidden and angular.... somedays, the sun rises and sets on those smiles. 

Three: There is a camaraderie with my teens that I treasure above most things; that I store up in my heart for those days when the brass heavens bruise me and make me feel broken, and that keep me tiptoeing through the minefield, knowing, knowing, KNOWING, that this is just a season. This won’t last forever. And someday... someday my babies will be back, but better than ever, because they’ve made it through their own personal teenage minefields, and I’ve been waiting for them on the other side; holding my hands out to them the way I did when they took their first steps, cheering them on, calling out warnings and encouragement, believing they can do it and will be the stronger for it. 

Take heart, parents of teens. We’ll be stronger too. 

Snow Day In A Miraculous World

The Now Project
January 1st-7th

Last month, I hopped on board with a fellow Instagrammer's brain child, called The Now Project, which was officially launched with the new year. The concept is to try and capture moments during our week, post photos, and write about them. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep this up all year, especially the writing part, since I tend towards laziness, but I'm going to try. The hardest part will probably be picking just one "moment" per week.

However, if I have to choose one moment from the first week of January, I choose our crazy, out of nowhere snow day. Living in southeast Virginia, a few blocks from the Chesapeake Bay, we don't see a lot of snow. We get humidity aplenty. Mosquitos, hurricanes, 70 degree rainy autumn days, patriotic parades, cannons left over from our Revolutionary and Civil War years, but not a lot of snow. So for us to get 10" dumped on us in a single day in the midst of blizzard conditions is pretty noteworthy.

Full disclosure: I loathe snow. I hate being cold. I hate the wet, and the mud, and the layers, I hate all of it. But my kids are all still young enough to glory in the beauty (and let's be honest, the novelty) of a winter wonderland, so I suck it up at least once a year and let them spend a half hour preparing to go out in the snow for a total of fifteen minutes.

This past week, on January 5th, was also Chloe's 11th birthday. I usually do a birthday photo session with my kids, and this time I decided we should take advantage of this rare, snowy occurrence for Chloe's big day. Which means- yes!- I too went out in the snow. Wonder of wonders! I won't post all of her photos here because I want to share them in a separate blog for her, but I will throw a couple in.

All of that said, here's the thing. I'm taking a chance with this. I don't know anyone else in this group I've chosen to be a part of, which in itself is a big step. But it's one I'm eager, albeit nervous and scared and kind of freaking out and fighting social anxiety and-- well, I could go on and on about that-- it's one I'm eager to take.  I'm choosing an opportunity to push myself out of my lazy ruts that I create for myself when I could be creating something beautiful instead. I'll work at becoming that version of myself that I want to see. I'll drop the ball sometimes this year, absolutely I will. But my main goal for 2017 is this mantra: "No more self sabotaging." That includes settling for subpar writing and blogging, photographing, and passing up chances to record this little tiny space of time my kids and my family are occupying right now. We live in a miraculous world, friends; one where anyone can instantly share what sandwich they ordered for lunch. Don't my kids, their memories, and their lives deserve more recognition and respect than a sandwich, even if it did come from Which Wich?

As far as it depends on me, my kids will be a part of this miraculous 2017. And I will be the record keeper of our small, wondrous, everyday miracles.

Happy New Year, Happy Snow Day, and Happy Miracle Choosing.

-M

All photos © 2017 Mary Smoot
Shot with Nikon D800

This Place, Your Home

Sometimes it's hard for me to get started writing. There are so many thoughts and words and emotions, bundled all together in a knot, and it's so hard to pull just one. And usually when I can manage to find one to pull, all the others unravel after it. So I've found, for myself at least, that the best way to start writing is to just START. You know... "Start at the beginning. And when you get to the end, stop."

Right now, there is no end in sight; I'm waist deep in trenches I never thought I'd be in, and I'm still watching this story unfold in front of me. 

Many of you may have followed along with the losses our family has been through these last few months. If you're unfamiliar, you can go on Instagram and search the hashtag #welovefoxhill. See, Fox Hill is a small "city" within the city where we live. It's also where Jeremy grew up, right across the street from his grandparents. And, this year, from April 29, 2016 to September 21, 2016, we lost both of his grandparents. Words can't describe what a hole this has left in our family, in our identity. In some ways, it feels like the ties that have been grounding us have been suddenly cut loose. 

What's worse, my youngest, Atleigh, has had an intense battle facing this loss. Before she even reached 8 years old, she's watched two people she was incredibly close to lowered into the ground. She's attended two funerals. She's placed flowers on two graves. She's witnessed her family, her safe place, struggle with sorrow and displacement and a heavy weightlessness that can only be described as grief. And she has suffered for it. More so than I would ever have imagined. She's developed a stutter. She's faced cruel comments from her classmates, and in some instances, school faculty, words like, "Spit it out", "Why can't you talk?" "You must not be very smart." She's developed anxiety, separation anxiety, fear over routines being changed, fear of CHANGE, period. Anyone who knows Atleigh knows that she has always been completely wide open. Not only does she embrace change, generally she is a catalyst for it. She sings and dances and does whatever she feels is needed to make everyone around her laugh. She is the quintessential class clown. 

Until this year. 

Those who follow my sporadic blogging also know that every year I do a birthday photo session with each of my kids. This year, Atleigh told me emphatically for weeks that she didn't want pictures. She didn't think she could smile "good enough". I didn't push her. I told her that was fine, even when it killed me on the inside. I told her if she changed her mind, that was fine too. I would never make her smile for photos if she didn't feel like it. 

And then, miraculously, last week, almost two weeks after her birthday, she told me she wanted to do the session. So I took her to Target and let her pick out an all new outfit (I don't know about all of you, but an all new outfit is a definite occasion for getting your picture taken, in my book). She chose the entire outfit on her own. Every piece of it was so significant to me, even if she didn't realize it. She chose a hot pink, glittery, floor length tutu that, to me, was a complete representation of who my baby really is on the inside. The shirt she chose says, "Never let anyone dull your sparkle." She chose a fluffy hoodie with the head of a unicorn, golden horn, rainbow mane, and all. In most stories, unicorns represent magic, innocence, purity and joy. And if anyone on God's green earth has the spirit of the unicorn, it's my Atleigh Naomi. Naomi: laughter, joy. Everything she truly is. And that outfit, while seeming small and coincidental to most people, was as holy to me as if God Himself had opened heaven and spoken to me, saying, "Your Naomi is still HERE. I see her. I hear her. I have not forgotten, I WILL NOT forget or forsake her."

I took her out for the photos. She didn't look at me a lot. She didn't smile a lot. A large portion of the photos are of her facing away or running from me. And that's okay. I'm okay with that. 

Later that afternoon, she was humming a refrain from a [completely moronic] Netflix cartoon- a refrain borrowed from Phillip Phillips's song "Home". I told her it was from a real song, and asked her if she'd like to hear it. As soon as I started playing it for her, all the hair on my body stood up. The lyrics say, 

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
'Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
'Cause I’m going to make this place your home

She asked me to play it for her, over and over and over. And so I did. 

And if I've learned anything from this season that we're in right now, this uncertain, unstable, fraught and frayed season, it's that my role is to be her home. Her safe place, more than ever. And to point her to the Safest Place that we are all invited to live in. She can always be found. She's not alone. I will make this place her home. 

Happy 8th birthday to my littlest love, my unicorn soul, my lioness spirit. Your Safe Place sees you. Your Safe Place is ready for you. This Place, your Home. 

{{Here are a few of my favorites from Atleigh's unicorn 8th birthday photo session. Regardless of the valley we're traveling through, I think this will always be one of my favorite birthday sessions. She is magic.}}

*All photos © 2016 Mary Smoot/@what_if_i_said*