Please don't scream at the fish...

Ah...the library...a peaceful and quiet and FREE place to take the kids.  Well...maybe it's all of those things for some families, but it's hardly the case for us anymore.  If I really stretch back far in my memory I can vaguely recollect a time that I took Carter to the library and we'd meander through the aisles to choose a few books and then sit to read some of them together.  He was in sight at all times, there was no screaming, I wasn't breaking out in a sweat akin to running a 5K race. These days...well things are a lot different.  Let me walk you through a typical visit to the library.

The library is indeed a peaceful and quiet place, until the raucous Berad children enter its doors.  The trip begins with the kids leaping out of the car and racing up the walkway ahead of me, empty handed. I am left carrying two heavy bags of books, my purse, and pushing the stroller.

Once we leave our old books in the book return, I hand the kids the empty bags and they're off to get more books...usually more than we even returned.  I always tell them not to get too many, only what they can carry...and invariably I end up lugging out a ridiculous amount of books...this week we only had 109.

Lawson's first stop upon entering the children's wing is to climb up to view the fish in a large fish tank.  There is a cute sign on the glass that reads, "Please don't tap on the glass, it hurts the fish's ears!"  But they never anticipated visits from Lawson where he instead screams at the fish.  I'm pretty sure a toddler screaming "Fish! Fish! FISH!!!" hurts their ears way more.  Maybe we should take a poll.

The kids like to visit the library guinea pig next and choose a few movies to bring home.  On this particular day, Sienna grabs the movie Frozen.  "I want to get "Frozen!"  "No," I tell her, "We have Frozen already at home.  We own it."  We actually have the 2-disc DVD and Blu-Ray Combo...that's like owning 2 Frozens!!  "But I want THIS FROZEN!!!!"  Cue the screaming on the floor tantrum followed by tearing out her hair.  Really, Sienna...really???  Of all the things to have a temper tantrum about you are going to choose this??

Have you ever noticed how the aisles at the library are like a mini labyrinth for children to disappear in?  Lawson thoroughly enjoys putting my maze solving skills to the test as he weaves his way in and out of rows of books.  Throughout the library there are cozy looking chairs and couches where some  lucky moms are able to sit while their children play quietly or where they can sit together to read.  I personally find these chairs insulting...I mean, who has time to sit when you are frantically running around looking for your missing toddler?

After everyone has made their book selections, it's not time to check out.  I prefer to do the self-checkout because...well...I don't know but I feel kinda judged by the librarians whenever we are checking out over 100 books.  It's just easier to avoid those blank stares and do it ourselves.  There's only some mild drama which occurs when Sienna pushes Lawson off the stool as they both try to unload the books onto the counter.  I tell her she needs to give him a turn standing on it and she goes into another tantrum.  Very helpful!! On this day, we do the self-checkout but then have to visit the librarian to pick up some books we have on hold.  As she is checking those books out, she asks if I would like to pay my $0.50 fine today.  "Well, you see that door swinging shut over there, that's because my 2-year-old just left the building and is wandering into the parking lot.  I think the fine is gonna have to wait another week."

Now we've finally made it to the end of our visit...the home stretch...the light at the end of the tunnel. But first, in order to successfully leave the library, we've got to avoid the dreaded beep.  There is a device similar to a metal detector that beeps upon exiting if you try to leave with an unchecked book.  We almost always have at least one unchecked book.  Can't they see my toddler is again running out ahead of me into the parking lot?  Can't they see I'm pushing a stroller with a now screaming infant inside?  Can't they see we've got a million books checked out and that just one isn't going to break the bank.  The beep sounds and I have to drag everyone back inside...it's the walk of shame...the true definition of library defeat.  "Thanks for coming back." the reference desk librarian always says.  Coming back?  I didn't know I had an option.  Who are these people who run away when they sound the book alarm, that's my question!?

Books are all checked now...kids buckled in the car.  All their heads are bowed down as they read their new books on the way home.  The whole trip lasted for 15 minutes but to me it feels like it dragged on for 15 hours.  Just another weekly visit to the library...

Special day...

Today we are celebrating the first birthday of my precious niece Dalis. How quickly the year has gone by...My sweet sister-in-law has done an amazing job raising her. She has shown true perseverance and courage and strength in the face so so many trials. Ed would be so proud...This lasting piece of his legacy will carry on for the years to come...She is the essence of beauty emerging from great pain...A true triumph in the face of adversity. We love you to the moon and back sweet Dalis and dear Waenyod!

The wind in my face...

 Carter has been absolutely begging me to feed the baby every single day lately...so this morning he finally got his chance.  He does love his little sister...when she's not screaming her head off.  The one remedy for that is to carry her around all day.  She loves to sleep for several hours a day in her backpack, riding on my chest.  I think I'm going to need a major chiropractic adjustment in the near future!

I took Carter, Reese & Sienna for a bike ride on Sunday since it was such a nice, unseasonably warm day.  Our neighbors gave us a bike attachment that hooks to the back of my bike and Sienna can ride on it and even pedal.  She loves us...but in her typical Sienna fashion, is a total "backseat driver."  She was not satisfied with our speed at one point when I was turning around in a cul-de-sac and said, "Mama, you aren't going fast enough.  Why don't I feel the wind on my face?"  This was followed shortly after by "Mama, why do you have a big, fat butt?"  I'd imagine this is somewhat akin to the way contestants feel on the Biggest Loser when a trainer is riding them to workout harder!?  Nothing like a 4-year old making you feel lousy about yourself just 7 weeks after having a baby, nonetheless!

I was in the laundry room yesterday, holding the screaming baby while I tried to throw the wet laundry into the dryer.  Lawson came in and put his face right up to hers and said, "You little bugger." in a gruff voice....

We were eating edamame for dinner last night and Carter paused from eating his to say, "This should really be called edible-mame.  That describes it better."  Well-said, Carter, well said...

Something old...something new...

 After years of having some pretty dingy old pillows on my couch, Derrick purchased some new ones for me for Christmas.  It felt great to have something new and to look at...there isn't a whole lot in my house that's "new and fresh" these days.  But just a few weeks after receiving the pillows, the baby spit up all over one.  We ran it through the wash only to have it get completely mauled up by our washing machine...now leaving me with just one new pillow!

We splurged and hired a painter to come and paint our dining room about 2 weeks ago since we'd had a gallon of paint and the intentions of painting it for about 8 months and there hasn't exactly been a lot of free time to work on it lately....nor any in sight in the foreseeable future!    I walked out the other day to see Lawson, perched at Carter's school desk, coloring with pen on the newly-painted wall.

I don't mean to sound a little defeatist here...but why is it that nothing new ever lasts???  "Oh," you say..."it's because you live in a houseful of kids."  Well, that's part of it, sure...but when I stop to think about it, nothing new ever stays new...and this extends far beyond my couch cushions and some paint on the wall.

If I'm counting on that "new" feeling to last, I'm going to be disappointed again and again and again.  If I keep looking to the material things around me for meaning and purpose, I'll only find repeated discouragement.  If I'm expecting anything in this life to remain constant and unchanging, I'll be chasing after the wind all of my days.

1 Peter 1:24-25 - All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of the Lord stands forever.

Does this then mean that I am to remove all expectations of good things to come in this life?  What is my response to be, when I stop to consider the very temporal nature of all things?   Another verse immediately comes to mind... 

Luke 12: 33-24

"...Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, 

a treasure in heaven that will never fail, ... 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

 Now that's the kind of treasure I want to hope for...to invest in...to count on.  It may take great effort, patience, perseverance to look forward to a treasure that is beyond this earth, but the wait will be well worth it.  And while I'm here, may God grant me the courage to focus first on the things that last.  May He help me not to dwell on disappointment when my earthly comforts and treasures fade and are taken from me, but to turn to Him instead.  May He fill me with great hope and expectation...transcending what is seen now and remembering to focus more on what is temporarily unseen...but promised to me again and again.

May He give me eyes to see every morning when I awake that "the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases...His mercies never come to an end...they are NEW every morning..."

Love

 He desperately wanted to do it on his own...insisted on it.  His chubby little hands were swathed in too-large mittens where his thumbs didn't even fit into the thumb holes.  But this did not make him hesitate for even one second.  He grabbed the handle of the heavy wagon, 4-year-old Sienna seated inside, and started to try to pull it...walking backwards on the sidewalk.  He grunted and heaved with all his might.  I continued to hold the handle and let him lace his hands through the handle with mine.  He became frustrated at first that I didn't let go...even tried to push me away.  Gradually he accepted my help and together we pulled the wagon down the sidewalk...our progress impeded greatly by his size and ability to pull and his struggle to walk backwards without falling.  

In the moments of watching my 2-year-old son trying to pull the wagon I thought about so many times in my life where I've done the very same thing.  Stubbornly I try to take the reigns, day after day.  Stubbornly I have repeatedly forgotten and forsaken my "first love" (Revelation 2)...I've strayed from the path I should be walking...head bent low in concentration, I forge ahead...  

And then...

"I lift my eyes to the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth."

I take my eyes off the pavement to see something so much greater than me.  

My impatience to plow through my to-do list each day clouds 

my ability to see what is 

truly important.  

I've been overconfident in my abilities...in my strength.  Gently, ever so gently I feel His warmth surround me...I sense His presence beside me as I flounder in the shallows.  He grips me and pulls me out...He walks beside me, doing all the heavy lifting for me.  He patiently allows me to keep trying...knowing I will struggle and fall again.  He never forces me to choose the right path, but reminds me constantly of my first love...

I sense that love in the peace that floods over me, even during times of great difficulty...

That love is evident in His amazing creation...

That love is visible when I behold the miracles of my children...

That love is in His grace towards me...in His willingness to take me back again and again.  Even after I've forgotten about Him...He will Never forget about me.  He loves me that much.

Perfect Peace...

I'm in Week 5 of the Newborn Challenge.  Totally sleep-deprived and trying to keep five kids fed, clothed and alive is way beyond peaceful and serene.  It feels more like a full day of the most strenuous fitness boot camp.

On Monday, Lawson was in the basement "playing."   I had poured a bowl of dry cereal for him and I didn't realize he had taken it down with him.  I heard a strange noise and upon walking down, I realized that the noise was him, riding on his red car back and forth over the cereal which he had dumped out all over the floor.  It was now a nice powder...

My doula came for my follow-up visit Monday morning only to spend most of the visit trying to calm my VERY unhappy baby.  We tried different ways to hold her, burp her, swaddle her...it was quite a circus.  We took her up to the nursery because the other kids were being quite loud (shocking, I know!)...and they all followed us up there and dumped out the toys in her closet to play with in her room.


Since she finished the Butterflies of North America book with me last week, Sienna was eager to find another equally thrilling book to harass me with this week.  Yesterday, it was a cookbook of Reese's.  She patiently followed me around ALL morning with this book, asking me again and again and again, "What's this recipe, read what's in it...."  Just because I was in the middle of changing a poopy diaper, nursing the baby, trying to get dressed or brush my teeth or use the bathroom, I was not spared.

The first three hours of my day today were spent with a baby strapped to the front of me.  I discovered that she cries wayyyy less when she is in the carrier...this does however present a bit of a challenge when I want to actually move freely about the house, or bend over, or use the bathroom.

I got some eggs out to crack for a recipe I was making for dinner.  Lawson saw the eggs and heard me ask Reese if she wanted to crack them for me.  I turned my back for 1 minute and vaguely heard him saying "My crack eggs."  Oh...No!!!  I turned around to see him smacking an egg down all over the counter.  Egg was everywhere!

I took something out to the garage and when I came back inside, Lawson was standing in the kitchen facing me with a big grin on his face, soccer ball in hands.  He squatted down as if to throw it to me but instead hoisted it up over his head and threw it backwards onto the kitchen table, just inches away from a large glass cake plate with a cake on it!

The day is over...I'm exhausted but still breathing...and just as I put away the last piece of laundry away in the kids' rooms, I come back downstairs to find a pile of new dirty clothes from the finished day...just waiting for my attention tomorrow.

My days are a swirling chaotic mess most of the time.  It feels a bit like putting out one fire after another all day long.  It'd be easy to get discouraged. depressed...to give in to the temptation to say, "This is all just too much for me to handle!"  And really, it is.  Don't be tempted to think I'm some kind of supermom just because I have these kids and do these things day after day.

My strength surely isn't my own today...or any day for that matter.  My strength flows to me directly from the Lord.  He supplies me with exactly what I need for each new day.  I trust in Him...and He never disappoints.  I read Isaiah 26:3-4 this morning and it gave me a peace just knowing that no matter how difficult the days are, my peace comes from Him.

When I sit and when I rise...

Never in my life did the words "captive audience" have such meaning.  Now that I am glued to a chair for hours every day nursing a newborn baby, I've become an active target for Sienna's shenanigans and am at the full mercy of her constant gabbing.  She knows all too well when I sit to nurse Evangeline that I'm going to be at her full disposal for at least a good 15-20 minutes and she does not miss an opportunity to take full advantage of this.  I spent this morning being accosted by my garrulous 4-year-old wielding a volume of "A Complete Guide to the Butterflies of North America."  Page after page of the 400+ page book she turned and asked me "Read it Mama!  READ it!  What kind of butterfly is this?  Tell me the name of this butterfly."  Even after I'd finished feeding the baby and was moving about the house again, she brought the book, which is a convenient pocket sized edition, (i.e. lightweight and easy to carry around) and followed me wherever I went... "What's this butterfly?  Tell me what this one is called."

But Sienna isn't the only one keeping me on my toes lately.  Dear Lawson had a healthy pre-dinner-dinner of jelly beans, pretzel dough and a whole plate full of strawberries I had cut up for everyone.  He wanted to help make the pretzels and following in the footsteps of his big sisters, put on Reese's hat and apron.  It's pretty hard to get upset with someone who is this adorable, even if he was trying to add the flour to the bowl handful by handful, and then eating the dough after it was made.

Derrick got a call from work tonight and after hanging up, the kids wanted to know who it was.  He told them the person's name was Doug.  Sienna piped right up with, "Is his name Doug because he digs a lot?"

 There really is never a dull moment in the house these days.  And with a newborn, day fades to night and night brightens back into day, often with very little chance for rest.  This morning, when I awoke with the baby at 4 and again at 6, a Psalm I'd read the night before was running through my mind.  "Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise..."  It brought comfort and peace and a sense of purpose to my day just knowing that God Knows...He knows even the most seemingly insignificant details of my day...when I sit and when I rise.  Who am I...what have I done to deserve the Creator's care and concern for even such small parts of my day?