Five on Friday--August 2

Hello August! I don’t know how things are wherever you’re reading this, but here in Florida it’s hot, sticky, and just not the most pleasant outside. But that means the start of school is officially around the corner for us—we start August 12 here in Jacksonville and this tired mama is more than ready! School supplies are purchased, new shoes are on the shelves, school uniforms are being re-washed, and we got the little dudes their hair cuts this week, so we are ready! I actually love that they start so early here because August is SO hot we wouldn’t be doing anything exciting, I’d rather them be in school and then we get a bit longer at Christmas than I know other states do which I appreciate. I hope you all are hanging in there with the heat and that this weekend brings you moments of rest and joy with those you care about. See you all next week my friends!

ONE

The other night at bedtime my kids were just being squirrly. I know, that probably never happens to anyone else’s family ;) We had read books on the couch but they were just being loud, arguing about which Bible story I’d tell in their room. I finally just said I was picking and I chose David & Goliath—a story we hadn’t done in a few weeks. Asher started whining, it wasn’t the one he wanted, and he wasn’t being quiet enough for Aidan to hear, so I was getting frustrated and finally I found myself starting the story in a totally different place than I usually did, which absolutely caught Asher’s attention and shut him up so he could hear. Usually when i tell David & Goliath, I start with “once there was a man named Jesse who had seven sons, and the youngest was named David…” This time around I found myself desperate to get my 4 year old’s attention and so I said “once, there was a King named Saul…and Saul had forgotten God…” The boys started saying “but mommy! We thought this was David & Goliath!” I promised it was and they kept listening. I found myself telling the story more from Saul’s point of view, how terrified he and his army were to fight this Philistine giant, how there was absolutely no way any of the Israelites could beat him and how unfair it was of God to bring them to such an impossible battle. I explained that Saul had started out trusting and following God, but quickly came to realize he liked his own power and privilege being King brought him, and he didn’t see the need to ask God for God’s opinion any longer. And then of course in comes young David, a teenager, who says “why isn’t anyone fighting? Have you all forgotten whose army you belong to?” You see, David had been spending weeks at a time in the wilderness taking care of his father’s sheep and while out there, he had no other company besides talking to God. We know he was quite the poet, as a huge number of our Psalms are credited to him, and I believe he spent that time in the wilderness growing in his faith, watching God provide for him and protect him from wild animals and the elements. Conventional wisdom says he should have been terrified to fight a legitimate giant, but that never even occurred to him. David just knew he’d been seeing God protect him over and over, why should this time be any different? David comes in and sees King Saul and the Israelite army quaking in their armor because they’d forgotten whose army they were in. They had forgotten God’s promise to give them their land. If God had promised them this land, wouldn’t it make sense that God would be faithful in protecting them as they fought for the land? David wasn’t relying on conventional wisdom. He was relying on his actual lived experience with the God who always kept His promises. Isn’t the same true for us today? How easy is it to go weeks without asking God what He thinks we should do or what He wants us to spend our time on? How often do we poll our friends when making a decision instead of asking the One who sees all eternity what He thinks we should do? If you’re anything like me, the answer is “far more often than I wish to admit.” Saul forgot to go to God before his battle. He forgot God’s promises to him, forgot God’s power, and let the fear of what he saw right in front of him convince him that a situation was hopeless. I don’t know what battle you find yourself facing today, but may we learn something from ole King Saul—may we turn to Yahweh first and let Him give us the courage to fight our battles.

TWO

I was scrolling through Instagram stories the other day and a mom and blogger I follow shared in her stories a reminder that was so good I had to share it here. We say all the time “be careful what you say, your kids or grandkids or neighbor kids are listening and they’ll repeat it.” And this is a great reminder. I may have let a not so awesome word slip the other day in a moment of pure anger and my 4 year old then repeated it for the next five minutes…seriously, don’t come to me for parenting advice….But this isn’t what Rebekah, this woman, was talking about. Instead of this being a negative sounding or fear based reminder, she was trying to encourage us—our kids (or honestly the world around us!) are listening! They see when we smile and wave at a person in traffic instead of cursing under our breath. They see when we pray for victims of an accident as we drive past. They hear us singing worship music as we cook dinner or telling our spouses we love them. They hear those words of encouragement and prayers we share with a friend on the phone or how we talk about that irritating colleague at work in a kind way. They are observing these things and they DO imitate us—the kids in our homes, but also the people around us. Have you ever noticed how you can be in line somewhere and people are getting visibly irritated, and then one person simply offers a genuine smile to the store clerk and asks how she’s doing and it seems to diffuse some of the tension? I don’t know about you, but I needed that reminder. I’ve spent a LOT of hours with my kids this summer and if I’m honest, I can think of a huge list of ways I feel like I’ve “failed” at parenting these past two months. But when I think of the positive things I’ve also tried to model for them and instill in them this summer, I don’t have to just beat myself up for the things I wish I hadn’t said, I can be proud that they were listening and someday the repetition of “we are kind to one another, we use kind words, we pray for our friends who are hurting, we smile and say thank you to store employees…” will one day take root in their hearts. Who is around you? Who “listens” to you? May we spread the kindness our world is so desperately hungry for as we interact with those around us.

THREE

Three years ago this weekend our family landed here on the east coast to make this our new home. In some ways it feels like it’s been longer than that, and in others it feels like I was a California girl only yesterday. Home is a funny thing—what defines home for someone may not be the same as for someone else. For instance, “home” for me is a suburb of Sacramento, CA where I spent my first 18 years, but my mom and dad left there 11 years ago so when I go “home” for vacation I go to Minneapolis, a place I absolutely love but a place I’ve never lived. Yet walking into their house still feels like coming home because even though I have no childhood memories in the house itself, the people and way we do things as a family haven’t changed. I always said Seattle was the first home I ever created on my own—moving there when I was 18 and staying 6 years in that incredibly formative young adult season of life was truly awesome. I felt empowered once I learned a new city on my own, and a big city at that! I knew so many aspects of that place and loved it with all my heart. But I left there a long time ago and while it will always be a huge place in my story, it’s not home anymore. After Seattle was a ten year stint in the Los Angeles area—a place I never in a million years dreamed I’d ever live. But God has a sense of humor doesn’t He? The years we spent in LA is where Charles and I met, dated, and lived in the years we were growing our family and that decade was so incredibly rich. The friendships we left there left huge imprints on our hearts.

Moving so far east from everywhere I’ve ever called home before has been wonderful and somewhat of a culture shock in ways. There’s an almost religious fanaticism about football here that I haven’t experienced anywhere else—especially college ball on Saturdays. I quickly realized you have to choose a team (Go Clemson!) and then Sundays will be spent cheering on our Jaguars. I never thought I’d care, but I became a bigger Jags fan than my husband this past year and can’t wait for opening day.

There’s a more evangelical bent here in the culture, which coming from Seattle, the least-churched part of the country, is especially interesting to me. I don’t actually think it’s better or worse, just different. I’ve also encountered more preconceived expectations about how conservative or liberal I am here than ever before. I’ll never forget an especially odd interaction I had with a woman at our church, a long time member who met me and heard I’d moved from LA and her very first reaction was “Whoa! A conservative from Los Angeles?!” I just kind of stared at her dumbfounded and said “I’m sorry I don’t think I ever said anything about my political leanings, I just said I was born and raised in California. What makes you think I’m a conservative or liberal based on that piece of information?” She didn’t really know how to respond to that, but it reminded me of how easy it can be to jump to a conclusion about a person just because of where they’re from. I also had an incredibly strange interaction with a doctor I was seeing when I first got here. He heard I’d just moved from LA and spent the next 45 minutes spouting off on how horrible it was that those “liberals” from California were all moving to Florida and making Florida too liberal. Needless to say I never returned to his office. However I’ve also found that folks here just are friendlier than in the big west coast cities I’ve been in. Store clerks, other drivers (especially coming from 10 years in LA!), strangers in line at Target, moms on the playground—I’ve had so many more conversations with total strangers that resulted in “can I get your number? We should get together sometime!” than ever in my life. And I love that. Some of my closest friends here are friends I met randomly on playgrounds or in the library. I’ve found that I love it here. I never thought I’d truly say that when I arrived and it was so hot and had all these new bugs and critters and I never thought it would ever cool off (it did. Around Thanksgiving). But somewhere around mid-February of that next year, when we were taking a family walk on the beach one evening and the humidity was gone and it was chilly but glorious, I realized how at peace I had become. I had started finding friends, I knew how to get to Target without my google maps app, the kids were settling in, and I realized this was home, and that I was so so grateful to be here. And also, I will always love this place because of their commitment to amazing tacos.

FOUR

As we head back into the school year pretty soon our schedules get a bit crazier. Not because we pack them full or stay super busy but because by the time we get home we only have about 3 hours each day before my kiddos start getting ready for bed ( we are early bedtime people year round but especially during the school year—our lights are out by 7 as often as possible because I have been blessed with two VERY early risers). I’ve found that some very simple weekend routines being in place make the school/work week go SO much smoother for all of us. Emily Ley calls this her “Sunday Prep” and I’ve found it makes a HUGE difference once I started making this a priority. The three things I try and make sure happen every Sunday before I go to bed are looking through my calendar for the week ahead to note anything out of the ordinary, making sure I know what I’m making for dinner and that I have enough options to pack lunches for the next 5 days, and making sure the house is picked up enough that Monday morning doesn’t feel insane to me. These three simple tasks generally keep us from entering panic mode during the week, and we are all about staying out of panic mode in our house.

When I look through my calendar, I’m checking to see if someone need to wear red socks one day? Or bring a special treat for their class? Or does Charles have a specific night he knows he’s out late? Knowing on Sunday night what’s coming helps keep anything from surprising me later in the week—although sometimes I am still caught off guard when I realize at 7 am on Friday we were supposed to wear Jaguars gear to school that day (umm and yes in case you were wondering I have absolutely been that mom running through Walmart at 7:15 am picking up something I didn’t remember we needed until we were eating breakfast that morning). But for the most part this doesn’t happen if I take a couple minutes and look through what’s coming up in the next five days.

You all know I can’t survive without my meal plan. I actually plan meals from Friday night through Thursday night. I know that sounds weird but I don’t love grocery shopping on weekend with crowds of people and I started realizing that if I shopped Monday like I used to, by the weekend when we were all home full time we were down to the leftovers and things no one really was excited about eating. So we would eat out much more often on the weekends. I found that if I planned a menu Thursday evening and grocery shopped Friday morning we went into the weekend fully stocked with food and there are zero crowds at the grocery store Friday mornings. It’s a system that has worked well for almost a year now, but I still look over the menu for the week on Sunday night and decide what meals will fit best on which day depending on our schedule.

And lastly I try & do a quick tidy up on Sunday night because Monday morning is usually when I do a bigger clean of my house to get everything back together after the weekend. I make everyone help put stuff away Sunday night (it is amazing how trashed our house gets on the weekends, drives me insane!) and that way Monday I can focus on actually cleaning instead of spending all my time picking up random pieces of lego creations before I can vacuum.

Everyone has their own weekend routines, things they like to do to get ready for the new week. What are some of the things you find helpful to have in place before a Monday morning rolls around?

FIVE:

I had a mom tell me when my oldest was a toddler that everyone loves different stages of parenting and if this particular stage your kids are in isn’t your favorite, it’s okay. Those words have been my lifeline so many times. To be honest, the baby and toddler stages were SO hard for me. I wouldn’t relive those years really for anything. Yes they are itty bitty and adorable, but oh my gosh those years were so draining and not all that life-giving for me. This same mom told me that this was okay, that for many moms they don’t start to LOVE parenting until the kids get older. I’ve found this to be me. One hundred percent. I am absolutely loving these early elementary/late preschool years. We no longer need naps, we can watch real movies (their current obsessions are the first two Harry Potter films and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). We can actually play games with real rules. That everyone can follow. My kids taught ME how to play Settlers of Catan Jr. yesterday. They’ve played with their dad a few times but I hadn’t ever joined. Can I just tell you how much more I enjoyed playing Settlers with my boys than Candy Land? Big kid parenting definitely has it’s challenges of course. There are real emotions and fears and big questions. But the conversations we have had, the games we can play, the outings we can do now without having to run home for a nap are so much more fun. When we were up at Lake Superior we did hikes every morning and all the kids, including my 4 year old, did awesome for the 2.5 mile treks. I think I’m sharing this today because I know there are moms of toddlers who read this and if you’re struggling this summer, if you’re wondering if this is as good as parenting gets or if you’re secretly not loving this season of life but are too afraid to admit it because you don’t want to be viewed as a "bad mom,” you are not alone. I’ve been in those shoes. I know just saying “wait a few years” doesn’t always feel encouraging, but for me it actually was in some ways because I was able to hear from moms further along in the journey that things will change and in many ways get a bit easier, or at least more fun. If you love the little itty bitty years, that’s awesome, but if you don’t or if you’re strugglig right now, I promise, every summer brings about a different stage of life. This might not end up being your favorite summer. That’s okay. Find joy where you can and know you are not alone.