family Archives - Land of Lovings

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Sacrifice: 5 tips for volunteering with kids

2017/09/01 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

Tomorrow we embark on another service project with the kids and I just wanted to take a second to talk about why we do these things and how we use them to reinforce our commitment to serving others as a family.

So, serving with kids. It is not for the faint of heart. I don’t mean that it is awful or bad or even a not fun experience. BUT, you have to set your expectations accordingly. If you think your kids are going to show up and be so thankful you’ve showed them how to serve others and forget themselves and their selfish desires for an afternoon, well, you’re gonna be pretty disappointed. I know I was.

But that’s okay. Because this is a skill that is developed over time. Self-sacrifice is not an instinctual skill.

The key is consistency. Keep serving. Keep working. Help them keep focusing on something other than themselves.

Here are five ways we make serving with kids a positive experience.

Talk about who you are serving. Let them see how similar they are to the people they are out there helping. We serve two motels where many children live with their parents. It is so beneficial to our kids to talk and play with these kids so they can see that the people we are serving are the same as they are. People are people. And showing kids that those who need help aren’t some distant “other” and are people like them is really important.
Prepare as a family. Serving isn’t just about taking kids down into the city and exposing them to the people who have needs that need to be met by others. We prepare as a family for our trip. We pray together for those we are serving, we pack bags with friends who we serve with, and we talk about the best ways to give others respect and dignity as we serve them.
Let them know they are safe. We make sure our kids know they are safe in the areas we serve in AND that they are safe to ask us any questions they may have about the people and places we serve. Yes, sometimes their questions are not politically correct or easy to answer. Yes, sometimes it means telling them things about this world that are hard to admit. But, giving them a safe place to do so is incredibly important. We don’t shame them for their lack of understanding of certain social issues or for their politically incorrect way of asking the specifics of a situation. As long as they ask us privately (away from those we are serving) and with respect we encourage all discussion of the who, what, where, & why of serving.
Give them a break. When we serve we are in town for 4+ hours at a time. That’s a big stretch for little kids. Our older girls (11 & 13) are able to handle it but the younger ones (8, 6, & 3) need breaks. LOTS of them. We pack snacks. We let them watch DVDs in the car at certain stops where logistics make it less than ideal for them to get out and serve. Bottom line, we have realistic expectations of them. We respect who they are and what they are capable of.
Debrief. When we served on our family mission trip in Kentucky we learned that debriefing is an important part of service. Processing what you’ve seen, heard, and (let’s be honest) smelled is an important part of learning about what you’ve done and how you can do more in the future. Give them, and yourself, the chance to understand all you’ve been a part of and give the grace that is needed to process the experience.

Doing these things help to make the experience better for everyone involved. Kids are still learning how to care for others. Some adults are, too. It’s not easy. Do I bristle every time Trav (8) tells me how boring it is to serve meals to the homeless? YES. Every. Single. Time. But I keep exposing him to it. Keep exposing him to the needs of others. I encourage him to meet those needs with us and to pray for the men and women and children we serve. Is it perfect? No way. Do my children turn into mini Mother Theresa’s when serve? Nope. But their capacity for compassion grows. They see the needs of others and their ability to help be a part of meeting those needs. They are transported out of their narrow point of view and into a more global perspective for a few hours a month. Everyone grows. Everyone learns. Everyone finds themselves capable of more love than they knew possible.

Nashville Day Two: Maybe we should have quit while we were ahead?

2017/07/18 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

Oh, Day Two. You had to make it difficult didn’t you?

So maybe I didn’t check to see if the observatory was open on Mondays and we just headed there. That one is my fault. It’s the risk of that whole spontaneity thing I was talking about yesterday. But we found a quaint (albeit slightly boring) Agricultural Museum to visit. There were lots of opportunities for cool pics though so that’s always a win!

We also took a brief tour of Nashville thrift stores and scored an awesome and appropriately creepy Madonna & Child porcelain bust to add to my collection.

The real trouble came later on when one of the kids got what seems to be a stomach bug. But, hey, at least they waited until we got to a restaurant to throw up. And now I don’t have to worry about checking “Clean up my kid’s puke from all over the bathroom stall of a Tex-Mex restaurant” off my bucket list. Hooray for that. (In related news, the restaurant did not have a spray bottle of disinfectant to give me to clean up the massive vomit storm and suggested I just wipe it up with a towel. And THAT, my friends, is why you always hover over a public toilet seat! ?)

The above mentioned bathroom adventure meant that we needed to pay a visit to the in-hotel laundry. Which was fine except someone left a package of kids menu crayons in a pocket and, well, now ALLLLL of our clothes have been adorned in a crayoned Ombré effect. Ahhhh, adventures.

Tomorrow we head out to the Adventure science museum and The Dyer Observatory (assuming no one else falls victim to the mystery puking virus) and our bar is set pretty low for a successful Day Three…

Matilda’s Under the Pines

2017/07/15 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

You’ve heard me say it a million times, but our family’s favorite way to spend a warm Summer evening is packing up snacks, juice boxes, patchwork blankets, and wine and heading out to Matilda’s Under the Pines. It’s taken us a little while to get back into our favorite Summer tradition but we got the chance tonight to spend the evening at Matilda’s and, as usual, it is a night that didn’t disappoint.

I cherish nights like this. I love to watch my barefoot kids run in the grass until the sun sinks low in the sky. I savor and tuck deep into my heart the memories of kissing their sweaty heads and sending them off to play in the field while the robust sounds of Bluegrass and Jazz hang heavily in the warm Summer air.

“Live in the sunshine…Drink in the wild air.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We made edible slime. Because our house wasn’t messy enough already.

2017/07/12 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

It seemed like a good idea. Mostly because I was feeling insecure about not being a “cool” mom anymore. I think I used to be more fun. Actually, I’m 100% certain I used to be more fun. So, we went off on a quest for fun. Don’t worry. I was smart about it. I picked a day when we’d been busy running errands and I was exhausted. I made sure Thomas would be working late. These things are guaranteed to make a mom more fun, right? Right.

For the record, I think you should be immediately suspicious of any activity where step one is “Melt 3 cups of gummy bears.” I’ve met melted gummy bears. Those things end up all over EVERYTHING. I was unwilling to throw in the towel though. So onward we went.

Here’s how to make edible slime:

Give up on any hope of your home ever being clean again. Your kitchen is probably already a mess because you did just cook dinner. Embrace that. Soon you will have melted gummy bears literally on every surface of your kitchen.
Send 3 cups of innocent gummy bears to their molten lava doom. They don’t deserve this. But, heck, neither do you. You guys are all in this together.
Melt them and melt them and melt them until they look like one big rainbow flavored soup.
Give every kid their own bowl and spoons. You really want to maximize the amount of dishes you need to do afterward.
Disperse the gummy bear goop into their bowls. It will likely get into their hair at this point. Keep going.
Have them add equal parts cornstarch (non-GMO of course!) and powdered sugar.
Feel really really stupid for forking over the extra 39 cents for non-GMO cornstarch when you realize the remaining ingredients are basically sugar and food coloring.
Stir.
Pick a band-aid out of the slime & keep stirring.
Let them use their hands. Also their faces. Heck, even the toddler might put her toes in hers. I’m not judging.
Sample your delicious sticky sugar. Wrap it up in plastic wrap to save for tomorrow but remember that the sugar ants will likely eat it all up for the sun rises.
Crash on the couch. Decide that being a cool mom might be overrated.

Edible slime, my friends. That’s all there is to it!

My top 5 homeschool hacks.

2016/09/13 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

I’m not a great homeschooler. Really. When I imagined homeschooling I pictured my family sitting on blankets in a field on a prairie reading Anne of Green Gables and eating homemade bread and jam while we absorbed the beauty of the knowledge in the stack of books we had brought with us.

Okay, so I am a bit of a romantic. Also, possibly delusional. Whatever.

The truth is in this particular stage of life homeschooling looks a lot more like us scrambling to find sharpened pencils and desperately trying to get as much school done as we can while a very very very busy toddler takes a nap. It’s not generally pretty. But we get it done. Mostly thanks to a few things that work for us. They aren’t necessarily revolutionary but they work for us.

Online free curriculum – We use a lot of online tools in our homeschool. Kahn Academy is a fantastic resource for math of all grade levels and we love using it. Starfall has been a staple for the little kids for as long as we’ve been homeschooling and it helps to entertain them and make them feel a part of school when they are too little to do much on their own. Homeschool curriculum is not cheap and any freebies we can find help take the financial burden off of the process. Sites like Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool are also an excellent source of 100% free homeschool curriculum. This particular site breaks everything down in days using free links to web content that allows the student to be self-directed. We love it as a supplement to the other things we do but many families use it for their entire school curriculum.
Single focus days – We’ve done this during different seasons of homeschooling and it is still one of my favorite ways to homeschool. Basically we just assign a subject to each day and focus solely on activities that surround that. For example, Monday = Bible, Tuesday = Science, Wednesday = Literature, Thursday = History, Friday = catch up on all the things that didn’t get completed on previous days. When we were doing this we would do math each day just to try and keep things consistently moving in that subject since it is our least favorite/weakest subject. The beauty of this method is that it is kind of like unit studies in that each subject really covers composition, spelling, reading, critical thinking, handwriting, etc. The kids think they are doing less work (always a win in this house!) but really they are doing the same amount of practice in all of these areas it just feels less noticeable since each day they are working on new subject matter.
Ted Ed videos – Do you ever have one of those homeschooling days where everything goes wrong and you need to clean oatmeal out of the carpet and somehow throw food in the slow cooker before you get everyone to ballet/boy scouts/whatever activity you foolishly agreed to participate in and then on top of that you have the pressure of oh, you know, EDUCATING your child? Me either. But if I did have multiple days a month like that then I would surely use Ted Ed to help fill in the gaps when I need to fill those sweet little brains with info and run a household. All kidding aside, Ted Ed is a great way to learn things that don’t fit into traditional homeschool curriculums. They’ve learned about how the band-aid was invented, the paradox of value, and whether spotty fruits and vegetables are safe to eat. I know, I know, not exactly Common Core aligned stuff here but what I love is that it fuels a love of learning. Each lesson includes a video, a quiz, an opportunity to dig deeper into the subject, and a format in which to discuss it. The world is a big place and by learning about some of the more random parts of it my kids have discovered a love of knowledge that I think can sometimes be tricky to impart when you’re hammering them with tests and quizzes.
Outsourcing – We utilize a homeschool hybrid once a week as well as a once-a-month co-op class in teaching the kids. Maybe you think it’s a cheater’s way to homeschool. Maybe it is. The thing is I find outsourcing a great way to help the kids learn from others without giving up my ability to help meet their individual educational needs. Once a week the kids spend 3.5 hours at an arts-based hybrid learning things that I would never have thought to incorporate into our schooling. Kai is working with other students on a student film. Ivy is learning Calligraphy. Each of them is working in a group with friends and enjoying being a part of a classroom experience one day a week. Then once a month the homeschool group we are a part of holds an enrichment day that allows the kids to learn about different subjects each month. One month the kids participated in a Shakespearean drama and had a feast to go along with it. They’ve built volcanoes and met geologists and enjoyed learning about cultures from people who are experts in a way I will never be. Each time they come home filled with information and enthusiasm about a subject they hadn’t previously interacted with and it fuels their desire to pursue knowledge about it for the rest of the month.
Year-round School – We officially start school every September but the truth is we try our very best to “school” the kids year round. The first year we did school we stopped at the end of summer and when we got back to school-time in the Fall getting the kids motivated to learn again was a nightmare. They enjoyed the summer and didn’t feel like diving back into school. The more I thought about it the more it bugged me that we were basically telling them they got to spend 3 months not learning and that they could stop pursuing the study of the world that we were trying to tell them was so important for the other 9 months of the year. The second year we tried not breaking for summer. We changed the pace of our lessons and did lots of unit studies with the kids. We explored different subjects and cultures and found ways to take unexpected field trips and just kept the learning going. Then by the time Fall rolled around we just jumped right back into “regular” school and no one complained. And we felt like we were reinforcing the idea that learning is a forever thing. Not something to take a break from. It’s been a win-win scenario for us.

So, there you have it. Five homeschooling hacks that are working for us! I would love to hear what works for you and yours when it comes to educating the kids whether it is homeschool, traditional school, unschooling or some combo of different styles. There is so much to be learned and shared with others on this journey and I love storing away great ideas for when we need to change things up!

Tutorial: How to make DIY all-natural cleaner. With a 7-year-old helper.

2016/09/02 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

**This post contains affiliate links that provide me with ice cream money to bribe my kids. Thank you in advance for their good behavior.**

Traveler created a super cool cell phone tripod for me to record videos on and we decided to test it out on a FB live post. So, I thought I would post it here to share! Traveler was quite proud of himself.

For those who want to make a recipe like this, here’s what you need:

1.5 C Water

1/3 C White Vinegar

15-20 drops essential oil (we used Young Living Purification.)

Mix together in glass spray bottle. And enjoy!

Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist.

2016/08/24 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

There are probably worse things to wake up to than a cat peeing right beside your face, but right now I can’t think of too many. When your day starts out like that it’s a sure sign that it is going to be a doozy.

And, yesterday did not fail to live up to that standard. In fact, considering the fact that my day ended with a snarky nastygram from an anonymous neighbor demanding that I “mow the grass and edge the lawn!” I think I can safely say that the cat pee on my head might have been the least jarring part of the day.

It’s not like anything catastrophic really happened yesterday. It was mostly life stuff. But some days you seem have two weeks of life stuffed into 12 hours and it is exhausting. Some days it just feels like I will never catch up. Never add up. Never measure up.

Life is like that right now. Holding up all the expectations of all the people in all of the areas of my life has been a real job. But this past weekend, thanks to some amazing family friends, Thomas and I got a mini break from that job. We dropped our kids off Friday evening and picked them up Sunday afternoon and took off to be tourists in our own city. It was a much welcome break from our responsibilities.

It’s funny what happens when you have a break from the constant chaos of kids. We got to talk and sleep and eat meals without having anyone climb on us or spill anything and it was pretty wonderful. It’s amazing, though, how much you get to think when you are without kids for a few days. I thought a lot about what our future holds as a family. What my future holds outside of my kids.

Most days it is impossible to believe that this stage of my life isn’t forever. I can’t imagine a house that isn’t a constant mess. I can’t picture not having to clean up a broken dish or toy or collectible once a day. I can’t imagine having a moment without the din of kids running, playing, arguing, laughing, crying. It seems a hundred years away.

One of the things that has come out in my therapy lately is just how much I fear being perceived as a bad mom. It triggers more anxiety and panic than nearly any other thing in my life. The thing is that particular trigger is lurking behind nearly every moment of my day.

Running late to pick up one of the kids from an appointment? Neglectful mom.

Lose all of your daughter’s ballet paperwork? Disorganized mom.

Fall asleep nursing the toddler and didn’t finish folding laundry? Lazy mom.

It doesn’t help that I have the image of the Proverbs 31 woman in my head all the time. She is the ever present measuring stick for every Christian mom out there. She looms over us like some holy mother we will never live up to. She’s the inspiration for countless mothering books, magazines, and websites. Seriously, who is this lady? Could she have set a more impossible standard?

^[a]A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
¹¹Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.

You guys, my husband had to wear swim trunks under his suit the other day because his wife of noble character forgot to put his underwear in the dryer. That’s not going to earn me any praise at the city gates.

¹⁴She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.

Does the Zaxby’s by the Publix count as bringing food from afar? Because if so, then I’m winning at that part at least.

¹⁵She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.

Last week my kids all shared two leftover brownies for breakfast because I had been up all night with a sick baby and they were too lazy to make cereal for themselves while I slept. So I guess I can’t check that whole “gets up and provides food thing” off the list either.

¹⁶She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
¹⁷She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
¹⁸She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.

So, I’m not sure that my trading is all that profitable but the good news is if my lamp not going out at night means my power bill is always paid then I can check yes on that. Though there was that time I forgot to pay the water bill and my kids woke me up at 6:30 in the morning to ask why water in the sink was broken…

²⁵She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

Most days I am clothed in a thrifted black dress covered in sticky toddler handprints and I think we can all agree that whole dignity ship set sail about 3 kids ago.

²⁶She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
²⁷She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
²⁸Her children arise and call her blessed; (Proverbs 31: 10-31, NIV)

My tween calls me lots of things lately. Blessed doesn’t happen to be one of them. Though she did gently caress my cheek the other day and say, “I never realized how wrinkly you are, mom.” so that’s something I guess.

The more I think about her the more I wonder if even she would recognize the woman in these verses? Would she have been flattered to read this tribute to her abilities? Or exhausted at the thought of keeping up such an reputation? Since, as far as I know, there is only one perfect person described in the Bible she must have had at least a few flaws. Did she wake up grumpy in the mornings? Did she have to nag her kids to help her? Did she ever forget where she put something for 2 months and only find it after she had gone out and bought a replacement? Did her three-year-old ever repeat a swear word in perfect context after hearing it yelled loudly in traffic? (okay, I’m probably pushing it there. I’ve never known anyone who has had that happen. Certainly not me. And certainly not with every. single. one. of my kids.)

I guess my point is that even the woman who is the gold standard for Christian femininity had to be imperfect at some point. She had to question how well she was doing her job. She had to have moments where she wasn’t the best version of herself. And, yet, the parts that are memorialized are the best parts. The days when she did her very best. The days when her family was proud.

My prayer lately has been that God will meet me where I am lacking. That He will give me His love for my kids. That He will fill the gaps that I leave with His perfect love so that they will never question their worth and their value. I am a recovering perfectionist. I want things to be perfect. And they so rarely are. But I am seeing that perfection isn’t what I am called to. I am called to love. I am called to give compassion. And I am called to trust in God to fill the needs of my children. Some days that is harder than others but thankfully His mercies are new every morning.

The Lord loves us very much.
    So we haven’t been completely destroyed.
    His loving concern never fails.
²³His great love is new every morning.
    Lord, how faithful you are!
²⁴I say to myself, “The Lord is everything I will ever need.
    So I will put my hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:22-24 NIRV**)

I’m counting on the freedom of that promise. And I am thankful for the days to come.

**The last translation I just used was from the NIRV which is the kids’ version of the NIV. If you haven’t ever read that translation I would encourage you to check it out sometime. I’m no Bible scholar so I don’t know how it stacks up against the others but I do know it is written in simple English for kids and new English speakers and sometimes the beauty of the simple wording is exactly what I need to hear. It is often one of my favorite ways to read a verse that I am using to speak to my fears or inadequacies.

Songs of Innocence

2016/07/28 / LandofLovings / 2 Comments

When voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still

Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh’d
And all the hills echoed

-William Blake, “Nurse’s Song (Innocence)”

The Ordinary Life.

2016/07/23 / LandofLovings / Comments Off

I always have big plans for summer. Somewhere around March or April I start dreaming of what our days will be like. Long lazy trips to the pool with PB&J picnics on towels in the sun. Book after book after book marked off our summer reading list. Day trips and field trips and endless adventures. Maybe a weekend or two sneaking away to some seaside location.

The truth of summer always disappoints me a little. It’s not that we don’t enjoy it. It’s just that it never quite lives up to my hype and I spend most of August feeling guilty for not providing a more magical Pinterest-worthy, Instagram beautiful summer.

I’ve become so much more aware of how quickly time is moving. Kai is 12 and there are fewer summers home with us ahead of her than there are behind her and I feel an urgency to make them all count. Life moves so quickly and I find it so hard to cherish the moment I am in and seem to spend so much time wishing I had savoring the moments that have passed.

I’m working on being mindful of my present moment. I’m working to put my phone down, stop worrying so much about things being perfect, and start appreciating those seemingly mundane experiences together as a family. Because those are the memories my kids seem to love the most.

We moved a few years ago from the house we had spent most of the kids’ lives in. It was a cute quaint retro ranch when we bought it and it turned into a bit of a money pit that, in the last couple years we lived there, had no heat and no air and a basement full of mold. It took our kids nearly a year to stop crying about not living there at least once a week. And to this day they all have the fondest memories of that place. When I remind them that the house didn’t have heat they say, “But it was so fun to cuddle by the fire together.” When I remind them that it didn’t have air conditioning they say, “But that meant we got to eat popsicles on the couch all summer.” They don’t remember a single bad thing about that house. It occurred to me this summer that if they could cherish those memories of a too small house with so many discomforts that they will probably remember the mediocre summers we have with great fondness as well. It doesn’t take a whole lot to make a wonderful memory. It takes time spent together, a willingness to be present in the moment, and a whole lot of love.

When my kids look back on Summer 2016 they won’t have fantastic and exotic adventures to relive. But they will remember:

*Nights spent catching fireflies and listening to live music under the stars at Matilda’s.

*Eating blackberries and blueberries straight from the bushes until our stomachs were full and our faces were stained with juice.

*Days spent snuggled on the couch under quilts watching our favorite Netflix shows together.

*A Fourth of July weekend spent in the country with their grandparents splashing in a cheapo plastic kiddie pool.

*A weekend visit with a special Hawaiian cousin and a night spent camping out on the living room floor with her.

*Days spent playing throughout the neighborhood with their best friends.

*Countless kisses on sweaty heads and skinned knees.

It doesn’t really matter if these moments were glamorous. Because they will likely grow up to view these things through their own magical sepia toned filter. As adults, its the ordinary childhood moments that always feel more fantastic in hindsight. I know that is certainly true for me. As a kid I did get the chance to travel a lot and spent a lot of my childhood adventuring across most of the country on road trips. We took fun trips and made great memories. But one summer memory always stands out in my mind. My sister and I spent our days playing all over our family’s 8+ acres of land most days and getting into as much outdoor trouble as we could. One particular day we found what had to be the biggest mud pit we had ever seen in our lives. We spent what felt like hours playing in the mud. We jumped in it and rolled in it and threw it at each other. I know for a fact that neither of us even once worried what our parents would say. We finally showed up on the doorstep for dinner fully clothed and covered from head to toe in the worst smelling mud you can imagine. I will never forget my mom’s face when she saw us and realized we had been playing in the septic tank drain field all day. Turns out our greatest adventure was actually a big field of sewage. Seriously.

And that, my friends, is one of my favorite childhood memories. Swimming in a pool of crap for an afternoon. And I guess I only share that to remind myself (and all of us parents) that if I can grow up and cherish a memory of playing in the grey water of a septic drain field then surely my kids will be able to grow up and cherish these less than picture perfect summers.

So, I’ve decided to cut myself some slack on my stress over memory making. Because ordinary and special don’t have to be opposites. We make memories every day. And some of them will be extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime adventures. And some of them will be moments spent discovering a new favorite movie on Netflix. And all of them will be special.

Even the ones spent covered in crap.

This post has been shared at Thank Goodness It’s Monday at Nourishing Joy.

Talking about talking. Or, more specifically, talking about not talking.

2016/06/30 / LandofLovings / 1 Comment

When we got the diagnosis that Viola was a Little Person I remember feeling really hopeful for her future. I knew things wouldn’t be easy for her but this girl’s spirit is something to be admired. When we got the diagnosis of mild/moderate hearing loss I was worried but optimistic. We would be able to get her a hearing aid if she needed one (she didn’t) or tubes to help improve her hearing (she did). Then a few weeks ago our speech therapist suggested an additional diagnosis.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

And I still feel hopeful and optimistic and all of those things. But I feel a little weary for her. Because I just feel like maybe she deserves a smaller mountain to climb.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech.

How this looks in our daily life is that she struggles to say any words on command. And she struggles to imitate sounds. She wants to. She looks at me and tries and tries and tries to tell me something but it comes out completely different than any word she’s trying to say.

For example, yesterday we were doing our speech homework. The goal was to get her to say the long A sound. “Aaaaa” I said. She set her eyes on my mouth to study it and forced out “Mmmm.”

At 26 months she isn’t saying much more than 5-6 words. Most all of those words are exclamations. Words she says spontaneously. Nothing much on command. “Uh-Oh!” “Oh Dear!” and now that we have kittens to chase around, “Meeeooow.” But not much else consistently. She knows lots of signs. She follows directions. And she can communicate non-verbally in a really effective matter.

We’ve seen lots of experts and therapists. And a Naturopathic doctor or two as well. And we are working to make progress. We’re doing some really intensive speech therapy right now. And taking probiotics and vitamin B-12 and cod liver oil supplements. And using essential oils. And pretty much any other thing I can think of to help her.

Maybe the thing I’m learning most in all of this is that Viola’s journey is just that – her journey. I can try and help her. I can be there for her but the truth is she is going to be climbing this mountain and there isn’t much I can do to fix things for her. That is true for all of my kids. It just took Viola to make me see it.

Lately I worry a lot about everyone. The more struggle I see my kids having the more I realize how limited my ability is to make life easier for them. I’ve been praying for wisdom and for patience and for healing. And I think I’m getting it. Just not always in the way I want to.

I want God to give me the wisdom to know how to “fix” Viola’s challenges. He’s giving me the wisdom to see that He created her (and all my kids) for a special purpose. And they don’t need to be fixed.

I want God to give me the patience to help her through this. He’s giving me the patience to wait on Him and to recognize that life may look differently for her than I had planned but that it is okay.

I want God to heal her of her motor speech disorder. He’s healing my mama’s heart of the fear I have for my children’s future.

This world is a scary place. Whether you’re average height or small. Whether you speak or whether you communicate by other means. And I’m being reminded daily that I am not the one driving this train. I have to trust more than I think I am able to sometimes. But trust feels like a rubber band. Just when I feel like I am going to break from the waiting and the trusting my rubber band stretches and I find myself capable of trusting more. God is here for me as much now as He ever has been. I’m just learning to rely on Him more. I’m seeing His provision more. I’m thanking Him more for the little things.

One of the things we talked about in my therapy recently was the idea of emotions being bad. If you had asked me 6 months ago which emotions were “bad” emotions I would say: sadness, worry, anger, fear, envy…and a whole host of other not so fun feelings. What I am learning is that these feelings are uncomfortable. And I mean, really, really uncomfortable. But so is growing. And that doesn’t mean its a bad thing.

It sounds pretty basic. After discussing this with my kids it seems like they already knew feelings weren’t bad. So I guess I’m a little late to the party. When I realized it was okay to feel sad or disappointed or angry at things it freed me up to see what these feelings were teaching me. I’m focusing on riding the waves of these emotions without letting them drown me. It’s been healing to have this change of perspective.

Tomorrow I am going to get up and get ready to surf the waves of emotions that come from being a mom to five kids (one with needs that are a little different from the rest). I’m going to exercise patience and trust. And I’m going to love and love and love and love.

Because, in the end, love is everything I have to give to my kids. And I’m trusting in that to be enough.

Land of Lovings