Summer VacationLong summer days, running through the grass barefoot. Playing in the sandbox. Sea, sun, reading books.These first days of our belgian summer vacation aren’t all that summery and idylic, like the slow-motion images of my childhood that play in my mind, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be as much fun.We can read inside, on the couch, just as well. We are big fans of this book:
We have a sponsor child as well, and I think Abel finally gets what it means. This book is about a boy named Abel, and our Abel loves that. Abel lives in Kenia, where our sponsor child Leperan happens to live as well. The drawings are unbelievably pretty, and I’m thinking about getting another book to take some drawings out and frame them.
I would like to involve the boys more in writing to Leperan, but until now they didn’t understand what it was about. I think they might be ready for it now.
It’s my own fault, really. I originally sponsored a little girl, but her family left the Compassion project and because of some slowness of the letter getting to me, they automatically assigned me a boy. And […]
?People are always saying that marriage is about compromise. It was one of the things I figured I would be good at because I knew the theory by heart. Like the way I thought mothering would come naturally. As it usually goes in life, I knew less than I thought I did. I’d like to make a list and a plan and read a book and then know it all and do it all perfectly. Regrettably, it’s not that easy. ?It’s not a big and noble action.
It’s in the little things, and those make up the big things.
And so the thing is that at home, my daddy always did our finances.
Mike’s Mommy always did their finances.
This created some interesting expectations and conversations in the beginning of our marriage.
At first I flat-out refused. Then I repented because the guilt kept me awake and I enjoy my sleep, thank-you-very-much, so I grudgingly and grumpily opened the evil, horned, fire-breathing thing otherwise known as Excel.
I did okay for a few months and I learned how to pay bills and neatly put all the numbers in the boring, white little squares.
Then I got a baby and […]
He ran up to me excitedly, holding out his gift. A little clover.
I put it with the pile of other gifts. A dandelion without a stem, a buttercup, a leaf and handfull of grass. I did a double-take. “Is that a 4-leaved clover?”
It wasn’t. It only had 3 leaves so in the pile it went.
And after a minute, out it came. I pressed it carefully between the pages of our marriage Bible and then I framed it.
It’s standing on the dresser, small and oridinary and pretty, the face?of all my 3-leaved clover moments.?Because they are quite wonderful, really.
Someday I’ll find a 4-leaved clover to go beside it, for all the special moments in life. The day Mike asked me to be his girlfriend, and the day he asked me to be his wife. The day we said I do. Those painful but?terribly wonderful days on which my 3 little boys were born.
I don’t forget those days very often, though. I don’t need all that many reminders, although I did forget our wedding anniversary last year.
It’s the 3-leaved clover moments that are the forgotten ones.?The moments out of which the bulk of […]
There’s a piece of brown, broad moving tape on our laundry basket upstairs.
I put it on a year and five months ago to keep the lid and the basket together when we moved here. I don’t notice it very often. When I do, I figure I might as well leave it on until we move again.
Were not staying here anyway.?It might be time to take it of now.?It can become a habit to move on.
We’re not staying here anyway.
I don’t want to invest myself here anymore. It’s too risky?and it will?make it hurt more to leave. I might even leave a part of me behind.
I detach, dream of and plan for the future instead of being present in the now.
I’ve lived in 14 houses now. The longest we stayed in a house was 4 years and the shortest was 5 months.
There’s always the initial giving it my all, wanting to put down roots, attempting to push and stomp them into the ground.
Going all out to make friends. Excitement about the new. Towards the end when I can feel the move looming up just beyond the horizon, there’s the pull-back. Slow at […]
27 years ago I was born. I don’t know when I stopped lying awake for hours, butterflies in my stomach because tomorrow was my birthday.
Although I still like parties and gifts and celebrations, it is not the momenteous occasion it once was. Worthy of hours of unlost sleep. Not a lot of things are worth that. The Memoir of Life series, to be sure. Calls with friends overseas, sometimes. Talks with sisters and friends. Babies, although I don’t always think so the moment they wake me up, they are always worth it anyway. But it stops there. I mean, not even chocolate makes the cut anymore.
However that may be, a few days ago I turned 27.
It was the most anticlimactic birthday of my life, and also a really good day – in a very quiet way.
I got up a little later then usual, just in time to sort of get dressed and help juggle the boys off to school fed and decently clothed. I am not brave enough to let them pick their own clothes yet. Especially on rainy days. They would go in sleeveless shirts and shorts if I let them, the sunloving little urchins.
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A few days ago an interview about being a stay-at-home-mom came on the dutch website Het Moederfront. Because Celeste asked, here is the english translation with many thanks to my friend Meredith who did a terrific job at translating. Thanks!
Naomi (26) studied nursing. After a quick and difficult pregnancy, she remained home fulltime with her child. Naomi is married to Mike and they have three children together.
Was it an easy or difficult decision to become a fulltime mom?? I never considered the combination of working and motherhood, so it was definitely an easy decision.
I used to be a Mennonite. This might have played a role in my choice to be a stay at home mom. Every mother stays at home with the children in the Amish Mennonite community where I grew up.
On the other side, I probably would have done it anyway. Even before we became Mennonite my mom stayed home with us. And ultimately, she?s been my inspiration for doing the same.:)
Would you mind briefly sharing something about being a Mennonite?? A few months before I was born my parents became Evangelical?Christians. When I was 7 we visited the Amish Mennonites, who […]
Every year about halfway through April until the beginning of May if we’re lucky, there’s a forest in Belgium, Hallerbos, that becomes a fairytale place.
Quietly and unassuming, thousands, millions of little flowers open up themselves, standing shoulder to shoulder, to cover the forest floor in a carpet of purple glory. If you can, go for a walk this weekend.
These days are the very last days the flowers are blooming like this. Because the pictures are pretty, but if you go for a walk there? You smell a million flowery dreams. You see just how far and wide the flower go.
You see just how beautiful it can be if every little flower just stands where God put it, and gives it’s color and it’s delicious smell. Just one is pretty. But all of these together? Too beautiful for words.
A day in the sunshine. Purple magic everywhere. If there were fairies, they would be right here.
But we don’t need fairies. We’ve got a million purple flowers and a creamy smell.
We’ve got little boys writing letters in the dirt.
We’ve got tree branches to walk on and trees to hug. Blue butterflies to chase.
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