A Blank Page

| Mommakisses

This little blinking line mocks me tonight.

How does one start back in the blog mode? A two year hiatus is a very long time to go without writing. Well, without blogging. I’ve been writing. A bunch, actually. All on one topic. And it’s all fiction. Yes, I have taken the plunge into the world of novelist. You wanna talk about your rabbit holes???

When I was asked oh, so many moons ago, what I saw myself doing, my little high school self thought I love sports, so writing for a sports magazine would be oh, so cool. Yeah… not so much. Things change. Life changes. The world changes. While I still enjoy sports, I found another love, and I wrote for a Christian Music magazine for a while. And then I got married and had a baby, or two… or six!

And now I find myself nearing the end of all things baby/toddler/fully dependent child. My life has been drinking from the fire hose of morning sickness, nursing babies, nurturing kids, dirty diapers, snotty noses, scraped knees and sleepy snuggles. Our youngest is nearly five and there is not another on the way. It’s been 16 years.

And the blinking line of my life is flashing before my eyes. What now? I see a blank page coming. Not that child raising is done, but that full demand of other people on me is quickly fading. And while I have lots to do still, I find I have more room to move and breathe and think about… me.

Weird.

As both the love of sports and music have been pushed to the background, I have discovered a topic I feel a strong pull towards. Not that I know anyone involved, or have experienced personally. Maybe it’s the Momma deep in my heart. I don’t know. All I know is I hurt for these people. The women and children pulled into the sex trade. It hurts me to know these babies should be nurtured but are being abused in ways no one should endure.

So I write.

No, I don’t know what will come of it. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Maybe something big. Something that will bring awareness and hope to people in deep despair and desperate need of a brighter light.

Blink little line. I will not be mocked by you.

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A love for soccer

| Mommakisses

So I’ve been kicking around some thoughts, and have decided I need to actually throw them out there. See, I’ve been reading how Americans don’t like soccer, and how they never will. Even to the point of they shouldn’t, as this is the downfall of America… And all I can think is, “Ugh.”

I have played this game since I was in the 3rd grade (and that was a long time ago…). I played through high school, and into college. My love for this game is deep. I will be honest to say I’m not a huge fan of watching… it makes me want to play! I want to be out on the grass. I want to feel the ball in my hands (I have played keep since 9th grade) or at my feet. I want on the field! Not because I think I’m all that and a bag of chips, but because I love this game.

In high school, I was not a fan of football. AT. ALL. Then I started dating a guy who actually played football, and my world opened up. I began to learn what it meant to play football. I began to understand the calls. The drive. The skill. The effort. I began to appreciate what it takes to play football. And I began to enjoy it. I don’t play football, but I have a love for the game today I would not have had. (Thank you M.D. for taking the time to teach me.)

Golf has always been boring to me. Until the last couple years, when my husband has been learning the game. I’m now starting to appreciate all it takes to put that little ball into that hole. I am enjoying his love of the game, and learning to enjoy watching how the stance matters. How little tweaks effect where the ball goes. And I am enjoying taking a swing or two…

My point? You have to understand something to appreciate it. To learn to like it, you need to know what’s going on. To understand the skill that goes into weaving a ball through other bodies, from one goal to the other. To see the chess like beauty of give and take as teammates work together to get the ball to finally fall into the net. This is not brute force. You can’t run people over. You can’t hit them. This is a game of finesse. Of quick touches, curving balls and well timed placement. Of keepers conducting a symphony being played in grassy, sweaty notes.

You think it’s easy? You think it’s boring? I would challenge you to play a season. Or at least talk to someone who does. Begin to understand what it means to be off sides. Or how hard it is to actually hit the ball with your head. Will you love it? Maybe. Maybe not. But I bet that you would appreciate the beauty of it more than you do now.

And you might even enjoy it!

I Love Bethie?

| Mommakisses

I started this life (well, the part of it I can remember, anyway) the athletic type: strong, confident, probably even cocky. Somewhere along the way to having 6 kids, I turned into Lucy Ricardo! I find myself in situations where I just shake my head and wonder “how did I end up here?”

How did I end up with banana, avocado, and marker on my walls? How did I end up with fingernail polish on my bedroom floor? How did I end up changing diapers for 15 years? How did I end up running to three different schools while trying to keep a baby on a schedule? How did I end up with 6 people calling me Momma (or Mommy-o, as seems to be the current favorite)?

I have written about some of these moments, like the cat tree, the Gatorade, the baby powder… sometimes my life feels like one big mess. And not usually one I actually create… though I do that pretty well, too. In my head I, all too often, see Lucy stuffing chocolates in her mouth and think, yep… I’m fighting a losing game, too!

I am sure some of this is to smooth away that cocky side of me that thought I could do it all. Some of it is just to keep me humble. Some of it is just to make sure I can laugh at myself, something I did not do well when I was younger. Mostly, I think it’s so I can truly appreciate these words from a 9 yr old boy, “Mommy-o, I love you!”

What Are We Doing?

| Mommakisses

It’s 2012. We have made huge progress in so many areas. A computer in nearly every home. For that matter, a computer in nearly every pocket (oh, and by the way, it also doubles as a phone!). TVs bigger than most people’s windows…

And yet, on other things we seem to be stuck or even going backward! Sadly, these seem to be on things that are really important. I mean, who cares how big your TV is when someone’s life hangs in the balance?

I just read about a sweet little girl who is fighting such a fight. Who is being told she just has to wait to die because her skin is black. Does that make you angry? It should if it were true. But if it were true, you would hear about it everywhere you turn, the radio, the computer in your pocket, that bigger than your window TV…

No, the reason she must wait to die is not the color of her skin. It is something just as uncontrollable for her. It is her brain development. Her mental capacity. Her “quality of life.” Does that make you less angry? It shouldn’t.

It’s 2012. How have we not learned that kids, even if they have “issues,” believe what they are told? In the eyes of the woman carrying the baby, that’s what the unborn child is, a baby. In the eyes of the dr. it’s just a bunch of tissue. In the eyes of this dr, this little girl is just not worthy of his time. In the eyes of her parents and those who know and love her, she’s their princess, worth everything they have. Who do you think she believes?

I have a nephew. In the eyes of his first-grade classmates, he’s handicapped. In the eyes of his parents and those of us who love him, he is a smart-as-a-whip satirist who makes us laugh. All the time. And he knows it. And he’s probably the key to curing the disease that will kill you if you don’t let him grow up to fix it.

What will this little girl grow up to be? Maybe a great scientist or maybe just a simple ray of sunshine in someone’s life. We may never know if this dr has his way. Welcome back to the stone age.

You can read about her here. Now, go kiss your kids, and tell them what they need to hear. They will believe you.

Hey, hey, hey…

| Mommakisses

I’ve previously written about what nicknames mean to my family. (If you missed it, click here to catch up!) Yep, I have my Boo Bear, my Booga Boo, my Baby Cakes, my Sugar Bear and my A’gator! They all have some flavor and meaning to my little Momma heart.

Imagine my concern when the only thing I could get A to call her baby brother was… Baby! I was so concern… well… if I’m honest, I was flat out terrified!

At first it was so sweet… see my kids are talkers. Which is good! Except, maybe, at 6:30am – I’m no morning person! Do know what happens in a house with 4 older siblings who are talkers? Yep, they do all the talking for her! So when my baby girl walked into the hospital room, climbed up on my bed, and laid eyes on the little cuddly bundle next to me, she threw her arms open, fingers grasping in a “give me give me” fashion, and SAID, “Baby! Baby! Baby!” my heart melted! When, two weeks later, she was still walked into any room he was in and she would say, “Mwha, mwha. Baby. Baby!” because she wanted to kiss him, I loved it! But when 2.5 months later, if I said, “Say Hi N!” she would say, “Hi Baby!” I began to think he would be “Baby” the rest of his life!

Then my hubby, N and I made a trip to Phoenix for a conference. On the flight out there, I looked down at that sweet baby and thought, “You sweet Boo Boo!” And there it was… the nickname I thought wouldn’t come… Oh, yea of little faith!

I tried it out over the weekend. He would smile so sweetly at me… I told the older kids when we arrived home… and they all seemed to think it was pretty cool… Then I looked at my sweet almost 2 yr old, “Hey, A, say hi Boo Boo!” and she smiled, waived whole heartedly right in his face and said, “Hi Boo Boo!”

Yogi would be so proud. I know I was.

Welcome Home
Welcome home Boo Boo!

Confessions of a Junkie

| Mommakisses

It’s true. I can not deny it. It started when I was but a child. I am a junkie. And it shows when you shuffle my iPod. Duran Duran. Third Day. Journey. Francesca Battistelli. Elvis Presley. Gary Chapman. Hall & Oates. Cece Winans. Rosemary Clooney. Rich Mullins. Whitesnake. Tenth Avenue North. I could go on. I love the beat of a fun drum. The pulse of a driving guitar. The tickling of the ivories, even if they are electric.

Once, I would have told you it didn’t matter what I listened to. And when I was younger, that may have been true. However, two things happened. Maybe three. 1) For the most part, I don’t like country. Yes, I grew up in Wyoming. Yes, I live in Nashville. Go figure. 2) I became a Christian. 3) I got married.

The first two are pretty self-evident. You will find very little country on my iPod. Or in my CDs. Or in my cassettes. Or even in my LPs. (Yes, I still have LPs. For that matter, I still have a couple 8tracks, but that’s another blog.) There are the occasional hits or artists, but mostly, I’m a no country zone. Number 2 we will come back to.

Number 3 is where I learned much about me. My loving hubby also has a wide taste in music, only his taste is very different than mine. He will listen to anything that is hip, just to see what other people like about this or that. And that drives me a little bit crazy. He also will listen to instrumentals, which I can do for a little while, but I get bored. He also likes foreign music. Namely Japanese anime music. And this is where I realized something deep within the heart of me:

I am not a music junkie. I am a word junkie. I should have known this to be the case… I was the child that sat by the tape player and stopped and wrote down every word and then played again and wrote down more before the lyrics were included. Once that became the norm, I read EVERY WORD to EVERY SONG.

When I became a Christian, what was being said began to really matter to me. Not just lyrically, but what the overall message was. Was it hopeful? Was it glorifying man or Christ? Give me a good story with a draw to who Christ is, and I was hooked! Give me a song I can’t understand, and I’m OUT. And if it translates to talking about princesses and pudding… I’m gone.

I find myself now introducing music to my kids… yes, I still play the stuff I grew up with, but when there is no life in the words, I’m finding less and less life in the music. I find myself starting songs for them and then saying… ugh… next… I find I go back to the ones with really great lyrics more than the ones I once found to be a “fun” song.

I guess even a junkie can change.

No Rest for the Mommy

| Mommakisses

I’m awake. It’s 2:33 am, and I’m awake. I will be leaving the house in about 2 hours… I should be sleeping, but can’t. Seems to be the status quo right now. I keep telling myself I can sleep in the recovery room…

We will be off to bring baby N into this world in just a couple of hours. This little boy who seems to like to dance on my bladder will be taking his first breath of air in just a few hours. Have you ever thought about that? Pretty amazing.

Sweet S asked my friend tonight if N was already at the hospital, and Mommy and Daddy just needed to go pick him up… how nice would it be if it were that easy??? Alas, I have a bigger job ahead then just stopping in at the hospital to pick him up. Since there are two under her already, you would think she would know this. She IS the child who just kissed my belly before dinner tonight. The same one who hugs my belly because she wants to hug N.

G, however, keeps telling me that my bellybutton is a microphone so he can talk to N. Silly boy!

Yep, the kids are excited. Mommy and Daddy too… Happy Birthday and Welcome, Baby N! Now, if I could just get comfortable enough to sleep…

Hey Honey, guess what…

| Mommakisses

These and, I’m sure, other words have been used to tell my loving hubby about the expected bundle I currently carry. I’m mean, when you’ve done this 11 times, what else can you say. (Go ahead, rub your eyes, clean out your ears, whatever you need to do, YES, I said 11…)

No, not all 11 have gone all 40 weeks. No, I don’t have aspirations to be a rival to Michelle Duggar. But I still get looks from the nurses when we start doing ultra sounds, or when it comes time for the birth… and then I have to go into, we have 5 kids, 2 boys 3 girls and we have had 5 miscarriages, all around 6-7 weeks… and no, they don’t really seem to be less shocked then you, they just have better poker faces.

I find it funny that each pregnancy is as different as each child is. From cravings and feeling ill to the movement of each child, each has their own personality from the very beginning. Sometimes the differences comes down to the anatomy: for each boy, I have had major cravings for tomatoes,, had lots of morning sickness and dealt with Gestational Diabetes. These issues makes the girl’s pregnancies a breeze for me – the girls have given me WAY more drama after they were born than before.

How did we come to this point? Well… sometimes I ask myself the same question. And sometimes I’m not really sure of the answer. I wanted 4 kids. Two girls and two boys. And along that road, we lost 5. With three, and dealing with the last 3 miscarriages, T told me he could be done. Three. I knew that I knew that I knew, I was not done. It was big stress for us for a while. Then my sweet K came alone and I was GOOD! T, however, held that sweet little bundle, looked at me and said, “I think we need another.” Um, what??? Who are you and what did you do with my husband??? And in the middle of THAT conversation (which lasted two years) I became pregnant with A.

Then watching those 4 sweet kids welcome A (and hearing then 2 yr old K tell 9 yr old J, “Don’t touch MY baby!”) T began to question… at first to himself, then with friends and then with me, “Who are we to tell God no?” Come again? Six??? I signed up for 4, remember??? Again, in the middle of THAT discussion, T turned 40 while on a business trip. I made the trip to the city he was in to surprise him for his big day. And we came home with a surprise for us…

So we will welcome number 6, boy #3, into the family in July. And as of right now, I don’t know where the road leads. Right now, I’m just trying to get through the last month. Stay tuned for further updates!

Time Flies

| Mommakisses

How did I go from November 2010 to June 2011??? I can tell you, it went fast!

When I wrote my last post, I was in the middle of planning a surprise for my hubby’s 40th… he was at a conference in CA, and I enlisted family and friends to cover me and take care of our kids, and I flew to CA to be able to spend his birthday with him. Well, long story short, God had ANOTHER surprise in mind…

When we finally arrived home (a good 12 hours late after sleeping in the Denver airport), our then 5 yr old daughter told us she had a dream that night, a dream that I was pregnant. I laughed. So did God. About 4 weeks later, I found out, in fact, she was right. All I could think was, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” 40 and pregnant????

And to top it off, we knew the baby would be our third son very early. For whatever reason, boys are SO much harder on me then girls are. So, yep, first trimester was rough. It’s tough to keep things quiet when you feel yucky and you need to pretend otherwise. Adjustments keep us hopping.

We now are trying to figure out the best way to work an 18 month old into a big bed in the same room with a 6 yr old and 3.5 yr old (who doesn’t like to go to sleep!) and change the nursery from pretty in pink to bouncy blue. Our older boys are so excited to have another boy coming. Our girls are adjusting to the thought, (though my 3 yr old told a friend of mine she didn’t “want to be a big brother!” she is now getting excited to hold her little brother.

So, July 29, we will welcome another little one… and it’s coming fast!