I like to move it, move it....

     I went to Zumba today, and I loved it!  I loved how it was like dancing (I like to move it, move it) and working out at the same time.  I loved that I felt energetic and tired at the same time.  I loved that it was just for me.  However, I came home feeling really guilty about it.  I had a great time, burnt some calories, and relieved some work week stress.  However, I hated that I had to shuffle the kids' schedule around even more because of it, hated that it made Dean have to stay out later doing farm and yard work, and hated that it put me behind schedule with house work (not that I do too much each day).  I felt so good to be exercising, and for the first time in my life, I feel like my desire to exercise is for the right reason.  Why then, can't I enjoy it? 
     I have already admitted on here that my history with body image is pretty sketchy.  I have always just looked at exercise as a way to make me skinny/skinnier.  I never cared at all about the health benefits of it.  However, whether it be due to having kids or just getting older, I now look at it as a way to make me healthier.  Don't get me wrong though, I'm still hoping it will make me skinny (without having to give up cookies and such).
     I work full time and then come home to my kids.  I try to make sure I spend time with them AND do as much house work as possible so it isn't too backed up on the weekend.  However, I have let other things, like exercise, go.  I feel too guilty about spending that extra time away from my kids. (I mean, who needs to be healthy for those kids, right?)  I've been trying to figure out how to work in exercise without being away from my kids any longer by:
1.  only exercising when they are all asleep (at 9 or 10 pm or 5 am)=fail. 
2.  only exercising when I'm off work (one day a week doesn't do too much for me) = half-hearted fail
3. Taking them with me (complete waste of time, but I did burn a lot of calories just getting them
     all there and back).=major fail
4. Doing an exercise video at home. (Having an audience of 4, even if 2 are babies, just didn't work
     for me.) =self-conscious fail.

     In the end, I've decided (just today actually) that I'm going to seek God about it.  If my body is a temple, then it belongs to and should bring glory to God.  I have prepared my heart for exercise (given my past of unhealthy body image) as something meant to keep me healthy, not make me beautiful or skinny.  It doesn't do me any good to skip something like that for the sake of my children when I know that exercise will help me be healthier for more years and make me feel better in the mean time. 
     I can't promise that I will work out as regularly as  recommended or that I'll run some marathon (or at all for that matter), but I will be actively trying to make myself healthier through exercise.  Hopefully some of you other moms who tend to feel guilty about taking care of yourselves will do so also.  Good luck to us all!!

The Power of Importance

                On my way to work this morning, my local radio station played a short clip of Beth Moore (whom I love!).  I’m always excited when I leave early enough to hear the morning segment, and I always find it useful in my life.  This morning, her point was that we sometimes hold back in our prayer lives because we are afraid the response (or lack of response) to our prayers will make us feel insignificant to God.  At first I thought, “What a strange idea!  How could a fear of feeling insignificant affect our prayers to God?”  It makes sense though the more I think of it and on many levels in my own life…  

A ministry that I am extremely passionate about right now in my life is a prom dress drive I am doing at work.  I work with mostly 11^th graders, but we are a small school, so I know many more kids than just those I teach.  Our youngest guidance counselor recently started a clothes closet at our school, and I immediately became involved in helping her with it.  I don’t know how many times several of us have brought, bought, or found clothes for a kid in need, and I can’t imagine how much of our own baby items we have given away.  I don’t say this to praise the fact we do it, because it isn’t anything special, but I say it to show what a heart we have for meeting the needs of these kids.  It took me a while personally to get over the fact that sometimes students would take advantage of our love or be unappreciative of items we drove over an hour to find and spend our own money on.  I did, however, because eventually I understood why I wanted to do things for these kids.  It is because I want to show them God’s love, and I want to see their faces in that moment when they realize that there is someone who thinks they are important.  These students we help feel, some of them for the first time ever, that someone who is not a parent and who doesn’t want anything from them believes them to be of enough value that they would help them.  (I don’t know about you guys, but I’m about to have a hallelujah moment myself.)  Isn’t it amazing how our heavenly Father does that for us?  I sit here amazed at the fact that I am just realizing my major motivation for all of my ministries.  I love to see others realize that they are important to God.  One of our clothes donors, who I truly think God sent, brought in a formal looking dress.  It was nothing special really, just a floor length pink dress with no embellishments at all.  One girl who went in for clothes asked the counselor if she could take the dress to wear to prom.  A light bulb went off for the counselor who came to me with an idea.  Would it be possible to find free dresses for girls who can’t afford to buy one for prom?  I had a new mission, or should I say ministry.  I am a girly girl.  I have already admitted that I do NOT leave my house without at least minimum make up, and yes, both of my girls have painted toe nails at this very moment, even the one who can’t walk yet.  I love femininity, and I love dresses!!!  Therefore, I was more than a little enthusiastic about my new mission.

                How then, do we begin to gather dresses?  Step one: my closet.  I went to two proms, was in four pageants, and have been a bridesmaid several times.  I don’t ever even want to fit into a size 2 formal dress again, so I brought them all.  The rack still looked pretty naked.  I sent out an employee email.  It helped, but still, we needed more.  I then did something I rarely do outside of my family.  I asked for help.  I’m such a prideful person that I hate to even sell something.  I honestly don’t even like to take up jewelry or make up orders because I feel like I’m begging.  Somehow though, when it came to helping these girls, it didn’t matter.  I begged more than once.  I even begged specifically when I realized we needed dresses that were a larger size than those we had.  I drive to wherever necessary to pick these dresses up, and I try my best to say thank you as many times as the conversation will allow.  Why would something as trivial as prom dresses for high school girls be so important to me?  Have you ever seen a bride-to-be try on a wedding dress for the first time?  Have you looked at her face when the realization of the specialness of such a dress hits her?  That’s why.  When these girls go into our little closet and find a dress they think is beautiful and put it on, they feel important and special.  If we look that way to our Heavenly Father, then I know how much His heart must burst with love for us.  As humans, it is an essential need for us to feel important.  We crave it, we hunt it (often in the wrong places), and we yearn for it.  That, my friend, is why we look so hard for a mate in life.  We want someone who makes us constantly feel important.  That is why we love being mothers so much; there is little person to whom we are of the upmost importance.  It sounds selfish, but it is completely true.  We were made that way, I believe, so that we would search for God.

                How does this tie into my chaos, you may ask?  Easy.  I am constantly aware of trying to make each of my children feel important.  I need them to know that they are each a vital part of our family unit.  I love them all equally, but they are special in such different ways.  My twins are just learning to be jealous, which I believe is our first way of showing we need to feel important.  Sometimes it’s comical when I come home from work, because they both want me to hold them first thing, and quite honestly, they do not want me holding the other baby at the same time.  Tank, who is a mama’s boy, gets especially jealous.  He will fling his little body back and cry as I hold them both, but if someone takes Tinker Belle and I can devote both arms to him, he will settle down.  I can see in my past when all I have wanted was a two arm hold from God.  I see when I needed that tight hug, that security that only both arms can give.  I needed to be held completely, without having to hold back.  I needed to feel special, important.  Tinker Belle is a little different.  She will let Tank have his moment, and then she will come to me.  She knows that this will actually give her more time to be held.  At the same time, she is happier just playing around on the floor, but the moment I leave the room, she is devastated.  She can play on her own, but she needs the security of knowing I’m nearby in case she needs me.  Then, there is my sweet, sweet Princess.  Dean and I feel guilty so often over how her life has changed.  I don’t feel guilty over her having to share us, but I do feel guilty over the fact that she doesn’t understand that we prioritize our time by need.  Sometimes, she wants her needs to be met first, whether or not they are as important as the needs of the twins.  Honestly, there are times when I allow her needs to be met first, even if it means a wet diaper is left on for 2 extra minutes, because I want her to understand that she is important. 

                I don’t know really what I was hoping to accomplish with this post.  Mostly I think I just wanted to invite you into my mind, or maybe my spirit.  It is amazing to me how God connects all these little parts of my life when teaching me a lesson.  I mean, honestly, how else could my drive to work, my charity work, and my relationship with my children all be connected?

                Maybe you’re feeling pretty important in life right now, or maybe you are feeling a little insignificant to God.  Either way, here is my prayer for us:  “Heavenly father, thank You for feeling that I am important.  Thank You for taking the time to create me very specifically.  Thank You for thinking that I’m so important that it was worth the time to count the hairs on my head.  I love You so much for being so huge that I can’t even fathom Your greatness, but for making me feel special, as unimportant as I am.  Help me to share Your love with others and make them feel important.  Help the other ladies around me to know that I think they are so wonderful and special.  Help us to know that our failures do not define us, but refine us.  Help us to know that the only significance we need in life is that which we feel from You.  We praise You, love You, and hope to bless Your name.”

A word to my mother

     I have no problem admitting that I have a pretty obsessive relationship with my mother.  In so many ways she taught me to be who I am today.  She taught tried to teach me how to be a lady, she taught me how to be a wife (by example), and she taught me how to be a mother.  When I was pregnant with Princess, my mother lived about 75 miles away.  Luckily, she and my dad moved back before I actually gave birth, so my entire motherhood experience has been with the help of my mother.  Thank God! (I mean that literally.  I truly thank God that she has been there.)  Mommy is constantly making comments about how I mention her in my blog (sometimes I don't actually say who I am referring to and she knows it is her) and makes comments like "I hope this doesn't end up in your blog."  So I feel I need to set the record straight.  If I have ever said anything bad about my mother or made a comment that seemed negative, it was strictly a problem of translation from my mind to the written language; my mother is a female hero in my life.  She is the example of perfection to me in so many ways, and at the risk of sounding weird, she is a soul mate to me. (Dean is to of course, but in a different way.)  We like to use the term "kindred spirit", borrowed from Anne of Green Gables.  Even if I were horribly ticked off at her at this very moment (which I'm not), I would not be able to say anything bad about her.  In her, I see all the best parts of her mother, Marylynn, who will always be present in my mind, though she passed several years ago.  For me, there is a generational connection between Grammy, Mommy, myself, and my girls.  There's so much of a likeness that runs through all of us.
  That being said, my mom is completely crazy in all the best ways.  I can see the progression of craziness building within me with my age, so I try to embrace it.  There are times when I feel like we are just like the women in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" because we are excitable, and of course loud because the excitedness, bossy, we squabble (usually lightheartedly), when we are mad (truly mad) we make up within five minutes, and we understand each other completely.  We don't hold back anything from one another, which is why we sometimes have the whole "end up in your blog" situation.  It's a perfect relationship.
     I trust her with my children as much as I trust myself and Dean with them.  God has blessed her with the gift of being mother to many people who have needed mothering, and she's Nana to almost every small child I know, and definitely all the small children in our church (about 40 total).  In that way, we are different.  Small children do NOT draw to me, and I cannot spread myself thin enough to nurture an entire church worth of people.  Not yet anyway, and it's not a gift I pray or even hope for in any way.  I favor my dad in the aspect of that gift (as in we don't have it).  It is a gift that I love about her.  I love that everyone loves her so much, and that she sincerely loves other people so much.  It adds to her mystery.
  Here's my prayer for my mother:  "Dear God, protect my mother.  Help her to be protected and blessed in her ministry.  Keep her healthy.  Help her in her aid to my dad and his ministry.  Make me like her in all the right ways.  Show her Your favor in her health, in her finances, in all ways.  Let her know how important she is and how much she is loved."

Who works the hardest?

     Okay, so this is one of those posts I will have to get approved by Dean (if I remember to do so before hitting post).  As I try to constantly point out, I love Dean so much it hurts.  I think he is the most wonderful man in the world (at a tie with my dad and brother).  He is everything I ever wanted:  A hard worker, a family man, a wonderful husband, a man of God, the list could go on.  We get along wonderfully and love each other deeply, but we are not perfect, and I don't ever want to set us up as being so.  I promised honesty, so here it goes.
      If having one child changes a marriage by complicating it, adding a set of twins to the mix put our world in a blender with no top on it and turned it on high.  Sometimes I feel like we spend our lives running around, just scraping up the mess.  I know I've mentioned several times that life too often feels like a game of survival, and I hope it doesn't make you feel discouraged, but it's a constant battle in my life.  Another inner struggle, that I hate to even admit, is the inner struggle of resentment towards my husband.  Don't think me a failure; it's a mutual thought we both have that neither of us wants to say.  Often, in the heat of an argument, there is an unspoken phrase screaming out in our every thought: "I do more than you do!"  This often also translates into, "I sleep less than you do and am therefore more tired than you!"  It took a long time, several months after the twins were born (though the thought started when Princess was born and took a break once she got older), for one of us to say the actual words.  Luckily, it wasn't said in anger during an argument.  Rather, in a moment of frustration, I simply said, "We are both thinking are have done more and have more of a right to be tired and frustrated right now".  Dean agreed, and finally, it was out in the open.  We have never kept secrets.  We promised early on not to do so, and not saying this thought, but knowing he knew that I felt that way seemed like I was not being up front with him.  I couldn't handle it anymore no matter how afraid I was at voicing the thought.  It was also scary that I knew he felt the same way but did not want to admit it out loud either. 
     Once it was all out in the open, we both felt better.  Parenting is hard, and being outnumbered by our children means a great deal of work.  We often have to divide and conquer in order just to get simple tasks done such as paying bills, helping a sick baby make it through the night, cooking dinner, or taking a shower without interruption (for crying out loud).  Is this thought Godly? No, of course not.  Is it loving and kind? No.  Does it recognize the work that the other spouse is putting forth? Not one bit.  Is it sometimes justified?  Sure, on both parts.  Is it a natural thought?  You be the judge. 
     We both agreed to try our best to not think the "I do more than you do" thought.  I'd like to say that this is something we have overcome, which is why I posted about it, but that isn't true.  We are both hardworking people, and in our own ways need constant acknowledgment of that fact.  When we are working for the same cause, however, this creates a problem.  It's hard to praise someone for working harder than you when you think you are working as hard as you possibly can.  It's hard to commend someone for giving up sleep when you're sure you gave up more.  Lastly, it's hard to make someone feel like a more volatile part of the cause when you're certain things could not go on without you.  Life with a spouse is not always simple, but it is always worth the work.  The same goes for parenting.  My life is so blessed, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  Walking through Wal mart with my double stroller holding two beautiful babies with my gorgeous four year old next to us gets admiring looks from people of all ages, but it is not all glamor.  I work hard.  All of us as mothers do.  At the same time, Dean works hard as well.  While he often does things differently than me, the man way, he really does work just as hard, just in a different way.  I know this is a truth, but sometimes I just want to be the one who has earned a break, the one who is given all the credit for being a superhero, but I also know that Dean sometimes just wants the same. 
     We both actively try to give one another a break now.  Having the twins made our lives more complex, but it taught us how to truly work as a team, something I don't believe we ever knew before.  This is my prayer for us, and for those of you who are in a situation that helps you relate to my situation: "God, help us to love the chaos and business of our lives.  Help me to love my husband as I should and give him the credit he deserves.  Help me to love my work as a mother.  Help me to work hard without seeking praise for doing so.  I praise you for my beautiful chaos.  I thank You for my wonderful three babies who are lively, expressive, and have strong lungs.  I love you for all You are that I am not.  Help my fellow mothers who are working hard as well.  Help their partner, if they have one, and if they don't, pour out a double blessing on their lives.  I praise You for touching the lives of the ladies I love and with whom I share this bond of motherhood."