3 hours ago
(Written last Thursday.)
As I am typing this, my kids are sitting on the couch across the room, watching Rio. I don't typically let them watch a full-length movie in the middle of the week, but this was been a particularly long week, and a particularly long day near the end of a particularly long week. I decided I'm allowed.
Though the day was busy and a bit exhausting, it was good too. We went to our mom group this morning, and as I picked up the kids from their classes they handed me their crafts. "This is for you, Mom", they always say, and I grin and say I love it, even if it's just a paper with stickers on it. It's sweet that they want to give me presents (even if I sometimes suspect it's just to get me to hold said crafts and papers for them).
We had a few errands to run, and I felt like we were a bit of a mess, as I usually do. When I take all the kids into a store - especially a store with no carts - I feel like it's a constant stream of "Come here {insert child's name}", "Don't touch that {insert child's name}", and "Don't lay on the floor {insert child's name}". People ask me how I do it with four (soon five) kids, and the truth is that when we are out in public I try my best to keep my kids close by me and not breaking anything, and I feel like we are a mini circus. A happy, adorably cute circus, but a circus nonetheless.
Sometimes I even feel a little sheepish, like we are a bad advertisement for a big family. But today the cashiers smiled at me and told me how adorable my kids were, even when I was too busy wrangling them to properly respond. I kick myself for that now. I've gotten used to not-quite-positive-not-quite-negative comments from strangers, to which I usually give a closed-lipped, nondescript smile, but the comments today were sweet and encouraging and deserved a big grin.
I was getting the kids packed back into the car when a lady came up to me.
"I just wanted to say, you are amazing. I have trouble with two kids, and you have four!" she said with a smile. I laughed and said "Well, thank you! I feel like we're always a bit of a mess." And she said, "No, you are doing an amazing job. Your kids were so well behaved."
I thanked her again, and I guess I am thanking her a third time here. I doubt she even realizes that her words will be remembered, but they were what I needed today. Sometimes an encouragement from a stranger can make you see yourself in a better light, and sometimes in the middle of the minutia of motherhood you need that. I looked at my kids and realized they really were quite well-behaved, despite my constant stream of directions that felt so chaotic to me. They listened well, overall. They walked in a row, like little ducklings, to the door. They climbed in the car and got so excited over the clementines I gave them for a snack, patiently waiting while I peeled them.
They really are very cute, and very good kids.
During a week when I am feeling overwhelmed and when I feel like I'm failing at this whole motherhood thing, I needed that reminder to step outside myself for a minute and appreciate my kids for the little people they are, the people they are becoming, and to comprehend the role I am playing in that. To look at the day, and my whole mothering journey, with fresh eyes.
I am thankful that God let that lady cross my path today, and I hope immortalizing that brief little encounter here will help me remember to refresh my eyes on rough days in the future.
I also want to remember it here, because maybe it will remind me to offer encouragement to a stranger myself sometime. If I notice someone doing something well, or even just trying their best, why not offer a word of encouragement? The gift of fresh eyes can so often be given this way, and it is worth a lot.
Has a stranger ever encouraged you when you needed it?
Time for a quick check-in on my 31 Day Writing Challenge!
This is the first year I have done this, and since I decided to join in literally the night before it started, I didn't have much of a plan. After winging it all week, I decided to try to set something of a writing routine for myself for the remaining three weeks. Here is what I'm thinking:
Sundays will be a little open. I may post a schedule of posts for the upcoming week, or I may share something different (all depends on how much time I have the rest of the week).
Mondays will be for a "daily snapshot" of our lives right now. (Full disclosure: this snapshot may or may not be actually written on Mondays).
Tuesdays will be for a personal childhood memory (I'm going to be using writing prompts from a few books I have for these).
Wednesdays will be for book-related memories (because I obviously like to talk about books, and I think a lot of you do too!).
Thursdays will be for pregnancy updates, and other family-related memory keeping.
Fridays will be for the practical side of how I attempt to keep our memories.
Saturdays will be a look into the archives of this blog (I've got a lot of interesting posts hidden way back in those archives).
This is what the schedule looks like for the upcoming week:
Monday: When Encouragement Comes From A Stranger
Tuesday: A Brief History Of my Hair
Wednesday: What Made Me A Reader
Thursday: {To be determined}
Friday: How I Organize My Photos
Saturday: Derek And Callie - The Early Years
Now would also be a great time to ask my any getting-to-know-you questions you have, because I'll incorporate the answers into some of the memory-keeping posts this month!
So if you want to know something, ask away (I could also really use the material).
My sister has this crazy ability to remember events exactly as they happened. Sometimes we'll be talking and she will casually mention something we did when we were kids, and I realize that I literally haven't even thought about that event for years. It makes me sad sometimes that I have all these memories locked away in my brain that I won't remember until someone else brings it up.
As an adult I have realized pretty quickly that if I am going to remember something, I'm going to have to have some record of it. Maybe that's part of the reason blogging has stuck, but to be realistic, I can't sit down every evening and write out every detail of the day.
This is where photos come in.
The say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that saying has lasted so long because it's true! When I have a picture of something we did together, it's so much easier for me to remember all the details of that time in our lives. Photos are a quicker, easier record to take than writing out my thoughts, and I've relied on them even more as a mom. How else am I supposed to remember the face my babies make when I tell them to say "cheese"? How else am I supposed to remember the way their hair curled before the first haircut, or how their faces have changed year to year?
So photos have become a really important part of my memory-keeping, but I do have a tendency to only take photos when we are doing something unique - like when we are on trip, or celebrating someone's birthday. I'm grateful for those occasions because without them I might go too long between taking photos with my "good" camera. But I make it my aim to take pictures between those special occasions too. These are a few examples.
Unique Details
Each kid has some thing that they do, some physical feature, or some interest that makes them unique. Does my child have a special blanket or toy? Are they really into Hot Wheels cars or legos? Do they scrunch their nose when they smile? Does their hair curl just right, or am I always getting comments on their impossibly long eyelashes? I try to take pictures of those things!
Doing Ordinary Things
It's easy to pull out the camera when we are doing something Facebook-worthy, but I love the images of us doing everyday things even more, because they help me see the beauty of these ordinary days. I've ben told too many times how it goes by so fast and how I'll miss this stage someday. So I want photos that help me remember what our day-to-day was like. I might take pictures of the kids eating cereal (or watermelon, which was a hit last summer), Wyatt working on his schoolwork, or the kids digging a hole in the yard, for example.
Places We Visit All The Time
It's fun to sometimes think a little outside the box and take pictures in places we often frequent. Examples would be the place you stop for coffee, the grocery store, or the library. Is it a little awkward to pull out your camera in a public place? Yes, but those photos are some of my favorites to look at! (I really like Alex's documentation of a visit to Aldi, for example).
On my list of things to improve...capturing more of these kinds of photos, not just of my kids, but of my husband too!
Do you take pictures to keep memories? Or are you more like my sister who can remember everything without photos?
(Affiliate link below.)
In The Four Tendencies, Rubin presents a theory of how different people respond to expectations, both internal and external. We have the Upholders (who respond well to internal and external expectations), Questioners (who resist external expectations only), Obligers (who resist internal expectations only), and Rebels (resist both external and internal expectations). She argues that a person's "tendency" affects how they respond to everyday situations and interact with other people. If you know other people's tendencies, you can present things in a way that will make sense to them and let them respond positively. If you know your own tendency, you can implement strategies that will make it easier for you to form good habits.
I am a little skeptical about some of Rubin's claims (like tendencies being part of our personalities from birth - I don't know that there is a way to prove that), but the more I read of this book, the more her overall points made sense. She covers each tendency in detail and gives examples of difficulties and strengths related to each tendency, how to relate to different tendencies, and how to improve your own life by working with your tendency instead of against it.
I learned that I'm an Obliger, and I'm pretty sure Derek is a Questioner - so we keep each other on the straight and narrow! I kind of hate being an Obliger, as the tendency that has trouble saying no and can tend to run ragged and get resentful of all the external obligations that "must" be kept. I had started to recognize this about myself even before I read this book, and it confirmed to me that for my tendency, it's a really good thing to be setting boundaries around my time and energy (as I've been trying to do this year), so I don't go into "obliger rebellion" as Rubin calls it.
Anyway, if you struggle with setting good habits, have conflicts with those in your life about what "should" be done, or just want to understand yourself and others a little better, this book was interesting! This is a secular book, so not everything in it is something I'd condone or agree with, but overall I thought Rubin had some interesting things to say. I'd recommend it for personality junkies for sure.
Note: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion.
I didn't grow up in a big family - there were only three of us kids, but I really loved those "mom days", as we called them. Even in a family of three kids, it was rare to get time with mom all by myself. I loved having her full attention, without any competition.
And one role, which I didn't consider the complete magnitude of, is that of memory-keeper.
Now that I'm a mom, I look back and remember the different ways my own mom helped to keep our memories. I remember looking through baby photo albums of myself and my siblings. I remember boxes of photos that she helped us organize into our own personal scrapbooks. I remember sitting on the couch on a snowy day and watching a VHS tape full of family movies, and laughing hysterically with my siblings at all the same parts each time.
In ways that a lot of people may not fully understand, this blog has been a major asset in my own family memory-keeping. Would I have really written down my thoughts through all forty weeks of all five pregnancies without this space? Would I have recorded my babies' first years in such detail? Would I remember what Derek and I got each other for our first Christmas as newlyweds?
I've written before about the ways blogging has changed over the years, and how I wish to have back those early days of carefree ramblings...and I think part of the reason I wish blogging hasn't changed so much is because those ramblings were actually memories. The rambling was memory-keeping. And there is a lot of value in that, even if it's not always pinnable.
I have never participated in 31 Days Of Writing, even though the challenge has gone around the blog world for years, but for some reason this year I had a real itch to join in. Not the most likely year for me to feel that compulsion, is it? For all I know, I may have a baby in October. But last night, after wondering one last time if I should try this thing out, it came to me. This October, I am going to attempt to write every day about memory-keeping.
I can't guarantee that every day of writing will make it onto this blog, because some of it may be done in a journal (and let's be honest, I probably won't be blogging on the weekend). I can't guarantee that the pictures that go along with these posts will always make sense. Some posts may be practically useful, but many of them will just be small, some memory that stood out, something that my kids might enjoy reading someday, record-keeping (as in the case of my pregnancy and family updates, which will continue). All things that are important to me, that I want to remember.
Because I'm a mom, and that makes me a memory-keeper (at least in my family, because none of the men in my family seem as concerned with memory-keeping as the women - just saying it like it is). And I have to believe there is value in it, this memory-keeping, if only to the people in my life who matter to me the most.
Keeping our memories and telling our stories matters, because not only does it leave something of ourselves, as we are right now, behind for those we love; but it matters because it's not just our own stories we're telling. When we have something to look back on, it's easier to see how our lives, and all the little details that comprise our lives, are really part of a grander story, one that God is weaving through our individual lives. When I look back at old posts now, I'm reminded of His goodness, of how He worked through situations that I often wished would just go away, how He is working all things out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). How He is working all things out for good in my life too, even when I can't see it.
So I hope you enjoy my month-long foray into old-fashioned memory-keeping blogging, or even better, that you might indulge in a little memory-keeping yourself. It probably means more than you think.
Note: Affiliate link below.
I picked up Before You Hit Send by Emerson Eggerichs 1) because I think Eggerichs usually has interesting points to make, and 2) couldn't we all use a little more help when it comes to thinking before we comment? In person and online? I think so.
This book wasn't quite what I expected, but I still had plenty to think about while I was reading it.
I would say the title of this book is a little misleading in that it doesn't actually talk specifically about social media. I was all ready to be self-righteous and nod my head as he gave reasons against social media rants, but this book focused more on interactions with people in general. There were no self-righteous head nods as I realized that yes, I do have some of my own problems with each of the points he listed, and it challenged me to think a little more carefully about how I am communicating.
His focus in this book is to remind readers to ask themselves four questions (that you've probably heard) before speaking: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it clear?
He takes a section for each question and shares different ways in which people may not be true, kind necessary, or clear in their communication. I thought he did a good job of breaking things down and getting you to think about different ways that you may be falling into less-than-helpful communication habits - including some that weren't as obvious. I think we can all think of an interaction where someone else was less than true, kind, necessary, or clear, but Eggerichs made me think about where I need to work on those areas, which made this book really helpful.
My only complaint is that some of his suggestions for what to say to different types of people about their communication didn't necessarily come off as kind to me, but that probably depends on the tone in which it is said (or maybe it's just because my personality is different than Eggerichs).
This book is definitely helpful if you want to become a more constructive communicator, so if it sounds interesting, check it out! (Just don't expect a lot about social media.)
Note: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion.
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