Mommy's Thrift = Adelaide's Avant Garde New Style

The time has come for opening up some storage space and maximizing our money.  In Adelaide's "room," a term I use loosely since we just put her crib against the wall in the now disorganized office/music room/storage room, the closet has been storing the eight-and-counting boxes of all of Levi's clothes since his birth.  Who knows if we're finished having kids or not, but what if, one day, we have another?  And what if it's a boy?  We'll be set!  But what if we don't?  Or what if it's a girl?  Too many variables.  Time to get rid of the boxes.

I lugged them out and down to the living room.  For a good friend who has a baby boy, I started washing load after load of 6-9 month and 12 month clothes.  Her pile began to grow next to its box on the floor.  To make some cash at Once Upon a Child, I started washing load after load of everything smaller.  This pile slowly grew on the couch.  Anything with a stain that wouldn't budge went into one of two piles on the other couch for either the trash or Goodwill, depending on the stain.  Some of them were hardly noticeable.  Treasures with which I couldn't part went into their own pile on the back of the first couch.  Ever notice how messes tend to get worse before they get better when you're trying to get organized? 

I'll take a quick jog down this rabbit trail and marvel that, of the fifty-hundred-and-thirty amazingly cute, pristinely cleaned, and in-mint-condition clothes I proudly bestowed upon the bored-looking, tattooed young lady at Once Upon a Child, they only took about eight items and paid me ten bucks.  I was thrilled with the cash, but I couldn't pursue my earnest desire to understand the still full box I was reluctantly hauling back to my car, because Adelaide had reached her limit and was screaming at me.

Let's go back for a hike through the hills in my living room.  Mounds of varying height gave the room that distinct, freshly laundered aroma.  You know each pile's purpose, save one, and this is the one that surprised me.  I had created a pile for Adelaide.  Adelaide is our baby girl.  I had recently penciled a small list of items Adelaide will likely need as she grows through the coming cold months, and as I went through Levi's baby clothes, I began connecting the dots and finding things that I felt sure Adelaide could pull off.  Meanwhile, I was checking off my list.  That is Mom Thrift at its finest!  Making your daughter wear her brother's hand-me-downs is, I realize, probably shocking to some and probably something many others have done, but it wasn't until that moment that it dawned on me.  There's something about getting more use out of an adorable and perfectly good outfit that left me highly satisfied. 

Don't worry.  I'm not putting her in camo-dump-truck outfits with the phrase "Mommy's Boy" on them.  But the truth is, I'm pretty thrilled to have some options for my sweet girl that aren't hot pink.  Dressing girls is as fun as they say, but I found that dressing a little boy is just as fun.  Dressing a girl in her brother's clothes has added a whole new element to the game!  The possibilities have busted wide open, and it's stirring up my creativity once again.  I'll mix-and-match with some girly things, and she'll be ever as sweet and feminine, I promise.  ;)

Space made, money made, and discoveries made.  Not bad for a day's work.

OK, maybe it's not so avant garde, but Adelaide
wears Levi's hedgehog shirt pretty well, don't you think?

To Halloween, or Not to Halloween...

I love dramatic make-up and elaborate costumes and candlelit parties.  Small children dressed as bugs and cowboys and various animals make my heart puff up and my mouth grin.  There's just something about the silliness of it and the chance to pretend, to be an actor, to put on somebody (or something) else's shoes (or paws/antennae/whatever) that appeals to us.

But we don't do Halloween at our house.  Crazy, but true.  It's the second most celebrated holiday, after Numero Uno Christmas, and I'm not sure what determines its #2 standing other than cold hard cash.  I find that it's peddled hard, and the only holiday peddled harder is, you guessed it, Christmas.  Because they're the two where the cash is.  Christmas is a no-brainer, but when you think of costumes and makeup and candy and decorations, oh my!...you begin to see the dollar signs in H$LL$W$$N pretty quickly.  So, what are we thinking, skipping out on #2?  I mean, really.  I re-read this and think, "What a couple of joy-killing curmudgeons" (one of Jed's favorite words, by the way...use it in a FB post on his wall).

First, let me say that I do get it.  It's super fun for kids, to be sure.  Candy is scrumptious.  Dressing up is delightful.  Tradition is important and gratifying and memory-making.  When I was growing up, we didn't celebrate Halloween in my parents' house either.  I was always kind of bummed that I couldn't get the greatest costume out there and go out with all my friends, be part of the corporate festivities, and just have fun, for goodness' sake.  My parents would turn out all the lights and hide in the back of the house so no one would think we were home and knock on our door.  No joke, people.  They aren't puritanical weirdos, either.  They just felt strongly about Halloween. 

We don't go quite that far around here, mind you.  And we did do Harvest festivals when I was a kid, which I'm still contemplating.  Can I ask an honest question here?  I think I shall.  Is it old and tired to anyone else when the church copies exactly what the world's doing but calls it something else to make themselves feel better about it?  Oh goodness, I know I just stepped on a lot of toes!  I just stepped on my own toes.  I'm just thinking out loud and think it's a fair question.  Let's gingerly back away from this one for now, shall we?  Steady now...steady now...there.  Safe.  *dusting myself off*  Everybody OK? 

Tiny tree's fall foliage.

Now I have kids of my own, and one is age three, just the age where he could really start to get into it.  So I've been asking myself, "OK, what do I really think about all this?  What will we do?  And WHY?"  I don't do things just because that's the way it's been done.  I want a reason.  I want to dig deep.  What's in my spirit?  And I don't want to get all "weirdo-religious-girl" and legalistic about something, especially if it doesn't matter.  Enjoying Halloween festivities is not a sin, and I've already been through the phase where I did it just because I realized I could.  But that's not a good reason to do anything, so ponder I did.

I first considered that Halloween customs stem from pagan beginnings.  That's not necessarily enough to make it taboo, though, because Christmas and Easter are riddled with pagan custom.  I can trim a tree and hide Easter eggs with the best of them.  A friend of mine told me that, growing up in the Catholic Church (she's no longer Catholic), Halloween for her was understood as a time to show reverence for those who have gone before us and paid a price for where we are today in Christendom.  That's a great idea, and I'd never understood that component for Catholics.  But it isn't really Halloween, but the day after, All Saints' Day, in which they pay their respects.  And obviously, dressing up like a witch and going trick or treating isn't accomplishing that laudable goal.  The best way to honor those who've gone before us and paid a price is to live our own lives with the same fervor, successfully carrying the torch along our portion of the race.

So our decision ultimately boiled down to one simple thing:  fear.  Halloween compounds and celebrates and plays with fear.  Now, I would love to see my three-year-old son dressed up like a cowboy or a ninja or, don't judge, but he could pull it off, Angelina Jolie (Just trust me on this one!), because it would be silly and fun.  But if that's really all that important to me, I have 364 other days in which I can dress him up for silly good times.  But Halloween draws from its ancient Druid beginnings, oozing with superstition, fear, and witchcraft.  These things are all antithetical to my incredible God, the power of His presence, and the perfect love we have through Him, which casts out all fear.

Now I'm certainly not trying to preach a sermon.  But I have to say that even when I was bummed about not celebrating Halloween growing up, I always thought it was kind of cool that my parents had this standard and that they held the line and wouldn't cave and let us do it just because that's what many others do.  It gave me that feeling of being set apart.  A holiday consumed with vampires, ghouls, goblins, angry wandering souls, witches, eyeball stews, hexes, and curses is not my kind of holiday.  And I don't want to be violent about the Kingdom of God, as I am, and then have to reconcile what I teach my kids along those lines every day of the year with what we would seem to be celebrating on that one day, if we celebrated it.  My God does not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  Fear is our enemy.  I will only ever introduce to them the reality that it's under our feet, not something upon which to cast our flirtations.

So there you have it.  That's what we do at our house, and this is an abridged explanation of why.  On the other hand, though, we absorb the northeastern fall season into our lives with as much gusto as we can muster.  We do carve (happy) faces into pumpkins and pick apples and decorate with unique leaves and acorns.  We do eat candy (all year long, folks, I won't lie), and we do think it's fun to play dress-up.  But this is where we draw the line.  And just so you know, we have good friends that we love and respect who do celebrate Halloween, and we don't get mad at them and hope they have a great time.  Every family for itself!  That's the way it should be.

Have a great fall season, however you choose to enjoy it.

Not a "Mega site of Bible studies and information"

I started typing "snugbutton" in my address bar on my computer.  When the window of possible completions popped up, the first choice was a site I've never seen with an all-too-familiar-looking title:  www.snugbutton.blogpot.com.  It is a "Mega site of Bible studies and information."  I really do hope to be inspiring, but this is not I.  Upon closer investigation by my astute husband, he found that it was actually "blogPOT," not "blogspot."  Pretty sly!  So if this happens to you when you're trying to find my blog, don't be thrown off the scent or assume any affiliation.  That's all.  Just a little housekeeping.  You ladies know anything about that? 

The Elusive Cup of Hot Coffee

Startle awake.
Baby stirring.
Preschooler still asleep?!
Feed baby.
Snuggle on couch.
Warmth.
Preschooler awake.
Pat coffeemaker:  "Let's see how today goes."
Start coffee.
Slight scent of coconut.
Oatmeal on stove.
Fry eggs.
Preschooler eats.
Baby fussing.
Eyeing my egg and oatmeal.
With longing...
Baby nap.
Oatmeal and egg to my seat.
Pour coffee.
Steam, sugar, cream.
Preschooler playing outside.
Knock, knock, knock!
Preschooler at the door.
Step away from food.
Answer door.
"No more knocking."
Back to food.
Knocking on door.
Preschooler:
"UPS man!"
"No more knocking!"
Back to food.
Cold oatmeal.
Pasty.
Preschooler needs gloves.
Back to food.
Rubbery egg down.
Cold oatmeal down.
Cold coffee...
Baby fussing.
Microwave coffee.
Paci re-inserted.
Wonderful drink of hot coffee!
Creamy, sweet, hot, delicious!
Preschooler ready for Play-Doh.
Play.
Pick up.
Use toothpick to dig out tiny Play-Doh bits.
From everywhere.
Microwave coffee.
Play.
Pick up.
Clean.
Go for walk.
Clean.
Start dinner.
Preschooler DVD.
Dinner.
Clean up.
Make decaf.
"Where's my coffee cup?"
Brush preschooler's teeth.
Baby to bed.
Preschooler in PJs.
Stories.
Night night.
Downstairs.
Coffee cup in microwave.
Stale, cold coffee.
Stale, cold coffee down the drain.
New cup.
Fresh hot decaf!
Creamy, sweet, hot, and delicious.
Empty cup.
Ahhhhh.

Another Mom Blog? You Know It!

Why do you think it is that mom blogs are so prevalent?  It has to be that the incredible stories in which we play a starring role--unfolding between the walls of our homes, behind the wheels of our cars, in the doctor's waiting room--are chock full of drama, humor, and love unimaginable.  The experience is at once gloriously other worldly and drudgingly banal.  So we moms just have to share with the world the daily miracles of human development that bud forth before our eyes daily.  It is a miracle.  We moms also relish the gift of grown-up discourse, and if blogging gives us more opportunity to partake, so be it! 

In this blog (and might I add here for no real purpose that I hate the word "blog!"), I'll probably talk a lot about pregnancy, newborns, and young kids.  And we'll see where it goes from there.  So let the laughing, the crying, the crazy sleepy-eyed stumbling, the pooping, the swinging, the cleaning, the training, and did I say laughing?...begin!