motherhood

Lessons from the Little Ones

~ Jenna ~ 3 Comments

The first hour or two of a long road trip is really just your mind scanning to see what you forgot. The car potty. Not the car potty. The good thing about road-tripping during a pandemic is that peeing on the side of the road feels mostly acceptable. 

Van patrol set off to Sacramento, CA, Crater Lake, OR, Hood River, OR and then our final destination, Orcas Island, WA. It sounds easy typing it out, but hours of patience, sight-seeing, please don’t touch that, podcasts, snacks, canoe rides and cabin stays all dotted our map up north. 

One of the most unexpected memories of our trip was seeing what my daughters chose to love and enjoy along the way. 

At Crater Lake National Park, the girls were so excited about playing in the snow, I wondered if they even noticed the bucket list view. At the pottery shop on Orcas Island, they found a tree-house of their dreams. At the best fish and chips in town they skipped their lunch to fill shell buckets with rocks and chase the chickens. 

At first I felt a little annoyed – we came all this way and you just want to play in the snow?! This is the reason we came here.  The illusion of control is alluring. It draws me in over and over again. Like a wiley temptress, my pretend friend. 

But then it happened to me.

Driving home from dinner to catch the sunset one night on Orcas, a golden, warm glow lit up certain parts of the dense, thick forest, the way light from the sun streams into your home and forms spotlights on the walls. The way it feels to see love shine on the face of a beloved. It was breathtaking. 

What if instead of only looking at the sunset, we see what’s being illuminated by the light. What if we look up, or across the street, or around the corner?

As usual, I’m not sure who’s the teacher and who’s the student between my kids and I. 

How wonderful (and challenging to the ego) getting to know my girls, and witnessing who and what they want to become. Seeing how they want to experience their world from an unfiltered perspective, uninterested in what they should be enjoying. 

We asked Maisley her favorite part of the trip – four days on the road and seven days on a magical island – and she said watching a show in the car.

Fine by me!

How to fall in love with me, for me

~ Jenna ~ 2 Comments

To fall in love with me
is to say I love you and I see you to every piece of me.
I will never leave you,
you’re my priority.
It means fresh flowers around the house;
anything the color green.
Lots of trees.
With anxiety; unending compassion and reassurance.
With anger; validation and love.
With excitement; permission.
Go easy on me when the laundry piles up.
Time to read.
Time to write.
Time to play barefoot outside.
Connect with people I feel connected to.
Push me to walk when I want to run;
and the opposite too.
Pray unceasingly.
Enjoy Ryan-love, family-laughs and kid-kisses in the magical now.
This is a falling-in-love list for me.
How do you fall in love with you?

 

*Jordan and I came up with this fun idea when we were working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Two for One

~ Jenna ~ 1 Comment

It seems
that
deeply 
and compassionately
falling in love
with myself
– every layer –
feels a lot like
finding
God.
Or is it the
other
way around?

My Heart

~ Jenna ~ 1 Comment

Maiz: “Mommy, how do you take your heart out?”

Me: “You don’t bug, it’s something that stays right there in your body.”

Maiz: “But how do you take it out?”

Me: “You don’t sweetheart. It’s inside you and it’s what keeps you going.”

Maiz: “But how do you take your heart out and give it to Jesus? How do all the kids take their hearts out and give them to Jesus?”

Me (dying inside, but playing it cool): “Oh Maiz, that’s so sweet. You give your heart to Jesus by praying and loving him, it’s more of a feeling than something you physically do.”

Maiz: “So do you go in through your stomach and take it out that way?”

First Impressions

~ Jenna ~ 2 Comments

When I first saw her she was all stick and bones.
Her thin trunk, merely the keeper of weathered branches.
Had she just lost everything or was she just about to bloom?
I couldn’t see her whole story, I just knew she had one.
She didn’t seem worried, confident it was just a season; fruitful days ahead.
Unattached to what she had lost or what was to come.
Rooted in abundance.
When I first saw her I longed for greenery to cover her naked limbs.
Then a bright yellow finch stopped by to relax on her narrow branch.
Stubbornly alive and whole she was.
And always is.
Nothing is wasted in the resting place.

For the Books

~ Jenna ~ 1 Comment

Twas’ the night before Christmas eve and I was sitting in my room sorting and getting ready to wrap each of the girls’ presents I had thoughtfully collected over the last month. As Ryan, Maisley and Coura rushed into the house with dinner, I threw a blanket over the gifts and went to join them. 

After dinner, Ryan and I got to talking about car trouble or something interesting, when we noticed that a silence had fallen over the house. I ran into my room to find Maisley playing with her tea set from Santa Claus, Coura with her Christmas jammies in hand and every present overturned. 

All Christmas season I had been hearing about how it’s not about the gifts. The priest left us with, “I hope your Christmas is REAL this year”. The Grinch lays it out pretty clear – it ain’t about the gifts people. I know this, I preach this, I believe this!

So in good Christmas spirit, I scream-cried my brains out on the floor for the next 30 minutes. Christmas is ruined, my irrational small-mind kept repeating. 

I’m learning so much right now – in therapy, in my writing, in my own personal experience of grief and motherhood and life. There have been so many shifts in my head and my heart, but only smaller, less noticeable ones in my actions.

I’m hoping my insides match my outsides more in 2020. I’m also giving myself a break because it seems healing happens in moments, that it’s not linear and not all at once. 

In the reruns of our early days, this Christmas will simply be: the one where they accidentally saw all of their presents. And more appropriately: the one where we shared our first Christmas morning together at home. 

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Christmas Present

~ Jenna ~ 1 Comment

As I was on my usual walk through the eucalyptus trees, I noticed an abandoned play structure in a backyard, overgrown with weeds and sticks and leaves. It made me think about that family whose kids are now running around soccer fields, texting their friends and rolling their eyes at the people who gave them life. The once beloved play structure now just a keeper of memories from the wonder years, a symbol of time flying by.

This time of year always makes me feel like I’m not doing enough. I get paralyzed by the fast pace and overwhelm. Instead of embracing it, I want to run away. Every year we end the holiday season saying, “We’re not doing that again!”. Our hearts begging for boundaries and for us to take control of our time. 

I’ve been feeling a little down since Thanksgiving, tired and ready for life to slow down or for me to catch up. This year is especially off since the holidays are highlighting the alternate universe we are living in, the one where my dad wasn’t the one to put up our Christmas lights or straighten the tree. The one where he’s not sitting in his office, leaning back in his chair and enjoying the extra-hot chai tea latte we surprised him with. 

While making Christmas traditions with our kids this year, I am remembering all of the magical seasons of my childhood. Shopping for a tree with my dad, carefully mounting Rudolph on the second story, and making candy cane shaped cookies with my mom. As I pause to remember more clearly, I can also see us shoving the tree through the front door with my dad covered in sap as he sneezed uncontrollably from allergies. Oh and the time he fell off the ladder right in front of me. Or how mad my mom would get when our candy cane cookies looked more like penises (who am I kidding, we are still not mature enough to make normal candy cane cookies). 

Memories are funny that way, often shinier than they were in the moment. The reason older women always tell you to enjoy every second with your precious babies. (I will never be one of those women.) 

If things are going to look better than they really are a few years down the line, I might as well lighten up a bit. Lessen the expectations I carry around like a scarlet letter on an ugly Christmas sweater. What if the biggest boundaries I need to set are within myself, changing my perspective and doing some good old fashioned positive thinking with a sprinkle of gratitude. Give equal air time to the good things and not just focus on the challenging. 

In this moment, my babies are just two slippery, delicious butter balls in the bathtub. When that tub and these years become just a flash of memories, what will I remember?

Love, Mom

~ Jenna ~ 1 Comment

Please get off your sister.
I’m so proud of you.
Come cuddle with me.
Give me a minute please.
No, one more minute. 
No one’s tougher than the sun.
What just happened here?
Markers are for paper only.
What do you see?
Can I do mermaid hair?
One show.
Did you hear what I just said?
Good question.
What do you need?
You just had a snack.
When did you get so big?
Let’s read a book.
Do you know how much I love you?
I love you more than you’ll ever know.

The Kind of Mom

~ Jenna ~ 2 Comments

She’s the kind of mom who looks like the sister.
More energy than a jukebox.
Loves the song, “You shook me all night long.”
And the Bible verse, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Best known for napkin notes, Cheesy Noodle Fridays and marathon finish lines.
Always there, takes the heat, true to who she is.
Grades papers till one in the morning and hits beer bongs better than a college student.
She speaks her mind and writes her heart.
A friend to all.
Things she will take down: a task list, a pile of laundry and a perfect piece of filet.
Countless books read, park dates and dinners fed;
super-mom now super-nonni.
The heart of our home.
60 years; a compilation of fun, hard work, resilience, loyalty, slap-happy laughter and love.