Owls

It was a long day. I made cornmeal mush (the old fashioned way- by sifting cornmeal through my fingers into a pot of boiling water as I stirred it) only to have kids grumpy about breakfast. They didn't like it. That's odd because they love fried cornmeal mush. Perhaps they thought that I should have just doused their bowls in maple syrup, like they try to do with the fried version.

a photo from a previous bath

The baby had the biggest diaper blowout of his to date- so bad it required an immediate bath- which he screamed through. My 3 year old wanted to help and kept getting in the way, and there was really no way for him to be able to help, so he was mad... and loud. He also had a backslide in his "potty training" today. He wet through 3 sets of clothes. He was unable to play peacefully with my 5 year old too, and his new habit of either whining and arguing about everything or collapsing in a melting heap of tears whenever he doesn't get his way was really trying. He's taking the baby's arrival a bit hard now that it's sinking in. (Although from the backseat of the car the other day I heard him announce to no one in particular,"The more you see babies, the more of them you want!") 

I made my 5 year old take a nap so that she would be able to handle her choir practice better tonight. She fell asleep fine (unlike my 3 year old- who wouldn't today) but had a hard wake-up before choir and got out the door late with her dad because of it.

My 9 year old was caught in a couple of lies today and was also mean to her little sister- unashamedly. Plus, she and I had an unpleasant math marathon this afternoon. She hates math. She wrote, "Nasty, nasty, nasty" all over a sheet of corrections. I'm not sure if she meant that I was nasty for assigning her the horrible math or if the math was what was nasty. In my mind it was her behavior that was nasty. Maybe nasty was just her "mantra".

My 14 year old "lost" a printed study guide I made him and all the electronic docs we accumulated for some research he is doing, was stupid about looking for said lost articles, and was subsequently obtuse concerning his history assignment today. We butted heads all afternoon. When I tried to scan and print him off another one, the all-in-one kept giving me an error about the yellow print cartridge when I was trying to print in black and white. Then it kept shooting out blank sheets of paper. Eventually it gave me an error message even though it hadn't done so for the first few attempts and "refused" to do anything. That machine gets to me every time.

The pizza I made from scratch for dinner got overcooked, as I was busy with the baby at a critical time and my hubs was late due to having stopped for office goods on the way home during chauffeur duty. Of course the kids quibbled about inanities all through the meal. And they complained about my pizza crust being too thick and "bready". And they had horrible table manners. Sigh.

These were just the bigger things that I dealt with today. Really, it was not that much different from any other day in regard to busyness and frustrations (although the kids were more out of control than usual due to recent circumstances.) But in my over-tired, hormonal state, I was getting testy. I wasn't handling it gracefully.

After finally getting the kids to bed (requiring multiple attempts) and while in the midst of rocking and nursing the fussy baby, I kept hearing weird noises. At first I thought it was the girls, still up in the room above me, chatting. But the noise seemed musical and regular. "They must be singing," I thought. So I listened more closely. It was nothing I recognized. I kept hearing the same note repeated over and over with regular pauses between. "Was one of the notes resonating with something in the house causing me to hear it more clearly?" I wondered. Finally, I was able to tuck the baby in his bed for a few minutes. I flicked off the little space heater I was using for white noise and listened, prepared to make another trip upstairs to quiet the rowdy kiddies. 

Owls! It was owls calling back and forth forcefully. After listening for a bit, I smiled and turned the heater back on. I had expected another negative- girls up too late, wound up and disobedient, who would be tired and badly behaved tomorrow. But it was loud owls.

Even when it is dark, even when the windows are down and the shutters are closed on this stone-faced home, even when I'm wrapped up in my own worries, nature has a way of seeping into everything here at the homestead. I find that reassuring and healing. It always points me back to the author of nature, the king of all creation. This centers and calms me. And because of nature interjecting itself into my evening unasked, tonight I remember that Paul wrote that God's grace is sufficient for me "for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful." 

Nope, I can't be perfect. Yes, my children will be a little wild or badly behaved sometimes. Yup, I won't be able to maintain perennial order in our home. But God's plans are bigger than my priorities. God's plans include and use little, flawed me. "WHO? Who? who?" ...ME!  God chose me to parent these children and sent these children to me... the most recent one healthy, beautiful, and amazing. He gave me this vocation and orchestrated things such that I am in this location at this time with these circumstances. I just need to keep persevering and trusting. Those owls reminded me to be grateful, to lighten up, and to roll with it all... with joy and peace.