Being there

If you were not at church yesterday morning you missed an incredible outpouring of love. Two families went forward to ask for prayers for hard medical situations. Both were surrounded by many members of Otter Creek and we said a communal prayer over each family.

A little girl named Palmer and her family have recently moved to Nashville to be closer to Vandy for cancer treatments. I believe she has leukemia--she is 15 and looks like a girl full of life. Pray for her and her family as they deal with all that comes with treatment AND being in a new place. (see Heather and Scott Miller if you would like more info)

Hailey and Jeremy Hiett also need your prayers. Hailey has just been diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and has a long uncertain rode ahead of her. This disease is very individualistic in the fact you can't compare one persons symptoms and complications to another. It affects each one in different (even if sometimes similar) ways. If you don't know her very well Hailey is a very active woman that enjoys doing things for her family and friends. She has two small children, Anna Kate and Jackson, who (as any young ones are) are full of energy and will very likely be confused as to why Mommy can't always do what she used to--or just needs to rest more. Please cover this sweet family in your prayers. The Lord has a plan and we need to be ready to help carry it out even when we may not understand why.

Thankful

I want to say how thankful I am for this class. It is doing so much for me and others. The book is good, but the discussions are even better. Rachel, Cynthia, Becky and Becca: THANK YOU for your contributions to this time together as moms and women of God. All the ideas have been great and I am trying to put some of them into practice. I'm glad we seem to be extending the class b/c it is needed! Not that I want to segregate ourselves from other women (we can learn so much from them too), but we need times like this to reflect, share and learn that we are not alone.

Hope everyone has a great weekend...

Christy

Prayer "Schedule"

So here I am, about to post my first-ever contribution to a blog! (Other than just commenting on someone else's post, of course.) Sadly, it just took me about 20 minutes to figure out HOW to do it! Welcome to 2007, Melissa...

Cynthia asked me to take this precipitous leap into the 21st century and post the prayer "schedule" I mentioned in class tonight. I hate to use the word schedule, so if you have another suggestion, bring it on. Actually I love schedules, but it just doesn't seem to go with prayer.

Anyway, here it is. My friend's was a little different & I tweaked it to fit my needs. It has freed me from compulsive perfectionism in my prayer life & allowed me to really focus on one group of people. I hope it helps somebody the way it has me.

Sunday-praise
Monday-self & immediate family
Tuesday-extended family
Wednesday-church (ministers, programs, teachers, elders, missionaries, members' needs)
Thursday-friends
Friday-others' needs (ie, prayer requests from friends, internet, etc)
Saturday-my community & the world (politics, leaders, issues, lost people everywhere)

Thoughts from tonight

I'm not a big group kinda gal. I'm easily intimidated, embarrassed, and get very nervous when I have to verbally express what I'm thinking and feeling. As a result, I don't share much of what I'm thinking when I'm in class, or any other large group setting. But, I had quite a few thoughts from the chapters we read for class tonight and thought I might share my thoughts via the blog. The chapter on "Co-workers" was the one that really caused me to think. We talked briefly about the importance of having this support system in your life when you are a mother. While I think the author did a great job of recognizing that we need to have encouragement and support from others who are at the same stage in life, I wish she had elaborated more on the fact that we are all different and may gain support in different ways. It is nice to be involved in the lives of other young moms, but I have learned that it is very important to not shy away from setting boundaries for yourself. You know yourself better than anyone, so determine for yourself what kind of support system you need, not what you think seems to work for everyone else. As a self-confessed "people-pleaser" (or, as I prefer to call "approval addict"), I just assumed that what others' wanted and what worked best for them would be the best thing for me and my family. That wasn't the case. See, I didn't know how to set boundaries with people. I tried so hard to please everyone that I made myself into someone I didn't like. So after much frustration, heartache, many tears, and many months later, I have finally figured out what works best for me, my marriage and my children. Thank you, Lord, for your patience!

Priorities. Those are things that I allowed to get very mixed up in my desire to be a good "mommy friend." I cared more about "fitting in" and making sure I was liked and valued than focusing on what I was teaching my children. Shameful to admit, but so true. I was weak, had no self-confidence, and was constantly comparing myself to those around me. I desperately wanted approval from "mommy friends." In one word, I was MISERABLE! I felt trapped in this life I had created for myself. But, thank you, God for making us all different. I am fully aware that God made us all unique. We all have our strengths and we all have our faults. No one personality is "right" or "wrong". And, we need to give each other grace in our differences.

So, why the abundance of personal information to a bunch of women that I don't know that well? Well, let's just say that I now have a passion and desire to help others avoid the trap I fell into. I don't have a lot of years under my belt as a mother, but God has certainly taught me a lot and will continue to teach me how to seek Him more and more as I seek to raise my children to know Him. He is good. He is faithful. And, He can provide all the assurance you need to know you are doing amazing work in the mission field of motherhood!

**Thanks for letting me share. Has this made a lick of sense?! Please share any thoughts you may have.

Hilarious e-Bay Listing by Busy Mom

Not sure how long e-Bay will leave this out there, but here is the listing of Pokemon cards we were laughing about last night! :)

Her is her item description:

I'm selling a bunch of Pokemon cards. Why? Because my kids sneaked them into my shopping cart while at the grocery store and I ended up buying them because I didn't notice they were there until we got home. How could I have possibly not noticed they were in my cart, you ask? Let me explain.

You haven’t lived until you’ve gone grocery shopping with six kids in tow. I would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel, be a contestant on Fear Factor when they’re having pig brains for lunch, or do fourth grade math than to take my six kids to the grocery store. Because I absolutely detest grocery shopping, I tend to put it off as long as possible. There comes a time, however, when you’re peering into your fridge and thinking, ‘Hmmm, what can I make with ketchup, Italian dressing, and half an onion,’ that you decide you cannot avoid going to the grocery store any longer. Before beginning this most treacherous mission, I gather all the kids together and give them “The Lecture“.

“The Lecture“ goes like this…

MOM: “We have to go to the grocery store.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Hey, I don’t want to go either, but it’s either that or we’re eating cream of onion-ketchup soup and drinking Italian dressing for dinner tonight.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Now here are the rules: do not ask me for anything, do not poke the packages of meat in the butcher section, do not test the laws of physics and try to take out the bottom can in the pyramid shaped display, do not play baseball with oranges in the produce section, and most importantly, do not try to leave your brother at the store. Again.”

OK, the kids have been briefed. Time to go.

Once at the store, we grab not one, but two shopping carts. I wear the baby in a sling and the two little children sit in the carts while I push one cart and my oldest son pushes the other one. My oldest daughter is not allowed to push a cart. Ever. Why? Because the last time I let her push the cart, she smashed into my ankles so many times, my feet had to be amputated by the end of our shopping trip. This is not a good thing. You try running after a toddler with no feet sometime.

At this point, a woman looks at our two carts and asks me, “Are they all yours?” I answer good naturedly, “Yep!

“Oh my, you have your hands full.”

“Yes, I do, but it‘s fun!” I say smiling. I’ve heard all this before. In fact, I hear it every time I go anywhere with my brood.

We begin in the produce section where all these wonderfully, artistically arranged pyramids of fruit stand. There is something so irresistibly appealing about the apple on the bottom of the pile, that a child cannot help but try to touch it. Much like a bug to a zapper, the child is drawn to this piece of fruit. I turn around to the sounds of apples cascading down the display and onto the floor. Like Indiana Jones, there stands my son holding the all-consuming treasure that he just HAD to get and gazing at me with this dumbfounded look as if to say, “Did you see that??? Wow! I never thought that would happen!”

I give the offending child an exasperated sigh and say, “Didn’t I tell you, before we left, that I didn’t want you taking stuff from the bottom of the pile???”

“No. You said that you didn’t want us to take a can from the bottom of the pile. You didn’t say anything about apples.”

With superhuman effort, I resist the urge to send my child to the moon and instead focus on the positive - my child actually listened to me and remembered what I said!!! I make a mental note to be a little more specific the next time I give the kids The Grocery Store Lecture.

A little old man looks at all of us and says, “Are all of those your kids?”

Thinking about the apple incident, I reply, “Nope. They just started following me. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

OK, now onto the bakery section where everything smells so good, I’m tempted to fill my cart with cookies and call it a day. Being on a perpetual diet, I try to hurry past the assortment of pies, cakes, breads, and pastries that have my children drooling. At this point the chorus of “Can we gets” begins.

“Can we get donuts?”

“No.”

“Can we get cupcakes?”

“No.”

“Can we get muffins?”

“No.”

“Can we get pie?”

“No.”

You’d think they’d catch on by this point, but no, they’re just getting started.

In the bakery, they’re giving away free samples of coffee cake and of course, my kids all take one. The toddler decides he doesn’t like it and proceeds to spit it out in my hand. (That’s what moms do. We put our hands in front of our children’s mouths so they can spit stuff into them. We’d rather carry around a handful of chewed up coffee cake, than to have the child spit it out onto the floor. I’m not sure why this is, but ask any mom and she’ll tell you the same.) Of course, there’s no garbage can around, so I continue shopping one-handed while searching for someplace to dispose of the regurgitated mess in my hand.

In the meat department, a mother with one small baby asks me, “Wow! Are all six yours?”

I answer her, “Yes, but I’m thinking of selling a couple of them.”

(Still searching for a garbage can at this point.)

Ok, after the meat department, my kids’ attention spans are spent. They’re done shopping at this point, but we aren’t even halfway through the store. This is about the time they like to start having shopping cart races. And who may I thank for teaching them this fun pastime? My seventh “child”, also known as my husband. While I’m picking out loaves of bread, the kids are running down the aisle behind the carts in an effort to get us kicked out of the store. I put to stop to that just as my son is about to crash head on into a giant cardboard cut-out of a Keebler elf stacked with packages of cookies.
Ah! Yes! I find a small trash can by the coffee machine in the cereal aisle and finally dump out the squishy contents of my hand. After standing in the cereal aisle for an hour and a half while the kids perused the various cereals, comparing the marshmallow and cheap, plastic toy content of each box, I broke down and let them each pick out a box. At any given time, we have twenty open boxes of cereal in my house.

As this is going on, my toddler is playing Houdini and maneuvering his little body out of the seat belt in an attempt to stand up in the cart. I’m amazed the kid made it to his second birthday without suffering a brain damaging head injury. In between trying to flip himself out of the cart, he sucks on the metal bars of the shopping cart. Mmmm, can you say “influenza”?

The shopping trip continues much like this. I break up fights between the kids now and then and stoop down to pick up items that the toddler has flung out of the cart. I desperately try to get everything on my list without adding too many other goodies to the carts.

Somehow I manage to complete my shopping in under four hours and head for the check-outs where my kids start in on a chorus of, “Can we have candy?” What evil minded person decided it would be a good idea to put a display of candy in the check-out lanes, right at a child’s eye level? Obviously someone who has never been shopping with children.

As I unload the carts, I notice many extra items that my kids have sneaked in the carts unbeknownst to me. I remove a box of Twinkies, a package of cupcakes, a bag of candy, and a can of cat food (we don’t even have a cat!). I somehow missed the box of Pokemon cards however and ended up purchasing them unbeknownst to me. As I pay for my purchases, the clerk looks at me, indicates my kids, and asks, “Are they all yours?”
Frustrated, exhausted from my trip, sick to my stomach from writing out a check for $289.53, dreading unloading all the groceries and putting them away and tired of hearing that question, I look at the clerk and answer her in my most sarcastic voice, “No. They’re not mine. I just go around the neighborhood gathering up kids to take to the grocery store because it’s so much more fun that way.”

So, up for auction is an opened (they ripped open the box on the way home from the store) package of Pokemon cards. There are 44 cards total. They're in perfect condition, as I took them away from the kiddos as soon as we got home from the store. Many of them say "Energy". I tried carrying them around with me, but they didn't work. I definitely didn't have any more energy than usual. One of them is shiny. There are a few creature-like things on many of them. One is called Pupitar. Hee hee hee Pupitar! (Oh no! My kids' sense of humor is rubbing off on me!) Anyway, I don't there's anything special about any of these cards, but I'm very much not an authority on Pokemon cards. I just know that I'm not letting my kids keep these as a reward for their sneakiness.

Shipping is FREE on this item. Insurance is optional, but once I drop the package at the post office, it is no longer my responsibility. For example, if my son decides to pour a bottle of glue into the envelope, or my daughter spills a glass of juice on the package, that’s my responsibility and I will fully refund your money. If, however, I take the envelope to the post office and a disgruntled mail carrier sets fire to it, a pack of wild dogs rip into it, or a mail sorting machine shreds it, it’s out of my hands, so you may want to add insurance. I will leave feedback for you as soon as I’ve received your payment. I will be happy to combine shipping on multiple items won within three days. This comes from a smoke-free, pet-free, child-filled home. Please ask me any questions before placing your bid. Happy bidding! :)

Check out her blog.

The Farley Family

Hi ladies! I just wanted to share the link to Boothe & Conor Farley's blog. This is the amazing family that we prayed for in class tonight. Many of you either know the Farley's from the pre-school or have been following their journey with baby Copeland via the blog, but for those who don't know their story, I encourage you to take the time to read their story from the beginning.

The Farley's lost Copeland, their one week old daughter earlier today, so please remember them in your prayers in the days and weeks to come.

Have a great rest of the week!

Your favorite place to go or thing to do to treat yourself

Last post from me tonight, I promise. Please share some of your favorite places to go to treat yourself or share your favorite thing to do whenever you carve out some "alone" time.
My favorite things - when the boys were really little and I needed a sanity break I went to a movie by myself a couple of times. I actually enjoyed it a lot and came home refreshed. I also loved our women's retreats at our church in TX. We had one in the spring and one in the fall. I miss those. Now I love to sit on our back deck alone, read, or watch a chick flick late at night when Pat is out of town (and I always fix myself popcorn and coke). Walks are also great! Dinner or lunch with a girlfriend is wonderful. On special occasions Pat has given me gift certificates to Blue River Canyon in Brentwood and that is an extra special treat for me. Please share. I'd love to hear from you.