I’m shrinking.
On the outside I might be growing and swelling and stretching bellybutton flattened out over a watermelon stomach. But in much more important ways I am shrinking. My focus is narrowing and turning inwards. Inside the walls of this white washed house. Inside a room of snoring kids all long-limbs dangling over bunk beds. Inside this kitchen and it’s fridge that makes me happy in the simplest of cucumber sandwich ways.
Shrinking into small conversations with three-year-olds about love and whether or not Jesus likes big dogs vs. little dogs. Slipping into the cracks in the conversation when a five-year-old finally pauses for breath long enough to let me get a word in around the corner of his latest exclamation about the joys of Tae-Kwon-Do. Shrinking into soft moments with a husband stolen in between boys and their light sabers. Sometimes expressed only with the eyes, that smile tired, and know that while this family will soon be growing, in the best ways it is shrinking into the most focused and condensed version of itself.
The version where there are no grand outings, no big trips, no play dates or plans. Just many slow afternoons spent on a tired and sagging sofa that loves us, just as we are – pajamas, milk stains, sticky hands and all.
We get smaller and it’s that smallness that contains the seed of big and beautiful things. A heart rip-roaring with love for these three and the daughter we will meet in a month. Red tulips, race cars, and the left over dishes from last night the only witness to our growing smaller and bigger at the same time. We are living the paradox. And it is so good.
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I loved your post and agree wholeheartedly! However, I just have to comment on your pictures of your hubby and boys. My hubby used to *hug* my younger 2 the same way. A boy and a girl, and actually the older girl would sometimes join in! I don’t think they had a name for it, but a good way to describe was a sandwich hug. And usually so much laughter would be involved they couldn’t breath, which they would have difficulty doing anyway because they were being squished! And the laughter would be contagious to whoever was listening, namely me. I miss those days! Those 2 *kids* are 18 and 20 now. The daughter would be horrified to be squished between her old dad and her smelly brother!
Blessings to you as you grow smaller while growing larger!
Bernice
The world really IS at our fingertips!
Ha! Yes, they love them some sandwich hugs! And it gave me a chuckle to imagine them doing the same at 18 and 20 :) Hey, a mom can dream, right?
I like this… smaller in focus is especially important while our children are still little. I struggle with this, but am daily encouraged through bloggers like yourself that God uses to remind me to be focused on what is most important in this season of life!
This post made me think about reducing…in the culinary sense. You know, when you boil a sauce to make it thicker and intensify the flavors? I feel like that’s what you’re doing.
And I love that bottom picture. :) The hands over the eyes and mouth…so cute!
I adore your words and how they flow. Somehow you always seem to talk about the stuff I myself need to take into account. So, thank you for that.
xo.
Only one month left???? Can’t wait!!!!
Oh yes…those days when the house walls somehow expand and we are so content to sit within them! Those are such sweet and short days. Somehow even little boys sense impending babes don’t they?
All the very best to you as you anticipate your babe.
I love how you write about Mama-ing. And I can’t wait to see how you put parenting your new package of pink into words, too! Love you!
You know this goes really well with Chapter 4 of One Thousand Gifts and the bubble’s colors…it sort of makes me think of tesseracts from Madeline L’Engle’s ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ like you are tessering into their little planet:) and I just love the affirmation that these quiet days of no play dates and grand plans and soaking in b/c change is coming are good, sweet and good. Thank you, as always, thank you:)
Adore.
We’ve been doing much of the same. A 3 week run with the flu will slow you down and make you smaller for sure, and you know what, it’s not all a bad thing.
Seeing life in the present. Living. Breathing. Recognizing. All of these things can happen from our stained couches.
Learning about love…getting smaller…so that I might be expanded.
Yes.
Like labor pains, the excruciating force of His refining fire to shrink, for the growing.
I’m feeling it, in different ways, but maybe more the same than different, after all.
Blessings –
Teri @ StumblingAroundInTheLight.com
What a good reminder to us all that the shrinking, the quiet, the stillness, the being home together as a family and not racing around to other obligations is good, oh so good. Kelly
this made me sigh… my world got smaller in order to get bigger, too. and i am so blessed as a result. [and those pictures made me smile more than sigh… so much happy…]