So sometimes on Sunday nights you all just stay in, make mac ‘n cheese, maybe get it smeared all over your cheeks and watch a movie.
The sofa sags under tiny butts all scrambling for a spot closer to daddy.
There are wet, muddy socks strayed all down the hallway. The edge of the front yard is turning into a muddy rut from all the hours of soccer played with the neighbors. The wash basket is spilling over with three times the amount of clothes normally worn in a day because rain doesn’t slow boys down it just speeds up the laundry.
There’s a kind of homesick that only these four people can fill.
It’s not exciting. It’s everything.
It’s how he gets so frustrated the world feels like it’s about to boil over and my temper with it. As he gets in my face and complains for the thousandth time today about the thousandth thing. I want to snap, I feel myself stretched thin and frazzled and I grab his shoulders hard in the hallway. I grab him hard and the shout wells up like a rollicking gawp in my chest but what comes out surprises us both.
“I was cut and I bled more for you than any of the other kids,” I yell.
“And it hurt.
And I would do it again. And again. And again. Because I must have a Micah in my life.
I must have you!”
And his taught body melts against me, tears stealing into his eyes.
We need this. This place that builds a wild assurance of belonging. We need to belong so hard it hurts.
Sometimes belonging feels like that yellow blanket we’ve had since a snowy winter in Michigan when I was still just a one baby mama.
Two babies later and it’s pock marked with old stains and pink markers. Still so soft though that kids all want it tucked around their toes on late nights or early mornings.
And later when I tuck the baby girl in she asks me to read her a story. But the light’s already off and the music is already on and I’m so tired. So I offer to tell her one instead. She nodds so close to me that her curls tickle my nose. I lean over here and start to whisper the story of when I only had two boys and once upon a time I found out I was going to have a little girl.
She wrinkles her nose and grabs my cheeks in her hands and pulls me close, close to her face. We’re breathing the same breath as she grins so hard at me I can feel the love of it wrapping around my insides.
“And it was Zoe Grace,” she whispers over the night light and the thrumming of my heart and I tell her, “yes, yes baby! It was you!”
We both laugh and hug and I don’t need no big job titles or accolades because I have this treasure wrapped up in a pink princess blanket and I’m the wealthiest woman I know.
And in the morning a boy teaches me his new laugh and a girl wants to draw pencil circles on the white pad of paper next to me at the dining room table. And another boy starts telling me all over again the litany of reasons he should be allowed to stay home from school.
And the laundry still waits. A patient reminder that sometimes treasure is found in unexpected and utterly ordinary places.
And tomorrow? Tomorrow I want to share a South African story with you. A story about so many moms just like us with ordinary every day, overflowing laundry baskets. Because it’s a story about you and me. And how we can make an extraordinary difference.
Come back tomorrow for a laundry dare, will you?
Let’s make this week matter together.
UPDATED: SURPRISE IS LIVE —> Click over and join Laundry Day for Africa, won’t you?
And then it was Monday morning and Lisa-Jo Baker made me cry. I so love your heart friend. And a laundry dare? I’ll take it!!
Love it. Love that feeling of home and of finally realizing I don’t need to lust after the bigger house with more bathrooms in the “better” zip code!
♥
Laundry day was today but I’m so coming back tomorrow :)
Funny salty flavor in my coffee compliments of your post.
No laundry challenges, please. I’m begging you. It’s fall break & there’s championship practice every day. Keeping sweat-soaked practice garb from becoming a biology experiment is a challenge too large for anything other than throwing it straight in the wash; fortunately the athlete is 100% capable of her own laundry ;)
I’ll be honored to fold laundry with you, friend. And what comes out when we’re over stressed, frazzled, can’t hear that shrieking anymore, what do you mean you don’t want to go buy new shoes after you complained all week about your holes, is not always pretty, but thank the Lord, He’s never short of giving us grace. Your transparency is so needed. Thank you.
Warmed my heart. Thanks so much for sharing! :) Heidi
Wow, I love how you can write so simply but leave me smiling with tear filled eyes every time! You help me to remember the important things and stop stressing about the rest!
Oooh. Thank you!
The next time it’s 7:05 and we should have walked out 6 minutes ago and all we both want is another hour of sleep and he can’t/won’t find/put on his shoes…. When he’s already poured the cereal I told him not to pour because we would eat in 25 minutes when we got to my nanny job…..
When we’re so behind in schoolwork and he doesn’t want to be homeschooled this week anyway so he is taking as long as he possibly can to answer the stupid algebra question…..
When I’m at my wits end and too often I scream things I don’t mean. Lashing out in frustration aand anger and hurt feelings.
And he screams right back, begging to be heard over my self-induced rush because I pressed snooze one. Too. Many. Times.
Instead I will scream this.
I prayed for you. I cried for you. I threw up every. Single. Day. For 40 weeks. Every. Single. Day. All day.
I spent weeks stuck in bed making sure I didn’t lose you because my blood pressure was so high from my utter excitement that finally God had seen me fit to be gifted with you.
I was cut and bled and we both nearly died from it.
And I would. I would do it all again. Without the hesitation of a thought of a breath….
Because I, like you, must have him. I must have him in my life.
Thank you. Thank you for giving me a new script.
How surprised will be he be. How much damage can I undo with that one moment of love poured out in a rush of raised voices….. Instead of anger pounded against his chest, taking his breath away, leaving him uncertain of his place in my soul….
Thank you.
Oh my word YES and SO MUCH AMEN!!! LOVE seeing this processed out loud. It’s exactly the cycle I’ve been on too. You are brave and we moms can do hard things!
Sweet!
I have the necklace…. makes me smile. :)
Whew this is beautiful.
This post is one of those “Lisa-Jo Posts” that makes me smile and cry and nod my head all at once and so thankfully. There were so many nuggets of mama truth in here, I lost count. But this one? This is one my own heart needed to hear just as strongly as my sweet kidlets somtimes need me to remember it, “We need this. This place that builds a wild assurance of belonging.” Oh, yes. This is a post I’ll be rereading. Often.
I can’t wait for my kids to be old enough to ask about their birth stories…I still love to think about those moments of vivid, shaky excitement when we knew it was time to go the hospital. And then the moments where I forgot anybody else was in the room except for me and my new baby. Those are the moments I think it is a gift to be a woman!
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Oh sweet friend… I was all good and loving it until the part where Zoe Grace cups your face and lets loose her wild crazy love all over you and I am Un. Done. Drink those moments in, Mama… for they will feed you and nourish you in seasons to come and they will become a part of who she is for all of her years!
I can not WAIT to hug you proper in just a week!!!
This is one of your post that makes look back and wonder what little thing might I have done, what story might I have told and what unknown gift did give. The things that I and the world may have forgotten but God tattooed on the child sized heart that now beat in the the adult sized chest of my babies.
Thank you for reminding that God will use those ‘little’ things to give peace, comfort and giggles.
Oh man, the tears Lisa-Jo!!! it does hurt, that needing to belong… and your words help me feel like i actually do, and that I am understood. So, for that, I Thank YOU a million times over. You are simply amazing! xo
I smiled so much! I love this: “I’m the wealthiest woman I know.” Beautiful post! Thanks for sharing it with us!
This is beautiful. Just beautiful.
So beautiful Lisa jo! Your words always ministry to me.
Love it, thank you for sharing your thoughts which are soooo much like me it is scary, and wonderful to know that other moms feel the same way and love their kids so much and appreciate those little joys and want them never to end. and then go work on more laundry.
Thank you Thank you. You always manage to capture my frayed feelings and unnamed emotions running crazily under my skin. Thank you for finding the grace in these days that make me feel un-graceful. I feel nurtured by your words, like someone else is being the mama for me.
Best thoughts I have read all day! I have had some “love my life” issues and this just fit. Thank you!
I love getting your emails and seeing you show up in my news feed. Its like getting a email from a dear friend,sending encouraging words. Telling me that Im not alone in motherhood,that I have a wonderful support group and what Im feeling is normal. Im so happy I found your website, I get a daily laugh or the good cry that I need. Thank you for what you do!!