For Abbie

Because I'm sappy and because I've been looking for ways to teach both my daughters, but especially Abbie, self-worth. And because the TV show, "Touched by an Angel" and "Little House on the Prairie" are pretty much the only decent shows on daytime television.

This is what I'd like to teach my children, taken from an episode this week:

From the TV Show, “Touched by an Angel” during the episode, “An Angel on My Tree”

You also have a Father in Heaven and he loves you more than you can imagine.

A boy with Tourrette's syndrome asks the angel, Monica, "How could God love me? I’m a mistake."

She responds, "God doesn’t make mistakes. What God sees as perfect is very, very different from what the world sees. The world sees faces that are beautiful and ugly. The world sees bodies that are strong and are weak; the world sees people who succeed or fail. But God sees hearts. He sees the love in your soul. He sees the beauty in your spirit. And that’s the only thing that finally matters. That’s the only thing that lasts. The person that you are, not the body that you’re in."

What I've Been Up To Lately

So, some of you are wondering about the state of The Burn, and I can report that it is healing, ever so slowly. To you "skin pickers," (shiver) I can tell you that there hasn't been a great deal of peeling, but rather, crusting (sorry, TMI, I know). I've been really concerned about all this and am trying to get in to see a dermatologist before the beginning of next year (yes, literally. If they are good, they are booked solid unless you're an established patient).

In the meantime, I have been focusing a lot of attention on a project which is going to be so worth it when it's over. I have hired a professional organizer to help me clean out the garage. My plan is to start with the garage and then move to the house. This will probably be a summer-long project, I hate to say, but my hope is that when this is finished, life will be better.

Heather over at Dooce.com wrote a really great post, part of which I'm going to include here because she says what I've been feeling better than I could:

I want to be a better wife, a more conscious and present mother, a more loyal friend, and a better listener. I'd like to handle my anxiety better. I also want to be more organized because I'm tired and fed up with not being able to find anything. Many times that anything is my head.

Some of you who know me know that I've never been organized or the best at keeping things straight, but there was a time that I could actually find what I was looking for because 1. I could remember and 2. Things weren't as out of control as they have been here for the past who knows how long.

Part of why the house is the chaotic mess it is, is we moved from a house with a full-size basement to a house without a basement at all. There isn't a lot of storage and the kitchen here is microscopically tiny, with no room to store a full set of pots and pans and a few baking sheets. I learned that having a full-size basement is potentially dangerous, as it offers ample room to throw old, outdated, unwanted stuff because you just pitch it down there and never realize the enormous pile that has surmounted in the lower level of the house. I had wanted to purge most of the basement collection before we moved, but that is a long story which I cannot tell for reasons I cannot tell, so let's just skip over that.

Last summer, I was no good around the house. I had started to experience symptoms of pre-eclampsia in late June and/or early July, so all I was supposed to do was come home after work and lay on my left side. While I spent the summer as Shamu beached on the couch, the mess in the house got worse. My husband kept things going, but things have accumulated for so long, it just never ends.

When we brought Abbie home from Cincinnati, our energy was entirely focused on her care and feedings (you have no idea how long NG tube feedings can take!) and the care and feeding of Hannah as well. Then, there was surgery and recovery.... let's just put it this way: since we got home in September, I didn't do much in the way of deep cleaning our home. I took care of my kids and that was pretty much it.

Sometime in the new year (I honestly cannot remember when), I told my therapist that I needed to do something about my house, that the stuff we've amassed is just closing in on me and that I physically felt crowded. I hate that feeling and have been trying, in meager attempts, to do what needs doing and purge all the things we no longer use or want. Hence, the yard sale in early May.

Please know that our house is nothing like what was depicted on Oprah when she did a show about hoarding. No where close. But, I don't want to even lean in that direction, so I want to get the matter of our clutter under control ASAP.

It's easy for me to get off task, and loving on my babies is always much more fun than cleaning. Then one day a few weeks ago, I decided enough is enough. I saw an ad in the newspaper and called the lady to come over for an estimate. She and I have been working to clear out the garage, which is already inspiring me to forge ahead in our home.

Can we really afford paying someone to come to our home to keep my nose to the grindstone so that our garage is finally a place where we can park our car and find lawn equipment? No, not really. It is a sacrifice to do it. But I counter: Can we really afford not to do this? My answer is emphatically, no, we cannot afford to not do this, because as Heather stated above, I want better for my kids, for my home and for myself.

In making my case for this to my husband, I said:

I want better for our kids. I want them to be able to have their friends over whenever, without having to have a huge cleaning spree right before. I want to be able to open our door without cringing when someone knocks on our door. I want to be able to invite someone in when they stop by unannounced and be really ok with the way the house looks. I want to be able to find the things I need and want to find. I want to know where things are. I want peace, calm, order and structure for our home. I want better for all of us.

So, dear friends, the reason my blog has been neglected is because I'm finally taking care of other things that have been neglected for far too long. While I love communicating with you and while I love writing about life, living life and providing a better life for myself and my kids is what's really important. I know you understand. I'll be back soon. But, as with the sunburn, without photos. ;-)

The Great Debate

I've been mulling around with the idea of going back to work outside the home. I say it that way because staying home to raise children is work, though American society would, at times, portray staying at home to be easy.

It isn't. In fact, when I made the transition from full-time employee and part-time student to full-time mother and part-time student when my oldest daughter was born, I had a really difficult time. I was so used to being creative and interacting with other adults and my world went from going full-speed ahead to being dictated by the nursing schedule of an infant.

I do love being home with my children. But I also think that they miss out on socialization by not being in play groups or in some sort of care on a semi-regular basis.

Financially, things have been tight. I look back on the past 9 months and am amazed that we have made it. The short answer is: God has provided. It's been really close at times, and even though we finally sold our old house and we finally settled a lawsuit within the past 4 months, the fact is, that by being a one income family with more financial obligations than money means that we are playing catch up after many long months of juggling. It's exhausting and I've been praying specifically about finances.

So.... I am again in the middle of the Great Debate of the 21st Century. Ok, maybe it's not that big of a deal, but there has been a lot of discussion that began in the 90's and continues through today. It was even a topic of discussion on "Sex and the City" when Miranda, a successful lawyer aiming for partner, becomes pregnant. The question of whether or not women can have it all came up.

Personally, I don't think women can have it ALL. Something has to give at some point. Actually, at many points through the day. If a woman is a successful physician or attorney, her time at home is limited. If a woman chooses to focus her time on her family, her career can (and I believe a lot of times, will) suffer. Even for those of us who chose career paths far from what we originally planned, opting to take administrative jobs rather than go to law school, for example, we cannot have it all.

The sitter or day care will eventually call and tell you that little Suzy has a fever, can you please come now? And despite the fact that you have an insane day ahead of you, full of meetings or work obligations, you must go. Now.

It's a very difficult tight rope to walk. One slip either way and you feel awful. For me, I was always guilty. I always felt bad about my kid being in day care, but I had to contribute financially. She did well. She needed to be around other kids and other adults. She benefited from the education programs at her day care. But at the end of the day, I think what she and I both wanted was for us to be home together.

I think that once children are in school, being a working-outside-the-home mother can be easier. You don't feel guilty about being away from them because they're supposed to be in school. And, a bonus with a lot of after-school programs is that they can get their homework finished before even going home.

It's a tough decision that every woman has to make. A lot of us feel that we are better mothers when we work outside the home. A lot of us feel that we should absolutely be home to raise our children to school age. Then some of us (me) are somewhere in the middle, not knowing what the exact right answer is, and we hope that we're getting it right, somehow.