Monthly Archives: February 2011

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Again

I had multiple ideas for what to title this post. Freedom Lost. And So it Begins. The False Pursuit of Perfection.* Here We Go Again. I settled on just Again.
*My personal fav but it was too academic sounding.

As of today, our house is on the market for sale. Again. I remember a year ago this week when we took it off the market, heartbroken that it hadn’t sold after SIX GRUELING MONTHS, because our little Nugget was arriving soon and I just… couldn’t… move… or… keep… up… the… house… to… show………… it. I was so very pregnant. I remember wondering if it would be harder to try and sell it then, enormously pregnant and chasing 2.5 year old twins or now, in the distant future, while chasing an almost one year old and 3.5 year old twins! It’s still a toss-up.

Now is CRAZY because Nathaniel has a morning nap and all 3 kids take an afternoon nap so the available showing hours for our home are somewhat limited. I’ll be breaking my “don’t disturb my sleeping baby/babies” rule over and over and that is likely to wreak havoc with my personal wellness. I have THREE young children wandering around and the littlest one is firmly in his “I can dump that out!” phase. It’s always so joyful to get to the “I can cram that into there!” phase because at least things are put away, though perhaps not where I would choose. But we are not there yet because Nathaniel is currently an emptier. Everything is emptied until he runs out of containers. Then I clean up and we start over. And the twins are far less destructive than they were a year ago, but their toys have so many more intricate pieces now! The sheer volume of items to be placed in specific places boggles my mind and exhausts me. It feels harder this time around.

But as I think back to a year ago, I remember the enormous concern that Matt and I felt over NOT HAVING A PLACE FOR OUR BABY. Nugget was going to have a hallway and not much else. I was already a failure at providing for him and he wasn’t even here yet! It was a painful mind game. So while chasing 3 is at least a little bit harder than chasing 2 (though at least I can run this year instead of lumber around awkwardly), the mental expense feels far less life-and-death because I am not enormously pregnant and at a loss for how to care for my family. My family is here and we are all caring and cared for. We don’t have enough space… but we have love. It worked out.

Today’s events mark the end of my freedom. I LOVE being a mommy. I love being a stay-at-home mommy. For me, that means being with my kids and providing them what they need. What they need is a mommy who likes being here. So I also need breaks and with each passing month, they become more and more mature and self-sufficient so I become a little bit more free to accomplish other things. Like housework. And free time. And crafty projects. And caring for those outside my little family. It’s so beautiful to be Jaime more and more while I continue to maintain my role as Mommy. I function best as a morphed Mommy/Jaime and I’m just now getting into the sweet spot. Except that it is put on hold because my freedom to be Jaime is GONE. I am now Mommy/Slave to my home.

Lest anyone think that being at home with my kids means that I keep a perfect house, let me chortle heartily at your grievous error. I’m here to be with my kids! I keep my house tidy at exactly the same level that I used to keep it when I worked full-time before I had children. Amazingly, my house’s appearance has not increased in importance to me just because I’m in it more. If I didn’t get a thrill out of deep cleaning nooks and crannies back when I had free time, I’m certainly not going to acquire one now that I’m chasing my cute kids! But house selling turns everyone into a perfection freak. Because if you have it just perfect enough, the perspective buyers will turn into tweenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert and trample one another to get here first, right? It’s a mind game that kicks my butt so proficiently, I wonder how self-destructive I must be to put myself in this place again.

People will come through my house, my HOME, that I loved the moment I met it, that Matt and I poured thousands of dollars and millions of drops of sweat and tears into improving, that welcomed my children when they were born… and they will say, “The stairs are weird. The backyard is small. The basement is too short.” And I will fight back rage because it feels like a personal insult of this variety: “You love your home and your home sucks, so you suck!” I want to bypass my realtor and their realtor and yell, “Say it to my face, jerk!” (This is why buyers and sellers don’t meet until they have a contract… too many feverish emotions at stake). It’s very, very bad for my anger issues to have my home constantly criticized after I worked so hard to make it perfect. And then another person wants to see it so my realtor calls and I make it perfect again. And it is never enough.

So yeah, I’m there. Again.  All my “free” time is going to be spent perfecting my home and recovering it back to perfection from all the life we’re trying to have here. I will have to fight myself every second to not inflict expectations of perfection on my children and my husband and myself. Because if I do, we’ll all be bitter about the whole process. And the twins will say, just like they have been for the past month as we have prepared to re-enter this process, “Will we still live in our white house after we sell it? Will we need a new house? But I love OUR house!” We all love it.

But we REALLY do need some more space. I need Nathanny to not sleep in the laundry room. And I need a place for our special things… our books and our creative outlets and the music I hope will someday fill our home. I need room for our dreams of fulfilling God’s calling on our family to be a safe haven for children. Our children we have now and the other children we will care for. I don’t know the details but I know that we need to be available. And we can’t be available here.

We’re not sure where to look for a new place. The university takes up the entire center of our twin towns. We dream of living close to our kids’ schools so that their friends can come and be safe and loved in our home. We dream of living close to the place where we worship with other believers so that we can use the space God gives us to be hospitable and caring to everyone around us. We really want to live in a multicultural, diverse neighborhood where people don’t all look like us. We like being a “hub” for gathering together and we want to be able to do that even more. The houses that fit these criteria in our town tend to be really old or really expensive.  The newer, more affordable homes are on the fringes of town and we want to be close.  So we wait. We find amazing houses and try to get them and God closes the door. Sometimes, He slams it. And again, just like last year, I find myself wondering where our family can thrive. What home can we provide for our family? I want to know the details of where it is and I want to know now.

But we don’t know. I hope to have quite a bit more character this time around. Not hang all my hopes on chance. Not miss the fun right in front of me because I’m too busy chasing the perfect. There is a lot up for grabs and I could really learn and grow or I could really crash and burn. Again. Here we go!

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“Jumping”

I was looking through old picture files on my computer and found a movie of Hoochie trying to jump.  Oh my, we laughed ourselves silly when he did this.  He was short and stocky, kind of a little sausage dog.  And his legs were only a few inches tall.  But he REALLY wanted over that gate.  This was during his first year with us… we quickly learned to keep him nearby so that we knew where he was and what he was doing at all times.  My little chunky boy! Sorry that the movie is sideways… I didn’t have the energy to figure out how to turn it.

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The Missing Chocolate

Last night, Matt found 2 bars of Ethel’s chocolate that I purchased for him for Valentine’s Day back in 2009.  We had tucked them away in a drawer in our bedroom to save for later, and then completely forgot about them.  Matt is a candy hoarder anyway because he likes to keep a secret stash, but we sincerely did forget about those chocolates!  He found them and pulled them out and said, “We should eat these!”  I was excited at the prospect.

This morning, I found Zach with one of them, trying to gnaw it open.  I took it away and told him that he cannot just take food because it isn’t his.  It was Daddy’s.  Then I put it back in our bedroom.  The kids and I had some quiet, peaceful time during Nathaniel’s nap and everyone was playing quietly, or so I thought.  While Rissa was frustrated with me for taking away her baby’s bottle full of water that she had so carefully filled at the sink because Baby Annie can ONLY drink her bottle while sitting on her potty and there was no potty to be found, Zach snuck into our room and snuck out.

He came back later with an empty wrapper and told me that he had eaten Daddy’s chocolate.  I was furious and Daddy was furious.  We were looking forward to sharing it and it seems like 2 ounces of fine dark chocolate would be a bad idea for a little boy’s digestive system!  Augh!

Zach admitted (rather proudly, but at least he didn’t hide his sin) to me that he ate it.  Then he had to call Daddy and admit it to him.  He felt sad that Daddy said, “Zach, I am very angry.”  Zach said that he went to eat it on the couch and hid under a blanket.  We hung up with Daddy and I thought of a story.  I shared this story with the kids and I thought I’d share it with you too because it makes me stop and pause.

“Once upon a time, there were some people named Adam and Eve.  They were friends with God!  He created them and He loved them and told them to go have fun, live their lives, and be His friend.  And they did for awhile.  God gave them a special garden and all the animal friends to be with.  He also told them that the only thing they couldn’t do was eat some fruit from a certain tree, just like Mommy told Zach that he couldn’t eat Daddy’s chocolate.  Did they eat it after God said no?  Well, not for awhile.  But then they did.  And they felt something in their hearts after they ate it because they knew they were making a bad choice.  They felt shame.  And they went to hide.  Just like Zach hid under the blanket on the couch because he knew he was making a bad choice.  He felt shame in his heart.

And God said, ‘Adam and Eve, where are you?’  God knew they were hiding but he wanted them to come out and tell Him.  So they came out and said they were hiding.  Do you think they told God what they did?  <the kids nod>  No.  They blamed each other.  ‘It was HER fault!’  ‘It was HIS fault!’  Did they tell God sorry?  <the kids nod again>  No, they didn’t.  God was very sad.  He had told them that if they didn’t obey, there would be a punishment.  God hoped they would make a good choice and obey because He didn’t want to give the punishment.  But they didn’t.  It makes me sad to give a punishment too.”

I stopped here and the kids waited.  I was done, I had told the story.  Zach’s behavior was just like the account in the Bible.  I wanted to leave the weight of it hanging there so that the kids could consider what I had said.  And then Rissa said, “Can you finish the story, Mommy?”

Wow.  She knew there was more!  She knew that story-telling conventions don’t allow for the story to end with “ugh, it was awful and that’s all there is.  No hope.  Ever.”  There had to be some way for Adam and Eve to be friends with God again, right?  But what could it be?

So I told them about Jesus.  He makes it right for all the times that we make mistakes, just like Adam and Eve did and just like Zach did.  He takes the punishment that God is very sad about, even though He never made a bad choice.  And now we can be friends with God again.  Because of Jesus.  I’m so glad there is more to the story of our lives than our mistakes, aren’t you?

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A Love Story

Once upon a time, there was a Girl who really really REALLY wanted a dog.  But an evil witch named Histamine had cursed her at age 19 so that she couldn’t be close to dogs without getting very, very sick.  So sick, in fact, that a runny nose/itchy eyes/headache allergic reaction sounded like a healthy day.  This Girl’s sinuses and throat swelled shut so that she couldn’t breathe and it took weeks and weeks for everything to open back up.  It was even worse with cats.  There was a way to reverse the curse, because there are a few special dog breeds who are immune to Histamine’s spell.  They don’t cause reactions, but they are very expensive.  This Girl’s prospects for having a canine friend in her home were slim to none.

She found love with a wonderful boy named Matt.  And she told him, “I really really REALLY want a dog.”  She had hoped to get a golden retriever puppy for her first Christmas with Matt, but Histamine had wrecked that dream because golden retrievers are stuffed full of Histamine’s curse.  She cried and cried.  Matt loved this Girl but he didn’t really love dogs.  There was an annoyingly yippy dog next door to his kingdom when he was a boy and he didn’t want to experience that again.  They got married and promised that they wouldn’t become parents of the canine variety of kids or the human variety either for awhile.  And they wouldn’t buy a new house.  They would spend a year focusing on each other.  A year later, more in love and more settled into marriage, the Girl remembered how she really wanted a dog.  But they didn’t have lots and lots of money to get a special breed.  It seemed that Histamine’s curse would hang over her forever, though Matt did everything he could to alleviate her pain.

Then the Girl’s fairy godmother, Alyssa, sent her a secret message!  There was a dog… an expensive dog… an expensive dog who was immune to Histamine’s curse!  And he needed a home!  And he was FREE!

The Girl talked to Matt.  He wasn’t thrilled.  She talked to their landlord.  She was even less thrilled and said “No!” and banned dogs from their apartment.  The Girl cried.  Then Matt agreed to go with her to meet the dog and his brother.  He is a sucker for the words “free” and “potty-trained.”  The dogs’ family was moving and they couldn’t take the animals with them.  Turner and Hooch needed a new home.  Turner was tall and lanky and kind of stupid.  Hooch was short and stocky and exceptionally devious.  Turner tried to smother them with kisses.  Hooch wasn’t a kissy-face dog.  Matt fell in love with Hooch because he was HIS kind of dog.  The Girl fell in love with Hooch too.  Thank goodness for loving fairy godmothers who provide special gifts that seem too good to be true!

The Girl and Matt tried to convince their landlord that Hooch was a great idea for their apartment.  “He doesn’t shed!  He is small!  He is already potty trained!”  They prayed that she would change her mind and lift the ban.  She said no again, and then again.  And then, as if by magic, she agreed because God changed her heart.  Hooch had a new home!  They went to pick up his gear and his cute little self and they brought him home.

He was the epitome of abysmal adorableness.  He was a genius, a diabolical genius.  He was the most manly dog ever, because he had been neutered… twice.  That’s right, he saved a third testicle that didn’t descend until after his first procedure but the vet found it and took it out too.  Thwarted!  Hooch learned to open suitcases by gripping the zipper between his teeth.  He loved zucchini peels and would tip any trash can to dig them out.  The Girl’s sister made chocolate covered pretzel sticks for their dad for Christmas, and Hooch opened the tupperware container and carefully licked off all of the chocolate, leaving only a wet soggy pretzel.

Hooch was a dog evangelist.  He convinced people far and wide that dogs weren’t nearly as stinky and dirty and stupid as they had thought.  He caused all of the Girl and Matt’s friends to fall in love with him, and several people got a dog like him as a result of his sweetness.  No one could withstand the cuteness of his piggy grunts when he was happy and getting scratched in that special spot that made his leg kick uncontrollably.

The Girl and her Matt moved to a house and Hoochie came with them.  They excitedly awaited their twins’ arrival and Hooch guarded the Girl’s tummy with a fierce tenderness they had never seen in him before.  He always sat next to her and slightly in front so that anyone who wanted near his babies had to go through him first.  Then he pooped all over the twins’ room right before they arrived so that they would know that it was his and he was just letting them use it.  The twins arrived and Hooch stationed himself in front of their crib, laying across all of their heart and lung monitor wires on the floor so that no one could move them without his say so.  As they became more mobile, he lengthened his distance from them, but always stayed close enough to keep an eye on them.  And of course, to express his bitterness at the Girl over not being the kingpin anymore now that the babies had arrived, he peed on the foot post of the bed, on the Girl’s side, of course.

Then he discovered the magical high chair.  Food flew down from heaven!  Magical amazing food!  A few years went by and a new baby arrived in the Girl’s tummy.  Hooch reinstituted his fierce protection position at her side to guard his newest charge.  And he peed on Matt’s side of the bed post because apparently, this time, it was his fault.  When the new baby came home, Hooch slept at the base of the bassinet to guard his baby.  And again, he systematically lengthened his distance from the action as the baby became more mobile.

Hooch ended Histamine’s curse on the Girl by coming to live with her and Matt when he was 7 years of age.  He lived to a ripe old 12.5 years, but declined quickly at the end due to fatty tumors in his jaw, throat, and near his joints.  He was unable to eat or bark and he couldn’t walk anymore.  Tearfully, the Girl and Matt and the 3 kids loved him up and then let him go.  Jesus, the King of all the kingdoms, cares for Hooch now.

Hooch was Matt’s gift of love to the Girl.  He agreed to get him to make her happy.  He loved him because she loved him.  And he allowed his heart to grow so that he became a dog person because of Hooch.  As much as the Girl loved Hoochie, this love story is really about her and Matt.

  • Hoochie, I miss your piggy grunts.  My little Gruntlestiltskin.
  • I miss you running in your sleep.
  • I miss you licking the remains of our ice cream bowls after we finish.
  • I miss your extremely rare but sweet kisses.
  • I miss you sniffing Matt’s ears as if they were the most delicious thing you had ever found.
  • I miss you yelling at squirrels who were young and wild and annoyed your curmudgeonly old man self.
  • I miss the way you loved my kids.
  • I miss the way you snuck food from anyone and anywhere.
  • I miss trying to second-guess your latest abysmal plan.  You were an excellent mastermind and henchman for the twins’ scheming.
  • I miss you pouncing every single one of my friends with adoring love and ignoring me when I told you to get down.
  • I miss you shaking your head “no” and backing up if you didn’t want to do what I told you to do.  You little stubborn smartie!
  • I miss you pulling me by your leash around the first block on a walk, and then me pulling you for the second block because you already wore yourself out.
  • I miss you cleaning up everything under the magical highchair.  My goodness our floor is messy without your built-in vacuuming skills!  Nathaniel has volunteered to take your post as official floor scrounger, but that creeps me out.  It was only okay when you did it.
  • I miss you following me around.  I’m sorry I stepped on you so many times.
  • I miss Nathanny’s smile when he pounced you.  You tolerated his exuberant love so well.  Your eyebrows said, “Oh no, not him again!” but your willingness to stay put said, “I love you, Baby.”
  • I miss Rissa’s smile when you chose her lap and made her feel special.  You loved her gentle hands and kind voice in your old age.
  • I miss Zach’s smile when he devised a new and exciting way to play with you.  You know, like that one time when you were the horsie?  Or the dalmatian in the firetruck?  Or the tractor?  Or the steam engine for the doll’s stroller?
  • I miss Matt’s fury at the thought of you in a shirt/jacket.  His “no clothing on animals!” policy was so fun to thwart.  And you were so patient with me when I played dress-up with you.  Let’s not tell anyone about that one time when I dressed you in Zach’s baby Spiderman outfit as I anticipated the birth of our twins, k?  It’s good for you that I got some “real” babies to play dress up with.
  • I miss your ridiculously loud snoring and breathing.  It was so easy to find you.
  • I miss closing doors and gates to prevent you from being abysmal.
  • I miss laughing at you because you had no idea what to do with a ball.
  • I miss you climbing up to rest your paws on the baby gate and do little bounces to try and “jump” over it.  You were always too close to the ground for jumping and it infuriated you.
  • I miss your birthday party and giving you a hot dog as a special treat on June 1.
  • I miss you hiding in the bathtub during thunderstorms.
  • I miss you playing “hard to get” and refusing snuggles unless you initiated it yourself.
  • I  miss hearing Matt say, “Hoochie!  Abysmal!  Go snuggle Mommy!” as he carried your stubborn self over to my lap.  I loved being the punishment you had to endure. 🙂
  • I miss your wet nose.
  • I miss having to put my purse up high enough that you wouldn’t rifle through it looking for gum/teething biscuits/Kleenex.
  • I miss giving you haircuts.
  • I miss taking naps with you.  You were SO roasty and squishy and soft.  You made being enormously pregnant so much more comfortable as my little heated body pillow.  I miss waking up to find that you had wriggled away to have your own personal space as soon as I fell asleep.  Thanks for faking it on my behalf.
  • I miss Schnauzerfests.  We Mini Schnauzer owners love to celebrate our own cleverness at having the very best breed of dog EVER.
  • I miss you.  I’m sorry I didn’t cry.  I thought I would, but I’m so relieved that you aren’t hurting anymore.

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Overwhelmed

We are really struggling around here.  I haven’t been talking about it much on the blog because I don’t know where to start.  And also because I don’t know what/how much to share.  We receive SO MUCH SUPPORT from kind friends who read our blog and comment or email or call and tell us that they love us and are rooting for us.  I’m so grateful that I can’t even begin to offer enough thanks for the love our family has been given by so many of you!  And extremely rarely, we have received the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face, telling me specifically to quit whining and being a brat.  Those rarities are painful and make me hesitant to put myself out there.

I’m certainly capable of being a brat.  I’m certainly capable of whining.  I know that I do these things and I’m sure it is obvious to all of you.  But I really want to be honest – to share myself openly because a) I need an outlet, b) I HATE the fake veneer that so many of us feel like we should wear over our true facial expression/mood/perspective, c) “bucking up” is one of the most isolating concepts and I’m not really into isolation — I want community, and d) I’m always encouraged by other honest people and their incredible courage in talking about hard things.  Specifically, in talking about hard things in a thoughtful way that admits the difficulty AND looks for hope and the future as they trust God to care for them despite feeling broken.  It’s always so exciting to see the ways that God DOES care for others and to cheer them on and build my own capacity for hope as a result of watching His work in the lives of those around me.  I wouldn’t see where God intervenes if people weren’t willing to tell me about their brokenness, failings, and disappointments.  So I want to tell all of you about my brokenness, failings, and disappointments so that maybe we can together experience God’s care for the Olson family.

1.  It’s time to sell our house again.  Well, it’s the selling season for real estate.  And we have fully outgrown our current space.  Whether we have enough stability in our lives and enough time to devote to this process is still a looming question.  We loved a house back in November.  We put in an offer.  They received another offer the same day from someone who did not need to sell their house first.  We lost.  We found a new house that we LOVE – we met it a week ago.  We thought about putting in an offer, and once again, they received another offer the same day from someone who did not need to sell their house first.  It’s an emotionally acidic experience to find a place that you dream about inhabiting with your family and then losing it.  And then again.  Meanwhile, we need to get our house on the market!  Last time, we packed up 40% of our belongings and placed them in storage.  This time, we are cramming our basement full of that same 40% of our belongings and everything feels tight and overwhelming.  We have a lot more decluttering to do to get things back to where they were around here 18 months ago when we first started this process.  And now we have a 5th person and all of his gear, so we have even more stuff!  We’ll get there and we are plugging away but I nearly collapse under the weight of so much to do.

2.  Hoochie is really sick.  Mini Schnauzers tend to be vibrant and puppy-like right up to the end and then their health crashes pretty severely and within months, they are only a shell of their former selves.  That’s what we have seen with Hooch.  In the past year, he has been showing his age (12.5 years, 87.5 in people years) and in the past 5 months, he has slowed way down, spending all of his time napping.  In the past 2 weeks, he has declined rapidly.  He can’t breathe well or swallow well because he has a benign tumor in his throat and several in his mouth.  It’s hard to eat.  He’s lost a lot of weight.  He has trouble walking on the hardwood floors because he can’t grip them and he falls down a lot.  He can’t bark anymore (I’ll admit to not being sad about that one!)  It is all really heartbreaking.  We aren’t sure how to proceed – we have to consider his quality of life, but also the benefit that he brings to our kids.  They adore him and they love to care for him.  Rissa keeps stroking him softly and saying, “It’s okay, Hoochie.  I’m here.  It’s okay.  We love you.”  She is so caring and kind to him!  Zach helps lift him around his middle so that he can stand up easier and he is so gentle and supportive as he helps Hoochie walk.  He talks quietly and gently to him, “I’ll help you, Hoochie.  There you go.  There.”  And Nathaniel slobbers him with wet kisses and tries to forcibly hug/pounce him as often as possible.  It’s so sweet to see them care for our smallest and most fragile family member.  We wouldn’t get another dog until Nathanny is potty trained, so it’s going to be awhile before they can have a dog again.  We’re really sad.

3.  Gene, Ryan’s dad, died this week.  It was sudden and awful.  He and Mari, as well as his family are reeling.  The funeral is tomorrow and I’m planning to go so that I can support them in any way I can.  Matt will be handling all 3 kids all by himself for the second weekend in a row.  We’re so sad about this news and we know that Ryan’s entire family is hurting.  We are hurting for them.

I’ll stop there… I think that’s more than enough.  So yeah, we’re overwhelmed.  But we have hope.  Hope that there is a place for our family to thrive, hope that the Lord Jesus is King and will restore and redeem all that has broken around us, hope that we can love each other through this time.  I’m committed to valuing my husband and kids while we wait instead of trying to just get done with all that burdens us so I can get around to loving them again.  Love is always appropriate right now.  Hope and love.

I have found comfort in these verses:

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”  2 Cor. 4:7-10

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”   Romans 5:1-5