:: It took me a long time to learn to release my expectations to be involved in gatherings. I used to growl or feel sad or left out to have to disengage from something in order to care for our children.

I’m doing better these years, and I think it’s partly due to setting the expectation beforehand that I choose to be present for my children, that I want to be the one to care for them, that this is the role I have chosen for this specific time and event. Anything I might happen to get personally from the event is icing on the cake, small thankfulnesses. It gives me the emotional space to leave things peacefully and without regret. (written as game night goes on downstairs while I preside over bedtime)

:: I packed well this time. Only a couple of toys. Literally. Last retreat I packed a basket full of things to do and learned (once again) that they never play with what we bring. (Is that just our children, or do all the other people who seem to pack so thoughtfully and magnanimously end up hauling home unused toys, too?)

The few toys we brought have seen some use, just enough that I don’t regret bringing them. Just enough that I don’t mind cleaning them up.

:: It stopped raining long enough for us to take two walks today. One walk was just the big girls of the family. We spotted our first deer tracks, two kinds of scat, and a piece of quartz. Fits in perfectly with our study of animals, deer last week. Didn’t manage to identify the birds hopping around outside our window. I’m thinking sparrows.

We were intrepid explorers, inquisitive observers.

:: Kiri has sprouted two little teeth this week. They are so darling. But in the meantime she just hasn’t quite been herself, poor baby.

:: One of the activities we chose for the retreat was to write a poem using this template. I wrote one, and found it harder than expected. It’s interesting what you reveal about yourself to yourself (and to others) in an exercise like this. I think I could do it again tonight and it would turn out completely different.

Try it sometime. Share it with someone, read it aloud.

i am

i am full of fear and I am here
i wonder about the great wide world
i hear eternity and mortality buzzing in my brain
i see a glorious tree, grounded, stretching
i want more, more, always more
i am full of fear and I am here

i pretend i am a better me
i feel kaleidoscopically, no longer just in black and white
i touch a baby’s soft cheek, my baby’s soft cheek
i worry about loss
i cry into my pillow
i am full of fear and i am here

i understand that God is love
i say that pain is okay
i dream about people who didn’t love me enough or any
i try to let go of my try-hard life
i hope for vision
i am full of fear and i am here

:: I’m trying to make one step forward in my quest for beauty each week. Or week-ish. Or as often as possible. I’m planning to jot down some of my successes (and failures, meh) here as I go along. Maybe someday I’ll even include a photo.

:: Put together an IKEA Billy bookcase this morning in 21 minutes flat. Approximately half the time it took to put together the first one. Some days are for listening to (or trying to listen to) TED talks and letting Levi “knock” all the nails. Other days are for getting it done, baby.

Said bookcases are headed upstairs into our school room. It’s my first big step in taking charge of the beauty in my life. Beauty and function = bliss. Bye bye room full of mismatched, under and over-sized bookcases. Hello, Billy.

:: The girls have been sleeping under twin-sized blankets on their full-size bed for, oh, about two years.

I finally decided to take my fate into my own hands and go ahead and buy a proper comforter. (Have I mentioned that I have a really hard time spending money?)

No quilting at this time if I wanted it done before the end of winter. Or summer. Or next winter.

I diligently narrowed down our internet choice to one that everyone liked, and went to click check out. I was determined to take my purchasing power into my own hands and procure something that we needed and liked. Comforter or bust, that was my motto.

But I just. couldn’t. pay. one-hundred-and-FIFTY-dollars.

For a blanket.

Defeated once again, the skimpy twin comforter mocked me every morning: You’re an internet shopping failure. How hard can it be to find a nice looking comforter? No matter how straight you pull me, I will never look good. Cackle, cackle.

And then, the shopping stars aligned.

We stepped into Ross to pick up some pillow cases and what did we see, but our chosen comforter. In the right size. For FIFTY DOLLARS!!!

Eeeeeee! (I’m doing my Liesl von Trapp impersonation).

So now we have bright pink flowers and it covers the whole bed. Levi inherited the twin comforter and it looks properly fluffy and decadent in his crib. And we are all so happy. Including our bank account.

Now if only a nice, modern couch would land in my lap in similar fashion. (Do you know how many ugly couches there are on craigslist, do you?)

I’ll tell you what it’s like.

It’s difficult and it’s delightful. It’s exhausting and energizing. It’s full of ups and downs and an awful lot of middling.

Wait, doesn’t that sound like regular life? You got it.

The infant stage is always rough. Always. Because there’s an infant, not because of how many children you have. I was overwhelmed when I had one, when I had two, when I had three, when I had four. It’s a stage, it’s inescapable. It’s of {comparatively} short duration.

What has been drastically different about having four children (versus three or two or one) is not the amount of laundry (Devo does that), not the amount of food I cook, not the ‘strain’ on our marriage, not the decrease in free time, not the level of craziness, not the amount of money spent.

The biggest difference with having four children is how people treat me.

I had my fourth baby, and suddenly I became polarized.

Maybe you’re familiar with the concept over history of women being either angels or demons. Women were not viewed as a mix of good and bad, they were either good (angels) or bad (demons). Nothing in between.

That’s similar to how the general public apparently thinks of a woman who has four children.

People think of me and interact with me largely from one of two viewpoints. For our purposes, I am going to label them Poor You or You’re SuperMom.

Poor You.
These people look at me with pity. They think having four children is insanely difficult. These people look at me with brows furrowed in concern. Or in slightly disdainful pity.

They say things like It must be really hard. Or, my favorite, I could never do that (with the insinuation that they would never want to do that).

This, of course, gives a nasty feeling. The slight inconveniences of parenting suddenly seem incredibly large and ugly in the presence of these people. Anything less than pure peace and happiness is met with a general attitude of “you asked for it” from the more cynical members of this group.

I don’t like to be pitied for something I happen to cherish.

You’re SuperMom.
These people think that I’ve got it all under control, I have no struggles, everything in my sphere is smooth and idyllic. My children are angels, my house is always clean, I am a source of infallible knowledge.

They tend to use words like Super Mom, Super Woman, amazing.

At first this one feels good. Some positive affirmation, don’t we all love that. But it quickly loses its sheen. Right now I meet it with especial distaste.

SuperMom mentality leaves no room for me to talk about struggles or challenges or bad days with any sort of authenticity.

More significantly, it doesn’t allow me to talk about my successes and joys without feeling like a total bragger. Or, worse, a liar…someone who doesn’t tell the whole truth.

Early after Kiri was born, I remember making an effort to speak authentically about how I was really doing. I wasn’t going to answer a cheery “it’s great!” if it wasn’t. I would speak truthfully, but lightly, about whatever was foremost at the time.

Only to discover (again) that most people just aren’t interested. Generally, I received either blank looks or people telling me that I should not feel the way I do, but I should feel another way. Dislike.

Lesson learned ~ discern who really wants to know.

This phenomenon of Poor You vs. You’re SuperMom was very pronounced in the beginning. It completely took me by surprise. I had thought I’d get the heat for having a large family when I had my third baby, but when it didn’t come, I forgot about it only to have it show up with the fourth baby. Oh.

I felt ostracized. Excluded from the human experience. Unable to speak freely. It took a great deal of thought to be able to speak with any sort of authenticity. Speaking without thought would send me home writhing because it either looked like I was complaining or putting on a false front.

It’s eased off a lot now. Most noticeably among my friends. For the most part, I’m back to just being Leilani, with all of my strengths and foibles. Same as always. With a new baby.

The general public remains about the same and I’m learning to just let it slide by. Luckily I haven’t run into any rudeness. But I love being pleasantly surprised by people who allow me to be a regular human.

Because that’s what I am, a human, a healthy and living mix of strength and weakness. And I’ll thank you forever if you’ll treat me as one.

{Don’t understand the reference?  Read this.  Best treatise on the concept of enjoying every moment I’ve read.  At least skim to the end, because I have a feeling I’m going to be labeling things chronos and kairos for awhile and you might want to know what on earth I’m talking about.}

It was just one of those days where I worked my little tail off and was always behind.  Like hours behind.  Which made me feel a little frantic.  So by the time we got to bedtime…well, here’s how it went, does it sound familiar?

Dinner’s finished.  Everything was salty.  The tofu was salty.  The miso soup was salty.  The bokchoy was salty.  There wasn’t enough rice to balance it out.  Or any rice wine vinegar to save the bokchoy.

Devo’s off to his evening meeting after making a good effort on the dishes.  I shoo the kids off to the shower (this week we’re trying showering at night to make the morning easier) and aim to finish washing the dishes and sweeping the floor.  Because there is a pizza crust from Sunday on the floor. Among other things.

Kiri watches me from her walker.  I hear the resounding sounds of small beings hollering in the echo-y shower.  Mooommmmyyyyy.  Shake conditioner out of the nearly empty bottle.  Return to kitchen, scrub at dishes.  Put two chairs up.  Levi needs his towel, he needs to go poo-poo, he can’t go by himself.  Kiri begins to fuss.  Levi needs the heater.  But he needs to go poo-poo and he needs me to go with him.  But he’s wet and slides off the toilet.  Because he needs a towel.  Kiri fusses.

No poo-poo. Kiri, laying on the floor in the hall, registers her boredom.

Go to get girls out of shower.  They are not feeling the frantic mother vibes, they are feeling calm and soothed.  And therefore do not move with anything resembling focus and purpose.  Lia has been flipping her hair up and over in the shower, it’s full of knots.  Shake remaining drops out of conditioner out of the bottle, begin applying comb.

Amelie, “Mommyyyy, Levi’s pooping!!!!”

Drop comb, rush to the other bathroom to find that PHEW, he’s gone in the potty, instead of on the bedroom floor.  Reprimand myself for getting all wigged out about something that didn’t even happen.  Notice that the slight rash around Levi’s belly button has gotten wider.  Try to examine limbs and trunk of moving body in faulty light.  (We’re currently in a high alert for the chicken pox.)  Can’t really tell the difference between the bumpy dry skin eczema stuff and the red rash.  Is it from the hot shower?  Are there early chicken pox bumps?  Does he have food allergies and we’re going to have to become dairy free, gluten free, sugar free, corn free?

Levi wiggles.  Kiri expresses indignation.  Lia is still singing in the shower.

Get Lia out of the shower.  Comb two girls’ hair (“why do we have to brush our hair when we’re going to bed?”).  Kiri fusses.

Slather bag balm on Levi’s worst spots and lubriderm everywhere else.  Slow, slow, slow.  Kiri fusses.  Take a picture of the belly button for my mom (personal triage nurse).  Put on his jammies (they’re itchy!), remove them and put on a second pair (they’re not itchy!).

Change Kiri into a clean diaper and jammies, to the incessant tune of “why?” from my constant companion.  Girls wander by.

Girls, I plead, please just get in bed.

Grab the ipod (I wasn’t up to reading a story while competing with Kiri and Levi for volume per usual), the iphone (for texting mom the picture), and the baby (for nursing).  Put it all down to fling Levi into his crib.  Hush and shush in a most unbecoming manner.  Fiddle with the ipod until I realize it isn’t plugged in.  Pick up the noisy baby to nurse and sit back to text my mom while hushing and shushing the conversations.  Kiri clamps and pulls.  Levi asks questions, Lia requests volume adjustment.

Mommy sighs.  Apologizes.  Kisses.  Tucks in.  Sits down with baby to listen to the lullabies.  Does another round of kisses and snuggles until Kiri’s wiggling and engaging smiles inspire energy in other small people.  Retreat.  Turn on hall lights.  Sit in living room chair and search for the outside world, for a few moments to regain sanity.  Try not to berate myself for looking at the ipad instead of at my baby.  Sometimes I just need a little space.  Please.

Things are calm now.  Kiri’s sleeping.  Levi’s diaper is changed (again), the ipod is quiet.  I did pick up the pizza crust but I didn’t sweep the floor.  Didn’t put away the dishes either.  Hope the ants don’t discover the floor between now and tomorrow.  Texted with a friend, words of encouragement.  I’m really craving Silk chocolate soymilk as a solace and I don’t think rice milk with ovaltine is going to meet the need.

But really, it was a good day.  We did some good work at school, even if it was barely half of the routine.  Cleaned out my inbox.  Got partway through the long list of tasks to do on the internet.  Bought the Audubon app for trees, mammals, birds, and wildflowers…then had the satisfaction of seeing the kids exploring it with laughter and interest (it’s fabulous, can’t wait to take it on nature walks).  Made two meals, didn’t eat out once.  Read for an hour with the girls all about the Parthenon, feeling sick when learning of that Venetian cannonball that destroyed it.  Saw Devo more than usual for a Tuesday.

It was a good day.  I just wish it had ended better.  Try again tomorrow?

It wasn’t too noticeable (no boogers, thank goodness) and it brought a smile to my face.
I love my life and today I’m extra mindful, extra grateful that I get to spend my days doing something I love.

:: Kiri has a wonderful life. There are so so many benefits to being the fourth baby. We say that she is the most loved baby…because she has the most people to love her. That baby girl is just showered with love.

Someone creeps in to our room every morning to see if Kiri is awake yet. The three older kids sit on the bed and pass her around, so everyone gets some of the early morning smiles. On the rare morning that they get distracted with activities in the living room, Kiri looks around, and I imagine she’s a bit puzzled.

She’s always going adventuring. Someone will come and get her and carry her off for some sort of frolic. When they’re tired, they bring her back.

I’ll often find her perched somewhere next to a little girl and a pile of dolls. Or snuggled up with Lia and a book. Or being loved on by Levi. When she’s in the walker Levi can take her places, too. He likes that.

They turn to Kiri in times of disappointment or tears. She’s better than a stuffed animal when in need of a little comfort.

She’s such a bright, warm, calm little being. We look at each other several times a day and I nod in agreement, It’s a wonderful life.

:: So the backyard is a disaster. Neglected. Forlorn. Ugly. Morning glory vines taking over everything. The creeping fig vine had half fallen off of the back wall due to an unfortunate incident with the clipping shears (six months ago). Undernourished roses. It’s pretty bad. And embarrassing.

But, see, we’ve been house hunting for almost four years now, always intending to move soon. So I haven’t been able to justify putting a bunch of money into a garden we will up and abandon. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I. Just. Can’t.

I think I’ve finally come up with a solution that will help me to break out of this state of utter garden dejection and paralyzation.

We are going to weedwhack a great deal of the garden down to the ground (leaving up only beloved and flourishing perennials). Rake the soil to expose the roots of the weeds so that they will die. Let the next batch of weeds start up then rake the bejeebees out of them, too.

Then we are going to buy a $13 packet of seeds (butterfly habitat!) and sow liberally. All over. No planning, nothing.

If I decide later in the year to plant tomatoes (but what if we are going to move? says the voice), I’ll just dig up whatever already grew. So there. POA stated.

Now I just need to buy the string thingy for the weedwhacker because we used the last bit of it today and we’ve barely gotten started. Courage, Leilani!

I’ve never been one for a mess.  Next to mothers who can handle mess in the name of learning and fun I feel…small.  Bewildered.  
Because frankly there is only so much mess I can handle before turning into a basketcase.

My mess threshold is very low.  (Self-knowledge!  Important!)  Therefore, kitchen exploration is fairly tightly controlled in my kitchen.

I love Montessori who advocates teaching children to do real tasks.  In the kitchen, the trick is to find ways to involve them in what I am doing.  That lets me keep an eye on them, and on the mess, as well as actually helping prepare the food.  I love to kill three birds with one stone.  So satisfying.

I made a small list of things that the kids often do in our kitchen.  It looks different for each child, according to age.  The two year old might hack away at his piece of cucumber.  The four year old gets lessons in how to cut it into sticks.  The seven year old uses a real knife.  You get the picture.

Get things out of the fridge.  Ketchup, vegetables, peanut butter.

Chop things.  Levi has his own lettuce knife (sharp enough to cut vegetables, not sharp 
enough to cut fingers) and a cutting board.  He gets half a tomato, or a carrot, or a fourth 
of a cucumber to chop (and eat).  He eats a lot of vegetables while ’helping’ cook…score!  
I usually chop them a bit more to at least kind of resemble the sizes I need.

Peel carrots and tangerines.

Load and run the machines.  Blender, food processor, rice maker, kitchen aid.

Stir things on the stove.  (Seven year old).

Set the table.  

Wash dishes.I don’t mind cleaning up a water mess.  A few swipes with a towel for 20 minutes of cooking peace = good deal.  And sometimes the dishes actually get clean.

I love to bake and this often brings out the crowd of eager bakers.  But I am less than eager to have flour spilled everywhere.  I am also less than eager for things to take all day.  So I run a fairly tight ship.

I measure, they pour.  I dig the cup measure in the flour.  A child might level it if I’m feeling relaxed and magnanimous.  A child pours it into the bowl (with guidance to avoid losing half of the ingredients).

Lia is probably ready to do some baking on her own, but she hasn’t shown much of an interest, so she generally reads the recipes and I call it good.

Play with dough.  Here is a place where I let them play without much supervision.  They each get a child size rolling pin and a board scraper and are free to play and experiment to their heart’s content.  The only rule is that the dough stays on the counter.  And they can’t get out any other tools.  And they can’t add any other ingredients such as 
water or flour.  Haha.  But the result is good - they have fun, the mess is controllable.

What do your kids do in your kitchen?

We’ve been getting these boxes from Farm Fresh To You weekly for about two months now.  I am ready to become their newest spokesperson, their most ardent evangelist, their faithful devotee.  It’s glorious.  Southern California friends, definitely check it out.

I’m now on the lookout for what other things on my regular shopping list I can have delivered to my door.  Toilet paper?

:: In our box this week were two large cauliflowers.  (What is the plural of cauliflower?  Cauliflower or cauliflowers?)  Finally, a chance to try out smitten kitchen’s cumin seed roasted cauliflower with yogurt.  Minus the mint and pomegranate, due to pantry limitations.

Might I say, Yum.  We used the yogurt-feta to dip in and that’s what turns the recipe from Yum into Super Yum.  In my opinion.  Think Indian raita.  Devo doesn’t like milky stuff, so he only got to experience Yum.  The kids and I indulged in Super Yum.

The kids also spent most of dinner creating new dishes Iron Chef style.  Mix a little of this, add a little of that, explain your creation with full step-by-step detail.

:: And as for the itty bitty red and yukon potatoes, yesterday, I and my sous chef Levi smashed them a la Pioneer Woman’s Crash Hot Potatoes.  We enjoyed it so much we did it again today.  Which is saying something, because traditionally our children don’t eat a lot of potatoes.  Yams, yes.  Potatoes, no.  That has officially changed thanks to Pioneer Woman.  The kosher salt really makes a difference.

:: We have consumed large quantities of shredded cabbage adorned with a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of salt, and a dusting of dill.

:: I am totally stoked to have signed up for Whole Food Kitchen online course with Heather at Beauty That Moves.  My friend Shelley and I got in during the two-for-one special she offered, and I amazed myself by handing over my money without a second thought or a single qualm.  (!!!!) That alone tells me how much I expect to get out of this course.  Heather is just my kind of cook and I can’t wait to sit at her proverbial feet and expand our culinary horizons.  (How many times have I used “culinary” in this post?  Been watching too much Iron Chef.)

:: Probably sweetest of all the things happening in my kitchen is the presence of my ever faithful kitchen companion, Levi.  That boy loves to cook.  He has his own special knife (one of those green lettuce knives…plastic, sharp enough to cut vegetables, not sharp enough to cut fingers) and trots off to get his own cutting board whenever he sees me starting to cook.  He helps to cut every vegetable that crosses my cutting board, and I often assign the food processor to him.  He sets it up, puts in the ingredients, turns it on and off.  He has his fingers in every pie, he is the official “quality control” manager, he knows how to run all the machines,  and he is a darn good conversationalist.

I’m ready for a new year. New horizons. New goals. Fresh starts.

I have a small working list of specific goals for this year. I’d like to make homemade marshmallows and orange rolls. Lose the last 15 pounds. Take voice lessons. Sew dresses for my girls. (Pay someone to) reupholster the chairs. Stop traveling through life with so much excess, by way of possessions. Discover an affordable whole foods convenient food other than PBJ.

But I’m not too concerned with those. They’ll work themselves out.

This year I am looking forward to a year of Beauty.

Not beauty, the pretty, the perfect, the pristine.

But beauty the large, the untamed, the imperfect. Courageous. Visceral.

I spent my twenties getting my ducks in a row. Learning how to organize my household, my family, myself. I’ve got an awesome collection of tools now at my disposal, to be used as needed. It was a great journey, full of hard work, research, and failures. But now, for the most part, I’v got it, know how to do it, know how to change it when needed.

This year I’m wide open, finally ready for the new journey promised by my 30s. I’m ready to soak up and delve in. I’m ready to learn.

I anticipate it looking something like this…

:: I know how to organize my home. I’m not sure how to make it a place of beauty that reflects my taste and style.

:: I know how to streamline and organize my wardrobe. I need to acquire courage to spend money on clothes, and to learn how to shop productively so that I can wear clothes I think are beautiful.

:: I know how to sing. I need the courage to finally accept that I don’t have a pretty little obedient voice. I have a wild and unruly instrument that truly only works when I let go of the desire to control it.

:: I know how to care for my children and my husband. I want to learn how to become more intuitive, more present, more relational.

:: I know how to be authentic with myself. I want to learn how to be more authentic with other people in ways that benefit all parties.

:: I know pure joy and I know pure frustration. I’m looking for an emotional spectrum that has shades and layers and nuances.

Do you begin to see what kind of beauty I’m after? Maybe something that looks a little like this.

{photo via Dance.net.au of Paco Pena Flamenco Dance Company}

1. Been thinking a lot on the old year and on the new year. A pause on the brink of the future.

2. Been thinking about the presence of technology in our home and how much I abhor its omnipresence and omniscience. Contemplating taking serious action.

3. Been thinking about aging and the passage of time.

4. Been listening to elderly friends talk about their children and thinking about how being a parent means that I will be vulnerable for the rest of my life to having my heart broken.

5. Been thinking how blogging seems impossible with children and wondering why I even bother trying. Someday I’ll publish my drafts folder. It’s full of half-written blog posts.

Baby crying, must go.

Nine years ago in the aftermath of a super typhoon, we said the eternal vows ::

to have and to hold … for better or for worse … for richer or for poorer … in sickness or in health … to love and to cherish

The traditional vows have stood the test of time because they truly are the formula of a marriage.

There is lots of better, but there is also some worse.  There has been richer and there is poorer.  There is sickness, there is health.

There is having and holding, loving and cherishing.  These all inherently come with joy, but also with enormous responsibility, a large margin for error, and the dawning realization that joy can be unbearably painful.

If you’re looking for Happily Ever After, this is it.  The real kind. 

Children, I want to say to our small flock, this it what it looks like. 

Cinderella works hard.  The Prince works hard. Both do dishes.  Every day.

Sometimes people cry.  Sometimes people are angry.  And it’s OK.  Good, even.

It is possible to be both one and separate (and they are equally important).

Here kindness rules over irritation.  Here grace overlooks mistakes.

Great hopes and great fears live in tension, both increasing with the passage of time.

Love is safe and secure, but it also stretches and challenges you to develop into the self you were created to be.

There is no arrival, only the day to day details that somehow turn into swiftly passing years.

Love in a committed relationship is something that must be worked out with fear and trembling, with courage and abandon.

………………………………………………………

I’m at a loss every year on our anniversary.  What to say, how to celebrate, what to give.  I cannot find anything worthy enough to acknowledge the life-altering wonder that is our marriage.

What can I do but to say, I receive your love as grace and return it as love.

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