Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Life With Friends

Today I am struck by how good it is to be among friends. This week in particular we have spent a lot of time with our friends here and I can't even tell you how wonderful it is. Having friends here to do life with has allowed us to engage more in this community within the span of 2 months than we ever did in 3 years when we lived in Illinois. Of course, I'm not suggesting that our lack of participation in the community in Illinois was a result of our friendships. In fact, to the contrary, our lives in Illinois were mostly spent dealing with pregnancies and adding members to our family. Having two kids in that much time and then learning how to adjust to life pretty much took up our "free" time.

Now that we are here, we have figured life out a little more and we are ready to participate in life outside of our home. And that's just what we've done. But having great friends here has allowed us many opportunities that we wouldn't have had for a while. Upward soccer is a great example. Andrew and Eric participated in their first soccer practice of the season on the same day that our stuff arrived from Illinois. My participation in the Weight Sense class at the Y came as a suggestion and invitation from my friend Kristen. Further, we are engaged in a small group with our friends at Christ Church and Eric is participating in Men's Fraternity at Blackhawk. It's all a result of sharing life with friends with like values and a common purpose--striving to do life God's way and not our own.

I admit that we have found ourselves occasionally fretting over the things that come with any move and relocation, but never so much that we wished to by anywhere but here. And the truth of the matter is that those things we find ourselves worrying about are never out of God's control and always present an opportunity for growth if we are willing to take advantage of it.

Today, I am inspired to post this because of the blessing I am experiencing through my friends Kristen and Jill. Thank you both for your friendships!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

To "B" or not to "B"

Here's a story for the books... in fact my mom suggested I write a children's book based on the following story. Each of my children has a story or two that I really hope I remember to tell them at an appropriate time in their adult-hood. This is one of Alissa's:

Alissa is the one of my three that we lovingly refer to as our "Linus." Linus, as I'm sure you all recall, is the Charlie Brown character who carries his beloved blankie around with him everywhere. Alissa has a blankie and a thumb (well 2 thumbs, but she'd just as soon have the left one removed cause she has the right one in her mouth 50% of the day). This story is about her blankie. Her blankie is called "B". Actually, I think that "B" is the Sabel family name for each of the kids blankies. My niece has a "B" and each of my kids has a "B", but Alissa seems to depend on hers more than the others. B is white, with satin on one side and the really, really soft stuff on the other. B is actually a blanket that was a gift from grandma Sabel to Anna, when she was born. A sad truth about third children is that many things get handed down. Thankfully this blanket had hardly been used when Alissa began her deep love for it. In fact I may have had to cut the tags off for her to use it.

For Alissa, B is everything. She laughs at the site of B on the other side of the room. B can stop a temper tantrum, heal a bonked head, but most of all, B must be present at all resting times. Naps and night-night are the most important times of the day for B to be present and accounted for. Many people mistake Alissa's behavior with B for tiredness, when in fact when Alissa comes in contact with B, no matter what time of day or what state of alertness (wide awake or half asleep), she automatically cuddles B on the floor as if she is about to fall asleep with her thumb in her mouth. It's very cute.

Two weeks ago grandma and grandpa Melby came to visit us at our new home. This was the first time they'd seen our new house so we were very excited to show them around. On the Friday evening that they arrived we spent some time outside showing them around and then we came inside for the remainder of the evening. While we were outside, the kids joined us and B was also tagging along. I was quite aware of B's presence with Alissa and I am always sure that she returns safely inside the house with B. That evening, after eating pizza that we had delivered to the house, it was past bedtime for the kids and we were ready to lay them down. Only my worst fear was about to be realized. B was missing! So for nearly 2 hours, 4 adults and 3 children searched high and low, leaving no pillow unturned, no drawer or cupboard unopened, no trashcan left un-sifted-through, no toilet unchecked. B was not to be found and each one of us was left dumbfounded as to it's whereabouts. Alissa, as you can imagine laid in bed that night and literally cried herself to sleep. It took several hours.

Even after the kids were in bed, as the adults engaged in conversation and catching up, we could be found occasionally jumping up to "check one more place". The entire weekend went by and we continued to talk in code about the silly blanket as if to pretend that Alissa didn't' know what we were talking about (I'm sure she didn't and I'm sure it wasn't because we were talking in code). I made a valiant effort to find an identical B at the same store the original was purchased at, but was not surprised that 2 1/2 years later, it wasn't there. I was able to find a suitable replacement. And believe it or not, we had success in fooling her into believing it was "B". I finally understood why everyone suggests that if you have a child with an object of affection, you should purchase 2 of the same thing...for instances like this.

The one comment I made during this fiasco was that I was certain that if B ever showed up again, it would be because Alissa happened to find it hiding and then I would never have the gratification of knowing where it was all this time. It's like Murphy's Law!
After a few days, I put B out of my mind. I stopped torturing myself trying to find it, after all the replacement was sufficing and it mattered not where the original was.

The following Saturday afternoon, Eric and I were gathering the kids for nap time. It was a typical Saturday and the naps were coming a tad on the late side so Alissa was curled up in the family room on one of the throws we use on the couch. She was like a little angel all curled up with B. I went to pick her up, but grabbed B first and was SHOCKED to realize that she was laying there with original B. My prediction came true before my eyes. She had stumbled on B somewhere that I had no idea of and I'm quite certain she had no idea that there was even a difference. I was beside myself with frustration. Where on earth had she found it? I pulled the other two kids aside for questioning like it was a police investigation. "Do you know where Alissa was when she discovered B?" They each answered the same, that they had no idea. I joke that they must have all been in on it together just to bug Mom.

No matter what, that's the story of B. Lost and found.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Bathtime woes

I am faced with a hearbreaking circumstance right now with my sweet little Anna. Somewhere along the way she's developed a crazy, rotten fear of her baths. I think of it specifically this morning cause I gave baths that should have been done last night. Just the mention of a bath and Anna falls apart. The common scenario is me gently forcing her in the tub, speaking soft and kind to her all the while. Anna is screaming bloody murder. My inclination is to say "Fine, I can't handle seeing you this way, so forget the bath." But the "mom" in me knows that she'll end up being the stinky kid. Who wants that? So, there she is standing in the tub--not a chance of her sitting down--I always let her feel the water first and give one of her bath fishes a bath. She enjoys those two things, but inevitably I do need to actually bathe her. As soon as the water hits her body, she hangs her entire torsoe out of the tub onto my lab. Of course as you can imagine I always end up with as much water in the bathroom as in the tub. The tricky part is washing her hair now that it's down to the middle of her back. It actually requires some effort to wash it. Once I pry her off of my lap, I use the shower sprayer to gently wet and wash her beautiful hair. If any water runs down her face, she has the look of complete terror and fear. Of course you can imagine that I finish as quickly as possible. Then it's on to the other two with Anna curled up on my lap recovering from all the trauma.

Bath time used to be one of my favorite and their favorite times of the day. The kids would always beg to play longer in the tub. They'd splash and play for sometimes an hour before I made them get out. It was so enjoyable. But now, I literally dread doing baths. Andrew still loves it, Alissa is rather indifferent at this point, but getting Anna done is the real chore. I confess that I've let days go by without baths cause I don't have it in me to do it at the end of the day.

I hear that there are times around 2 years old when some kids develop odd fears to things they never feared before. I also hear they grow out of it. Please, let her grow out of this fear sooner rather than later. If anyone reading this has any wisdom or ideas on the issue, I'd be happy to hear them. But for now...happy bathing to everyone else!

Monday, September 17, 2007

erinsdailystuff.blogspot.com

That's right, I have another blog. This time I hope to dedicate the space to my goals etc. If you feel so inclined, I am posting my well earned knowledge and other stuff at the address listed in the title.
I'll also include it on my homepage that way you can jump right to it! Yea!
As you know the church has always been a big part of our lives. We have found ourselves most joyful when we are pouring ourselves into the service of the Lord and His church. It has been exciting to look back on all the different ways God has led us to serve and all that we have learned along the way. We consider our work along the way, not for our gain, but for the greater good of The Kingdom.

We have never been disappointed in where God has landed us in the way of serving the church. I'm not saying we have not been discouraged and frustrated along the way, but when we have been confident of His direction, we have not been disappointed. After all, God does not promise the life of service to be without trial, but He does promise to reward those who are faithful. Please understand that I'm also not suggesting that I or we have been perfectly faithful either. In fact, my faith is like shifting sand, changed by every wave (to quote a lyric by Caedmon's Call).

In coming here, we were confident that God would lead us to the place he had preordained for us. We were more confident than ever in this, following such tremendous leading along this most recent journey. It should have been no surprise to us that the church we would call home was just a 5 minute drive drive from our new home. Pathway Community Church is a growing, thriving church in Fort Wayne and we are thrilled to begin this leg of our walk at this church.
I will post the website on my blog's homepage if you would like to check it out.

This past Sunday, the pastor gave a message that was incredibly relevant to our lives now. And many other's lives I am certain. To illustrate his message that dealt with how easily we put everything else in front of God and other things vital to our joyful existence, Pastor Rob used Covey's stones in a jar demonstration. It goes like this, first he pours sand into a jar that represents all of the things that we consider important in our lives and set as priorities. Things like work, school, practices, meetings, events, cooking dinner, grocery shopping, doing laundry, etc. All things important. Then, once the sand filled the jar nearly to the top, he used tennis balls to represent God, our physical and mental selves, our marriages, and other things that should take priority in our lives. With the sand that filled the jar, there was no room left for the tennis balls. The object of this lesson is that if we put the tennis balls in first--our God, our health our marriage, and then put the sand in after those things...it all fits quite perfectly. Though I've seen and heard this demonstration a few times, this time it made a different impact.

When we moved here, Eric and I both said at different times, "this is our chance to make a fresh start." The unfortunate part is that we are finding ourselves falling right back into our old ways. Praise God for His timing and that our hearts were ripe for this particular message.
It is time for us to get our priorities straight. Putting God first has been our way of life for a lot of years now, but we are constantly faced with the spiritual battle that rages in this world and in every part of our lives. My prayer is that God would help us fight the good fight and that we, with Him in the lead would reign victorious. Our hope is to raise our three children to be Christ followers and to love and serve Him in a much greater way than we ever have. To see this type of fruit in our lives, we must put God FIRST!

A hard lesson learned

A humbling situation:
If you read my blog regularly (though I know I've been MIA for a little while), you know that I take a lot of pride in my writing. If you don't read regularly, you should know that I take a lot of pride in my writing to understand the full impact of this story. Writing is an outlet for me. I find myself a lot more peaceful when I write. I don't just writ in my blog, I write in many other places. I have this public blog as well a few private blogs (just for me) and a couple ongoing Word documents too.
If you read a few posts back, you know that we recently went through a pretty major relocation from Chicago to Fort Wayne, IN. The circumstances that surrounded the relocation were absolutely nothing short of divine. During that time I experienced God siting after God siting. Thankfully, I was also inspired to journal each step of the way. It was a prompting from the book that inspired me to pray about our geographic place in life. It was exciting to look back even days after to see how God was continuing to move us...literally.
I was broken and humbled when, shortly after our move, our laptop crashed and our hard drive got fried. Literally, lost every last thing that was on there. Including of course my accounts of the last few months. Our research into recovering hard drives revealed that it would cost us up to $4000 to get the information back. So, we wait.
I tell you this tragic story because it is the precurser to why I plan to publish my journaling on my blog, some of it public, some of it private. I figure this way I'm less likely to lose my content. I understand that I should have backed everything up and so forth, but hey, chalk it up to a really hard lesson learned!

My hope is find myself doing a lot more writing and NOT losing it!

Friday, September 14, 2007

Just another day

It must be FRIDAY! Today, I found myself feeling easily irritated with my children. Please tell me I'm not the only one that goes through this! I'm always painfully aware of the time in my monthly cylce. I wish it weren't true, but I confess that I am a moody period person. That aside, my kids seemed to know exactly how to push my buttons this morning. Here's the story:

Tonight is picture night for the kids. I found some cute new outfits for each of the kids and a new pair of shoes for Andrew (I didn't really want his Spiderman shoes in the picture). This morning I decided to try the shoes on him. So we sat forcing stiff new shoes on his feet. He complained the whole time. All after he complained all morning that he wanted to put his new shoes on. As we sat on the steps and struggled, Alissa comes around the corner with her bowl of cheerios that are supposed to remain at the table. Lacking coordination, she proceeded to dump them all on the floor. When I raised my voice demanding that she pick them up, Andrew decided to chime in on the discipline.
This is a problem that I have with him frequently. When he hears me discipline one of the girls, I find him yelling along with me. It's very frustrating to say the least. Because my words get lost in his yelling. So, at that moment I sat and tried to strongly explain to him why he isn't allowed to do that. No more than 2 minutes later a similar scenario occurred. And I snapped.
As a mother, I am baffled by the things my kids hear and understand and the things they appear to hear but clearly DON'T understand. We had just had this discussion about not yelling at the girls and he did it again. This time he experienced more discipline than that which I was implementing toward Alissa. I'm pretty sure he got it this time. And to demonstrate the stark differences in my children, when the moment of discipline was coming to an end, my beautiful Anna looked up pointing to a toy she had in her hand and said, "Look, it's a flower!" I thought it to be a very symbolic comment at the end of a difficult teaching moment.
When this much drama occurs in my home before the hour of 9am, I am ready for a break. And so here I am. It isn't often that I actually send my kids into the family room for the specific purpose of watching TV, but this was a moment that I needed to be alone. Thankfully Sesame Street was on. Somehow I make myself feel better about them watching shows like that. A subject for another post!

For the last 20minutes, I have only had a couple of interuptions from my kids trying to be space walkers, walking on the moon. But after listening to the worship set on my ipod and writing for a bit, I am confident that I am better for the day.