Pre-Mother’s Day Mother’s Day

I feel it’s time to give another shout out to all you mom’s out there, and specifically to the one that keeps this house operating.

From dawn ’til dusk you are washing clothes and dishes and faces.  You make food, and by the time you have it cleaned up it’s time to make more.  You deal with a lot of crap.

A LOT of crap.  Literally.  By the handfuls.

You have to be able to soothe and discipline, sometimes in the same sentence.

Perhaps worst of all, for those of you who decided to breastfeed, you have to deal with babies that eventually get teeth.  I cringe and have to stop typing so that I can put my hands over my nipples, just thinking about this.

You probably have a lot of other things you wouldn’t mind doing now and again.  My wife is a wonderful writer and just can’t find the time.  My sister is an awesome photographer but with four kids and a husband running his own business, how do you follow your passions that don’t crawl or toddle or walk?

Well, from a guy who just a few nights ago struggled to get all four kids to bed without mom at home to help, I say “thank you!” In under two hours I – changed Sam‘s diaper, gave him a bottle and put him to bed -gave Abra her medicine, brushed her teeth, put on her pjs (actually her older brothers pjs, rolled up, because her pjs were in the room where Sam was sleeping) and rocked her to sleep -read Indian in the Cupboard to the older two -gave Lucy her medicine and covered her in Vicks and set her bed up in the living room so she wouldn’t wake up the baby with her cough -put Cade to bed then fed him an hour later when he wandered out of his room, hungry, after everyone else was asleep

All of this in a few hours.  And you do this almost non-stop every day.

Thank you for washing our dirty underwear!

Thank you for cleaning out the crud behind the plastic lining of the high chair (okay, I usually do that but you sometimes do that)!

Thank you for smelling the butts of your diapered children nearly every day just to see if they pooped themselves!

And thank you for almost never saving a diaper for more than an hour, where poop has blown out the back, for us to change when we get home from work!

I know there are rewards.  I know these little children are pretty much the best thing we have going in our lives.  I’ve heard all the true sayings about how being a mom is the most important job in the world.  I agree with that.  But I also know that, from time to time, you can have a rough day, or wonder if you’re doing a good job, or wonder if it wouldn’t be best just to duck tape them to a chair.

But you are doing a great job, and you are appreciated.  (And I’d lay off the duck tape, at least for now).

Happy Pre-Mother’s Day Mother’s Day!

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Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt Mikalatos’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share a post you get an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

Tuesday’s Top Ten – Ice Cream Flavors

Last week’s Top Ten Candies brought about some strong emotions.  Pretty much every candy I listed got trashed: Kit Palmer created his own top 10 completely ignoring all of my choices (diss!), and Bryan Allain not only trashed Sweet Tarts but went so far as to try to introduce candy cigarettes into the top ten.

This is a family blog folks.

So in the interest of providing a chance for unity and reconciliation, I present to you the Top Ten Ice Cream Flavors of all-time.  Surely there will be no disagreement when it comes to ice cream:

10) Turkey Hill Tin Roof Sunday – chocolate-covered peanuts in a fudge-swirled Vanilla ice cream.  And this one’s just a warm-up.

9) Haagen-Dasz Cookies and Creme – ice cream with anything resembling Oreo cookies has got to be a good thing

8) Rainbow Sherbet – is this really ice cream?  I don’t know, but it’s in the ice cream section, it’s cold, and I love it

7) Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby – seeing as how pretzels are my favorite snack food, how about a little Fudge Covered Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels in Vanilla Malt Ice Cream Rippled with Fudge & Peanut Butter . . .

6) Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – many a time I’ve eaten an entire pint of this, garnering 1080 calories, 56 grams of fat, 176% of my daily allowance for saturated fat, and 60% of my daily calcium.  That last one keeps me coming back for more.

5) Ben and Jerry’s Fish Food – nutritional information about the same as the cookie dough variety, but in this one you get ripples of marshmallow . . . and little chocolate fish.

4) Turkey Hill Chocolate – the classic chocolate can’t be beat.  Wait, it’s number four.  It can only be beat by . . .

3) Baskin Robbins Rocky Road – almonds and marshmallows perfectly combined in a vat of chocolate.  Can someone clone this flavor and put it in brussel sprouts?  Or broccoli?  Or anything that’s good for me?

2) Cold Stone Creamery Mud Pie Mojo – a lot of Coldstone Creameries in the northeast are going out of business, so I support the one remaining store in our area with zeal.  You have to be careful though – sometimes I wonder if their cost cutting measures involve less mix-ins.  But a Mud Pie Mojo (coffee ice cream with Oreos, almonds, peanut butter, fudge sauce and marshmallow cream) properly made is chunky and delicious and nearly unbeatable, except by . . .

1) Turkey Hill Vanilla – that’s right, folks, Vanilla.  Not just for what it is, but for the opportunities it presents.  I tend to eat it with Cheerios loaded on top.  Or use it to dip pretzels or potato chips in.  Or sometimes, in the summer, I’ll douse it in grape Kool-Aid.  Nothing beats Vanilla.

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Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt Mikalatos’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share a post you get an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

Fingernails, and God Chuckling

Three EXCITING (and quick) announcements (then a story about fingernails):

1) I met Matt Mikalatos this week (in the cyber sense) and read his book Imaginary Jesus

2) a review of his book is upcoming, as is a guest post by Matt – stay tuned for the details on that

3) Anyone who shares any of this week’s posts on Facebook, or Twitter, or starts following me on Twitter (@shawnsmucker) this week, or shares a link to this post pretty much anywhere except in the men’s bathroom stall at the Lancaster Border’s, will gain entrance to win a free copy of Matt’s book Imaginary Jesus (no, not the copy he gave me; I’m keeping that one thank you very much).  Each time you share gets you an additional entry to win the book, so go wild (and comment somewhere on what you’ve done so that I can keep track).

So, anyway . . . now for my random thoughts on fingernails and God chuckling at me.

Maile was trying to cut Samuel’s finger nails on Saturday night – you know, the little guy whose naming became my responsibility?  He is almost 10 months old and loves to tear us (and himself) apart with those Wolverine-like razors.  His finger nails grow faster than Pinochio’s nose at a presidential debate.

And he hates having them cut.  You would think Maile was cutting off his actual fingers – which it becomes very difficult NOT to do, with all the squirming and flailing and rolling involved.

I was thinking to myself, man, Sam, just sit STILL for a second, will you?  Getting those fingernails shortened is not going to kill you – in fact, it’s going to keep you from scratching yourself the way you always do.  It’s going to keep you from hurting yourself.  And me, too.

Then, somewhere not too far away, I heard God chuckling to himself.

What’s so funny? I asked.  Then he asked me a question.  He always answers my questions with questions.

He asked me why I squirm around so much when he’s trying to take off my sharp edges. 

I don’t know, I said.  Probably because I’m scared you’ll hurt me.  Or maybe I like using those sharp things as weapons to defend myself.

That’s interesting, he said.  But you know, it wouldn’t hurt you to just be still sometimes.  And trust me.

Uneasy Foundations

I guess in some ways it was easy for me to get serious about finding out who I was, and then going after it – nothing else I was doing was working anyway.  Business was just getting me further into debt and the faltering ecomony made it more difficult than usual to just step into a career.  In many ways I was very blessed to get pushed out of the nest.

In the months following my discussion with my two friends, Maile and I began to see all the ways that our current life was falling apart.  For the first time we did some serious exploring around the structure of our life – lo and behold the foundation was rather sandy.  And shifting.  In fact, it didn’t take much of an inventory to realize the whole freakin thing was about to cave.

That’s what led to the decision, and the drive north, and my revelation about the naming of our fourth child Sam.  I had a few potential clients who wanted me to write books for them, and I thought to myself, maybe this is it.  Maybe this is the jumping off point.

And in the months that I have spent dedicating myself completely to what I believe is my identity, the reason I’m on this planet, I’ve got to tell you: I’ve never been happier, or less stressed, or more content.  It’s not the money (we’ve never made less) and it’s not the stuff (our two minivans have a combined 350,000 miles and our budget has been slashed).  It’s the days, the moments, the evenings.  It’s the commitment that Maile and I have made to stop wasting life, to focus on doing what we’ve been called to do.  There is an immense satisfaction in this.

At this point I have to throw out a disclaimer – the last thing I’m trying to advocate is that people throw their careers or businesses out the window and do whatever they want to do.  I’ve heard a lot of sales pitches, and seen a lot of heartbroken people who jumped without thinking, so I know that there isn’t one path for everybody.  There’s not one plan or sequence or decision that works across the board.

But I’ve also seen too many people out there living their whole lives like it’s one big timecard.  Just punching in and punching out.  If that’s you, I’m not saying you should stop anything (don’t stop working or taking care of your family or paying your mortgage).  But I would say this: START something.

Start doing something that excites you.  Start doing something that your passionate about.  If it’s writing, then write.  If it’s music, then play.  If it’s business, then start something small on the side.  If it’s helping hurting people, then start volunteering.  If you love your career then stop doing things halfway and commit.

I PROMISE you that the more time you spend doing what your passionate about, the more opportunities will come your way, and the more likely it is that someday you’ll be doing that for a living, and not just in your free time, or as a hobby.

I love this quote by Natalie Goldberg from Writing Down the Bones: “I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, knowing what you’re supposed to be doing here on this earth, and then simply doing it.”

*****

For the next part of this story, click HERE

For the very first part of this story, click HERE

My Antonia

“I was ten years old then; I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska.  I travelled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the “hands” on my father’s old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West to work for my grandfather.  Jake’s experience of the world was not much wider than mine.  He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we set out together to try our fortunes in a new world.”

Jim Burden heads west for his new life, and Willa Cather’s My Antonia is told from his perspective, yet it is less the story of Jim Burden than it is of Antonia Shimerda, a free-spirited immigrant girl whose family arrives in the west without any knowledge of the land and unable to speak English. 

It is also the story of our still-young country during the times of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the people who flocked to the West for their piece of land and life.  

“I can remember exactly how the country looked to me as I walked beside my grandmother along the faint wagon-tracks on that early September morning.  Perhaps the glide of long railway travel was still with me, for more than anything else I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping . . .”

If you enjoyed “Little House on the Prairie” when you were a kid, you will definitely enjoy My Antonia as an adult.

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BLOG ALERT! If you love reading blogs, here are five of my favorite posts from other blogs that I read this week:

http://www.andilit.com/?p=644

http://www.tylerstanton.com/2010/04/14/video-tripp-gets-his-face-painted/

http://stoltzfusinstrasburg.blogspot.com/2010/04/silver-haired-wisdom.html  (make sure you read the comments at the bottom)

http://bryanallain.com/archives/2010/04/15/the-thing-about-blue-cleavage/

http://www.thehousestudio.com/wp/2010/04/13/mirrors-and-patterns/

Check them out!

The Day I Stared Down A Mack Truck

I remember sitting down with two really good friends of mine in a cafe in Reston, Virginia, a few months before Maile and I made the decision to move back to Pennsylvania with our four kids and into my parent’s basement.  These two friends of mine were talking me through some difficult stuff – these were the days when life seemed like a trap, with no way out of the downward financial and emotional spiral I found myself in – and one of them asked me something that seemed so basic, yet so unanswerable:

“So who are you?”

Talk about turning a corner to find a Mack truck bearing down on you.  I stared at the table and blinked a few times.  I had no idea.  But the more we spoke, the more I realized that my the answer to that question, the answer to my identity, was very much rooted in my desire to write, and to read, and to help others tell their stories. 

I still didn’t get it though.  I still didn’t get just how important it was that I start this process of discovering my identity, or what kind of an impact it could have on my relatively brief existence on this earth. 

One of those two friends, Jon, could tell I wasn’t getting it.  We had the following conversation (this isn’t word for word, so apologies Jon if I’m misquoting you, but this is the general direction we went):

“What about David?” he asked me.  “You know, David and Goliath?”

I shrugged.  “What about him?”

“What do you think about his decision to fight Goliath?”

“Well, it was pretty brave wasn’t it, heading out there to fight that older, seasoned, Andre-the-giant sized soldier?”

“I guess it took some courage,” Jon said, “but I don’t think David was worried at all.”

“Really? I’ve always thought it was one of the bravest stories in the Bible.  This little shepherd boy goes up against a giant with a sling and some stones!”

“Think about it, though,” Jon continued. “In the chapter leading up to David’s fight against Goliath, the prophet Samuel told him he would be king.  God had basically promised David that he would be king.”

He stopped and let those words sink in.

“David knew his identity,” Jon said, quietly, “and because he knew that, he also knew that he had nothing to fear, because there was nothing that that giant or anyone in the world could do to stop him fulfilling his God-given mission and purpose and identity of being Israel’s next king.”

I remember wishing, more than anything, that I could know what my identity was.  My mission.

“If you can figure out your identity,” Jon said. “It might just give you the courage you need to make some difficult decisions, to do what you need to do, to go in the direction you need to go.”

*****

To continue reading, click HERE