The least I could do

The other day I had thanked someone, and their reply was

"It's the least I could do!"

And I thought...

I know what they MEAN by that,
I know it's just a phrase,
but do we realize what those words actually imply?

This was the absolute LEAST I could do.
I could do more... but I didn't.
That's all you are worth to me.
The LEAST thing I could POSSIBLY do for you.

This got me thinking.

How many times have we done this?

The LEAST we could do?

What exactly IS the LEAST I can do?

• Throw a $10 bill in the plate at church?

• Listen to a friend or neighbor pour her heart out and then offer a simple, "I'll pray for you." 

• Look at the tremendous need for adoptive families and say "oh, those poor little souls. More people should adopt children."

Maybe doing the "least we can do" just keeps us safe.

We don't get any of their junk on us if we keep a safe distance.

We don't get all uncomfortable in someone else's mess if we toss out a quick "I'll pray for you!" and then walk away. 

We don't lose our normal, happy lives when we brush off our sympathies for the poor, orphaned, sick or widowed with that head-tilt-tsk-tsk.

So, what's the least I can do? I have so much on my heart from our days in Ethiopia.

I have so many more children in my head, haunting my dreams and asking... 

what's the least you can do?

Can we do more?

Can our family do more?

I don't know.

I don't know what more we are supposed to do, or what the thoughts and ideas in my head are pointing towards...

but I know this...

doing nothing - well, THAT is the LEAST I can do.

awards, bread and hair

No, I can't think of a more creative title.

Awards:
Today and tomorrow I get to pack up the littles (5, 6, &7) and head on over to the middle school where I watch the two biggest get an award for the first semester of school accomplishments! Today was 1's award day. I was so proud of him! It may not be for straight A's or even all A's and B's... but he was recognized today by his teachers for his compassion in and out of school! I mean, come ON! Grades, schmades! I want my kiddos to be compassionate and others-focused and the public school recognized this in my son! Awesome.
Tomorrow is 2's awards day. She has informed me that she gets THREE awards, one of which is the Honor Roll certificate! Not sure what the other two are, but I am almost afraid to hope for another awesome character trait award... but a momma can dream!

Bread:
I've been baking bread like a crazy person! I think I am up to nearly 50 loaves (not including what I made for breakfast one day for the kids). I am baking for my parents' dental office. They take bread (or some other gift) to their referring doctors once or twice a month and since I am currently not employed... I get the job!

Pumpkin bread with butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips and craisins... with the Starbucks two-tone scone icing! I wish I could eat gluten... these look yummy!

And we have been doing more hair experimentation! I had 6's hair in little puffs this past 4 or 5 days and when I took it out, I was amazed at how long it had become with the stretching/drying of the puffs!
Check it out!

Here are the "twins"...

Aww... all matchy-matchy!

I think I "get" these little twists now!

It turned out cute!

Other side view.

I wasn't going for the spider-web part pattern, but since it's late October... 

I will just go with "oh yeah, it was totally intentional!"

(side note... see that stack of newspapers? Yeah, that's my ghetto booster seat, baby!

I can't stand the idea of buying another booster seat and our kitchen won't fit another high chair... so I saran-wrapped a stack of 5 papers together and VOILA! Booster Seat! The plastic wrap keeps it from sliding off the chair like a phone book, and its fully disposable when it starts looking yucky! LOL!)

As for Baby Boy, #7...

He is still fully embracing his Two-ness.

Today I said:

"No! No scissors!"

"Please don't put that in the toilet!"

"We don't eat leaves!"

"Do NOT pull that tree out of the pot!"

"No putting mommy's phone in the garbage!"

and...

"NO swinging from the balcony!!" 

(by a sheet, tied to a rail, by an older brother)

Whew.

He's two.

Not recently three.

I don't know that I need a bone-scan to verify that.

But he's really stinking cute!

50 ways to stay awake - by Baby Boy, #7

Since I am currently forced to sit in 

Baby Boy's room with him while he 

tries to go to sleep plays for an hour  ...

Here is a list of suggestions for those of you 

out there who need help staying awake.

You know, just in case you HATE how easily you fall asleep!

1. Demand that a very bright light stays on.

2. Demand that all stuffed animals are put on your shelf.

3. Pull all stuffed animals back off of the shelf.

4. Scream when you find the stuffed velvet frog.

5. Bite on your blanket and then pull it from your still-clenched teeth.

6. Kick all blankets off.

7. Get annoyed because you can't fix the blankets back.

8. Pull the elastic on your pajama bottom waist straight out... then let go.

9. Laugh.

10. Repeat 8 and 9 until told to stop.

11. Cry when told to stop.

12. Lay on your left side.

13. Switch to your right side.

14. Lay in an "S" shape.

15. Playfully throw limbs into the air and let them fall lifelessly onto the bed and make a plopping sound.

16. lay on tummy.

17. Kick covers off again.

18. Yawn.

19. OH, CRAP! NO YAWNING!!

20. Sit up in bed! 

21. Find non-scary, non-offensive stuffed animal.

22. Demand your mom tells you the name of all of the bear's body parts.

23. Find same body part on yourself AND your mom.

24. Laugh at poking mom in the eye while labeling "eye!!"

25. Cry when mom won't let you poke her eye again.

26. Mental note, when you can't pass biology - it's all Mom's fault.

27. Pout.

28. Stick out lip.

29. Demand labels for "bed", "blanket" and "bottle".

30. Get angry with mom for incorrect interpretation of "water" instead of "bottle".

31. Ask for a book.

32. Close the book mid-story.

33. Cry when mom sits in the rocking chair instead of on your bed.

34. Refuse to lay down.

35. Agree to hold teddy bear and make him go to sleep.

36. Feel tricked into laying down.

37. Throw teddy bear.

38. Try fake crying again.

39. Realize it does not work.

40. Agree to be covered up.

41. Toss and turn.

42. Turn and toss.

43. Flop onto your back.

44. Flop onto your tummy.

45. Make strange growling noises.

46. Make clicking noises with your tongue.

47. Finally sit quietly.

48. Think about kicking blankets off again.

49. Consider asking to play the "name that object" game again...

50. Decide to lay quietly instead.

AND FINALLY...

He's asleep.

Racism.

Get ready to be offended.

If you offend easily... please go read something 

else I have written since this post is off-the-cuff and very raw.

Today, while grocery shopping with the babies, 

I found out what it's like to be "conspicuous".

There was a group of two ladies and a man 

who kept checking us out, mumbling, and rolling their eyes.

I ignored it, but wondered what was up.

On another aisle, I was walking past them and just then, 

one of the women makes a disapproving face 

and motions toward/over my girls with her hand... 

"See THIS... THIS is what I DON'T like to see. 

THIS is what I was talking about before when I said...."

And they kept walking. 

I stood there for a moment...

deer-in-the-headlights.

The babies were looking at them and at me.

I turned to look at the group as they were walking...

and they were still talking about us.

Motioning in our direction, shaking their heads.

Not knowing what to do...

I said, "Girls?"

They say (in unison), "Ah bet?" (Amharic for "what?")

I said... "I love you!"

They said "I love you, too!"

And I kissed my baby boy on his gooey, sticky face.

Do you want to know why this makes me even more angry?

It didn't come from a group of white people.

Nope. They were as black as my babies... and they were racist.

They saw me shopping with my precious babies and 

all they could see was a "white lady" with black kids.

Do you know what else makes me mad?

As a white person, raised in the south

 (ooohhh EVIL southern white people...)...

I am tired of being assumed to be the racist one.

I don't know about you... 

but I have been taught my entire life that white people 

are racist and black people are not. 

Racism is an equal-opportunity-destroyer.

I'm white. Yes, according to Loreal, I may be "light taupe"... but I'm white.

I am a white person.

And I love three small black people.

LOVE them.

LOVE, love, love them.

It breaks my heart and makes me want to flat-out-destroy anyone who would ever call them a derogatory name because they are MY babies and you better NOT talk about them in a bad way. ANY of them.

And *I* am supposed to be the racist one.

Because I grew up in Tennessee.

Because I am white.

Well let me tell you one thing, black people from the grocery store today...

you have become the very thing you have hated for generations.

You have become the oppressor. 

You have become the hater.

You have become the racist bigots.

You have become the VERY thing Dr. King DIED to end.

You have become HATE.

You look at me and my babies and see pigment differences in our skin cells.

I look at you with pity because you will NEVER know 

the depth of love it is possible to have for a child 

not born from your own gene pool. 

You will NEVER know what it is to see hands intertwined 

- not matching - 

but BELONGING together.

And that is pitiful.

You should be pitied.

And you should be ashamed.

Where are you when the orphaned children in Africa

go to bed hungry night after night after night after night?

Where are you when they fall and get hurt and 

need someone to make it better?

Where are you when they are sick and need a Mommy?

Where ARE you?

I know where I am.

I am holding my babies.

I am being a Mommy.

THIS is what LOVE looks like.

****EDITED TO SAY****

This is not a "black people are racist" post.

It is a "PEOPLE CAN be racist" post.

These three people at the store could have just 

as easily have been white, tan or any other shade of skin. 

The hate is still there, alive and kicking.

Women's Hierarchy

Considering I myself am a woman, I feel compelled to discuss something I continue to see over and over throughout my lifetime.
I hope it’s not just me, because then I would feel really stupid... but what I see in myself and I have overheard in others, is that as women, we rate ourselves against our friends, strangers online, and people at the store.

We put ourselves on some kind of crazy measuring stick, and we choose our “spot” based solely on our comparison to everyone else.

For example..
While shopping at Target, we see a woman with more children than we have. She’s happy! The children are smiling and getting along, laughing together, and all wearing clean clothes with nary a crusty, dried-booger nose to be found. The woman, we observe, is dressed in adorable, mostly-current fashion and carrying a perfectly stocked diaper bag with every necessity neatly in its place and accessible at a moment’s notice. She’s thin, appears to exercise regularly and obviously only feeds her family the highest quality hormone-free, organic, whole foods available.
I hate her.
I love what she stands for, but I want to BE her.
She is obviously a better mother, wife and woman than I am.
She wins.



Turning around in a huff to walk in ANY other direction, we see a woman with “only” one child. She looks grumpy. Her child is dirty, missing a shoe, snotty nose running down his chin, and he appears to have a sucker stuck in his hair. She is wearing a shirt stained by both bleach AND some random tomato product. She has obviously not washed her hair today... perhaps this week, and her idea of exercise is dragging her child past the sugary cereal as he kicks and screams about marshmallow filled boxes of wonderfulness.
CLEARLY I am better than HER.
I made it out of the house today with washed hair.
None of my children are that dirty and they all have two shoes on their feet.
I’m somewhere above her, but far below the perfect mom on the other aisle.



Later...
We get an email from a friend.
She’s announcing her 8th baby in 10 years!
After an eye-roll and deleting a comment about “don’t you know how that happens?” we decide on the obligatory “Congrats!” and hit “send”.
She home-schools all of her children, they grow and can all their own vegetables, make almost everything from scratch - including many clothes. She makes her own detergent, has the most child-friendly home EVER, and LOVES nothing more than being a mom. She is always positive, always patient, always smiling and oozing happy-happy-gooeyness. Her children are super polite and well-mannered, but may not always be the cleanest kids on the block.
She’s a better mom than me.
For sure.
I fed my kids pop-tarts for breakfast.
She probably made Eggs Benedict.
However, I am WAY cooler than she is.
I would like to be that happy and care-free though.
I feel guilt VERY deeply by merely observing her life.



These aren’t the only women we compare ourselves to. OH, no.


There are plenty of others out there. They come in all shapes, sizes, and economic classes.
She’s thinner, she’s fatter, she’s happier, she’s wealthier, she’s got more kids, younger kids, older kids, who has their hands the most “full”, who has the most volunteer projects, who has the most accolades, who has the most blog readers or followers, who has WHATEVER better or more than me.



I am sad to admit, I have thought these things before.


I have been that judgemental woman.


I have been that comparison-hungry mom who sizes herself up against you, your children, your neighbor and whoever else I find to compare myself to.



But late last night I had a realization.



Do you know what is at the heart of this whole comparison-extravaganza?
(other than a serious mental disorder?)



It’s fear.



We all have basic questions we ask about ourselves.


We ask our parents, our friends, our family, our neighbors, our spouse and our children the same questions.


Am I good enough?
Do you love me the way I am?
Will you ALWAYS love me - no matter what?



It’s security, or the lack thereof. It’s a neurotic need for approval and I’m not looking in the right place.



Instead of asking the right person the right question, I ask myself.



Am I good enough? Well... look around the house. Dirty dishes, dirty clothes, dirty floors, dirty children. Nope. Not good enough.


Do you love me the way I am? Hmm... probably not. I’m not looking that great lately, I could stand to lose several pounds and I am never going to be that crunchy-granola, home-schooling, perfectly-clean-house, mom-of-the-year.


Will you ALWAYS love me? No matter what? My child stormed out of the house on the way to catch the bus this morning because I didn’t give him the correct breakfast today. Clearly his love for me is fickle.



Maybe it’s just me.



Or maybe not.



But then...
Do you know what I realized?
I can only be the best ME that I can be.
That’s the ME that God made me.
Crazy, bad-with-numbers, lazy about putting laundry away, finds any excuse not to mop floors, can’t stand children’s craft projects, thinks glitter is from the devil, infrequent child-bather, and rarely on time anywhere... me. May never have a pedicure, good intentions-bad follow through, once-a-month-or-less duster of knick-knacks... ME!



I know it’s not about me. Life, this life, this... stuff. It’s not about me.
It’s not about being the best homeschooling, crunchy-granola, home-made laundry detergent making, super-stylish mom-of-the-year. It’s about being the best CHRISSY that I can be FOR CHRIST’s purposes. It’s about being the best child of GOD that I can be. It’s about being who HE created me to be and for THAT purpose alone.



I also realized that those women I compare myself to... I am seeing what I want to see! 
I see the pretty (or not so much) picture on the outside! I only see the part that woman shows to the world. I only see a tiny piece of the iceberg and create the rest of it inside my own thoughts. Any guesses where those lies come from?

John 8:44- You belong to your father, the devil,

and you want to carry out your father's desire.

He was a murderer from the beginning,

not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks his native language,

for he is a liar and the father of lies.

So... here is my prayer for today... and for as long as it takes.


I want to see myself (and see others) the way Jesus sees them.


I don’t want to look at myself as better or worse than other women.


I want to see myself as the wife of a wonderful man who loves me dearly, treasures me, and calls just to hear my voice.

I want to see myself as the woman He created to be the mother of these 7 kiddos.


I want to see myself as a daughter of the King. Nothing more, nothing less.

And I want to see you that way, too.