A Little Sad Moment

That's what I had this weekend when I had to make pancakes without kefir for the first time in, oh. . what seems like years.

I know to give specific instructions, yet I failed to be explicit enough when I was hurrying out for a run two weeks ago. I merely said, "use this instead of buttermilk," and placed the container of kefir on the counter.

When I returned from my run. . . how dismayed I was to see the jar was empty with no other jar of grains and milk in sight. And the pancakes had chewy lumps. It was easy to figure out what had happened.

Truly, I was to blame. And I must admit, I shed tears for my lost grains. I've nurtured those grains and benefited from them for the past long while, even carrying them to IL and back several times to ensure their tender care. I have divided them up and given them away to friends. It was a very sad moment for me, the loss of my own dear grains.

Now, I have to add kefir grain shopping to my list of things to do in December, which of course, I dislike. AND, I have that little niggly feeling that no other grains will be quite like MY first grains. We were comrades in promoting familial health, and I blew it. Oh, sad moment repeated.

Whole Grain Pasta with Kale and Mushrooms

This was an easy dinner last week. I especially loved that I could use kale and rosemary from our garden, hazelnuts from the pantry, and that I had the rest on hand. Plus, I've been very hungry for mushrooms, so this was perfect for me (especially because I could sit next to T and eat all of his, too!) This was originally a Rachael Ray recipe, but of course, I adapted. Enjoy this wonderful, seasonal recipe!

Whole Grain Pasta with Kale and Mushrooms

1 box of whole wheat penne pasta
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 Tbl. olive oil
3 cups of sliced mushrooms (cremini, porcini, or portobello)
1 onion, sliced lengthwise
4 minced garlic cloves
1 colander full of kale (maybe 8 cups stemmed and chopped)
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (and a pinch more)
Salt and pepper to taste
3 Tbl. butter
2/3 cup chopped hazelnuts
3 sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped
3 Tbl. flour

1. Cook pasta in a large pot, according to directions. When finished, drain and put in serving bowl.
2. Heat olive oil. Add mushrooms, garlic and onion and cook until tender (6 minutes). Add the kale, cover and cook until wilted (about 5 minutes). Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Transfer to serving bowl.
3. Melt butter over medium heat. Add the rosemary and hazelnuts and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour on top and cook 1 minute more. Then whisk the broth in and cook until thickened, 4-5 minutes. Pour over pasta and kale mixture, stirring gently to coat.

Giving Thanks

For the little voice that called out in the early morning, "I need my MOMMY!!!"

For the quiet moments of praying over my sleeping children before I go to bed.

For evening conversations with my husband.

For the snuggles and tickling and laughter and beginnings of discussions.

For all things good, given by the Lord.

On the Adventure (re: The Hobbit)

Our family just finished J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. I particularly love the last page, where the whole adventure is summed up. It is true: God is working out His sovereign plan (the master adventure) and we are participants, seeing only our bit (and that, dimly). Here are the last few lines:

"Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!" said Bilbo.

"Of course!" said Gandalf. "And why should they not prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophesies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!"

"Thank goodness!" said Bilbo, laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.

Homemade Toothpaste

In trying to save money and keep our consumption more local and natural, I've been experimenting with making my own toothpaste. Can't say I LOVE it yet, (the texture takes some getting used to), but I'm perfectly fine with this. It doesn't have the foaming action of store toothpaste, but that is actually better for me during pregnancy, because brushing my teeth often makes me gag. We need to experiment a little more; I think B would prefer spearmint oil to all peppermint, and I'd like to try something fruity for the children.

I mix this together in a small, lidded container and keep it in the bathroom. Because coconut oil is antiviral, anti fungal, and antibacterial, I'm not concerned about everyone dipping their brushes in and I know (from 9 months of experience) that it won't grow mold. (That's always good, right?)

Toothpaste (originally found on Seeking the Old Paths' blog)
2 Tbl. coconut oil (makes it creamier. Is also liquid at higher temperatures.)
3 Tbl. baking soda
10 drops essential oil (5 peppermint; 5 spearmint)
pinch of Stevia (for sweetness)

Birthing Options

Wow. I just watched The Business of Being Born last night. . . and I would that pregnant women everywhere would have this information!

I felt the film gave an excellent summation of obstetrical and midwifery care in this century. Because Ricki Lake was involved in the film, I hesitated to watch it. I was pleasantly surprised to see many midwives, ob/gyns and hear the history of births in our country, as well as see statistics and trends. It wasn't quite what I expected, but in very good ways.

There are cartoons that had me laughing in the film, as well as birth scenes that had me quietly crying on our couch. (I am pregnant, but I probably would have cried, regardless!) Even having had four births (1 hospital, 1 at home with an Ob, 2 at home with midwives), I found myself excited and agitated and passionate about this "business of being born."

What miracle! What amazing, agonizing pain and splendid JOY. During the labor scenes I said to B, "It [homebirth] doesn't look so glamorous. I'm not sure I would want to do that." Of course, that was followed by delivery and bonding, which caused me to quickly add, "Okay! I can do THAT again!"

Oh, what an adventure.

Mr. Insister

T is so very TWO (as I've mentioned).

He is opinionated and assertive.

B has a little joke whereby he will ask, "Have I told you today that I love you?" To which I reply, "No!" (even if he has). Then he tells me again, "I love you."

It's a sweet exchange that he now has with our children, too. Not only have they learned the proper response, but they will now use the same exchange to ask the question, "Have I told you today that I love you?"

It works really well, except with T. He will ask, "Told you I love you, day?" I will respond petulantly, "no." Then he exclaims, "Yes, I did!" (even if he hadn't!) Then he asks me again, of course ending again with "Yes, I did!"

If I ask T, "Have I told you today that I love you?" He will say, "Yes!" (even if I hadn't). That's the end of that.

It's all about his need to be right. (I think that the fourth child has an innate fear of being forgotten or left out.)

O has given him the nickname, Mr. Insister. It's so perfect.

For (So-Called) Morning Sickness

Now that I'm feeling noticeably better than, say, last week. . . I thought I could mention a few things that have seemed to help reduce nausea during pregnancy. I typically have all-day sickness from about week 6 until week 16 or so, although I also think I feel less sick now than nine years ago when I was pregnant with O. What I've learned:
1) Drink lots of water. It helps to drink water with a drop of Citrus Fresh in it (essential oil from Young Living). It makes it taste like it has a lemon in it, without it becoming bitter as it sits. The kids have been filling a pitcher for me every morning and I make it my goal to drink it before bedtime.
2) Eat often. We joke that I have first and second breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. (Yes, like a hobbit!) Truly, though, I do. I eat as soon as I get up (Back in the early days B would even bring something to me in bed. Now I get up earlier than he does, so I have to take care of myself.). Then I eat with the family. Then I have a mid-morning snack. Then lunch. Then second lunch/afternoon mini-meal. Then dinner with the family. Then a little something later, too. And I might even grab a bite in between schooling and the rest of life.
3) Keep snacks accessible at all times. This comes in handy with children, too. I keep a mix of dried fruit and nuts in the van. And in my bag- every bag I MAY take anywhere.
4) Combine proteins with grains. A cracker may keep me from vomiting, but a cracker with peanut butter will actually put a smile on my face and last me a few more minutes.
5) Peanut butter, in general, is my friend. Love it on toast (typical early breakfast). Love it with celery and raisins. Love it on crackers. Love it on apples. Love it in Complete shakes. (I do use almond butter, too!)
6)Laying a good nutritional foundation really makes a HUGE difference. I used to wonder how adding JuicePlus+ (produce in a capsule) could effect my hormones and the way I felt in the first trimester. Now I understand that improving my nutrition really improved everything. All of my systems are functioning better. I've seen a definite improvement in my pregnancies with JuicePlus.
7) Rest. I've gone to bed by 8 p.m. a few times this week. Plus, I've added a daily 15 minute nap back into my routine. Sometimes the only time I feel good is when I'm asleep. I think that's my body telling me something.

Two

This is the age that should never surprise me, when:
1) My papers are colored in orange marker
2) The library book has pages CUT out of it
3) He is dry all morning, but I have to change 4 sets of pants and unders during my 45 minute conference call
4) All of the clementines mysterious disappear from the fruit basket
5) Pieces of clementines reappear in the upstairs bedrooms
6) The salad dressing is poured into his drinking cup
7) Boots are clomping around upstairs at 6:30 a.m. . . . followed by the sweet little voice declaring, "Mommy! Me put mine boots on!"

Love it and cringe at the same time. This is definitely more interesting with the older siblings around... so many more opportunities than my older ones had (scissors left out, and unsupervised time while parents are engaged with other children!). And yet all of his sweetness makes up for it.

Comments

I've adjusted my settings and am wondering if anyone is able to comment anymore?

More on Motherhood and Keeping a Home

I just finished reading an excellent book on "The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God" by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin (So Much More). The were ages 19 and 17 when they wrote the book, and I found their perspective both interesting and challenging. Because this relates so well with other recent posts, I am including some important passages from the book.

"Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession. . . The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that." (Vivian Gornick, University of Illinois, The Daily Illini.)

"What a traditional woman did that made her home warm and alive was not dusting and laundry. . . Her real secret was that she identified herself with her home, [and] . . . it is illuminating to think about what happened when things went right. Then her affection was in the soft sofa cushions, clean linens, and good meals; her memory in well-stocked storeroom cabinets and the pantry; her intelligence in the order and healthfulness of her home; her good humor in its light and air." (Cherly Mendelson, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House.)

Referring to wifely duties : "I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. . . How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness." (G.K.. Chesterton)

"Though the Proverbs 31 woman's work was praised int he gates, it did not take place in the gates, but in the home. It was the woman's husband who took his place in the gate (Prov. 31:23), and the implication is that his success and influence was largely due to his wife's being faithful to her calling rather than trying to usurp his." (Anna Sofia Botkin and Elizabeth Botkin, So Much More, page 123)

Another Look At Staying Home

Well. I have had all day to think about the shockingly harsh comment made on my earlier post. (If you didn't see it, it is no longer there.) While I do not feel that a response is necessary, it does seem that some clarification may be helpful.

The backdrop of the original post, as I explained in the post, was recent conversations I have had with moms who work out of the home but express a desire to be home with their children. I was recounting these conversations and wondering aloud.

I hear the friction these women are experiencing – they are working but want to be home with their children. Not all women feel this way, obviously, but I was musing on this common thread that linked these separate dialogs in my mind. To extrapolate from this that I think women who work outside of the home should not have children, is quite contrary to the spirit of my post.

The circumstances of many women do indeed require them work to support their children. My post was not about these women. My post was about women who are working, who do not necessarily have to work outside the home, but do so anyway. In fact, my post is even more narrowly focused on moms who are working outside the home but desire to be home with their children. I stated that “this could obviously be a long post.” But, this was a blog post, and not the place to consider and expound on every possible scenario. (Due to time constraints, I am guilty of short, often infrequent posts.)

Finally, I want to reiterate the focus and purpose of the post. The impetus for this post was recent conversations with mothers who work outside of the home, yet all desire to be home with their children. This was an encouragement for that group of moms to consider seriously what they feel God’s call on their time to be. Are they working outside the home so that they can have a bigger home and more material things? Is it really necessary for them to work? Are they trusting God's design for them as their husband's helper? Could they be content with less in order to spend more time with their children? I don’t have the answer to those questions, but I encourage working moms to consider them.

My Place

This morning I am resting in Jesus. The last stanza of Clephane's song Beneath the Cross of Jesus (Elizabeth C. Clephane)is my refrain:

"I take, O cross, thy shadow
for my abiding place.
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of His face.
Content to let the world go by,
to know no gain or loss;
My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all the cross."

The Bitter Truth about Artificial Sweetners

Once again, I am making it known that we believe that God designed good food for us to eat; food that heals us, nourishes us, and protects us from disease. Unfortunately, most Americans do not eat food as God designed it. We reach for packaged, processed, genetically modified, sprayed, injected, painted substitutes.

When we started making changes in our family diet, we started small. Often, it is easier to ADD something than it is to take a lot of things out. This is when we ADDED JuicePlus, the wisest choice I believe we have made regarding our family's nutrition. Then, I started watching labels to take OUT the biggest offenders. We stopped eating "foods" with hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil. We stopped eating "foods" made with high fructose corn syrup. Then we looked for items with enriched flour and decided to eliminate them, since they were making us POOR in health. Colors and numbers were the next to go, and about that time I read a powerful book called, "Excitotoxins, the Taste that Kills" by Russell Blaylock.

Wow. This book explains the history of MSG and other food additives that are termed "excitotoxins." Basically, they are toxic to us because of the effect that they have on neurons in the brain.

Yesterday, I watched Sweet Misery on youtube at a friend's recommendation. Here, I heard Mr. Blaylock explain neurotoxins. Not only that, but other scientists and doctors talked about the effects of these types of toxins on our bodies. Aspartame is devastatingly implicated in this small documentary. If you are curious about aspartame and how the food industry and FDA have conspired to keep it on the shelves, this is 51 minutes you will want to watch. If you want more information on aspartame, I have several articles that I can email.

On Staying Home

In the past few months it seems I have had several conversations with mothers about staying home and returning to work. To clarify, these are mothers who work outside of their homes. Honestly, it makes me very sad and what I lack in wisdom I am asking for the Lord to make up for in grace as I speak to these women, who are my friends, relatives, and acquaintances.

What I hear from women is how much they want children. They want children desperately. They grieve when they are not pregnant right away, as soon as they want to be. They try to conceive, often using great amounts of time and energy and financial resources. They want to have a family.

I wonder WHY. Why do women want to have children? What motivates someone who sets having a child as a goal. . .

And when they have their precious, longed-for child, they take their maternity time off from their job. When their time is up, they leave that same child (in well-researched, capable, excellent hands, of course!)so that they can return to work.

Well, this could obviously be a long post. AND, I'm sure I am offending some readers. I'm not claiming to have the corner on what each woman is supposed to be doing. There was also a season where I did work several hours a week outside of our home. I am simply thinking through my observations from some particular conversations I have had recently.

Here is why I am sad: these same ladies talk to me and I hear their hearts. I hear that they are missing their children. I hear that they are afraid that they are making the wrong choice. I hear that they want reassurance that their children won't miss them, that they won't regret working instead of mothering. I hear that they are uncomfortable with the idea of having less money, fewer things. I hear that they value their freedom and sense of success more than they value investing and giving without expectation of return. I hear them saying that they want to secure their own happiness more than they want to trust that what God designed for them is right and GOOD. I hear them justify their choices, but beneath that I hear them wondering. . .

We will have five children in just a few short months. I will be at home with them, full-time. It may not be for everyone, but there is no other place I would rather be. That doesn't mean I LOVE every day I am home with my children. It means that despite my fickle feelings, I KNOW that I am making the right choice to have my heart at home. Even though I am home full-time, I am also in the marketplace. (This could be an entire post in itself, but Kelly at Generation Cedar addresses it so well.)

The Bible makes it clear that I am to be my husband's helper. I help him by keeping our home. I can't very well do that if he is home more than I am. I help him by taking care of his children, instilling in them the values he holds, training them as he would train them if he were here all day. I am his helper because I can cook his meals and wash his clothes and manage small details so that he has more time to devote to the things that are important to him. My godly husband uses his time in ways that take care of our family, and so it is a joy to serve him. Yet, even if he did not use his time in ways I approve of (and he doesn't always), it doesn't change what the Lord requires of me.

When my mother was a stay at home mother, I remember eating home-cooked meals every day for lunch as a family. When she went back to full time work, the casseroles and lunches ended, my father made his own lunches, three of us were in school, and my younger brother was at the babysitter's. Suppers were often hurried, made from a box, and my mom seemed... well, more stressed (tired from a long day of work?). I wonder what more my father could have accomplished if his helper had continued to help him in those small ways. I would have loved to have a mother who was more available for relationship (because important conversations often happen in inconvenient times!)

My opinion is that the seemingly insignificant things often matter a great deal. The minutes I am with my children will add up into hours and days and years that I can never reclaim. So valuable is this time.

In the Last 10 days or So

O turned 8. Yeah, O! (Oct. 28)
B was sworn in (in Richmond, VA) as a VA lawyer. Yeah, B! (Nov. 4)
B's parents drove out from IL for his big day (Nov. 2- now).
Night of Wellness in our home (Nov. 3).
Dr. Dubois gave a fantastic lecture here in Lynchburg (Nov. 5).
JuicePlus regional training in Richmond, VA (which was EXCELLENT- Nov. 7).
Celebration of R's 6th birthday- early, so the grandparents could join us. (tomorrow)

Plus all the usual! Lots of dishes, laundry, discipline, exercise, reading, talking, and the like. Such fun and work rolled up together. What a rich life!

If I Felt Better

I would post about O's 8th birthday (!) this week and celebrate my biggest boy.

I would type up the best notes from the Memphis JuicePlus+ conference to share with everyone; so much great information that I learned! I'm reinspired to continue our whole food diet and was reminded of how important our JuicePlus+ is to fill in our nutrition where it is lacking.

I would put together our thoughts on important issues such as Halloween and family planning and homeschooling. But I would also have to admit how short I'm falling in so many areas. After all, I'm an idealist and when I'm not feeling quite myself things tend to fall through the cracks.

I would like to post about B's job and this new season of life that we are in, which is fun and challenging and even a lit bit scary. I'm so very proud of his hard work and so very thankful for the gifts and abilities the Lord has given him... and how he has worked out ways for B to use them for His glory.

I would like to take time to post about all sorts of things... but the truth is... I'm hungry (again) and we are out of money (again) and out of the food that sounds good to me (and I'm very choosy right now!). . . and so the best thing for me to do is simply go to bed. Goodnight!