We Moved: The Before and After Edition

 

I still can't find my daughter's doll bed, and the library claims we have one of their children's books, which, I mean, we might in a tub of Christmas decorations somewhere (because I've unpacked all of our books and it's nowhere to be found, so I'm banking on it being some place utterly ridiculous), but we are home, and it is the most lovely feeling. 

Especially when you can't leave. 

 

My husband spent the past year renovating, adding onto, and pouring his blood, sweat, and highly caffeinated self into his childhood home, the one his grandparents and then parents lived in as well. 

I kept the children alive. He poured concrete. I packed boxes. He got to know the folks at Lowe's and Menards so well they're practically sending each other Christmas cards.  

These are a few of the before and afters.

 

But after months of decisions on his part and "Wait. Did I say I wanted . . . ?" on my part, we are here. And it very much feels like home. 

Our big kids still ask about the "old house" sometimes and wonder if we're moving back or who's living there or why we couldn't move the old house into the new house. But slowly, little by little, they're becoming acclimated too, even if the first week after moving there were countless tears because little people couldn't remember where the new potties were or how to find their room. #toddlerproblems

So when it comes to practicing social distancing? We have a new house to roam, front and back yards made of mud for sloshing around in, and plenty of fresh air. We're here for it. 

Besides, we're farmers. If the TP really does run out, there are always corn husks. 

PS If you can believe it, this pantry used to be a bathroom!

So here's to staying home, staying calm, staying determined, staying joyful, staying in the Word, staying thankful . . . one day at a time.

caring for others

My dad's grandmother was in charge of washing the family's silverware at age 2. She came from a large family. Everybody had to pull his own weight, even the two-year-old. So her mom put her to work doing something she could do that would be helpful to the whole family: washing silverware.

I can't say I would trust my two- and three-year-olds with washing the dishes just yet. More water ends up on the floor than it does in the sink, and the front of their clothes are usually soaked by the time the first dish is rinsed.

But they absolutely love washing dishes, and it's made me a believer that there's something to the ideal held forth by my ancestors: the acknowledgement that everyone is a part of his family, no matter how much or how little he contributes to it.

So while I wouldn't recommend you eat off the plates my kids clean just yet (unless you actually enjoy crusty chunks of the previous meal stuck to your flatware), I do love to watch them dig into real life tasks: cleaning out measuring cups, sweeping the floor with their mini brooms, and even hanging clothes on the line.

Isn't it interesting how even the littlest members of a family get so much pride out of contributing to it? It's almost like Someone designed us to care for and about one another. Hmm.

The bulk of their day still revolves around all sorts of play, which is exactly what they should be doing as children. But there are also times throughout the day and week that our play takes the form of some real life work: setting the table, running out to get the mail, unpacking the dishwasher, pouring drinks, and moving laundry from the washing machine to the dryer.

I'm thankful for all those little ways in which they help our family function (not to mention how they help the kids be independent and capable adults some day . . . or so I hope because if they can't figure out how to get a stain out of their clothes, they'll have to call their grandma who is basically the queen of OxiClean), and it's such a joy to watch them take ownership and pride in their work . . . even if the clothespins were upside down and the fork ended up on the right side of the plate.

It's a start. In fact, it's the first step in learning that taking care of someone other than themselves matters. And in a time in their lives where they are particularly prone to thinking only of themselves (hello, toddler "No, me!" mentality), that's something. I'd bet my dirty fork on it. 

the extraordinary ordinary

There's often a brief moment -- right after someone finds out that we will have three kids under age 2.5 as of June -- when the conversation takes a horribly awkward turn.

"Oh. Wow."

"You guys are going to have your hands full."

"On purpose?"

So, and let this go on the record, WE ARE NOT CRAZY.

Having small children . . . and a life . . . and a wonderful marriage is do-able. 

We follow a parent-directed feeding/eating/sleeping way of life around here, so we have a pretty ordered day. It's not (usually) total chaos, which means that we got our kiddos in a routine when they were little and we're sticking with it.

After Dad goes to work, the kiddos eat breakfast and then play. When little brother takes a nap, sis and I do the laundry or read books or go outside. When he wakes up, we get ready for lunch and watch out the window of the front door for Dad to return. (Feel free to not look closely for nose and tiny hand smudges on the glass when you're at our house. Well, honestly, you won't need to. They're everywhere. Always.)

After lunch, the kids both lay down for a nap from about 1:00-3:30. After snacks, we play some more and then work on dinner. After dinner, Daddy tosses the kids around, tickles tummies, builds towers, reads outloud, and tickles some more. Then it's time to pick up toys, put on jammies, do our devotions, brush our teeth and climb in bed.

Since my friend Katie at Good and Lovely recently posted what her day looks like, and since she and I have talked a fair amount about this, and because I always appreciate seeing what other mamas' days are made of, here's what a normal day at our house looks like:

7:00-8:00 a.m.

Me: Kids, let's get your clothes on so we can go have breakfast.
Them: Just 42,912 more books, Mom, and then we'll be ready!

8:00-9:00 a.m.

When we don't FaceTime with grandparents or aunts and cousins during breakfast, we have extended breakfast conversations about skunks, coyotes, Blackjack the dog, and whether or not panthers live in the bathtub drain.

Cereal with marshmallows and bananas earn this mom some serious morning bonus points.




After breakfast, I attempt to restore order to the kitchen. Translation: Vacuum up roughly 27 cheerios and a blob of mushed banana from the floor. 

Yes, she picked out that shirt because it reminded her of a puppy. And the necklaces? A must. A girl needs her pearls. 

If we need groceries, this is the time to make our Aldi run. Other days we ransack the library and check out all the books we can cram in a bag.

9:00-10:00 a.m.

The girl reads, plays with Little People, talks non-stop and hollers when little brother tosses anything he can get his hands on in the potty. Then he lays down for a nap at 9:30 and is out like a light until 10:30.

 

10:00-11:00 a.m.

While little brother naps, Sis and I do the laundry, work in the kitchen, read some books, get some Vitamin D, make pancakes in her Ikea kitchen, do some baking, or dust and mop.  Strangely, she, like me, doesn't love the last two options.

Brother is awake again by 10:30, raring to get back in the action (read: potty diving). 

11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Lunchtime! Both for imaginary food and for real food, apparently. Chants of "DaDDY! DaDDY!" can be heard at the table whenever Dad drives in the lane.

12:00-1:00 p.m.

Mom attempts to restore order to the kitchen after lunch. Wait. Didn't this just happen?

1:00-2:00 p.m.

Everyone waves hello to the mailman and the heifer feeder after bidding a sad goodbye to Dad.  Then Sis lays down for a nap in the kids' room, Brother lays down for a nap in the guest room, and Mom does ALL THE THINGS WHILE IT IS QUIET. 

2:00-3:00 p.m.

That involves cleaning, fishing toys out from under the couch, and making a grocery list because five cousins are coming to visit this week! 

3:00-4:00 p.m.

Then, because Alexa is just plain rude, I do another load of laundry. Yes, I do 1-2 loads a day around here. Have you ever seen how many clothes a farmer and two small children can go through in a 24-hour period?

The kids get up around 3:30, have a snack, and play me some tunes, usually in the key of low, low C.


(Change of clothes attributed to Mom forgetting to keep taking pictures one day and scrambling to remember to make up for it the next day. #pregnancybrain)

4:00-5:00 p.m.

Brother grows increasingly crabby because he's a growing boy who loves to eat, so he follows me around the kitchen while I make supper, and Sis sits up at the table to play with Legos or MagnaTiles or paint.  Or basically to do anything that will keep her little brother from getting into her stuff.

She's learning young.

 

5:00-6:00 p.m.

Daddy comes home for dinner to shouts of great excitement from all of us. And sometimes he brings Mama flowers because although he's busy and got a million things on his mind, he still insists on putting everybody else in his family first, which Mama is forever grateful for. 

6:00-7:00 p.m.

Dad rough houses the kids while Mom does the dishes to the sounds of giggles, chortles, panther growls, horses whinnying, and a little brother grumbling because he can't quite keep up. Crawling, you know. 

  

7:00-8:00 p.m. 

Bedtime! After jammies, drinks of water, devotions, prayers, teeth brushing, book reading, roughly 87 "good nights" and "I love you"s, we turn out the light, shut the door, and listen to the two of them chat for the next 20 minutes until the squeaks and giggles get quieter and then eventually stop. 

Now it's time for Dad to do some bookwork, Mom to clean up the kitchen (are you sensing a theme here?), and Mom and Dad to read the newspaper or a good book, chat about what tomorrow looks like schedule-wise and talk about how their days went.

 

 

Is it busy? Yes. 

Is it sometimes difficult to get everybody loaded into the car and buckled into car seats and back out of the car seats and out of the car? Yes. 

Do we go through a lot of diapers? Let's not even talk about that.

Do I say, "Please be gentle with your brother" and "We don't say 'no.' We say, 'Yes, Mom.'" at least 20, nope, make that 45 times a day? Yes. 

Would I change any of it -- from my husband to my our children to our very ordinary and yet extraordinarily wonderful days, even the ones where the toddler melts down because she is firm in her belief that butterflies live in her milk and refuses to be convinced otherwise? 

Nope. 

Not a bit.

walking beans

I'm currently knee-deep in Ben Sasse's book The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis, which I'd highly recommend by the way, and just read his observation that asking an adult about his first job usually kickstarts a fascinating conversation. 

That's providing, of course, that he's not a 20-year-old who's in college and hasn't yet worked a day in his life. 

Gah. 

My first job -- as a ten-year-old -- was very glamorous. Are you ready?

I walked beans for my uncle in the midst of the Iowa summer heat. 

For non-farmers, walking beans meant spreading out over a bean field to seek and destroy any weeds that would have otherwise been combined during harvest. 

Plus it made for an immaculate looking bean field. 

My mom and sister and a couple of her friends and I would meet at a certain field early in the morning before the sun got too hot. We'd drag along our hoes and water and lots of bug spray,  take 6-8 rows per person, and set out across the field to cut down any weeds that had cropped up. 

It was often wet work; the dew from the early morning made the leaves damp so before you were 50 feet into the field, you were soggy from the waist down. 

And it wasn't uncommon to step on a snake. Or a frog. We'd jump so high we'd land a row over while screaming like, well, girls. 

I walked beans every morning for several weeks. I was covered in mosquito bites. I had a solid sunburn. My shoes were soggy, and my jeans were muddy.

And I made $80.00 when it was all over. It was enough to open my first checking account. At the time, it could have been a million dollars as far as ten-year-old me was concerned. 

Most people don't walk beans anymore. I don't know if that's because of superior bean quality, better spray, or if kids are just lazy.  Maybe walking beans was never really necessary to begin with, and it was simply a good way to keep middle schoolers and teenagers busy in the summer. Hmm.

But I do know that walking over all those acres, cutting down all those weeds, stepping on all those snakes and collapsing into bed from being hot and tired earned me 80 glorious dollars and the reward of sweaty work well done. 

And I can't wait to see my children do the same. It may be working with cows or weeding in the garden or building fence. But I do want them to know what it's like to be sweaty and sunburned and bug-bitten. 

It was good for me. It will be good for them too. And you can take that to the bank. 

All $80.00 worth. 

What was your first job? 

dads

I'm a firm believer that children need a mom and a dad. 

Certainly there are cases where the mom is left on her own, or where the dad shirks his duty and takes off, or where the dad has passed away. 

But I'm not talking the exceptions. 

I'm talking the rule. 

I know how much I need my dad . . . and I'm 31. 

And I know that Georgia already recognizes her dad and responds to him with smiles and toots and big eyes.

She knows her dad because he's here.  

Because he sings to her. 

He reads to her. 

He prays over and for her. 

He tickles her. 

He smooches her. 

He takes her to church. 

He keeps her safe. 

He comforts her. 

He snuggles her. 

He explains things to her. 

He tells her about her future. 

He describes the puppies and the cows and the chickens to her. 

He works long, hard hours so that her mom can stay home with her. 

He tells her about Jesus and politics and land prices and farm markets and how to build fence and dig tile and why Lent matters. 

And he always has a smile and a kiss for her when he comes in, even after working a 21-hour day. 

I can feed her and change her diaper. 

But she needs her dad. 

And I'm glad the Lord blessed her with this one. 


PHOTO COURTESY KATIE LOCKHART PHOTOGRAPHY 

all the things

After I got married, I felt awkward talking about marriage because I was the girl who, quite literally, wrote the book about being single. I know what it's like to be the single girl who wants to be married, the one who listens politely to all the relationship talk but secretly wishes someone would just put her out of her misery so she can extract herself from the conversation. 

And now that my farmer and I are expecting our first baby, I feel awkward talking about having a child, because I was the girl who prayed and waited for the Lord to give the gift of a baby and was so entirely over having to see pictures of babies and announcements on social media that I about found a wall to smack my head against. 

So if you are single and not married, or married and wish you were pregnant or had kids at home, you can skip reading any farther. Don't put yourself through it. I used to, and it just caused undue angst. Don't do that to yourself.

But before you go, know this: The Lord has a good and perfect plan for your life. It may not feel like it. It may not seem like it. But He is -- patiently and methodically -- working all things for good, drawing you close to Him, causing you to trust in Him alone. And that's better than any husband or baby out there. You can bank on it. 

_________________________________________________________

In this house, we love babies. A day old. A month old. A week old. Pre-born. Born. We've never met a baby we didn't like. Simply put, we believe they have value and worth regardless of their size. 

And we are so grateful to be surrounded by others who believe the same, which is, I'm convinced, why there is not a thing that our baby could still possibly need. 

Well, except for prayers. Baby will always need those. 

for baby's room

True story: Back in the (college) day, I entered a Hallmark Mother's Day writing contest and won my mom 12 months' worth of expensive and impressive flowers. 

The local news station even came out to interview us. 

That's a big deal in Iowa, ok?

It was really just affirmation of what I already knew: that my stay-at-home mama -- who fed me and schlepped me an hour to confirmation class and homeschooled me and then drove me a half hour to meet the school bus twice a day for a year and helped me through 4-H and listened to all my boy troubles, etc. -- is just the kind of mom I want to be to this little baby.

In other words, Mom set the bar HIGH. 

So when she came to spend a week with us, I really should have been taking care of HER in exchange for all she's done for ME, but somehow it worked out that I just kept asking her to help with more projects. And she did. And they turned out adorably. 

Like this woodland mobile for Baby's room. 

All it took was one hour in Michael's, and there was no turning back. We loaded up on:

• Sparkly adorns and branches. 
• Cute little birdies.
• Glittered pinecones. 
• A nest and some moss balls. 
• Feathers. Because the world can always use more feathers. 
• Peanut butter M & Ms. Those don't have anything to do with crafting, but they are a necessity. 

  

Then I plugged in the glue gun, poured Mom a root beer and got out of her way. 

Trust me. It's better than way.

She tied three strands of colored twine to the bird's nest -- evenly spaced around the edge -- so that it could hang from a hook in the ceiling.

That same twine was cut at varying lengths and tied to the nest so that she could hang adorableness on the underside.

Then -- in no particular order -- she hot glued feathers, sparkly leaves, acorns, moss balls and birds to the twine.

There was a lot of "Should the leaves go with the acorns or with the pinecones?" and "Does it need a red feather or a yellow feather?" and a lot of me saying, "Um...what you just said. Yeah. Definitely that."

The good news? It's hard to screw up. The combination was cute no matter how she grouped items together!

The last step was to -- legit -- feather that nest and add the mama bird to it.

The feathers came in a $1.99 package of a zillion different colors, but we opted for a little pop of red because red is the best color EVER. #commonknowledge

She added a glittery pinecone and an orange acorn for good measure, tucked in two moss balls and then glued the sweet little birdie on top. We decided not to use regular plastic eggs from the craft store because they were tiny and no one would have been able to see them anyway. Go big or . . . uh . . . don't go. That's what we say.

See how easy that little project is? It's not even DIY. It's DIM (Do it, Mom).

All the pieces needed to make this mobile are even pretty easy to gather up. You just need one wonderful mom, some crafting supplies, a baby on the way and a ceiling to hang the mobile from.

It can't get any more DIY than that!