the curse of being type A

So, something that I've noticed about myself over the years, but particularly since becoming ingrained in the Army lifestyle, is that I have trouble accepting help. I've always had a smidgen of this sort of, "I can handle this on my own...for some reason I feel the need to prove to everyone I'm capable all the time and have no weaknesses" mentality and I'm positive I get it from my mother because she is the exact same way, always having to appear as if everything is under control.

Back when my husband went through his first deployment in 2006, I was extremely anxious about the whole ordeal. I wasn't really ever worried for him. I knew that he was a good soldier, good with his rifle, and could take care of himself. I was worried for ME! How on earth was I going to handle all of the things for which I was responsible, plus all of the things my husband handled? Oh, and lest we forget, I had a son who was just barely one year old and a newborn and was therefore in the throws of trying to figure out how to be a mother of two. (I think any mom of more than one can attest to the stress of adjusting to being mother to more than one. When you only have one child, you devote yourself wholly to that child's happiness. You can stop your world from spinning to get their needs met and a smile back on their face. Once you have another, that reality ceases to exist and suddenly you have two babies who can never seem to nap at the same time, but can always seem to be upset at the same time and both have yet to grasp the concept of patience.) To say that I was nervous about him leaving would be a severe understatement. It was more like full blown panic attacks the months leading up to and for several months after he left for Iraq. There were many days that I would just sit in the floor and bawl my eyes out because I felt so overwhelmed and helpless.

me, wearing Ephraim on my front, and Canon on my back at once. summer 2007.

But as is the case in life, you learn to adjust. It all made me a stronger person and during that time I became quite skilled at finding the most efficient way to get things done. Now, this strength and knowledge has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I have been able to help dozens of mothers learn how to wear their babies in slings, wraps, mei tai's, pouches and soft-structured carriers so that they can keep their little one close, comfortable, and contained while they clean house, grocery shop, or whatever it is they are needing to do. I've been able to offer a lot of encouragement to other military wives and girlfriends going through their first deployments.

However, along with the self-sufficiency I have noticed that I have trouble receiving offers of help. It's not that I don't ever want help, it's just that after so long of meeting my needs myself, I now find that I don't often feel like I have needs that need help to get met. I've reached a point where I'm now self-sufficient to the point that I don't leave much room in my life to be helped, or to be ministered to and blessed by others. I constantly find people asking me, "Do you need help with anything?" and I reply, "I got it." I've become a poster child for strength, efficiency and multi-tasking and it has come at a price. We're called to be an encouragement to others, but am I letting people encourage me or am I closing myself off to being ministered to by others? I'm afraid it's probably the latter, but at least I recognize it now.

Now the question is, how do I make the change? How do I open myself up to that community with others? That's also a problem that I've noticed since we plunged into Army life. It's so easy for me to get caught up in living in the present, instead of living in the now. Back when I was pregnant with Ephraim all of my thoughts were, "once John leaves for Iraq...." and then once he left my thoughts switched to "once John comes home...." Then he came home, immediately got pregnant again and it naturally turned in to thinking, "once the baby's born...." and then "once we move to Oklahoma", "once we move to the city" "once you're in Korea", and now a lot of my thoughts have been "once we get back to North Carolina...". Along those lines it can make it hard for me to want to open myself up to others because I think, "What's the point in making friends here when I'm only going to be here for a few more months? It's only going to make it that much harder to leave." Heck, even when we lived on an army post it was easy to not want to get too attached to people, because it seems like as soon as you find someone you really click with, one of you will move away. On the one hand, you get a really tightly knit family unit. On the other hand, you isolate yourself from other families who could be encouraging you and vice-versa. How do you pour yourself into others if you avoid all contact with the world outside the walls of your house?

I want to learn to make friends with abandon again. I want to jump in, head first without a worry as to whether or not this person is going to end up being shady and screwing me over. I don't want to worry about getting hurt by them down the line, or getting attached to them and then it being hard to leave. I want to just build relationships and be in the moment in them. I want to stop being the strong one all the time and be vulnerable and lean on people and I want to be in a friendship where I won't have to worry that being vulnerable is going to freak them out. I want that small part of the old, pre-Army me back.

Godly Parenting

So, if there is one thing that grates on my nerves faster than anything it is repetitive noises. Naturally this means that my children are all prone to making random repetitive sound effects. I feel like I am constantly saying, "Stop making that noise!" This morning my oldest son, who is four years old, was making this odd grunting sound over and over, and I told him to stop. So he smiles and makes the noise one more time. I took this disrespect hard. I corrected him for it and as it usually goes in these sorts of situations I immediately think to myself, "I must not be doing a very good job at disciplining my kids, or he would have understood that stop means stop."

The thing that made this morning different, though, was that I began thinking about God as a parent. I do this quite a bit but today a revelation dawned on me. There is no question that God is perfect. The perfect everything, including the perfect parent. He always does the right thing, and we, His children, are still continually doing things He tells us not to do. We may not do them to intentionally disrespect Him, just as I don't think my four year intentionally meant to disrespect me, but we do them just the same. It gave me comfort to realize that even if I was, in fact, a perfect parent, that would still be no guarantee that my kids would always follow what I say to the letter, because, after all even our Holy Father, perfect in all His ways has disobedient children who need constant teaching and correction.

Thank you God, for your grace and mercy and for loving a rebellious screw-up like me.

let's talk about our day.

so while this is far from being a true DITL post, it does hit the highlights. it's been a long time since a good picture laden post. you've hung in there with me. i think you deserve it.

today started with a trip to target. what started as an impromptu errand run for toilet bowl cleaner, turned into us buying canon a bicycle. !!! i tossed the idea back and forth about getting him one now while i know i have the extra money for it, or making him wait till christmas, and decided to just do it now. i feel so bad for him everytime the other boys on the street are riding his bikes and he is stuck with the little tricycle he's had since he was two. so now he has a big boy bike, in all it's Lightening McQueen glory.


oh! funny little side note: after target, we went out to eat at Louie's and C saw these posters and said, "see. you have to be black to do that. the white one isn't doing it. the black man is cause you have to be black to do that." omg. it was so funny. the way the four year old mind works things out.......anyway....

of course we had to get home and put the thing together


and take it out for a spin. canon rode it all the way to the playground at the back of the neighborhood and had lots of room to ride it around since there are only a couple of half built houses over there and thus no traffic driving through.


we played for less than an hour before deciding it was hot and we were thirsty, so we headed back to the house and decided to have some indoor fun and do an alphabet craft. little ones weilding scissors- look out!


glueing on teeth


A if for Alligator!


and then it was back to business as usual since dinner wasn't going to cook itself and i had three days worth of chicken to tend to. so what's a flying solo mom of 3 to do? take the youngest one and throw him on your back, apron on the front, and looks sassy doing it. that's how i roll.


just ignore those water marks on the mirror though, because i never did manage to roll into the bathroom and actually clean it.