On Living Well

Last week as I drove home from Lily's doctor's appointment, I heard a song on the radio - I'd heard it before, but I actually listened this time.  Over the course of 3 verses, it told the story of a young man and his love.  The first verse told about their courtship where he would walk her home, down an old road, holding her hand all the way.  The second verse told about him walking into the hospital room where his wife held their son and her smile reminding him of how their love began when he would walk her home, holding his hand.  The final verse described nurses in a rest home who were unsure if they should tell him that this was likely his wife's last night.  Then the nurses go to check on the wife and find her husband already there with her, "walking her home, holding her hand..."

I bawled.  I sobbed.

Here's a link to the song.  See if you can make it through without a tear:  He Was Walking Her Home

It got me thinking about living well.  What was so touching to me about the song, is that the gentleman in the song lived well.  By the end, the nurses didn't have to tell him it was his wife's last night - he was so in tune with her, because of years of daily practice, that he knew.  He just knew she needed him.  He got what was important in life.  He lived well.

This weekend I felt like I was constantly surrounded by people who are living well, but I realized that that means something a little different for each person.  Chase and I started out the weekend with some friends who recently adopted a baby girl.  She is precious.  And her mom has a life-long illness that will take her life sooner than any of us would like.  We had a lovely time, but after I left I thought about how mom and dad and baby are living well.  Baby has been adopted into a home and family who cherish every second with her.  Mom and dad are soaking in each moment, taking care of the dirty diapers and other baby daily necessities with the eternal constantly in mind.

When we left there, I went to visit my cousin who had her baby 2 weeks ago.  But I visited them in the lobby outside of the NICU.  Her baby was born 6 weeks early.  Living well for my cousin and her husband meant sleeping poorly on a pull out couch or a recliner in their baby's room for 2 weeks.  It meant my cousin not having been to her own home for over 3 weeks.  It meant throwing out the birth plan, the expectations, and the rule book to do what was best for their baby.  It will mean ultra-caution as they protect this little one who is now (thankfully) safely at home.  They have worked hard for this baby, and they are living well.

From these glimpses into living well at the front end of life, I then stopped to visit my grandparents on my way back home.  In the last 2 years they sold the cabin on a lake that they bought when my mom was still living at home.  They sold the house that they'd lived in for 57 years - the only house they'd ever lived in as a married couple.  They got rid of all the extra things, down to the bare bones, so that they would fit into the much smaller, more manageable house they moved into.  They moved to a different town - it's nearby, but it's still not the town they spend their lives in.  They are living well.

I think that perhaps it's much harder to live well in the end than in the beginning.  With my friends and my cousin, they know what they need to do to care for their babies.  They do the daily things that are required although not always easy - the diapers, the shots, the doctor's visits, the worrying about how much food the baby's getting, the second-guessing of parenting styles... They do the outward things that express the inward, indescribable love they have for their children.  And it's a joy.  But my grandparents have done the same things - the outward things that show their inward love for their children:  downsizing now so that the kids don't have to go through all the stuff later;  making sure the right kids and grandkids get the things that mean something to them; accepting the new and ever-increasing limitations of a body that simply can't do what it used to; voluntarily moving to a place that they can care for themselves.  Living well.

In all stages of life, we get the opportunity to live well.  For Chase and I, now, living well means caring for our family.  It's small now, but imagine what it might be like in 57 years...

Someday I hope Chase and I go at the same time - that would be a mercy to us.  But if not, I want to be in tune enough with him that neither of us has to tell the other that we're headed home - we'll just know.  I want to live well now and always - forever in light of eternity.

The occupation for which all others exist

Holy week is over, and I feel like I didn't reverently remember it, nor appropriately celebrate its conclusion.  There was too much going on.  I was simply trying to keep my head above water, and for the most part, it was a total fail.  The most I can say I actually accomplished was to keep my family fed and that was largely thanks to meals had at my mother's house and my mother-in-law's house.  Why is being a mother/homemaker so difficult?

Pitiful as my first Easter as a mom was, I did, at least, get a few pictures of Easter adorableness...

Saturday we celebrated with Chase's family - thanks for the Easter basket Aunt Cara!

Easter Sunday Lily wore her new Easter dress - thanks Grandma Becky for the dress!

I'm trying to find ways to simplify my life, while at the same time committing to do more and more things.  It's a coming together of the urgent and the important.  There are urgent things in life that absolutely must be attended to.  Things like taxes, dishes, laundry, work, going to the bathroom, making meals, putting the baby to bed, and sleeping all absolutely must be done.  But when I think of important things - things that will matter 10 days from now or even eternally, going to the bathroom isn't among them.

The important things are things like taking pictures of my 6 month old, recording memories to be cherished for the years to come, spending time with my husband, building friendships, spending time feeding my soul.  These are things so important that they simply can't be overlooked.  But they are, every day.  And it kills me.

I HATE not being able to focus on the important because the stinking urgent is screaming in my ear, staring me in the face, and demanding that I do nothing until I take a break to empty my darn bladder.  ...Ok, so I'm being a little over-dramatic, and perhaps a bit too personal, but seriously!  Imagine all the time I would have throughout my life to focus on the important if dishes never had to be done, and if we never got our clothes dirty.  But then, I suppose it's simply a waste of time to even think such things, because dirty clothes and dirty dishes are part of life.  They are often a part of urgent life, and if you let them go too long, they become a part of urgent-and-important life.

As if the battle between the urgent and the important weren't enough for me to ponder, I've also been thinking lately about the constant comparison that we mothers and homemakers (whether we work out of the home or not) make among ourselves.  We compare our bodies, our children's bodies, our children's abilities, our cooking, our homes, our husbands, our time, our vacations, our weekends, our weeks, our priorities, every inch and iota of our lives all the time.  Most of it, in my life at least, is done in friendship, to learn from one another.  But MAN.  It can get wearing on a person, can't it?

CS Lewis wrote a letter to Mrs. Johnson in March of 1955.  In it he sympathizes with what must have been her complaints about being a house wife:

I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife's work being like that of Sisyphus... [a king in Greek mythology who was punished to forever roll a huge boulder up a hill, but before he reached the top, he would watch it roll back down the hill, and he would have to start pushing it up again - he was punished to do this for all of eternity].  But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world.  What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes?  As Dr. Johnson said, 'To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour.'  ...We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it.  So your job is the one for which all others exist."

I would have liked to have met Lewis.  (And who wouldn't, really?)  He got it.  He got the never ending struggle that is running a household.  What was done yesterday must be redone today.  Just when one thinks one has gotten ahead, one looks back to see the boulder sitting, yet again, at the bottom of the hill.  Wearily we trudge back down to begin pushing it up again.  He got the monotony.  But more critically, he got the importance of running a household.

Amidst the monotony, there exists the important.  The important is, in fact, so critical, that he calls it "the most important work in the world."  The important (I must be reminded) includes that of baking bread, changing diapers, washing dishes, sweeping floors, scrubbing toilets.  It is, as Lewis explains, the job "for which all others exist."  What a reassuring thought!

Whether I work out of the home or stay at home all the time with my family, my role as a wife, a mother, a homemaker is the most critical job I have, and the job which will always be supported by all my family's other jobs.

I wish it was the kind of job for which a job description could be written, but it's simply not.  There is no one "right way" to make a home.  There is no one "right way" to parent.  There is no one "right way" to care for my husband.  There are better and worse ways to do such things, but even those qualifications vary from family to family and from phase to phase in the life of the family.

I feel like I am constantly evolving as a wife, as a mother, as a home maker.  May God grant me the grace to evolve into what my family needs from me, and may He grant me the wisdom in those critical moments to set aside the urgent and focus on the important, be that changing a diaper, washing a dish, listening to a friend, communing with my spouse, or feeding my soul.

A Lesson in Cloth Diapering

That's right.  I use cloth diapers.  And the most frequent question I get about them from my peers is, "How are you liking the cloth diapers?"  They say it with a slight smile, as if they think they know what my answer will be before I give it.  I think they expect me to say (with an underlying "I-really-hate-them" tone in my voice), "Oh, they're ok.  But I wish I hadn't made the investment, because I feel guilty using disposables, but I'd really rather use disposables than cloth.  I hate stuffing them, and they're gross to rinse out, and I wish I'd never gotten them."  If you're honest, that's probably what you're expecting to read in this blog post.

But you're WRONG!  I LOVE my cloth diapers.  When I was researching them, before Lily was born, I wondered if such an investment would be worth it, and if I'd just hate everything about caring for them.  Well, let me tell you the answer to "how I'm liking the cloth diapers."  I love them.  And the biggest reason is that I end up doing way less laundry because of them.

What?!?  Less laundry???  Yep.  You see, I birthed a very talented child.  She can blow out of absolutely any kind of diaper I put on her... except cloth.  When she wears disposable, I end up bagging her clothes, soaking them, scrubbing them, prewashing them, scrubbing them again, hot water, cold water, Oxi-clean, Spray n Wash, stain-fighting detergent, rewashing, sun-bleaching.  I've done them all and all imaginable combinations thereof.  And I hate it.

But when my darling baby wears cloth, the diaper catches all of the nastiness that she can throw at it.  I joke that the disposables, when they see what's coming, simply surrender.  They don't want anything to do with that stuff - they're like France, waving the white flag.  But the cloth, they are like the Marines.  They're not afraid.  They do not give up.  The do not lose.  Wanna see a line up of my cloth diaper Marines:

That's them between battles.  I have a portable clothes line that travels between the back yard and the basement (depending on the weather).  It's where these amazing diapers recoup and prepare for the next round.  The sun bleaches them to be as white as the day I received them in the mail.  It's simply glorious.

For any of you moms interested in the kind of diaper I invested in, here's the scoop:  I bought Giggle Life diapers (12 microfiber, 12 bamboo).  I bought them because they were the most cost-effective at the highest quality I could find, and they got great reviews on the cloth diapering blogs I read.  They can be purchased on their website (http://www.gigglelife.com/catalog/) or on Amazon (that's where I found them).  Having used them for about 4 months now, I can attest to the quality and value of the investment!

They are what's called "pocket diapers" and here's how they work...

Above, the blue is the outside of the diaper, the white is the inside (of another diaper).  The white pad-looking thing in the middle is the pad you stick into the pocket of the diaper (see below):

If your child is a "heavy wetter" (particularly at night) you can put in more than one pad, or double up a pad at the front or back of the diaper.  Giggle Life diapers each come with 2 pads.  I use one pad in the diapers during the day, and 2 in the nighttime diapers.  When the diaper is dirty, I pull the pad out of the diaper, and throw both in my dry diaper pail (aka a trash can with a lid with a liner in it).  When it's time to wash, I throw them all in a cold prewash cycle, then in a cold wash cycle with detergent (homemade detergent works great - no dyes or perfumes), then hang them up to dry.

When they're all stuffed and ready to be used, they look like this:

What could be cuter than that???  Well, let me tell you - Liliana in a cloth diaper!  Behold...

Ok, so maybe the hat and pearls are overkill, but seriously, what could be cuter?  :)

One other thing I want to note is the quality of the Giggle Life company.  The diapers are manufactured in China, but from the research I've done on the company, they get them from China because they are the highest quality diapers for the best price that they could find.  And the manufacturer they get them from is reputable.

The company had a promotion in the month of February where you could leave a review on their site, and they would enter your name in a drawing for a diaper.  I never win such things, but I was so happy with my diapers that I left a review anyway.... and I WON!!!!  Can you believe it!?!  I was psyched about it for like a week!  It was awesome!  I have since received and initiated the new cloth diaper into the rotation.  So I now have a stock of 25 diapers that takes me about 3 days to use up.

What's the life lesson from this post?  There isn't one.  I simply had no idea how much I would love wrapping my baby's bottom in soft cushy microfiber rather than papery-disposable-trash.  I still use disposable eveyr now and then, but I often use my cloth even when I'm out of the house.  I love my cloth diapers - I don't hate rinsing them out (I have a hose thing that reaches from the shower to the toilet), I don't hate washing them, I don't hate stuffing them, and I certainly don't hate saving TONS of money by using cloth!

Oh, and I should note that in that picture, Lily is wearing only a diaper NOT because she pooped all over her clothes, but rather because it's a shame to hide baby rolls under clothes all the time.  :)