Beauty Redefined

I remember the first year I talked my mom into letting me be in charge of decorating the tree.  It was in college.  I went shopping and bought coordinating ornaments, cottony fake snow, and ribbons to stream down and around the tree.  It was so fun.  Every year after, I tried to think of ways to make the tree more beautiful...getting the lights in just the right places and ornaments scattered just-so around the tree.

Well, here's our tree this year.  My eye is quickly drawn to the ornaments clumped around the bottom which get increasingly sparser toward the top.  And yet, this is the most beautiful tree I've ever seen.  Ornaments keep getting taken off by little hands and put in new places.  (I won't lie.  When I'm the replacer, they get put in an empty spot toward the top, though!)  I think it took all of 5 minutes to decorate the tree this year.  Elissa, Ethan, and McKinley seemed to think they were the expert decorators -- running to the tree, attaching an ornament, and racing back for another one.

My favorite part, though, was the quick glimpse I got of each ornament as it came out of its tissue paper where it was stored last year.  Jason and I are not collectors.  If something does not have a clear use around the house, I'm quick to give it away to someone who could use it.  This has led to a very simplistic house with no clutter, and lots of trips to Goodwill over the years.  The one exception to the rule is Christmas ornaments.  Thoughtfully chosen on vacations, we love the idea of getting to pull them out once a year and enjoy the memories that came with each.  Grandma JoJo has added to our collection the past few years, getting each child an ornament.  The kids quickly caught on that some ornaments were theirs and this added to their anticipation for "next" and "more" ornaments to be unveiled.

As the popular poem about children's fingerprints all over the house reminds me, the difference between a mess and artwork is the perspective of the beholder.  I know that some day when it's back to just me & Jason pulling the ornaments out of the boxes and placing each one just-so on the tree, I'm going to long for the Christmas trees of years past that brought me smiles with each glimpse of their uneven placement.  So maybe the next ornament that gets plucked off, I'll replace amongst the beautifully crowded artwork at the bottom of the tree.

An Object in Motion

An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. ~Newton's First Law of Motion

There are some people who can do a day's work before 8am.  My mom is one of those.  As a kid, Saturday mornings we were at the grocery store before anyone else was there, it seemed.  We drove to town and were back at the house as the sun seemed to be coming up.  I held the door and Mom made the trips back and forth from the car to the house.  By noon, the house was clean, laundry done, and clothes ironed, including handkerchiefs to go in the back pocket of farming pants.

Wow.  Now that I'm a mom myself, I realize how crazy-high she sets the standard.  When Elissa was born, Mom told me that she would be on-call 24 hours a day if I needed anything.  Advice in the middle of the night?  She'd be just a call away.  Needing simply to take a shower without worrying about a baby crying the whole time?  She'd come by and "sacrifice" by holding Elissa for awhile.  There was one day in particular that I remember clearly needing my mom, even though I was then a mommy myself.  For the first 6 weeks of Elissa's little life, I sort of let her run the show.  She cried, I moved into action... feeding, diaper changing, rocking, pacing, feeding, singing, feeding...did I mention feeding?  I fed my sweet, sleepy baby girl every time she whimpered.  Never did I lay her down for a nap.  She would fall asleep in my arms for a catnap and then awake crying, and I assumed she was insanely somehow still hungry.  Being a first time breastfeeding mom didn't help my uncertainties any.

This day in particular, I had been up all night every couple hours feeding my Elissa girl, and then during the day it had been even more frequently.  On recommendation from a friend, I had kept a log of Elissa's eating schedule.  She had eaten 13 times in 14 hours.  THIRTEEN.  This realization occurred to me about the moment she awoke again from a catnap and I fell apart emotionally.  I hadn't taken Mom up on her offer to help very often, but I lunged for my phone, dialed, and cried out for help.  As fast as she could, she drove the 13 miles or so to our place and the moment she held Elissa the crying stopped...from me and my daughter.  Ahh... the comfort of my mother's knowing arms around me was amazing.  In that moment, I knew that I was soon going to be understanding and appreciating my mom in whole new ways because I was now a mother myself.

Mom's service and love was magnified as Ethan & McKinley's pregnancy put me on bedrest at 29 weeks, and then somehow grew even more after their births.  Most Mondays now consist of her hanging out with the kids while I run my errands for the week.  She also pitches in on whatever projects I have going on at the house.  Once Ethan & Kinley were older and I was well rested, I quickly found myself putting in later nights on Sunday so that there wouldn't be as much for Mom to try to help with the next morning.  She just works so hard, and it truly is difficult for her to sit still, so the only way I could ensure that she just hung out with the kids was to get all the work done myself before she arrived.  Elissa even picked up on it, because she saw me cleaning up toys around noon one day and said, "Is Mamaw coming over?"

I try to learn from my Mom's diligence.  Her advice one time was simple.  If I walk by and see something that needs to be done, I just do it right then.  I never realized before her comment how many times I walk by something and think about how long it's been undone or when I will try to get to it later.  As I've incorporated this idea into my days it really is amazing how much can be accomplished.  Remaining in motion, it seems, is a great way to get the most out of my day.