invisible mothers

News first, then the post:
Joy's visit to the dentist went very well, much better than her first visit a few months ago to a different dentist. This dentist says that he feels like with the rapid onset and lightening fast progress, this isn't normal decay, she had some sort of enamel defect from development. However, there is stuff we can do. They did a paint on sealer treatment yesterday, we will go back in 8 weeks to do it again, and once he feels like the current teeth are fully through, we will look at repair options. It is heartbreaking to see my beautiful baby with her rotten crumbly little teeth, but to know that someone else cares and will HELP us (let me tell you, that first dentist was a piece of work!) makes it a bit easier.
Today we are headed for the pediatrician to see what to do for this thrush since my homegrown remedies aren't working very quickly; Thanks Kayla for pointing out that it spreads like the plague. I'm looking forward to the whole family sporting a white frothy mouth.
anyway, after the ped visit we are heading for busch gardens. Dean worked there this summer and after working 100 hours, he got 6 free passes so he's taking us... we planned to go WEEKS ago, but never got to. Today is the last day since this weekend will be packed for Labor Day, and then he starts school on Tuesday. The kids are just out of their skin to finally go, me not so much. it's supposed to be 90 with 92% humidity. I think that means we will be swimming. I mean can you even breath air that is 92% humid? Should I pack scuba gear?
Last night was the open house/meet the teacher at Dean's new school (he's going to trade school half day and finishing regular high school courses the other half of the day) so Jeff took him. They talked to the teacher and principal about our Disney trip and worked out some ways that Dean can miss that much and be ok, so we are ON. Well, we were on anyway since the train tickets are bought and the townhouse paid for, but now I know to go ahead and buy him a Disney ticket too.

Alright, invisible moms. I have mixed emotions about this essay. I certainly don't approve of my family ignoring me, but we are a work in progress. There are many days when I do honestly wonder if I'm actually speaking out loud or if I'm really just one of the voices in my head. In the meantime, I did get a little bit of a boost from this piece.

Perspective: The Invisible Woman By Nicole Johnson It started to happen gradually. One day I was walking my son Jake to school. I was holding his hand and we were about to cross the street when the crossing guard said to him, "Who is that with you, young fella?" "Nobody," he shrugged. "Nobody?" The crossing guard and I laughed. My son is only 5, but as we crossed the street I thought, "Oh my goodness, nobody?" I would walk into a room and no one would notice. I would say something to my family - like "Turn the TV down, please" - and nothing would happen. Nobody would get up, or even make a move for the remote. I would stand there for a minute, and then I would say again, a little louder, "Would someone turn the TV down?" Nothing. Just the other night my husband and I were out at a party. We'd been there for about three hours and I was ready to leave. I noticed he was talking to a friend from work. So I walked over, and when there was a break in the conversation, I whispered, "I'm ready to go when you are." He just kept right on talking. That's when I started to put all the pieces together. I don't think he can see me. I don't think anyone can see me. I'm invisible. It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not! No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please." I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going she's going she's gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees." In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: * No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. * These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. * They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. * The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees." I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become." At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there." As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

The mouths of babes...

1. Joy has thrush. HOW did we get this now? I've nursed three kids, for a total of 41 months, and never gotten thrush. Joy was nearly weaned (until she got sick the beginning of August, really lovely stomache flu, so we got back into nursing a lot), and we are working on it again and now BAM, Sunday she was a little fussy and I noticed some "sugar sprinkles" on her tongue, Monday we headed for the herb store to get some doctorin' stuff, we had a BAD night last night, and today I'm wiping it off of her lips.

YUCK YUCK YUCK.

The only thing more ucky than thrush is the stuff you have to use to get rid of it. My arsenal includes: raw, plain yogurt, liquid acidopholus, Yeast Relief tincture, and a GSE solution (GSE is grapefruit seed extract, if you've ever been on TLC, you may know it as the stuff Sister Ruth Vernon tells you to put into the water of 3rd world countries to keep from getting sick. it's great stuff, but it tastes truly awful). All of these things are hideously foul tasting. I'm hoping that mere contact with all of the above is sufficient, because the most that I can claim is that I'm "rinsing" her mouth with them. I'm pretty sure nothing is actually going down.

She has a dentist appointment tomorrow and I'm afraid they are not going to be happy with me showing up with cheese mouthed kid. I don't want to reschedule since I bagged and pleaded and cried to get an appointment with this new dentist. If it's still bad tomorrow, I may have to go from the dentist to the ped for some prescription stuff.

2. Yesterday I took Joy for a ride (yes even with gas at nearly $3 a gallon, I have my limits) and Jessi came with me. We stopped at a park for a few minutes and Jessi wanted to park under a "flower tree" - a pink crepe myrtle. I barely glanced at the tree but in a moment heard Jessi excitedly exclaim, "Oh look, flowers here and here and there and there, it makes a cross!" I looked and sure enough, a rough cross shape made of flower bundles. I said, "Yes, seeing a cross makes me think of Jesus." We prayed and thanked God for the pretty day and for the cross to make us think of him. Jessi then remarked, "I don't think those flowers are really a cross." I was about to be confused, after all, she just brought it up, but then she continued, "I think God saw us come into the park and saw us park here and made the cross just for us to see it and think of Him, I think he was saying 'Hi'."
Wow, how special are we that God saw us coming and made a flower cross just to say "Hi!" ? I am so greatful for the new view of God that I get to experience through the eyes of my children.

Anniversary, Part 3

So I've posted pictures of the happy day, told the humorous stories, and explained why we "had"to get married in a hurry. However, as we know, there's more to marriage than the wedding.
I am typing one handed and not feeling particularly eloquent, so I believe I'll attempt to record some random thoughts and use a style I like to call "e.e. military", that is, no capitalization, and in bullet form.
Hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want.
- marriage is both the best and the hardest thing i've ever attempted.
-there are days when i think i can't live with this man, but the mere thought of having to live without him is unfathomable.
-3 children in 4 years. in the first 5 years of marriage. wow. not for the faint of heart.
-family is amazing. babies are amazing. watching my husband with our children is amazing.
-i think "the church" in general is sadly lacking in a real example of godly submission. (hey, i never said these thoughts were going to be all warm and fuzzy)
-if our love has grown and deepened in just 7 years, it takes my breath away to think how much in love we will be in 15 or 25 years.
-i have no regrets about not dating as a teen/young adult. my husband is the only man I have ever told "i love you." entering marriage pure both physically AND emotionally is priceless.
-my husband is an awesome provider, i am so very blessed.
-my husband is faithful, honest, and loving, i am so very blessed.

-my husband is possible the most patient person i know, and inexplicably, the most impatient as well.

-he makes really great decisions when i get over myself and get out of his way.

-love really is blind. we've both gotten really fat and he's lost a good portion of his hair; yet, we still think "each other is pretty"
-love really is not blind. i know his faults, his weaknesses, his extremely bad habits, i know his feet simply reek. i love him anyway.

Happy Anniversary, part 2

So it's not tomorrow, but it's the next day, and that will have to do.

So Jeff and I had a shotgun wedding, but it was Uncle Sam holding the shotgun. We were both active duty military when we met and started dating. We knew pretty much right away that this was "it"-one of the many benefits of waiting until you are old and moldy to start dating. This was summer 2000, and we thought we'd get married the following spring. I was stationed at Langley Air Force Base as a student but had been assured that the hospital had requested to keep me on as permanent. Of course nothing in the military is certain, but we figured we were safe. Then we found out that no, actually we needed to get married and apply for joint spouse assignment (which still isn't a guarantee, but supposedly gets your request a bit more priority). We were unsure of whether or not to rush things just based on this, but after a meeting with my "Chief" I learned that with the joint spouse application in, if I did get transferred to another base, I could immediately seek to get reassigned, without the joint spouse status, I would have to wait a full year to even apply for reassignment. We decided to go ahead with it.
Long story short, it's a good thing we did, my paperwork was messed up and I was assigned to be transferred to Ohio a few months after the wedding. We thought we were just sunk, then I realized that these orders were in my maiden name... all our joint spouse paperwork had never been processed! Because I had dated copies of everything, I was able to appeal to my commander and have a few phone calls made in my favor and did end up getting to stay and live with my husband!
So, we decided to get married. We had a number of people tell us not to worry about a wedding, just to get legally married for the paperwork and to have a "Real" wedding later. I only considered this option briefly, for one, I knew too many people who never got around to having a wedding, and two, I knew that I wouldn't "feel" married if I didn't have a church ceremony with my family and friends.
So... the whole point of getting married now was to do it ASAP, so we picked the closest date that gave us at least a little time to let people know. We ended up with a date three weeks out. At this point I can see Tara physically shuddering... miss notebook with 47 tabs for every possible part of the wedding. Now, in case the three weeks to plan isn't enough "Fun", I should remind you that I was in school. I went through USAF Medical Laboratory school; the civilian equivalent is a two year A.S. degree. We complete the entire program (a nationally certified program... some things even the military can't write their own rules for) in 13 months. I straight out told Jeff, yes, I'll marry you, I'll marry you soon, but I cannot marry you until after my Chemistry final! Oh... and you have to plan the wedding!
You know how it's supposed to take months and 32 trips to the bridal shop to find the perfect gown? It took my mom and I one day. We tried on 7 at one store and didn't like them, went to the next store, tried this one on, I asked the lady for a pair of shoes with 1.5 heels, put them on... and viola. the PERFECT (for me) dress. It required NO alterations, no hemming, nada. I did ask my mom if she could shrink the butt-bow... if she had time. My mom made Libby and Julie's dresses, we had lots of silk flowers (bouts and corsages) from my sister's wedding a few months before. Inside joke; there for a while, we called my mom's car "have wedding, will travel"- in the space of 2 years, my sister, myself, and my two cousins all got married with the same basic flowers and decorations that my Mom carted around. We didn't have time to book a chapel on base where we attended church, so we ran down our choices... under a tree, on the beach, in Grandma's back yard... then on Sunday after church, Jeff took me to Fort Monroe. It was beautiful, a large white gazebo on a sweeping lawn, right on the Bay and adjacent to the Grand Chamberlain Hotel. Only one problem, they book up well over a year in advance. So, without telling me, Jeff called. There was one open slot (they rent the gazebo in two hour slots) left on Saturday, August 19, from 12-2pm. Then he called the hotel to ask about a ballroom for the reception. The lady literally laughed at him when he said he wanted a room for August 19 2000, not 2001. Then with a shaky voice, she came back to the phone and said that she had a cancellation and she DID have a room available! He also arranged for the catering and photography. Basically, I found a dress, and then the day before went and bought flowers and made my bouquet and the bouquets for Julie and Libby. Oh, I also chose the songs (and his Dad burned them all onto one CD for us) and contacted our chaplains about doing the ceremony.

Now, a wedding isn't a proper wedding without at least one blooper, right? We had a couple, nothing that ruined anything, just enough to make it fun.
1. There were speedboat races on the bay....right next to the ceremony. To tell the truth, I didn't notice it, but in the video there are definite loud buzzing noises.
2. I had this wonderful line-up of music, all recorded so that someone just had to push play. Except... I didn't think ahead to figure out how I would know way over in the hotel (where I got dressed and where we girls walked over from) what song was playing and when we should leave. We hung out on the porch for a few minutes and I sent the flower girl over. We hung out a bit more and I sent Libby and Julie over. Finally, I looked at Donnie and said, "Hey, I feel like getting married today, let's go!" So we walked over. It wasn't to Ava Maria as was planned, but it did the trick.

Well, this has all been about the wedding day and I intended to talk about the marriage. We'll try for that tomorrow... or the next day.

Happy Anniversary

..to us!
Sunday is our 7th Wedding Anniversary...it really doesn't seem that long, but in other ways, it's been an entire lifetime. Tonight will be mostly a pictoral, tomorrow I'll be a bit more prosey.
Jeff and I were married at Fort Monroe, Hampton, Virginia. We had the ceremony outside in this gazebo on the lawn, by the bay.


Our reception was a short walk across the lawn, in a ballroom in the historic Chamberlain Hotel.

My wedding ensemble: I had something old- my Grandmother's Cameo, something new - my dress, something borrowed- my sister's crinoline and hairpiece, and something blue- a garter.
My only (living) male relative is an Uncle who was unable to make it in on such short notice (more about my shotgun wedding in a later post...ha ha, now I have you wondering!) so I was thrilled and honored to have my dear friend Don Arnott and his wife drive in from Ohio so that he could escort me down the aisle...err, across the lawn.

My sister Julie and my best friend Libby Snider stood with me; Matron and Maid of Honor.

My mom and I.


With my flower girl, Megan (my cousin's daughter).

My family. Not too shabby of a showing, considering I gave them two weeks' notice. My cousin Debbie with her children TJ and Megan came all the way from Florida, my other cousin Phoebe took leave in the middle of Army Airborne jumpschool (that is HUGE) and her husband and girls came along as well from Fayetteville, NC. My mom, sister, brother in law, and dear friend Anita Kerr (now Dalkin) from Salisbury NC, and Libby from Hobe Sound, FL. Jeff and I... Jessi was watching me scan these photos in and asked, "why are you guys looking at each other?" and I told her "we thought each other were pretty", she then replied, "well, why weren't you looking at the water? I think the ocean is pretty!"

Ok Jessi... one day you will understand and think that each other is prettier than the ocean.

It's going to be one of those days.

I mentioned that we had the flu, right? well, Joey and Jessi have transitioned seamlessly into some sort of croup type thing. This morning Jessi woke up with a high fever and a choking cough. The more she coughed, the more she choked which scared her so she cried, which made it worse so she choked more, then cried more... you get the picture. I finally got her calmed down and sat in the steamy bathroom with her while Jeff ran out for medicine. Somewhere along the line he rolled over a huge hunk of metal and shredded one of the van tires. Well, before he knew it was really ripped up and just knew it was flat, he sent Dean out to get the air compressor set up and Dean sliced his hand open.

I just get this feeling that it's going to be one of those days.

In other news, I stayed up obscenely late last night (this morning!) playing with this site. http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php I made some of these:

Heat wave, stomache flu, and random pictures

So, my mom came to visit us, I'll tell on her here and say that for some odd reason, no matter when else she comes to see us, she always manages to come the first week of August--which conveniently coincides with the outdoor Campmeeting at her home church. She has been overheard commenting that while it's all well and good to grow closer to God at Camp, it's not necessary to meet him face to face via heatstroke; thus her annual pilgrimage to Virginia.

Except this year it all backfired.

I was joking with her that God has a sense of humor because her visit occured on the Sunday of our church's annual Community Day which, interestingly enough, features an outdoor service. :-)

As it happens, she ended up not going to the service anyway, because late Saturday night, Joyana woke up, looked at me, and began to vomit. I won't go into the gory details, but lets say she would have won prizes in quality, quantity, texture, distance... the works. She had ALL categories covered-and me covered as well. Multiple times. It was a long night. So Jeff took the other two to Church the next day and Mom stayed home with me and pukey one.

By Monday, pukey one turned to pukey two, and by Tuesday it was pukey three. Suffice it to say that by the end of the week, we have all suffered with this illness in some form or another.

Heatwave: This is where I was originally going... Mom thought she would escape the heat by coming up here, and it followed her. All week we have had temps over 100 with heat indices up to 110 and 115. So, we've been locked inside with the stomache flu. So much fun, I highly reccommend it. @@ The irony is, it is so hot that for the first time ever, her home camp has moved services to an indoor location with AC. Ha Ha.

Random pictures:

One of the things we have been able to do while locked up is go through old photos and scan them. I needed Mom's help for old family photos but have found some very interesting old friend photos as well. Here's a question: what is accepted blog ettiquette for posting photos of other people? None of them would be indecent or embarassing, unless you count bible college big hair circa early 90's as embarassing.

So first off, does anyone know these people? This was taken in 1995 (I think) at IHC, it was a meeting of all the Student Government groups from the Bible Colleges. On the far left are the representatives from HSBC, Libby Snider, Jody Valenzuela, Jean Marc Zamor, and Julia Imhoff. I have no idea who everyone else is.

Ah, those were the days... group outings at HSBC. Left to right is Marc Churchill, Libby Snider, Steve Waldenga, Jody Valenzuela, and Matt Thompson. These outings were never officially "dates" but as I recall, Libby and I usually didn't pay. :-)This picture is Easter, either 1998 or 1999, I was in Pell City, teaching and my friends came up to visit me for Easter Weekend. Matt Thompson and I are sitting, John Paul Churchill and Libby Snider are standing.