Grade 1 for Our Little Lamb

I always hope this year has a special place in the recesses of my heart, the first year that I had the privilege and the challenge of educating our daughter at home.

When she was just tiny, I always called Liliana my little lamb...tender, intuitive, slightly clumsy, daring, introverted....happy to be held close by mama always. 

My little Liliana Lamb 

Kindergarten at our nearby school was not a bad experience, but our Liliana suffered from the anxiety of an education system very much oriented to the outgoing and the extroverted. Lots of group work and a structure that is necessarily conducive to the good of the majority meant that she was very much lost in the crowd. She started biting her nails and struggled to fall asleep at night. Her sense of wonder and delight seemed to fade. She had lovely friends and an amazing teacher, but she was not thriving and our hearts were troubled!

Over the summer we saw our girl emerge again in confidence, playfulness, and peace. The thought of sending her to school for 8 hour days, when Judah would miss her terribly AS WOULD I, gently guided my heart towards another possibility. I felt so sad that the only time we would have with her would be a few precious hours at night....  I started reading, and researching, and considering the possibility of teaching her at home - which, by the way, is something I never would have imagined in my most WILD dreams! So of course we also prayed hard for wisdom and discernment. 

Ann Voskamp

Of course, this year was not without its challenges, and I had a few moments of feeling woeful for the reality of being surrounded by small children all.the.time. I had a few pity parties for "all the things I could get done" if I was not teaching Liliana. 

That being said I did have moments of respite, because she spent 2 days per week learning at a little cottage school, so beautifully devoted to instilling in children a sense of wonder and delight....and, get this, her age group was called "The Little Lambs!"

And, when I really took it to prayer, is there anything more important, more pressing, or more eternally relevant than forming our sweet one - intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually - in the heart of our home?

No, because it was obvious to me as her mama that this unique little soul needed to be learning close to home, at least for now, and so that is what we did. 

A few lessons for me from the year...

 - we are our children's advocates, voices, ambassadors - we do not have to be swayed by convention or "the way it is always done." We can decide with boldness and confidence the best for them, without apologizing or justifying - for me, as a pleaser, this was a very important lessons. One I always knew but got to live this year

- Never say never! Gosh am I learning this humbling lesson over and over again in motherhood

- the delight of seeing the world of reading books unfold before a child is really a privilege to witness, and what an honour for me, as her mama, to be primarily instrumental in facilitating this!

- the flexibility of learning at home is unmatched! We only ever spent 3 hours maximum at school, and even then took some days or even weeks off because we were getting too far ahead!

- friendship between siblings is a precious, beautiful thing to witness. This seems so random for this blog, but my goodness am I happy that the friendship between Liliana and Judah only grew deeper this year!

I could go on and on about the gifts and challenges of this year! I am grateful to be wrapping it up, I am grateful for the break, I am grateful for a little girl who is thriving and blossoming. She is joyfilled, bouncy, messy, determined, delightful, innocent, and loves her family, Jesus, and her neighbour with sweet devotion. What a year it has been for our Little Lamb!

My sweet Liliana, I loved teaching you this year. Thank you, my darling, for the most heart-stretching time learning together on this new journey!

Family Vacations - Expectations vs Reality

We just arrived home from a glorious, difficult, exhilarating, exhausting, happy, dirty, budget friendly, expensive trip :) All of the above sound contradictory, which they absolutely are! I am learning, slowly but very surely, that life with little children is never as expected, straightforward, or carefree as one might hope, but always more joy and grace filled than we could have imagined in our wildest dreams.

In an incredibly valiant step towards establishing new family traditions and family culture my side of the family planned a camping reunion in Priest Lake, Idaho.  Valiant because we have not camped as a family for perhaps 20 years and because it was absolutely a step outside of comfort zones.

True to form we were relatively last minute in making our plans, for several reasons, and so ended up in a walk-up camp ground very close to Priest Lake. Our little family has always dreamed of camping but were deterred by the cost of acquiring gear, so this was a perfect impetus to start our collection and start living the dream.

13 people, 5 cars, 2 campgrounds, 4 tents, no facilities, a beautiful river, a stunning lake, a weekend of fun.

True to form, however, our two little ones returned from our glorious week on Nonna and Papa's ranch in Texas with stomach bugs. Despite the fact that we did our best to feed them only bottled water this time, their little tummies just don't seem to handle the foreign flora and so we headed into our relatively rustic camping situation with many many bouts of diarrhea daily still occurring. This really made the trip at times feel like a nightmare. This is real life, though! On social media one might only see little snapshots of the carefree moments, but in between were frantic middle of the night outhouse sprints, accidents, visits to the laundromat, the purchasing of new gear, 5:30 AM coffee on the campfire after being up all night with sick kids, and exhausted mommy and daddy at their absolute wits end.

There is something wonderful about parenthood, however, that even at your wits end the best still shines through because it is not about you. When there are other little lives relying on you somehow you find the strength. I'll never forget Joe in the middle of a chilly night in a tent, covered in poop (YES IN POOP) wiping off a hysterical child and telling them it was OK and it happens when your tummy is sick. I will never forget locking eyes over a brown bagged chelada in the laundromat as our kids licked their popsicles wondering how we were spending our long weekend in a small town laundromat with our fingers crossed that our gear would come clean. We laughed, we laughed so hard because it was either that or cry. I'll never forget falling asleep holding hands praying that this night would bring more rest than the next. I'll never forget the moments in between of carefree or ringing in our daughter's 5th birthday with campfire coffee and camp stove french toast, and playtime in the beautiful lake with doting aunts and uncles.

Despite all of the challenges we eagerly look forward to continuing the Christianson/Packard/Zohorksy/Di Lucca summer camping tradition as the years roll on. Maybe next year we will just make sure we find a place with closer bathroom facilities ;)

A few photos from our happy, dirty, hard, and carefree weekend....

My mom and dad with their 6 children and 3 grandchildren

Auntie Joc, Auntie Eve, and cousin Sophia Rose

Fun Uncles make every day better!

Sophia Rosie and Liliana Joy in matching bathing suits

Judah was obsessed with this water gun, I am obsessed with Uncle Luke's face in this photo

Birthday boy Grandad (61) and Birthday girl Liliana (5)

I loved summer mornings around the campfire and arms full of littles

6 children, oldest to youngest

My handsome men at Priest Lake

I hope your summers have been full of adventure, humour, and memory making!

Head Strokes and TLC

There is a specific way she used to stroke my head as I fell asleep. It is incredibly hard to describe but embedded in my memory, her signature head stroke. I was praying bedtime prayers tonight with Liliana and stroking her head in that exact way. It was so blissful for me when my Mama did it, and my fingers naturally stroke her hair like that. She sighed contentedly and her little eyelids fluttered closed.

Was she not so beautiful? She still is!

She did many little things. These are the things that stand out in my memory. "One Tin Soldier" as a bedtime song, nivea on my dry cheeks, love notes in my lunch box, picnics in the school yard. In her memory she made many mistakes. She is so humble and detailed that she will call me on the phone to this day and apologize for something she did in my childhood that she thinks could be making me sad!

Guess what? They don't stand out in my mind. Those little, beautiful acts of detailed love that inspire me in my daily mothering....those are what stand out to me. I knew, absolutely, unshakeably, irrevocably that I was loved beyond measure and without qualification.

Something is becoming abundantly clear to me, and it is that those tiny little details can be the ones that take the most effort. Because, as a Mama, after the normal daily tasks have been accomplished, it takes monumental effort sometimes to linger a little longer and sing one more song or stroke someones blond head for 3 more minutes. It takes monumental effort to put aside the to-do list and read one more story or play pretend. That middle of the night glass of water and tummy rubs....so little, just a few minutes, big effort. These little things make a huge impact, more than any short tempered or impatient moment could.

This gives me so much hope. My patience seems short these days and my nighttime wakings are often full of feelings of remorse over moments where I was harsh or lacking mercy in my discipline. Yet, when I think about how my own mother loved me and the memories that stand out as strong and clear as if they were yesterday....it is the delicate, detailed, little ways in which she loved me exactly how I needed to be loved.

My silly mini-Me and her funny fashion sense!

I pray one day my Liliana finds herself stroking someones head - be it a friend, daughter, husband, patient - and smiling over the way her fingers know exactly what to do just like her mama did. May I take enough moments to love her in small and detailed ways that she is inspired to find the energy to do the same....

May you be blessed!

Our Little Mess Maker

It seems impossible that I'll ever forget just how messy our Liliana is, but Joe assures me that this, too, shall pass and one day be but a distant memory!

I think that seldom a day goes by where I don't say to Joe, "I am losing my mind, I cannot keep up with her mess, she is a tornado and we live in the eye of tornado Liliana. What do I do?"

NO JOKE! this is her room every.single.day. We actually do not own very many toys
but somehow they all end up from their proper place on her bedroom floor! Along with all of her outfit changes....

The thing about her is that her mess is all about whole hearted living. When she plays she PLAYS. Her creative play is not complete without every little aspect attended to, in order to make the game complete. When she eats, it is as though a band of pirates have come to join us. Yet, her table manners are not bad! Somehow, though, her chair and the floor are covered as though we had a rip roaring party.

When we are at home she changes at least 7 times a day. I am actually attempting not to exaggerate here so it may be more! With each outfit change her hair changes, and she pulls her elastics out with such violence it is no wonder her hair is so thin and fine! It is either that or she is in pyjama mode and changes from pj to pj with her hair looking like a wild nest!

At this point I think our two and their cousins were playing zoo. Not entirely evident...Liliana's wild, wild hair
because some days being in character means not brushing your hair??

I delight as I listen to her through her bedroom door, in total character, lost in play. And yet, I am exhausted by her mess. She knows it now, and sometimes when I walk in on tornado Liliana in all of her glory she says to me, "I am so SO sorry, I actually don't know what happened here!" You know, I believe her! She is so immersed in what she does. Still, I know that I need to help her learn to be more aware of the mess she is making, at least after she is finished playing! Little by little....

I know that, even if she may be a naturally messy person the day will come when her mess is no longer so immense. Just this evening she walked to me as I was tidying up from the day and asked, "Mama is there anything I can help with?" Albeit she wanted to help with something glamorous like chopping for dinner, but her attitude of eagerness to help and awareness of need is bitter-sweet evidence that she is growing out of her little cavewoman-ness.

Not entirely relevant but I love this picture of her on her daddy's lap!
Not too many more years left of painted cheeks and pigtails :)

I love this photo of our little tornado and her daddy
after his team won city gold. She cheers so whole heartedly and SO LOUD!
No worries about what other people think, this one!

Oh Liliana, what a funny, quirky, heart-melting girl you are! How I love you!

Choosing Rest and Play

It has been a glorious Autumn here in Calgary. As I sit writing at our beautiful new little consigned desk the sun-rays shine with a gentle late afternoon glow and make everything seem warm and welcoming.

Joe, myself, and our children are in the blessed position of a having a little bit of time to breath. With our youngest almost two years old, a steady income, and a joyfully mundane reality - work, school, programs, early bedtime, cuddly mornings - we are taking a breath and re-defining the values that we want to be an integral part of our family culture.

I don't think my parents would be particularly offended if I share that in the later years of my childhood and adolescence we fell away from intentional rest and playtime as a family. One thing we are particularly and gloriously good at is beautiful family meals and joyful togetherness over meals, but as far as carefree timeless play as a family life got full and we did not do very much of it.

Our children need our example of the choice for rest and the choice for healthy playtime. We want these values to be ingrained in our children so that as they grow we are able to maintain family unity through these values.

We took an afternoon and escaped to the river, where there is no cell phone service and nothing for miles around. We fished, and cooked hot dogs over a fire. The children looked for little fish, Liliana and Joe wandered looking for treasure while Judah napped on my chest in the sun and I read. It was glorious. It seems to take an odd amount of effort to make such effortless days happen, but our hope is that as we do it more and more it will come more naturally to us.

As always with love and prayers for your joy,

Our Own Lil' Puppy Dog

Because I don't want to forget....

He is in the most darling phase where he absolutely adores his big sister. The days have been so hot he spends most of them in his underwear, walking around the house calling out "Weeedeeee" (Lily) or "Ryyyyyraaaa" (Lyla). Truly, truly he is like the world's most adorable little puppy dog, 2 steps behind his big sister and imitating everything she does.

Conversely, she is so caring! I stumbled upon them yesterday planting flowers. She had equipped them both with sand shovels. They had picked flowers from my pots and killed them by transplanted them into the dirt. There he was, crouched next to her, imitating her every move. There they were, covered in dirt from head to toe and so satisfied with their good work. I couldn't be angry, I could only melt and praise their beautiful gardening.

An oldie but goodie, she cares so much for him!

"Take me with you, Ryra!"

A scene from yesterday's play...
"don't bother us mama! We are having a slumber party!"

Judah thinks that everything Liliana does is so wonderful and so funny! He would follow her to the moon if he could. These are the little things that fill my hear to overflowing. How blessed we are!

With love on this Monday,

Remembering....

Remembering, with a slightly achy but joyfully overflowing heart....

- feverishly keeping our home clean as we waited with baited breath for our son. A nightly vacuum and mop, scrubbed counters, clutter gone, towels piled and the pool blown up downstairs, a teensy hat set aside

- holding my sweet daughter a little closer knowing that soon she would be a big sister and that the simplicity of our days as a family of three would be changed

- talking to our unborn baby every night telling him how we couldn't wait to meet him

- looking at my big belly in the mirror and dreaming of the teeny person inside, not knowing what he looked like or who he would be, and wondering if I'd ever look or feel like myself again (if I'm being entirely honest!)

- the first flutters of excitement in my heart when I thought "today might be the day!"

- sending L out the door to her grandparents and wishing I could snatch her up and hold her forever

- dancing in the dark kitchen through contractions, telling our boy I loved him and that he was very safe

- feeling utterly and perfectly connected to my handsome husband as we awaited our babe together and he anticipated my every need

- a flurry of excitement when our midwives arrived, midnight, snow falling, baby coming SOON

- the intense, utter, gut wrenching, life changing love I had for our son the moment I scooped him up out of the water and held him in my arms

- the sweet sounds newborn Judah made - no crying or screaming, just darling little 'bleating' noises

- being unable to sleep that night....tucked in bed by our midwives after a glass of champagne and piece of banana bread....he's mine? he's ours? how is this possible? how are we so blessed?

"Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were here an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of love.” (Maureen Hawkins)

I can't believe our sweet Judah is 1 year old in just two days. Where has the year gone? 

xoxo