stewardship

just for the record, my mom is a wonderful woman and i know 100% that her words were not intended to hurt me. i could fill several pages and posts about all of the amazing ways she has supported me through this journey.  coming to visit and helping me clean, doing laundry and braving my man cave basement, taking time off work just to be with us while we waited for Gideon to come and then staying to help out weeks after he was born.  my mom is one of the most generous and loving people I know.

Not always the most tactful.  foot in mouth syndrome is genetic from what i hear...

with out knowing, or every intending she hit a very tender spot.  

From the response and support i have gotten, i am learning it is not a tender spot unique to me. It sounds like so many of us suffer from, as my dear friend Erin calls it, the supermom complex.  Where did we get the idea that our houses, our faces, our hips had to be so flawless?  No more TLC for you Kati, those design shows have put strange thoughts into your head.  Because really, the last time I went to a friends house, I wasn't looking for dust bunnies or criticizing her organizational methods.  I was too busy thinking how much cleaner her house was than mine...

I wish i had the time to do the research and i am going with my gut here but i really don't think that our Heavenly father wants us to be that way.  His call for us was to be good stewards, yes, but I don't think it's good stewardship of our emotional energy to be so critical our ourselves any more that it is to let our house fall in to utter ruin.

So, for today i am going to try not to be so hard on myself.  Or my mom.   

Martha? Mary?

The other night i threw the baby wipes container across the room.  the next day I had a melt down because i couldn't get the pizza cut. And today my mom said the must painful thing anyone has ever said to me.  i don't remember the direct quote but the gist of it was "do the hospice nurses still come here and see your house like this." she proceed to tell me that my dad didn't want to come down to see me because my house reminded him of his house growing up and he was worried about me and Gideon. 

Now for those of you who know my grandma you can understand why this stung as much as it did.  I don't think I am exaggerating when i say she had one of the messiest houses i have ever seen and smelled.  I always wonder how she lived like that.  did she know and just not care?  did she know and just convince herself that it wasn't that bad or was she just completely clueless that her guests had to gird their loins and take a deep breath before entering her house?  it was bad. i suspect that having ten kids and trying to feed, cloth and keep them all clean and healthy on less than a shoe string might have just been too overwhelming and years of having too little support and too much on her plate just took their toll.  I love her, she's my grandma, but its a really good thing that she is living in supporting living now.  its just a lot better for her.

but really i think it stung the most because I've been looking around my house with some level of desperation these past few weeks.  trying to convince myself its really not that bad.

apparently i am wrong and very lucky that no one has called child protective services on me.  on top of this i am pretty sure i took Gideon to the baby sitter in stinky clothes the other day.  i think i do it more often that she tells me.

i am teetering on the edge of reason lately.  my whole career i have worked with people who dance on the edge of sanity and I am starting to worry that maybe someone should call child protective services on me.

i had to leave Gideon crying in the bedroom the other night and call David home from his juggling practice because i was afraid that i was going to hit Gideon.  what kind of crazy person even thinks about hitting their own kids...(I didn't hit him, just to clarify). 

in order to understand how crazy things have been the past few weeks you need to know that Gideon has decided that bottles are the devil.  he rarely takes a bottle. translation-every second he is with me on a workday he has to be nursing to get enough to eat.  It feels like all i do is nurse.  i often eat-no inhale- supper so fast I don't really taste it.  spurned on by the instant crying of my hungry son.  the few moments i do have where he is not nursing i try to clean...but you can guess how well that goes. 

Part of the problem is that i don't really want to clean when i have time to.  i want to be with my husband and my son.  and the house as paid a ghastly price.  After the hurt started to wear of the anger crept in.  i kind of wanted to scream at my mom. 

"so what if my house is a complete and total pit.  i will clean it when he dies, because right now, today could be my last with him.  This house, it will still be standing after he is gone"

so today i don't regret enjoying the beautiful weather to take some pictures of my son, its getting cold and I won't have these days for much longer. 

I love my mom and i know she didn't mean to hurt my feelings, but if you ever find someone you love in the same predicament before you call DCFS on them or tell them someone should practice saying

"you seem a little overwhelmed.  it must be really hard to keep up with a little one and working full time.  is there anything i can help you with."

Luke 10:41-41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."