It's Official!

You can alert the media! You can shout it out! You can celebrate with me!

The potty-training is done! We are a diaper-free home!

Now, hold it. Stop laughing. I'm not just being funny. I'm not just writing a silly mommy-blog entry here. There are actually deep implications within this moment in my life! ...and so I'm blogging about it. Read on. (and go ahead and laugh if you want.)

I can NOT believe I'm typing the words: diaper-free! After 12 - yes that's TWELVE - years straight of changing diapers most every single day, I can now be free from that dastardly duty! WOO HOO!!!! For those of you who need to know how it could be that long: Trey has just turned 12, so the day he was born was the first time I changed a sweet little precious baby's diaper. Then we had Timothy 3 years later, and 3 years after that Emily, and 2 1/2 years after that, George. None of my kiddos were potty trained before 3. In fact, George just turned 4 and JUST THIS WEEK has he finally decided to go both ways in the toilet. SO that makes continual diaper-changing for 12 years.

By the way, I cringe when I think of the accumulation of diaper refuse we have contributed to the landfills over these years (not to mention the dollars spent). Kudos to you who are now going cloth!

I love my children. I love having four of them. I love being a mom, and I have even loved changing a diaper or two along the way. It's one of the tasks that is part of loving and caring for my precious kiddos.

When they are tiny and need a change from a cute little wet diaper... those kinds of diaper changes are so sweet and happy. You know what I'm talking about. Those kinds of diaper changes are the ones grandmas and aunts fight over. "I'll change her diaper. Oh no, don't bother yourself. Let me do it. No, it's no trouble at all. I'm happy to do it..."

And as they are growing bigger and you get to have those cute smiling, learning, discovering moments with them on the changing table... those kinds of diaper changes are so treasured and precious. They discover their toes; they say DaDa for the first time; they learn to thumb through books on their own; they sing songs with you; they ask you why, what, how about things they are discovering. That time with you, having your undivided attention, are some of their most treasured moments, too.  (Ok, confession time. I'm crying now.)

I am grateful for all of the hours spent changing diapers. I shall in some way miss the time spent discovering the need for a change, the gathering of supplies, the laying down of the child, the undressing, the unfastening of the velcro sides, the wiping and wiping and cleaning, the powdering and creaming, the putting on of a fresh clean diaper, the redressing, the disposal, and the air freshening. It's in those hours of my life, that I have been kept humble and in touch with my humanity. I have been loved and adored by my children during those times. I have been doing one of the most important jobs on the planet during those times: being a mother.

So, I shout it from the rooftops. "We're DONE with diapers!!!!" I am thrilled, to say the least. But these 12 years of my life will hold a special place in my heart and soul forever.

For that I am thankful.



One of my very first diaper-changing treasured moments. July, 1999



What Forty Years Can Do

I don't remember turning 30. I mean, I don't remember it being a big deal or a huge milestone necessarily. That's probably because I was planning a two-year-old birthday party for child number one, and was looking forward to having child number two, and could only see lots of years ahead of me.

Now I'm turning 40. I'm pretty sure I'll remember it. Something about turning 40 makes me feel like I'm probably close to half way done with living.  I don't feel old, but I don't feel young anymore. I feel like I've really accomplished some things in life, while also feeling like I've got plenty left to accomplish. I feel like I've really learned some major life-lessons, while knowing I've got lots more left to learn. Something about turning 40 makes me think of things in terms of "decades" now, rather than just "childhood, high school, college, and after college" years. These past 10 years have been HUGE for me in lots of ways, so I can only imagine what the next 10 will hold, and the next, and the next.

Looking back over my 40 years of life, here are some things I see.

• A little girl who was always a consummate rule-follower and people pleaser has turned into a woman who knows that there are times when breaking the rules is not only acceptable but necessary. Oh, and pleasing people is impossible. 
• The self-confidence I had as a child, likely instilled in me by my parents and my identity with God, was somehow enough to carry me through being chubby in elementary-school, being called names in Jr. High, and being terrible at anything sports-related throughout my life. Some of the things I encountered should have crushed my spirit, but somehow they didn't. I pray that happens for my children - and all children - that they are able to rise above the tough stuff to see who they really are, which is the only thing that will get them through. 
• Fashions (as many things) are cyclical. Those bell-bottomed jeans and feathered hair that I cringed to see in pictures of my parents, along with the pin-curled waves and fitted dresses my grandmother wore, AND those puffy shoulders and bubble peplums I wore in high school... Yes, they have all returned as the height of fashion in different ways. So no one should ever be too quick to judge when viewing photographs of loved ones through the years. You might just end up wearing that yourself someday!
• The bullies, the snobs, the recluses, the tough guys, and the mean girls throughout my life were all disproportionately hung up on the differences between us. But people are people are people... meaning that although we may have different cultures, colors, careers or concerns, we all are akin at the core. Everyone wants to be loved and wants someone to genuinely care about them. So, if I can treat others with respect by recognizing our matching interiors - no matter the exterior - it makes it much easier to get along and be at peace.
• Based on experience, contentment is the key to being happy. Wanting a nicer/bigger house/car, wishing for more this or that, dying to get the next thing, only brings me down! The times when I find myself content with whatever I have, whatever situation life brings, that is when happiness abounds. Now, if I can learn to stay content all the time...
• My parents made decisions that were tough for them, for the benefit of my sisters and myself - and for that I am exceedingly grateful! Because of the example they set I learned to view things from a larger perspective - looking to the greater good and to future generations - when making decisions. What a blessing!
• Each generation, when they are young, will dislike their parents' music. And each generation, when they are older, will come to respect their parents' music, but dislike their own children's music. That's just the way it is.
• Having Leon as a husband has made me better (at a lot of things.) "Two are better than one... if one falls down the other can help him up." -Ecclesiastes 4:9-12  "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." -Proverbs 27:17
• As King Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes, there is a time and season for everything under heaven. There is purpose found in every season I have gone through: in my naiveity, in my absolute way of thinking, in my assertion of control, in my know-it-all nature...  

Now in whatever season I'm in and can't see, there is purpose here, too. I'm 40. It's exciting. By the end of this decade my children will be young adults. Whew, Lord give me strength! I can't wait to see what this decade holds.

The Makings of a Good Day

1. Awakening with sweet kisses from the hubs.
2. Children waking up and playing with each other nicely without any prompting from me.
3. A clean house, complete with fresh flowers!
4. Some good times with good mom-friends and their kiddos.
5. Frappaccinos, cream puffs, and playing with pretty jewelry.
6. Children easily taking naps, tuckered out from having so much fun with their friends.
7. A quiet house, still clean!
8. A check on the older two kids at camp via online pics, finding them smiling and having a blast.
9. Children waking up from naps with smiles and playing nicely.
10. Children thrilled when daddy comes home, sharing the fun of the day.
11. Out to eat with the family for a pleasant meal - seafood, my fav!
12. Tickling and rubbing backs at bedtime, and telling the kids I love them and how proud of them I am.
13. Sleeping children at 9:00pm, leaving plenty of snuggle time with my honey.
14. And still a clean house!

What a blessing today was! You just never know! Thanking God for a great early-birthday present. :)

Proud and Passionate About This One

What things break your heart?

the hundreds of millions orphans in the world? the thousands of children in foster care in our own country? the millions in inhumane refugee camps? the thousands of child soldiers? the girls and women caught in sex trafficking and prostitution? poverty? starvation? homelessness? health care?

I guess you could boil it down to one word: injustice. It's injustice toward any soul that gets to us.

Although all injustice should break all of our hearts completely, that just isn't the case, is it? We're created to be different; we're all at different places on our journey; and frankly in our own "bubbles" of life we don't know about all of the injustices out there - if many at all. We may be passionate about a particular cause or several - and like me, maybe you are sometimes bent toward one thing for a while, then later another. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. In fact, that's likely being sensitive to the different whispers and nudgings as the Spirit leads you, which is exactly the way we need to be.

With that said, I'd love to share with you about an injustice that has touched me deeply, something I discovered through a personal connection - through a dear friend and her team who formed an organization I believe is making a HUGE impact in the realm of healing and reconciliation. Most importantly, they are doing it WELL!

The injustice.

Please bear with me and read this paragraph.

There are over 30,000 children in Iraq currently with life-threatening heart defects, with approximately 9,500 more newborns diagnosed each year. Chemical attacks and "experiments" by Saddam Hussein on the Kurds of northern Iraq in the 1980s, coupled with Depleted Uranium weapons used during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s have contributed to what is likely a lingering chemically-toxic legacy in the soil and genetics of the Iraqi people. (Important sidenote: DU is still being used in war today, and is also affecting British and US troops. A google search will reveal the intense controversy surround it's use.) Additionally, UN sanctions against Iraq (which failed to harm Saddam as intended) and related widespread corruption withheld essential human services from the Iraqi people causing rampant malnutrition and disease in Iraq during the last couple of decades. Those factors, along with culturally-driven intrafamily marriages, have contributed to these high percentages of heart defects, and impacted the health of this generation of Iraqi children,and possibly more to come. Yet few Iraqi doctors are trained or able to perform the needed surgeries, and many doctors have left Iraq for safer more lucrative locations. So Iraqi families place their terminally ill children on long lists and go to great measures to leave the country for the surgeries, most times to no avail.

The organization.

But hope has arrived in Iraq through Preemptive Love Coalition, an organization which serves these families and children affected by life-threatening heart defects. When I say serve, I mean they love and care for these families- through meaningful personal relationships and multiple needed resources.

Preemptive Love Coalition exists to eradicate the backlog of thousands of children in Iraq waiting in line for life-saving surgery in pursuit of peace between communities at odds.

And they do it with integrity. They do it by coming alongside these families and treating them with deep respect and understanding. They value these families, their culture, and their love for their children. They facilitate the training of Iraqi doctors in the life-saving methods of heart surgeries, so that one day their organization will not be needed. They follow up with the patients and their families, getting them the care and recovery resources they need. They do all this with transparency and humility. They do it with excellence and with a purposeful plan. When you take a look at PLC's core values (my favorite page of their website) these qualities are evident, and stand out as ones every humanitarian organization should have.

PLC has brought forth hope where there has been very little.

The impact.

PLC's Remedy Missions are their vehicle for high impact change. During Remedy Missions, international pediatric heart surgery teams are brought into Iraq to perform surgeries on 20+ children and train a team of Iraqi doctors and nurses in the span of just two weeks. Remedy Missions drastically reduce the cost of saving a life per child and reduce per hour training costs for Iraqi medical staff. They plan to train 4-6 heart surgery teams across the country for the next 5-7 years. Remedy Missions are also peace missions. American surgeons bring a non-combat story of Iraq back to their home communities, while Iraqis experience love and service from westerners without the trappings of politics and government. PLC invests heavily in reconciliation and peace this way.

It's not often that I find an organization I like to "shout from the rooftops" about. But there's something about this one that brings to mind words like "excellence" and "integrity" and "impactful." If you've ever wanted to make a difference in reconciling an injustice, following the example of this organization would serve you well. And if you ever wanted to give to a worthy cause and know that your money was being well-spent, this is definitely one of those organizations.

Please visit their website! You'll especially LOVE their blog! Please read more about what is going on in Iraq. Enjoy the pictures of the precious children whose lives are being saved. And when you hear someone wondering if Iraq is changing for the better, you can list these three signs for them with certainty: Iraq IS changing for the better, due in part to the amazing work of Preemptive Love Coalition.

[The following is an excerpt from a PLC blog entry by Cody Fisher]

"Sign #1: Right now, families are traveling from all over southern Iraq to come to this Remedy Mission. Before, families were lining up to leave the country trying to find the doctors that could save their children from their heart defects. Today, families are lining up outside a hospital in southern Iraq, waiting for their child’s chance at a lifesaving heart surgery. For the first time, families don’t need to leave the country to find the cure.

Sign #2: This week, a Sunni family will hand their child over to a Shiite doctor to be saved. In 2007, at the height of the violence in Iraq between Sunni and Shiites, this would have been unheard of. Now, the disease that’s threatening their children is bringing them together!

Sign #3: The notorious “brain drain” that happened when 20,000 of the 34,000 registered doctors in Iraq fled during the war is being reversed. During our last Remedy Mission in northern Iraq we met one of the doctors who had returned. Today we’re not only seeing doctors return, but – thanks to Remedy Missions – the doctors who never left are being equipped and trained, too. Their training is changing the tide of healthcare in Iraq."