In which I am interviewed by the 12 year old

In which I am interviewed by the 12 year old

Who is your favorite actor? Emily Deschanel on Bones because she is so good at being socially awkward, inappropriately direct and stinking hilarious. Also, she has an amazing voice and can pronounce big scientific words.

What has been your favorite awkward moment in a movie, book, TV show or real life? I wouldn’t say that this is my favorite moment, but it is certainly the most awkward. Dad and I were at a show many moons ago and got separated. I came up behind someone who I thought was your dad; same jacket, same height, and put my arms around him. It turned out to be an old high school frenemy of dad’s who had stolen his first serious girlfriend. I feel like he always looked at me in a strangely puppy dog way after that extraordinarily awkward moment.

What’s your favorite Iphone app? iBooks. I am a huge classical literature fan and can’t get enough of Frances Hodgson Burnett right now. I had no idea that he/she had written so many books. I really should find out if Frances Hodgson Burnett is a man or a woman.

Who’s your favorite singer? I can’t pick just one. How about Adele, Andrea Bocelli when he’s not singing lame duets with Stevie Wonder and Bono.

What’s your favorite random name? Zinger. Wow, that just randomly came to me! I’m amazing!

What’s your favorite dream animal from the Bible? What???? (Like the leviathan or something like that) The leviathan.

Who do you think you’re most like in the Bible? King David because I am a dramatic, over the top, say it like it is sinner who has been forgiven. I aspire to be a (wo)man after God’s own heart.

If you could go anywhere, where would you go and why? I am totally going to cheat here. I would go on a non worldwide tour of the world, touching down in each country and spending enough time there to say that I had truly seen the country. Realistically, I would go anywhere. Even Idaho. Or Iowa. Or Oklahoma. Please, just let me go somewhere….

If you could talk to anyone from the past, who would you talk to? I don’t think I would talk to any specific famous person. I’d rather do a person on the street type of thing during great past events. Oh wait, I’d like to talk to Sacajawea and Johnny Appleseed. Both strange and appealing people.

Any more questions for me? No, that’s it for now. I’d rather breed horses on my strange horse Ipod program. (That last part may have been added by me)

Heedless Heidi, or a note to my 16 year old self

Dear 16 year old Heidi,

Layering – seriously. You live in Minnesota. Stop going around freezing and put on some more clothes. Don’t go outside with wet hair, no matter how cool you think frozen hair feels.

High school boyfriends – so not worth it. That one that you think is the one? He’s not. Oh, and next year he’ll break up with you because you’re ‘annoying’. Seriously? Don’t waste your time. Save yourself for someone who loves you for who you are, not who you are pretending to be.

Stop being such a crazy driver! SLOW DOWN! Oh, and when that boy that you want to impress wants to ride on your roof while you speed along a dark, curvy road, don’t let him. You won’t regret it.

Stop hating on your family. They are the only family you have and they will be with you for life. Stop making their lives and your own miserable. You will even grow up and like them. Trust me.

Every time you sneak out the basement door, your mother knows. If you bothered to ask if you could go, she would probably say yes.

Hair – Stop trying to curl and tease your hair. It doesn’t like it and will not accept it. Besides, when you are my age, it isn’t the style anymore. Do you really want to have to look back at those pictures of your hair when you’re my age?

Take more risks. When you go out on a limb and are accepted to the Continental Singers the summer after your freshman year of college, do it. Asking for money is not as painful as you think and your boyfriend will still be there when you get back. He’s the one. Trust me.

Rethink your desire to be a piano teacher. You think now that this is your calling, but you are WRONG! You will hate it. You do not even like teaching your own daughter. Trust me.

When you get to college, go to class – don’t waste a whole year’s college tuition by NOT GOING TO CLASS, thereby causing Vanguard University to deny you admittance because of your dismal grade point average. On the other hand, you avoided an additional $50,000 in school loans. You would have been a piano teacher. See previous point.

Seek God.  I know you think that God is boring right now, but He is the greatest thing that will ever happen to you. The joy that His presence will bring you and the peace that will fill your life once you begin to surrender your will to Him is amazing. He will not make you give up all of your worldly possessions to move to Africa. At least, he hasn’t yet.

Last of all, you are beautiful young lady (besides the hair), you have a gorgeous figure and people will like the real, weird you.

How to Speak to a Pregnant Woman

Pregnancy is filled with many bizarre, unusual, miraculous, amazing things. From the first, “What? I’m pregnant? How did this happen?” to the God given miracle of birth, pregnant woman are surrounded on all sides by well wishers, congratulators, curious types and the verbal vomiter. The verbal vomiter is a person who says the very first thing that comes to their minds and usually continues on in the same vein. Honestly, I’m really not thin skinned about this, but I have thought of some great comebacks that I may or may not try out in the near future. Here are some things I’ve heard:

“You look like you’re ready to pop!”

My polite response: “Nope, I still have a couple of months.”

Here is what I really want to say: “No, I’m only 5 months pregnant, but my midwife says the baby is going to weigh about 25 lbs if I keep eating the way that I have been. I’m trying for a Guinness world record. I’m hungry, do you have any chocolate?”

“Is there only one in there?”

My polite response: “Yes, there is only one baby in here.”

Here is what I really want to say: “There is only one baby in here, but 7 octopuses. I’m part of a secret government experiment meant to explore the future possibility of providing families with both children and pets at the same time.”

“You look really big for how far along you are.”

My polite response: “Uhhhhh” At this point, I usually feel obligated to point out that I have gained a completely healthy amount of weight and am not eating myself senseless. Not that it’s any of their business.

What I really want to say: See #1.

“Wow, your kids are going to be close together!”

My polite response: “Not too close. Just about 2 years. They’re going to be good friends.”

What I really want to say: “What can I say? I’m a redneck. We breed like rabbits in my family.”

“Wow, three kids. That’ll be a handful.”

My polite response: “I’m a little nervous, but I think I can handle it.”

What I really want to say: “Actually, I’m going to hand him off to my 11 year old right after birth as a teen pregnancy preventative. It’ll only be like having 2 kids + a grandchild.”

“Three kids is a lot.”

My polite response: “No it’s not.”

What I really want to say: “Just doing our part to shore up the government’s social security program. We’ve done the math and figured out that each family should have 8 children in order for our generation to have a decent retirement pool. Are you doing your civic duty?”

“Was this pregnancy planned?”

My polite response: “Surprise, surprise!”

What I really want to say: “Planned, schmanned. I don’t even know what is causing it yet, much less how to plan it. Do you happen to know what causes pregnancy?”

Now I will tell you what I want to hear and have heard from many precious people who will forever be rated awesome in my book.

“You look beautiful!”

My polite response: “Thank you!”

What I really want to say: “What can I do for you? Wash your car? Babysit your cat? Vacuum your house? Anything so you will keep saying these wonderful things to me.”

“You don’t even look pregnant from behind.”

My polite response: “Thank you!”

What I really want to say: “Can I make you some cookies? Put together a jigsaw puzzle for you? Solve complicated math problems that have you stymied? Please, tell me more!”

“You look great! All your weight is in your belly.”

My polite response: “Thank you!”

What I really want to say: “Can I paint your house? Give your dog a bath? Plant your garden? Keep those compliments coming!”

I really do like the attention that pregnancy brings me. I love that I have a built in conversation piece, especially since I am a mediocre conversationalist, at best. Please, talk to me about my belly, my other children, my family. I’m good with that. If I know you, I will even allow you to touch my belly. I am totally fine with that, also. If you want to feel the baby kick, I would love to let you. Oh, and if my 21 month old runs by you at full speed and you see me huffing and puffing to catch up with him, feel free to grab him for me. I feel as big as an elephant.

Thank God for hopes and prayers unfulfilled!

The other day I was meditating on all of the great things that God has done for me over my life – dreams that he has fulfilled to a deeper level than I had ever asked for, things I had hoped for but hadn’t even mentioned to God.  A strange thought popped into my mind – why don’t you thank me for hopes and dreams that I haven’t fulfilled. This led to an even greater level of gratefulness and thankfulness. Honestly, I have hope and prayed for some really unwise and stupid things. I’ve decided to make a list of a few of my thankfully unanswered prayers and rejoice in that fact that my God really does know what is best for me.

Dear God, thank you so much that you did not answer my fervent prayers to allow me to marry my high school sweetheart (I believe this prayer came with a promise from me to do anything God wanted if he would just make this happen). Yikes! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Dear Lord, thank you that my 12-year-old’s dream of being a stay at home mom with 12 children (!) was not fulfilled. Bless you!

Thank you for not allowing me to waste 4 years of school on becoming a piano teacher. You knew that I would dislike teaching reluctant students more than the spoonfuls of cod liver oil my grandma forced me to drink when I was a child. Yep, I’d rather have a spoonful of cod liver oil than teach your precious child how to play piano. No offense.

Thank you that my lazy and undisciplined freshman year at North Central led to me being denied admition to Vanguard. I can’t even imagine double the student loans. Thank you for forcing financial wisdom on me!

There were so many more, but my pregnant mind unfortunately can’t think of any that are worthy of being published. I have a big, awesome and loving God and I am his favorite child! He gives me great gifts even when I do not deserve them. He widens my tunnel vision and gives me a glimpse of the big picture to quiet my objections.

Astounding Discovery!

In the last 17 months, I have made an astonishing discovery, an amazing discovery, an incredible, earth shaking discovery. Brace yourselves…Boys are different than girls. Obviously, having been married for 15+ years, I was already aware of this on a certain level, but it wasn’t until my son was born that I discovered how fundamentally different they are from birth.

He hurtles his way through life. From zooming down 2 flights of stairs on his belly in just a few seconds to joyfully splashing in the toilet (gross!), he is a whirlwind of activity. It seems like he only walked for a week, than he began running everywhere. He dances to anything, even the sound of the dishwasher or the click of the blinker. He joins in on laughter around him, even if he has no idea what the laughter is about or even who the people are. Everything is louder, more exciting, more earth shattering. We were used to a daughter who had one tantrum in public ever. We were introduced to a son who feels free to have tantrums wherever and whenever the fancy strikes him. After he realizes that we are not going to give in, the tantrum quickly subsides and he is back to his sunny little self.

Even the way he interacts with his toys is different. He will hug a stuffed animal, only to hurtle it across the room moments later. Everything is a possible climbing tool, from a toy parking garage to a book to someone’s foot.

We enjoy watching him learn each day. He learns funny and strange things like ‘I shouldn’t try to go down the stairs on my belly while naked’ to ‘I can eat with my eyes shut’. Painful things like ‘Dancing on chairs is a hazardous activity’ and ‘Hitting my head on the wall on purpose can hurt’. Practical things like ‘Books only open one way’ and ‘I can take my socks off anytime I want’.

He copies most noises. He specializes in trying to recreate bodily noises, though. If anyone dares to audibly pass gas in his presence, they will be treated to a verbal reenactment. The same goes for burping. I’m sure we could break this habit if we weren’t so busy giggling. I am preparing myself for the first time this happens in public. I will avoid eye contact, look busy, whistle a tune, anything to avoid the fact that my child is copying a stranger’s burp and laughing hysterically at himself. My one consolation is that he hasn’t figured out how to purposely burp yet.

This morning my daughter said she was so glad she had a brother. She added that life would be so boring during the day without him. I wanted to come back with a smart remark like “What am I? Chopped liver?” Instead, I thought about it for a moment and had to agree with her. He has added a depth to our lives that we were unaware existed. I get the privilege of seeing my daughter as a sibling, not just as an only child. She is fiercely loyal and protective of her brother even as she herself occasionally puts him in dangerous situations. The look on her face the first time she met her brother was indescribable. I had never seen her look so ecstatic and she still expresses this excitement almost every day.

To wrap this up, just remember one thing: “Boys are different than girls.” The next time you see a group of teenage boys acting like monkeys to impress a group of girls, or see a couple of boys playfully wrestling with each other, or if you just happen to be the victim of my son’s unfortunate bodily noise problem (I promise we’ll work on it, just as soon as we stop laughing), remember this: “Boys are space aliens different than girls.”

Love so Amazing – Forgiveness so freeing. (Part 2)

With the divorce, I really pulled the ostrich with her head in the sand routine. I did not call my mother for several months. I kept in touch via email, but I basically did not want to get involved. I used the 2,000 miles between us and my dislike of talking on the phone as excuses to be absent from the situation. The funny thing is I thought I was being so adult by giving them their space and letting the dust settle before resuming normal contact. It took my loving husband and brother telling me that I was avoiding the issues to help me realize that what I was doing was emotionally unhealthy for all of us. I allowed my siblings to take the brunt of the hit since they lived in the area and I didn’t. I wasn’t there for them, and I certainly didn’t show love to my parents throughout the whole process.

Out of the blue today, I received some amazing encouragement in this journey. Our awesome pastor spoke on forgiveness this morning. Something he said really struck home. Rough paraphrase: he said that many times forgiveness is what is standing in the way of our physical healing and our walk with God. I can’t say that I haven’t felt close to God this year, but it seemed like a struggle to grow closer to him. I don’t want to just maintain my current relationship with God. I want this relationship to be ever deepening, growing, and changing my life. Just maintaining is mediocrity, complacency, settling for less than the best of what God has for me. I refuse to remain stagnant and I love that God spoke directly into that desire today. What an awesome way to show the depth of His unfathomable love for me!

As I begin to walk out this journey of forgiveness, I have decided to make a daily pronunciation of forgiveness for my father. Another thing our pastor said today was that you know you have forgiven someone when you can pray blessings over them. I know that I am not there yet so I definitely need to continue to daily forgive him and place the entire situation in God’s hands. As I forgive him, I also need to put effort into building a relationship with him. This may be more difficult than the forgiveness as I’m not sure what that is going to look like. Once again, God is going to have to be in control of this situation. If He knows my thoughts from afar, if He formed me in my mother’s womb, if He has even numbered the hairs on my head, than He certainly cares about me enough to help me build this relationship. After all, He is my perfect father!

In developing a relationship with my father, I am receiving help from an unexpected source; my father. Amazingly, he has begun to call me on a monthly basis after years of almost no contact. Yes, the conversations are awkward and short. Yes, we talk about cars, his dog and his motorcycle club. If those subjects are going to be the foundations of our relationship, than so be it. I have hope for more, though.

Love so Amazing – Forgiveness so freeing. (Part 1)

Warning – introspective post ahead with many unanswered questions.

It has been a year. A year with ups, downs, curveballs, bumpy roads. The usual type of year. What made this year different, however, was that it was possibly one of the most emotionally confrontational and revealing years of my life. God has used this year to force me to deal with things that I have left buried or abandoned in a dusty, unvisited area of my brain. You could relate it to one of those closets where all of the annoying things get tossed or stored for later sorting.

This is the year that my parents got divorced. Not too unusual in this day and age, not entirely unexpected, not really an emotionally damaging experience, but very disappointing, nonetheless. For years, I had thought to myself that this was a distinct possibility, but deep down I never believed it would happen. Infidelity changes many things.

My relationship with my father has never been close. We do not have much in common, in fact, I can’t think of anything I have in common with him besides family members and a strange sense of humor. While this has bothered me occasionally through the years, it hasn’t bothered me enough to try to change this, and there hasn’t been much effort on his end either. The once or twice a year I would actually speak to him on the phone was awkward and brief. Our conversations mostly consisted of the weather, cars, his motorcycle club and his dog. Whenever anything more personal came up, it was shut down pretty quick, admittedly by both of us. I was able to justify this because I knew my mother would relate any relevant and interesting information to him

When my mom left my dad, I quickly took sides. Not on the surface, of course. Out loud, I spread the guilt almost equally between the two of them, with a bit more going to my dad because of the adultery. On the inside, however, I assigned 95% of the blame to him. I reasoned that if he was emotionally absent to me, he certainly wasn’t any more emotionally available with my mom.

This is when God started to do his awesome thing. It took a comment from a wonderful woman of God in our small group to get me to start thinking. Her words, “Have you forgiven your father yet?” struck a sore spot that I didn’t know existed. Her words haunted me for days. Have I forgiven him? Does he deserve forgiveness? I don’t even know how I really feel about him given the fact that our relationship has always been so distant. God really started showing me the many ways I spoke badly of my father and jumped to conclusions about him. The judgment that resided in my heart towards my father colored every thought that I had about him. Every time I spoke ill of my father, God began to poke me. If my lack of relationship with him was supposedly not affecting my life, than why was I bringing him up so often and portraying him in a negative light?

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