There is a rule I have. One this: Friends don’t let friends be a-holes. And if you are really my friend, and I am really being an a-hole, you will tell me to knock it off. If you let me continue to be an a-hole without my knowledge….maybe you aren’t as great of a friend as I thought you were.

I have been really lucky blessed in this area of my life. My sisters have always kept me on the hook, whether it was asking me tough questions about purity in High school, or telling me I better get off my high horse before I get knocked off.

My best pal from the 6th grade, Diane, was an AMAZING accountability partner all through Jr. High and High school. And I am not the easiest person to hold accountable. I have the tendency to get a little defensive. In pre-marital counseling we took some test and Christian and I both rated me super high in hostility. Then I got hostile about it when my mom and future husband were giggling about the fact that I didn’t seem to already know this about myself. I may have been standing in my childhood living room yelling “Hostile! I’m not hostile! I don’t know what everyone thinks is so FUNNY! I AM NEVER HOSTILE! FINE! I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS!”

Sometimes, when Diane would call me out on my less than Godly attitude or behavior I would often have a million reasons to justify my behavior. It wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t wrong. I was completely justified in my behavior. It was good for me to be…..doing whatever I wanted to. Especially the stuff that wasn’t good for me. And she was a good enough friend to not let me get away with that crap. She would stand firm, tell me it didn’t matter what I said to justify it. My behavior was not Godly. Inevitably I would call back at most a few days later letting her know she was right. Could she pray for me. She already was.

Between my freshman and sophomore years of college I went on project with Campus Crusade. I ended up living in a house all summer with 8 other women. And I learned there that if you really loved someone, you wouldn’t let them get away with being a butt. Yeah, a lot of times it is easier for people to just go on their merry way. What they do between them and God is really none of your business. You don’t want to hurt the relationship between you and her. Plus….sometimes…..it can get awkward. The problem with this line of thinking is that ultimately it is selfish. I don’t want to be uncomfortable so I am going to continue to allow you to hurt yourself. Mostly because I don’t feel like saying anything.

I know you have to develop a relationship and all of that before you can dive in. Recently a friend called me out on an attitude problem I was having. Then I tried to justify it. Then she laughed and said “You can think that if you want to, but I am pretty sure that isn’t the way God works.” Not unkindly, it was just that I was soooo being in the flesh right then. And we both knew my nature was seeping through. I have grown up since the days of a phone call three days later. I laughed and said she was right. I am so glad she loves me enough to not want me to be an a-hole.

I want to know, why do all the best most hilarious mothering stories have to do with poop? At least at this stage. Perhaps it is because at this stage the kids are not old enough to say loud and inappropriate things at the worst times. And if I am honest with myself, I sometimes say loud and inappropriate things when I am certainly old enough to know better. So I probably have that stuff coming to me.

I have never been very squeamish about much. I don’t like blood and have almost passed out at first aid presentations. But that was in junior high, I have gotten a lot better since then. I can even watch Grey’s Anatomy without closing my eyes. But bad smells and generally disgusting bodily fluids I have always been able to deal with pretty well. Except when I am pregnant. My gag reflex and sense of smell kicks in to overdrive.

WARNING: This is the part where I start telling hilarious poop stories. Well, hopefully hilarious.

I found this out last year at the Sunday after Thanksgiving  dinner my mom was hosting. The Scientist (Em’s second) was hopping out of her seat and running back and forth around the table. The Scientist ran out of the room and when she came back she was swinging something back and forth. It was her diaper. And more importantly, as the Star (Em’s oldest) so aptly pointed out from the other side of the table as she stood on her chair, pointed, and yelled IT’S POOP! Emily was stuck behind our overly crowded table and thus could not get to the Scientist. So Jill grabbed the Scientist and I snatched the diaper. Jill cleaned her up so before the Scientist could sit on anything while I went to three different trash cans before I found an unoccupied bathroom where I could throw the offending object away. Then I went outside to make sure that if I threw up it would be in the bushes.

Recently, Christian was helping people move and I was at home with the peanut. Our disposable diapers have snaps, but for whatever reason I grabbed a random hand me down diaper that was Velcro at the top. Hey, it matched the cutest little dress I put her in. I needed to run upstairs and check the laundry really quickly, so I left the Peanut in her nursery playing while I ran upstairs. I got distracted and the next thing I knew the Peanut was calling MAMA from the top of the stairs……with a diaper trailing behind her. Upon closer inspection there was a turd trailing out of that diaper. I stripped the Peanut and left her in the bathroom (after making sure she would be safe in there) while I simultaneously tried not to puke and picked up her little trail, and bleached the floor. This is the story that makes people crack up laughing.

And then last week I was babysitting, and I had to change the youngest’s diaper. And I realized I was making gagging noises and disgusting faces because he was mimicking every single thing my face was doing. Then I was laughing, gagging, making faces, and changing the diaper. It was as amusing as he thought it was.

So really, is this just the phase of parenting I am in right now. The poop story phase? I can’t wait to get into the “inappropriate and hysterical comment” stage. I was reminded yesterday that the Star spent a good portion of the French and Indian War re-enactment last summer yelling “I can see that Indian’s BUTT!” I guess that is funnier than poop. But it still has to do with butts…..

Dang, I was reading back through some entries and it is amazing to me what already makes sense to me, just a few months ago I was feeling the need to call out for mercy, but what the heck did that mean?

Well, it seems to mean that instead of the two boys I would need a whole bunch of new stuff for I am getting a beautiful wonderful second baby girl. And the morning after the ultrasound as I was driving to work it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t HAVE to buy anything for this baby. I will buy a few things so she can have some things all her own, and I am sure other people will as well. But I don’t have to plan or list or anything. I just have to take this kid home. So easy. So awesome. Getting very excited.

While my first trimester was a lot harder this time around mostly I am shocked by my neutral appetite. I am just not that hungry. And I still fit into my regular jeans. I doubt this is coincidental. The ones I bought BEFORE the Peanut even. I really need to find the time to post some belly pics to Facebook because I look much better this time around.

God providing. I am already halfway through summer school. Clearly someone was praying there would be enough kids because I needed about ten and I have 22. They definitely needed me. And there is some other “random” money coming in. Maternity leave is abundantly covered.

New School. Someone contacted me and through the wonders of Facebook we figured out we knew some mutual friends that I don’t know very well but I have a LOT of respect for their world view. I am very much at peace about what will happen next year.

Writing the book. I am doing it. It is still easier for me to not think about it and just do it. But I am doing it.

Mostly, I am amazed at the peace and grace God has given me when my default method of coping is clearly freaking out. Thanks God.

I have noticed some things about myself. Things I have noticed before, but they have been peeping out as I have had a week and some change of mostly just being with me. Most notably, I get myself in situations I am not entirely sure I will be able to get myself out of. I just wing and a prayer it and think “this will probably work out” and most of the time it does. I drive far too long on a gas tank that has been sitting on E far too long. (I know for a fact the CRV can make it 60 miles round trip if you turn the car on and the get gas light is on.) I only ran out of gas one time. And the one time I did run out of gas in college, I called someone and they fixed it. No problem. I once showed up to get an entertainment center off Craigslist only to discover the CRV was about two inches too small in the opening. But my friend with a truck wasn’t working that day and she and her husband came to rescue me. No problem.

Recently that same friend lent me that same truck because the Volvo-wagon is currently out of commission. And me with a truck is probably not the best idea. First, I have a tendency to over estimate what I can lift, drag, carry on my own. Second, I have TERRIBLE spacial awareness. That pre-school skill where you practice figuring out which item fits in which box without actually putting the item in the box…..I could use some work. So I have some trouble figuring out what could go in the bed of the truck and what could not. I just think, “Hey I drive a truck, I can get that!”

Yesterday I went to Lowe’s to pick up the supplies for the headboard I am going to be making. I picked up an eight foot by four foot piece of ply wood, paid for it and attempted to load it into the bed of the truck that was so clearly NOT eight feet long even I was wondering if this was going to work when I whipped out my credit card. You should have seen my pregnant self struggling to cart the giant piece of wood around, then push it out of the store, before finally schlepping it into the truck bed. Where it didn’t fit. And it was light and blowing and bending in the wind. Luckily, and honestly this was the way I expected it to go, some nice man came by and pushed the wood so that is was wedged underneath the box and only sticking out maybe two feet. (Hey, I live in the south I am allowed to expect some nice man will help out a struggling little big pregnant lady.)

Then I had to drive home and get this thing into my house by myself. Which, surprisingly, I did with only a few splinters to show for it. Then I had to get the thing upstairs. I had decided that I was going to get it upstairs before I painted it. Because I knew that there was a chance the giant board would not fit up the awkward narrow staircase we call our own. And I was not going to invest my time and paint on this thing only to have Christian come home and let me know I could either saw it in half or abandon it. But I did manage to get it around and up the staircase! All by myself! And now that I put the bottom coat on it occurred to me this morning that I didn’t measure the space I want to hang this thing on………hmmmmm………

Oh well, I am sure it will work out…….

This weekend I went to the beach with Elizabeth and her kids. It was awesome. But I did cry when I got there because I could imagine how much the Peanut would like to splash in the water and dig (and eat) in the sand. I wanted to slather her with sunscreen and have her experience it all. And I wanted Christian there with me too. Since we have been married we always go to a new place every summer. We love traveling together and know how spoiled we are that we get to take summers to do that. This year, unless we take a quick vacation to Savannah or back to the beach, we don’t really have plans to do that.

On Sunday Elizabeth’s kids decided they would rather chill at the pool than go back to the beach. So I took the minivan and headed out by myself. I had some really great God time, and wept as I heard what the Lord spoke into my heart. Mostly, I miss you. This here, the ocean, the beach, the warm breeze. I put it here for you to enjoy, and I was hoping we could enjoy it together. I want us to spend time together again.

Since becoming a mom I have never quite recovered from the hectic-ness of it all. I tend to spend snippets here and there with God. But picking up my Bible, reading and meditating have not happened very often if at all. God has been so gracious in showing up despite my lack of time or discipline. But I miss the concentrated time I used to have too. And I was pretty humbled that the Lord cares enough about me to miss me individually. I think sometimes I figure He has enough to worry about and surely He doesn’t mind that I have been lacking in calling. But He does.

I follow Priscilla Shire’s blog. It is pretty great. Every month she posts a new devotional in the section she calls the jewelry box. This month she posted about two letters. O.K. You should really go read it, but essentially she writes on how powerful those words can be. Not in a sarcastic, or dismissive tone but used in a way that says “I heard you; I trust that you heard me. I will not add any more strife to this conversation.” I have noticed how powerful those words can be  because I have spent the school year working under a principal who uses them well.

People come to him with concerns. Sometimes they are valid, sometimes they aren’t. When you work with as many teachers as are at my school you simply can’t make everyone happy. Teachers are notorious for having gone into the profession because they get to be completely in charge of their own space. They like to be the ones telling what to do…..not the other way around. Making decisions based on what one person is telling you is probably not the best route. So he listens and says okay. Then you have to let him decide what is going to be the best way to handle the situation. Sometimes, he has a really good reason for not changing anything. Sometimes, things get changed.

Lately, with the school situation. I have heard God telling me OK. In the exact same way Mr. Sims says it. OK, I have heard you. OK, I am taking what you say into consideration. OK, I need you to let me handle it now.

This year I also learned the power of OK in my classroom. When a student won’t budge, when they are being belligerent. When they are making decisions that I cannot allow in my room, and are refusing to see reason. The staff was instructed to not get into the argument, to simply say “OK” let the chips fall where they may, and let the consequences say the rest. The scary thing about this is I don’t win. I want the student to KNOW I am right, to hear what I have to say, to get what I think is an adequate punishment. But I can talk forever and still not get that from a student. Sometimes when you have had your say, and things aren’t immediately flipping to your side you need to trust that it will all shake out in the end and say OK.

I have been in situations before where I hear the Lord say to me OK. When I am refusing to do what He asks, when I know the better way but am not following it. When I have been railing against His plan I hear “okay” and no that God is saddened by the decisions that separate myself from Him, but that He is going to allow me to suffer the consequences, and be there when I finally decide to do it His way and ask Him to pick up the pieces.

But the OK that has been pressing on my heart most is the one that God has asked me for. The one I finally gave Him yesterday. Where I can say truly, OK. You want me at Roswell? OK. You want me to drive far and serve a suburban population? OK. And not OK…but I don’t like it. OK….but I have better ideas…but this is stupid…..but….but….but. Just OK.

I learned from someone that when a bride first steps into the church, where most of the people are looking is not where the show is. I mean, of course you want to look at her, the dress, the hair, the make up, the dress, the shoes, the back of the dress. But, there is time for all of that later.

The real show is up front. The best place to look when the bride walks into the church is at the groom. At his face. I have been to weddings where you could tell the exact second the groom could see the bride walking in. My breath has been caught in my throat or I have audibly sighed at his reaction to his love. I have been to weddings where Christian had to elbow me because the bride was half way down the aisle and the grooms face had not changed and it was becoming increasingly obvious I was looking in the wrong place as everyone else was slowly turning with the bridal march. That one was a bummer.

We were at a wedding this past weekend for Christian’s cousin Jessica. It was really beautiful. We sat in the back so I could make a quick get away with the Peanut if she decided she had had enough of this sitting quietly having people pay attention to someone who is not her business. Somehow between making sure the baby wasn’t screaming her face off and being in the back I forgot my usual behavior at weddings and turned to face the back of the church when I was instructed to by the minister.

The bride was gorgeous and looking wholly like a bride and completely like herself in the best possible way. I definitely caught the moment where she saw her groom for the first time. It was pretty great. But apparently I missed the big show. Christian poked me and whispered, did you see that? And when I looked at him he was looking at the groom who was still trying to recover from the moment his bride walked in the door. And Christian was wiping tears out of his eyes. “You missed a good one.” Yes. I did, and I also got a good one.

I have been hearing it, again.I have been hearing the voice again compelling me to write. Not just in my blog or on twitter (which I am finding way more fun than I thought it would be) but continuing to work on a book that  I have been working on, on and off for about four years.I thought it was just because I was being lazy, procrastinating. Hey it isn’t like I haven’t been guilty of it before.

Jill, ever the therapist, has asked me if I was afraid of success or failure….definitely failure. What if I write a whole book and no one is interested? What is they think it is stupid? What if no one will publish it?

Then one of my friends sent me an email about her recent trip to India. She had a quotation from bell hooks. I should probably look it up but that whole laziness thing. It was basically about how if we are going to honestly write about our life, our situation, then we must face the darkest parts of our selves. We must own the things that we thought and said that were wrong. Admit that we did them. Only then can we move past it all.

It is why we need mommy blogs, well why people read them anyway. I don’t think it is an accident that the woman the NY times crowned Queen of the Mommy Bloggers is the same woman who checked herself into a psych ward because she realized her PPD was going to kill her. She wrote through it. People identified. It isn’t that being a mom isn’t life changing and incredible and completely amazing. But sometimes your kid strips off her diaper on the way all the way through the house and you have to wash her new dress and put on a clean dress. Then you have to go through the house and find all the turds she dropped on her way to find you while she screams her head off when we you try to keep her contained as you pick up her poop and try not to vomit. Those stories need to be shared so that when it happens to someone else, she can know she isn’t alone. And she will laugh about it later.

I want to write that book for first year teachers. The book I wish I had my first year. The one that admits that every thing you said you would never do in teacher school……you will do those things. Punish with homework, lose your temper, give up one day, give up on a kid even though you do truly believe that every student can and has the right to learn. I said things to students that I am not proud of. I had whole days that were unequivocal failures. My victories were smaller most days than I had ever dreamed. But I pushed through it, and after four years I am starting to become the teacher I was so sure I was when all I did all day was talk educational theory.

Now all I have to do is take these next two weeks and actually write that business. No problem………if I do it. Which I haven’t even before I had kids……Wish me luck.

Saturday we had our second annual “Shake at the Lake” memorial weekend shindig with our church family. It is pretty cool to see where God has moved you in a year. Last year, my kid was three weeks old and I freaked when I got stuck on a boat that was supposed to go back in “no more than thirty minutes” and stayed out for over an hour while Juliet was in the house, with Nonni, who knows more about babies than I could ever learn, even if I read every the ENTIRE contents of baby center. This year I was all “hey, the baby is in the pack and play, someone run in the house and make sure she hasn’t crawled out and jammed something metal in a light socket every once in a while would you? Thanks! See you!

I will say that if someone would have told me I would be in the same maternity bathing suit two years in a row (I was three weeks post partum last year, cut me some slack please) I would have slapped them. But I am more pumped every day to meet this baby. My family is going to be so FUN!

Anyway, Lake Oconee is beautiful and it was awesome to lounge in the floats swim. The Peanut would have spent the entire day in her floaty if we would have let her. But the bottom of the lake is…well…it is squishy. In some parts it is very squishy. I know I am lake spoiled because I grew up swimming in an Adirondack lake, that has a firm bottom and according to the EPA is cleaner than the stuff I shower in every day. But squishy bottom lakes kind of gross me out. On the plus side, as the lake isn’t fed by snow run off I didn’t turn blue from swimming in it before August.

It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful time. But sometimes trying to get your footing in that lake bottom can be exhausting. It takes a lot of concentration, you have to constantly be moving your legs, and every once in a while despite your best efforts you end up dumping yourself in the lake. I mean, whole exercise routines have been built around the idea that you use a lot more muscles, and your core gets a serious workout just by trying to stand on half an exercise ball.

And then Sunday Tim preached about the wise man who built his house upon the rock. (As I whispered the song and did the hand motions for Christian.) It reminded me about how much scrambling I had been doing lately. I find out sometime today whether or not I will be teaching summer school starting next week. I have about six back up plans. I have been obsessing about my chances of getting a job with a different school district next fall. Trying to figure out babysitting arrangements when I don’t know Christian’s schedule, nor how long it will actually take me to get home. I just don’t know. And as much obsessing I do, I am not going to know how it will all shake out. But I do know who is in control of all of this.

Building my future on the sand has been exhausting. I don’t know what my plans are monday, let alone August. I am so tired of dancing and concentrating on the shifts in the plans as I brace for the eventual times that I will fall flat on my face and have to pick myself up and hope that I can shift and move and stay upright a little bit longer this time around. But I don’t have to do that. I could sit back and say “God knew what he was doing last summer and He knows what He is doing now.” I wonder why it is so hard for me to stand on the rock of Christ Jesus. Maybe it is because the other way, while exhausting, I can fool myself into thinking I am somehow doing something, helping in some way. This way, I just stand. Why is doing nothing so hard for me? And you? I know I am not the only one.

Today I found this hiding in my drawers. I post it note in my hand writing “And my God will supply everything you need according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus”. Just (per usual) what I needed.

I just heard from HR. It looks like I will be placed at Roswell next year. Mostly, the thing that sucks about this is the commute. I will be in the heart of the Atlanta traffic you hear horror stories about. In my third trimester. Oh boy. It also means I will be needing to leave the house between 6:30 and 6:45 every morning. Gross. We aren’t exactly sure how child care is going to shake out with Christian’s new schedule and me getting home much later due to traffic.

But some of the other issues I have been having make me realize that they are MY issues, and come what come may I need to get over them.

1. My identity- I know I need to hold my identity in Christ, and I DO think that that is the most important thing in my life, but I probably have too much of my identity wrapped up in my job. I work in an urban school with mostly almost all minority students. About 80-90 percent of my kids qualify for free lunch. I like that my job is hard, that I tackle something every day that most people wouldn’t even try. Of the folks who do try my job, almost half of them quit within three years. I made it. And I am really proud of that. When I tell people what I do I feel like it communicates that I am tough and capable. I also feel like it communicates that I don’t just think equal access to everything for everybody would be nice, I am actively trying to reach that goal. I love that I have gotten to know and understand better a culture that is not my own. That some of my kids as a PART of that culture rather than an intruder. Saying what I do and where I do it communicates all of that, without me having to explain any of it. Plus, it makes me cooler, I am aware of (and sometimes use) fashion trends, phrases, and music far before most of my friends because I am exposed to it.

2. My role as a teacher- One of the things I think I do really well is expose my students to things that are outside of their every day life. I want them to understand that there are places just miles from their houses where the assumption is you go to college, places far away from them  where people would kill for the opportunities my students have. There are different ways of talking, listening, seeing the world that are so vastly different from theirs that it is frightening at first, but those people aren’t stupid or scary, they just have a different paradigm. One that you could benefit from if you looked at it. I don’t know how to do that with students who have broader horizons. Maybe that is because I have never tried….but maybe not.

3. My commitment to using literacy as a tool to “rise up”- The best book in college I was assigned to read was “Reading, Writing, and Rising Up”. It helped me understand what a powerful thing literacy can be (historically if we want to disenfranchise people we make sure they can’t read or write.) I love that I get to encourage kids to find their voice who otherwise wouldn’t. I know that in order to enact social change you need all types of people and therefore all types of teachers…….it is just I am more comfortable working from the bottom helping them realize they can rise to the top than working from the top teaching them to want to change the system that is set up to benefit them.

4. My comfort zone- Often I think that I have a very large comfort zone. I hear people say “God might want you out of your comfort zone” and think…..that would be REALLY far. I am comfortable in a lot of situations. Well, we found a hole in my comfort zone and I have been placed right there.

5. My ability to empathise with my students- If we are honest, we are just more sympathetic to certain situations than others. And I tend to be more sympathetic to kids who are taking MARTA to school, than to the students who drove their own car to school on their 16th birthday. It doesn’t mean God loves them any less, or I should love them any less……it is just my bias I guess, and I am running into it…..and I liked to think I didn’t have one……

Basically, I need to get over myself, my plans, what I pictured God wanting for me. I need to erase the picture of the next ten years I had drawn and wait for God to paint over that mess a picture that is more beautiful. It is just, I am familiar with the picture I painted….and not at all familiar with this new picture.