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Happy Birthday, Hank.

(Not so) Little Buddy,

You are five. A whole hand. Half a decade. Graduating preschool tonight (isn’t that fun?) and old enough to head to kindergarten. This time on your birthday, I could almost see the change overnight. Maybe you were just that close to five for so long that your big day tipped the scales, or maybe knowing that you’re five really changed some things for you, but either way, you are most definitely and officially growing up.

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We spent your birthday at Disney World this year–something new and wonderful for us as a family. We wanted you to feel so celebrated, and I hope you did. I will never forget Mickey Mouse singing you “Happy Birthday” or wearing our “I’m celebrating Henry!” pins all day long. We were definitely celebrating you, as  our hearts often are. It was a sweet, sweet way to welcome a big day in your life.

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You are changing so much, and still so many things stay the same. Your sensitivity to others moves me and makes me so proud to be your mama. Your ability to create–to navigate LEGO instructions or to build something entirely new on your own is so fun to watch. I marvel at the way your mind works…you remember so many details and facts, connecting dots I’m not sure I ever connected at your age. And you ask beautiful questions: about God, about the world, about your newest little brother or sister growing in my belly. You captivate Eloise, and I have no doubt that you will have your new sibling’s attention, too. They are both so fortunate to have you caring for and looking after them.

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This morning, you asked if you could go upstairs to “entertain her” as Eloise woke up for the day. Your laughter together poured down the stairs and filled me up to the brim, as it so often does. She delights in you. We all do.

I watch you in the back yard as you kick a soccer ball, navigate a water gun fight or protect your pirate ship from the swing set fort. You pull Eloise round and round in the wagon and play together so beautifully–your imaginations taking turns and running wild as you create new stories and new memories all of the time. You are adventurous, but careful. Fun-loving, and sometimes serious like me. You still love to pour over books, and sometimes now, I can convince you to read them to me instead of the other way around. You jump, speed, race, and make sounds effects everywhere. You are all boy, through and through.

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When we share things together now, your laugh tells me that we’re both in on the joke, if that makes sense. It’s not like I’m just trying to make you laugh and you start giggling because mom is being funny. It’s more like we’re partners in crime and we “get it” together. We’ve always been partners in crime, you and I. What that looks like is just changing.

While preschool graduation is pretty much just a fun photo op with your teachers and friends, I’m not quite ready to face the fact that you’re kindergarten bound and so independent. When you snuggle up on the couch and just need your mama, I’m much more at home 🙂 I know what to do with the little boy who still needs me. And I’m learning as fast as I can, on a curve, what to do with the big kid who needs me to step back a little and just watch him fly.

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You told me recently that I shouldn’t worry about you not fitting into clothes from the little kids’ section of the store. “You have another baby coming!” you assured me with confidence. While that’s true and I’m so excited to have a little baby in the house again, you will forever be my little one in my heart. As our first born, I’m just not sure that ever changes.

I’m sorry that this note comes your way almost a month after you’ve turned the page on five…life has been full and busy and good, and we’ve kind of been celebrating you in waves all month long, anyway, which seems just about right 😉

I love you a crazy ton, and I love watching you grow! Being your mama is–and will always be–one of my greatest joys.

Have so much fun being five this year, HD. There are so many wonderful days ahead and I can’t wait to share them with you! Happy, Happy Birthday!

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love you always and always,

your mama

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one chapter at a time.

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It’s a quiet afternoon here where I sit, and I am so thankful for the space. It’s hard to believe that December is coming to a close, but beautiful that a whole new year stretches out before us when the clock strikes midnight tonight. I am ready to turn the page on 2015.

I’ve learned a lot this year, and I’ve been stretched in the exercise of inviting a graceful December into my life. I hope the same is true for you as you’ve joined me in welcoming the good, the hard, the magical, the bittersweet. Every year contains these things, but some more so than others. In my little corner of the universe, 2015 had greater measures of hard and bittersweet. But there were amazingly sacred, heart-swelling moments, too, and I don’t want to forget them for all they’ve offered. I will close this year and this chapter feeling challenged, pursued, and full.

I’m still trying to flesh out a word for 2016 that feels not-too-big, not-too-small, but juuuuust right for the days to come. I laugh a little remembering last year at this time…so many questions pouring through my mind then, and almost entirely different ones than the thoughts that fill my head now.

I am grateful for the grace that sees me through all of my questions.

Earlier this week, Henry was asking for something in the car. I was working to get it for him, but as I tried, he asked me again, and again. In a moment of frustration, I raised my voice at him, “Henry! I am not  Google, OK?! Not everything is right away. You can’t have everything in an instant. That’s not how things work.”

Even though I know this to be true, and I’m learning over and over to be patient in new ways, life in a high speed world makes it easy to think we should have what we want, when we want it. And we want it all right now. But the world is not at our beckon call, and even if it were, everything in an instant might not be what God has for us, for good reason.

If I’m taking any wisdom from these past twelve months into the new year, this might be the nugget I’ll cling to the most:

The best things in life aren’t instant. But the waiting makes them sweeter in the end.

We don’t really have to depend on anyone or anything when life is handing us everything we want at every turn. I actually think this can be a very dangerous place to exist.

This past year has put me on my knees more times than I can count. And I’m grateful. Heading into the new year, I’m without expectation for guarantees.

The one thing I’m banking on is that God will carry me or hold my hand or give me wings–whatever He deems appropriate for each and every circumstance. It’s a good place for my heart to be, no matter whether it’s wondering, hoping or aching.

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The quiet from earlier lasted just a short while, and this blog post has become my next exercise in living out the practice of patience in big and little things. 🙂 I suppose God is honing my spirit even through this… everything is an opportunity for grace to sweep in, and it’s all shaping the next, unknown part of my story. No doubt surprise and delight and growing await, whatever the year ahead might hold.

Here’s to 2016, my sweet friends. May our stories brim and bubble over with grace and graceful living!

Love to you, and Happy New Year!

molly madonna

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#2015bestnine

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that’s Christmas to me.

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We grew up doing the same thing for almost every holiday, every year. I came to love Christmases and Easters and Thanksgivings with family–nine of us cousins running around, thick as thieves. There was always an Easter egg hunt in the springtime, always puzzles and dinner and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and Gramma sleeping over to welcome Santa with us in the morning.

I loved our traditions and stuck to them like glue. I didn’t know growing up that I was so attached to our family routines, but looking back, the patterns every year were comfortable and settling for my heart.

I grieved them for a long time after they dissipated, one by one.

For the past few years, we’ve welcomed Christmas in the little blue house, trying to create traditions of our own and to make things familiar for Henry and Eloise as they grow. We have all come to love Christmas morning around our own tree. Now, new memories of Christmases past are starting to stack up…Henry always peeking around the corner into the living room with a squeal of excitement, and this year, bringing his sister along with him, too.

I love these new images lingering in my mind, but they still haven’t replaced the parts of Christmas I’ve missed. I think the associations I have with the holidays from my younger years made it really hard for anything else to match up for a long time.

In a redemptive way though now, having our own children is giving me fresh eyes at Christmastime again–especially as the kiddos get a little bit older and can really enjoy all aspects of our own holiday traditions, visits, meals and surprises. And suddenly this time around, in the middle of multiple celebrations that will carry us into 2016, I’m realizing that our little family of four has a sweetness to it at this time of year that’s becoming Christmas to me.

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This is a graceful part of December I didn’t know to expect. I just didn’t see it coming.

Sometimes it’s really, really hard to let go of the past in honor of the future. There’s beauty in having memories to treasure…they just have to take their rightful place.

I’ve realized that holidays past can either rob the ones we’re trying to enjoy now, or they can inspire us toward future hope and joy. Somehow, gracefully, life is currently affording me the latter.

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When I think back to my growing up years, the longing that lingers the most is wanting make my Gramma proud and to do things in a way that would bless her and bring her joy. After all this time, I can finally see that the Christmases we’re celebrating as a family now would delight her just as much as they’re delighting me. And maybe even more.

Thinking back and looking forward,

molly madonna

 

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graceful is.

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Graceful is a lingering Christmas with family and friends.

Graceful is having nowhere to go when the weather outside is frightful, and finding the time to watch a wintry mix make artwork on the windows instead.

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Graceful is delight on our children’s faces at every turn…laughter and smiles and extra hugs in pajamas all day long.

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Food on the table.

A cup of hot tea.

Snuggles with babies when they’re not feeling well.

An extra hour of sleep.

A prayer. Silent, spoken, offered up.

A hot shower.

Warm clothes to wear.

Laundry to wash.

Storytime.

Games and laughter after the kids go to bed.

Daddy home for a long string of days and a “weekend time!” that stretches out generously into the New Year.

Graceful is this time of year, when everything ordinary still happens, but it sets itself down amidst the extraordinary and miraculous that doesn’t always linger as palpably outside of Christmas.

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Graceful is right where we are, when we open our eyes to both ordinary and extraordinary, when we open our hands in thanksgiving, and when we offer our hearts to each other. 

Graceful is everywhere we are infusing grace, and anywhere we are receiving it.

Let’s keep finding it together,

molly madonna

 

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let’s not just let it go.

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As with any big event, Christmas comes with so much preparation, ramping up and expectation. Not unlike a wedding day, a big birthday, or a move off to college, the days to follow arrive quickly, as though someone has pulled the celebratory rug out from under us and left us on the bare floor, wondering how on earth it all came and went so fast. At least, that’s how I’ve felt a time or two or twenty.

Today, things are quiet in our house. Jason is away until dinner time, and Henry and Eloise mostly just want to play with their favorite new things. It’s been gray here, and colder, with a drizzly rain that halted any plans of a walk before nap time. The house is resting, and I would be, too, but I’m thinking about yesterday and what comes between now and New Year’s, and how I want to prepare myself to head into 2016 with a hopeful perspective for whatever will take shape when I swap out the calendar.

I don’t mind the idea of a fresh start, especially at the tail end of a bang-up year. There has been a lot of good to go along with the bad, but there’s plenty I’m content to put behind us, too. I’ll be there and ready in a little shy of a week when the clock strikes midnight. I’m just not there quite yet.

The tree is still up (and will be a while longer) and the lights are still warming up the room as I type. New Christmas gifts arrived from Gramma today, and I’m thankful for how they’ll draw out the magic of Christmas just a little bit longer under all of the ornaments, not quite ready to be put back in their boxes for next eleven months.

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I know some are so eager to “pack up Christmas” and put it away. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I do like it to linger. I like that, for a few days at least, the whole world around me seems to carry with it an awareness–a sensitivity to being softer, kinder, more generous, more present with one another and the needs of friends and strangers, alike.

It’s as though Christmas shines a light on the fact that we’re all human, and we seem to remember this better while we all unite in an effort to usher in Christmas, however different our individual celebrations may be.

I’m not ready to let go of Christmas just yet. When something changes you for good, you don’t want it to end.

When Jesus was born, Christmas was only just beginning as the wisemen traveled from afar to bring gifts to the baby King. They didn’t arrive in just a few hours, but journeyed long days to meet their Savior and to offer of themselves, in person, to Him.

Celebrating a graceful December this year is challenging me to seek out ways to carry out Christmas, right into the New Year. With the twelve days of Christmas in full swing and Epiphany not until January 6th, I figure I have the perfect reason not to let it all go just yet (as if anyone needed justification for more of Christmas :)!

Let’s not let sale shopping and gift exchanging, end of year busyness and “putting away” our holiday decor get in the way of continuing to extend ourselves to friends, family and strangers. Then, the light that has poured so freely into our lives this past week will shine brightly over the normal days on our calendars, too.

How can I extend Christmas and light to those in my sphere of influence these next few days? How can you?

Embracing the good,

molly madonna