At Kate’s appointment, her pediatrician went over several questions with me and it seemed based on that, there is a good chance she will be diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. It was a really basic questionnaire and she suggested that we take her in for some more testing to get a better idea of what’s going on. While I do think there is some ADD stuff, I also think there may be some sensory/emotional issues that come into play and before we even consider treatment (whatever that would be), we need to know exactly what we’re dealing with. The cool thing about Kate’s pediatrician is that she lives two doors down from us and is a strong Believer. Kate plays with her friends in their backyard almost everyday, so she gets to see her in action quite a bit

There are two local places that were recommended to us-one is called the learning lab I think and the other is Currey-Ingram (sp?) here in town. I know the latter is super expensive but seems really extensive. Has anyone around Nashville had experiences with either of these or any others? Would love to hear your thoughts if you have.

So, we are prayerful about getting her in somewhere to be further evaluated and then will seek the Lord’s guidance as we decide the best course of action for her. I have already made several of the changes that were mentioned in your comments, and would welcome any additional thoughts along these lines. I’ve ordered a book on food choices for ADD kids and look forward to reading that. We did modify her diet drastically awhile ago but really didn’t see any consistent change in behavior. I’ve added Omega 3 vitamins too, since many of you mentioned them.

Ok, I’m going to hit the sack but I just wanted to check in and say thank you! I’ll keep you all posted as we go!

Love,

Ang

So. I’m appealing to you all as my sisters and I’m asking that you show respect to me and to anyone who comments here. I know that some of this could trigger a debate, which is not what I want (in fact, I welcome your respectful opinions but will feel completely comfortable deleting anything I don’t think fits within the “loving advice” approach). Can we just show people that we can have civilized conversations as Christians without being ugly to each other?

Okay, with that said, here’s the deal.

I had a great conversation with Kate’s teacher (she goes one day to a tutorial program) and it confirmed what I have known to be true for a long while. She has a really hard time concentrating and it has gotten to the point where she’s super frustrated all the time (and we are too) because she cannot stay on track. It’s more than that, though, and it’s really, really hard. All that to say, we have a doctor’s appt tomorrow to have an ADD evaluation, and I’m pretty certain that she will be diagnosed with it. My question is this:

For all of you with kids like my Kate, what has worked for you? Have you had experience with medication that you would feel comfortable passing along? I want to do what is best for her and while I absolutely trust my pediatrician, I would love to hear from other mommas who are in this boat.

I’m kind of an emotional wreck right now over this. Can I get some sisters to speak wisdom to me in love about all of this? Anything you can contribute is so appreciated. Oh mercy, I’m crying. It’s hard being a mommy sometimes.

Thank you in advance. I can’t tell you how much your advice (and prayers…please, prayers…) mean to me.

With love,

Angie

I lift the machine cover and stare at the buttons, trying to recall what they all mean. My face is splotchy from crying and my eyes are swollen and hot. I run my finger along the right side of the sewing machine and they remember instinctively where the power switch is. The lights flash on but I sit paralyzed.

Because it’s all a mess.

The whole thing.

I can’t hear him anymore and he can’t hear me. I’ll just sew…I think. And then I’ll feel like myself again. I wind white thread into the bobbin and I’m a little surprised at how easy it comes back to me.

I thought it would be harder.

Now that I have it threaded, I reach for the pieces of fabric I left sitting months ago.

Or was it more?

They still smell laundry-fresh and I wonder how that happens. I hold them up tentatively, trying to remember which is the front and which is the back. I slip three pins out and separate the material, but it’s not coming back to me. I should remember. I’m so sad I don’t.

It would have been beautiful if I had just paid attention when it was new, and now I’m left with the pieces.

I am like that, and I know it. I start things ambitiously and I believe I will finish them, but I usually don’t. I love the fresh journal, the creases in a new pattern, the way a book looks on my shelf. But then the pieces pile up and my heart breaks and I feel it all over again.

You’re a failure.

I reach for the pattern because I’m not going to leave it, along with all the other half-finished skirts and dresses in the third drawer down. It can still be right. She hasn’t grown out of it just yet, and if I concentrate she will have it before the summer sun comes up again.

There’s a knock at the door and I know why.

Because he is splotchy-red too and we’re both holding pieces.

“Can I come in?”

I nod, but don’t dare to speak because I don’t know what will fall out. My hands are busy and I like it better that way. I look down at what they are doing and I pretend to be indifferent. I’m not, and he knows it.

“Working on her dress?”

I nod again.

I can’t help but think it looks like a movie scene, with me fumbling my way and him fumbling his.

“I just felt like I needed to sew again.” It means more than needles, and he sees through my small talk.

There is silence while I unfold the paper carefully. It bends this way and that and if it isn’t done just right the whole thing will tear apart and then where will we be?

I realize I’m missing a piece, and I say so.

“So what do we do?” He asks.

And the naked truth is this.

I have no idea.

I tell him I have to cut a new one and he tells me he wants to help. It’s easier to do it myself, but that’s the problem. I’m stitching and mending and thinking I can do it all and I can’t. He doesn’t wait for an answer, but reaches for the fabric and takes it from me.

“It smells like laundry soap.” He whispers.

I don’t say a word, but I reach past him for the scissors, and show him what needs to be done. He smiles because he loves me when I create, and he wants to remember what it’s like to be in my world. It’s been a long time since I opened the door.

He learns quickly, and I smile because he is a grown man with a three day old beard and flannel pajamas, but he looks like a boy while he cuts.

Out of nowhere, I feel the sting of sadness.

“Have we made a mess of it?”

He doesn’t answer before the tears come. My hands go to my face to cover the hurt before he fully sees me, but I can’t. I never could.

I just wanted to sew, I think to myself.

But it wasn’t the fabric I loved.

It wasn’t even the finished product.

It was watching the needle and knowing that it was working all the time to mend, even as it pierced.

It looks like it’s dangerous, and as if it’s wounding. It tears through layers and even through skin. I’m convinced it will come away flawed and torn, and then I see the beauty of it all.

And the hum of the sewing machine reminds me again what it looks like to allow yourself to be wounded because you believe in what will one day come of it all.

And while the tears come fresh, he holds me, even with the scissors still in his hand, and he tells me he loves me and will fight for it to be beautiful again. I believe him and I cry because there aren’t words that say what I want them to.

There are only patterns and dreams, and the way he came to knock on the door because he loved me more than his own pride.

We stay up late. Too late, actually. And we laugh because we have all these babies that won’t wait for us to sleep in tomorrow, and it will be time to stitch some more.

The dial spins around and the motor is warm to the touch when we leave.

It’s good to remember.

I still haven’t finished the dress, because there was too much sadness in the memory of her. I had thought it might be good to give it to her sister, but the truth was it was better left undone.

I folded it neatly and slipped it into her drawer, even as it was.

Not in this life, love…

Maybe one day I will take it out again and marvel at how it still smells like fresh life, even though it has been years since I saw it last.

Oh, how I miss her.

But there in front of me is the rest of it, and I so long to love it well.

I won’t forget the way we welcomed that midnight hour, crumpled on the floor in pajamas, laughing and crying because we didn’t know what else to do.

I have stopped resenting the third drawer down, because I believe that one day-

Well, I hope you know.

He’s going to make it beautiful again.

Hope you got a smile out of that

Ang

A few months ago I was getting ready in the bathroom and Ellie walked in and said something funny. I laughed and then gasped at my reflection in the mirror. Were those…? I mean, surely not. I’ve worked out all the details. No gray hair, no wrinkles, no belly fat, no stretch marks. And I accepted the latter two as payment for my babies. But the Lord and I had not come to any definitive conclusions about the rest of it.

Imagine my surprise a few days later when I found not one, but three gray hairs.

Clearly, it was time for intervention (and by “intervention” I mean “shopping).

I headed to Sephora because they are like a therapist but with more lipstick choices. I found a woman who seemed to have made the same pact with God about aging but apparently had better moisturizer than I did. She walked me to the back of the store and introduced me to an eye cream that smelled like dead fish. I wanted to embrace the dead fish because once my teenage skin came back it would seem like a small price to pay. I bought the fish stuff, along with a few other “must-haves” for the rewind process. I’m not going to say I didn’t give it a fair shot, but approximately 45 minutes after I put it on, I still saw some wrinkles and I gave a monologue that would have made Solomon seem optimistic in Ecclesiastes.

Stupid wrinkles. They’re just around my eyes a little and mostly when I smile. Actually, I’m not even 100% sure they are wrinkles. They might just be my face.

Whatever.

They smell like fish now.

My thought process for a few days went something like this:

“I’m old. I’m practically on the doorstep of death. I need to deal with it.”

“Who cares what I look like? I mean, the Lord doesn’t look at the face. He looks at the heart.”

“Well that’s good. But unfortunately, everyone else looks at your face and yours is old and freaky looking. And I would be much more concerned about your arm fat than your wrinkles. You can give up smiling forever but your arms are going to have to move.”

“I’m so vain. I need to get over it.”

And on and on. And then on a little more because why not go for broke, you know?

I know I’m not the only one who has been through this, and I also know that it’s inevitable. But I guess I never realized I was going to be included.

Truth be told, I don’t think it’s even about face lines or gray hairs.

I just don’t want things to be moving quite so fast.

I meant to take a picture of Charlotte’s tiny little baby feet hanging off the rocking chair the other day and I took at least 15 photos, bemoaning the way the angle was making them look so big. I scrolled through a couple and looked up at her again, and in an instant I realized they were wholly representing what existed. Her feet are chubby and delicious, and I kiss them every single day. And somewhere in the kissing and the shoes and the towel drying them after bath time, I missed the part where they changed.

The camera doesn’t lie, and neither does the mirror.

My heart says, “It will never change,”  but the reflections tell me otherwise.

I sat in the moonlight all alone that night and whispered to Him, “Why?”

Why do you let me love things as they are only to tell me they won’t stay?

And as the blushing bride, ever well-intentioned, I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.

All this dark night, and you sit in the moonlight asking why.

I’ve been holding it all too tightly. Shoving feet in tiny shoes and scrutinizing the way the hours are robbing me of what was beautiful. I missed the way He lit up the night for me.

His moon.

His love.

His painting of my hair and ticking of the clock.

His spectacular plan that I’m so tempted to forget in favor of wrinkle cream and doubt. I get the sense that I’ve been treading water for a long time, asking Him to give me something that feels better.

I spend more time looking for my reflection in a mirror, rather than in the night sky. I want to drink deep of the landscape He has blessed me with. Not from behind a camera, trying to clip and edit until it matches my heart, but as a woman who can see the stars spilled out and believe Him.

There is beauty in the believing, isn’t there?

It’s a warm summer day today, and I have a feeling my backyard will be full of noises and patches of light tonight.

And as it often does, the wind will pick up the swings and move them back and forth while I cry out for them to be still. Tonight I will watch them and I will smile.

And instead of worrying about the swings, I will thank Him for the wind.

Constantly moving.

Always nudging us toward our home with Him.

Jesus, You make it all unbearable beautiful when we dare to look. Thank you for the mercy that sets us all free to love you in return…You are Everything.

And also, Jesus?

I don’t want to smell like fish anymore.

Amen.

There are lots of prizes and giveaways thanks to Dayspring and my publisher B&H (you’ll NEVER guess what they are giving everyone who comes…hmmm…could it be….books?!?!?)

We know there are quite a few more people coming than are registered on this page, so if you are planning on it, could you kindly sign up so we have an official headcount? We want to make sure we have plenty of stuff to spoil you with Invite your friends, your neighbors, whoever! The more the merrier Just let us know how many you are bringing and then come enjoy the fun.

In addition to snacking, laughing, and giving out loot, we are going to be watching some amazing videos from (in)courage, and you will not want to miss what God has been up to over there. You can click over to see more info on this first-time event, but the gist is it is going to be an amazing night and I really hope you can come!!! These are happening all over the place, so make sure and look up your city here if you want to be a part of it:)

Can’t wait!!!

Love to all,

Ang

Looking at the calendar a few weeks ago we vowed we would never do it again. Too many commitments, too many airplanes, too many deadlines, too much time away from the kids.

I’m intent on refusing to let things pile up this way again.

When I got home last night, I chatted with the big girls and then took a shower while they fell asleep. Todd is at the Dove Awards (while I was typing, Selah won “Inspirational Album of the Year. Congrats, and WELL DESERVED:)) so the house felt quiet. So quiet that what seemed like it might just be a squeak as Charlotte shifted positions in her crib, I lurched out of bed and ran over to grab her. I lifted her sleepy little body out of bed and brought her across the hall to my room, where I may or may not have played with her until she woke up enough to have a hide and seek war with the covers and eat jellybeans with me.

I feel like maybe that makes me a bad mom, but actually I have had to adjust my standards a little. I’m loving them well, making sure they know this is obedience to a calling, and also, eating snacks in the middle of the night. Sue me.

So we had the little feast and she fell asleep in my arms with her blanket tucked around her. I let her sleep in my bed, which doesn’t usually work out well because she is what I like to refer to as a “night thrasher.” Ellie and Abby stay stick-still, and Kate will bruise your organs. Charlotte is somewhere in between.

I heard her stirring around at around 8 this morning and I was so tired that I pretended to be asleep. She physically tried to open my eyelid and said, “Hey Mommy.” I didn’t move. Because I am the ultimate mother, in case you haven’t picked up on that yet. She played with my hair for a minute and then laid back down with her hand resting on my stomach. After about ten minutes I started to wake up and decided to scare her, which she loves. I jerked in one super-fast motion and got my face right up next to her and shouted “ARRGHHH!!!!!” in a freaky growl noise (cue the sound of the mother of the year truck screeching into the distance). She jumped and then laughed herself red-faced.

Then she did what any sweet, lovable girl would do in that situation. She full-on grabbed her diaper and shouted, “Ew. Pider Ucky.”

“Your diaper’s dirty?” I asked. Because perfect mothers always ask the question when they know the answer because they are buying time.

“Ah needa chaange.” She continued to grab at her diaper through the jammies like she was just going to rip it right off. Delicate. Ladylike. Or not.

“You need your diaper changed.” Buying time, but disguising it as a reflective, mirroring response so it looks like I’m giving her words. I’m not. I’m just tired. As evidenced by my next sentence.

“Here baby. Mommy put you down. Can you go get a diaper?”

Don’t worry. I’ll write a book on all this stuff so you can make parenting decisions out of laziness too.

“Okay.” She reaches to me and I set her on the ground. As she ran out of the room she shouted, “Be wiiiiight back. Okay.”

I heard her feet hit the hardwood and then the carpet again as she ran into her room. There was some rustling and then her feet again.

“Here go.” She handed me one wipe, which she had taken out of the wipe case.

“Good job Char! But we need a diaper.” She threw the wipe and darted off toward her room again.

More rustling. More feet.

“Mama hep. Hep peese.” She had her shoes and wanted them on. Over her jammies. Which is not unusual. We sometimes fight her to take them off at bedtime and bathtime. What can I say? She’s a shoe girl.

“No, baby. We can’t put your shoes on unless you get your diaper.”

Fake crying.

More fake crying.

Feet. Floor. Rustling. Books hitting the ground. Laughter. Singing. Feet.

And another wipe.

This little routine went on for about 5 minutes, at which point I realized that it wasn’t going to work for me to parent from bed today. Ta-da! She can be taught, folks.

Charlotte sat at the foot of my bed on the floor and ripped wipes apart while I brushed my teeth and got my contacts in. I was almost done when she yelled, “AH NEEDA CHANGE!!!!!!” She was not evidencing a happy heart, let’s just say that. And there were six piles of ripped wipes that whispered, “the Proverbs 31 lady just rolled over in her grave.”

I got her diaper and took care of the diaper, but as it often does, the Gospel infiltrated my life.

If she wanted it so badly, why didn’t she just get the diaper?

Want to know the truth?

It’s the same reason my calendar looks like a football strategy thing. And yes. I am aware that this is not the actual term. I like to watch it but I don’t keep up. In fact, Pat Smith (Emmitt’s wife) and Brenda Warner (Kurt’s wife) were on the same Women of Faith retreat I was on this week and I love them. I love them so much that it makes me wish I did know more about football, because then I would possibly have know what team Kurt played for, if Emmitt still played (He doesn’t. I asked his wife. Which was awesome and not at all embarrassing) and what in the world the football map plan is called.

Anywho.

My calendar.

I had great intentions. I will seek the Lord. I will go single-mindedly toward that which I know is what I need and that which is good. And I will not get sidetracked. I won’t carry a hundred things back with me and whisper to the wind, “Why is this dirty thing still on me?”

I sat on my bed and I cried.

I long for Him so desperately that I complain, argue, debate anything that pulls me from Him. But when push comes to shove, I see the shoes, the wipe, the hallway…

The world.

I’m going to be brutally honest in a way that genuinely hurts. I haven’t been able to write the way I want to. I haven’t had it in me. The words get stuck in my throat and I decide to skip the tap-tap of the keyboard and go grab lunch with a friend instead.

No, it’s not a pair of white leather Keds, but it might as well be.

I sometimes lose sight of what I set out for.

I am a representative of the Gospel, and I take that job very, very seriously.

But I am also a daughter of the King. A daughter who needs to take responsibility and serve Him with my sole focus being on Him.

I haven’t been able to write because I haven’t been in His word the way I should be. I have been looking around me and shuffling my heart toward any shiny thing that takes off the glorious weight of Jesus.

And with Charlotte’s weight pressed on me in the night, I rested.

And when she ran, He spoke.

Seek Me. Focus your intentions and act on them.

The rest will come.

So today, after spending time with the Lord this morning, buried in His words, I found that the tap-tap came easily.

It was the overflow of a heart full of His presence, and the gratitude of a woman convicted by the error of her ways.

Are you lost somewhere between one bedroom and another? Have you reached for every little thing that you can wrap your hands around? Have you forgotten what you were intended to bring back?

It isn’t too late.

I have so much to be grateful for. My kids are healthy and seem absolutely unfazed by my schedule. They are thriving. I have a husband who desires the things that matter and loves me to the ends of this life, no matter where my feet have gotten tangled. I have a ministry that I couldn’t have dreamed of asking for because who in the WORLD am I to deserve it?

It’s a beautiful spring day in the city I love, and I have a friend (Hi Betsy!) who I am sharing a Starbucks table with and she is encouraging me to write. I just asked her how long I had been typing and she said 45 minutes.

I waited a month to update this silly blog in 45 minutes because I’ve been so busy gathering that which I didn’t need.

I have been to the wellspring, and I don’t know why I keep believing I need to be thirsty anymore.

Drink deep, friends. Clear your calendars if you need to. Take the long way home.

Soak up every bit of Him you can, and let the overflow be your offering.

It is true, you know.

I stand as a witness.

He.

Is.

Everything.

I know, right?!?!?! She is so delicious. And a total talker. She says things like, “Ina bine beh” (I want brown bear) and “I gonna getchu!” while running around the house in her nudie-tudies. She also sings a multitude of songs (think Adele, not Barney) and insists on wearing shoes All. The. Time. She also says, “Tank U Maaaach” for thank you, and her newest phrase has something to do with greeting a sea bass but we haven’t figured out the details just yet.

In other family related news, we got a call a few weeks ago to see if Todd would like to be a part of an Easter service at Sea World, and we talked it over but really wanted to be together so he talked with the radio station and asked if he could bring his family. We have wanted to go back to Disneyworld since we were pregnant with Audrey but just haven’t been able to. If you have read my blog for any length of time, you will understand why we knew God was giving us a gift with this new trip. The radio station agreed to the adventure and long story short, we are all going back to Disney. And you’ll never, never guess what day we are flying out?

Or maybe you would

April 7th. On what would have been Audrey’s fourth Birthday here with us.

I cried. Hard. And as grateful as I am, it is very bittersweet. The last time we went we still had her with us, so I have so many memories tucked away about the way I hoped that she would survive. For me, the trip happened at a time when I didn’t know the way it would turn out, and it breaks my heart to remember the hidden prayers that followed me to bed.

Last night Todd and I were watching the Duggars and Michelle was talking about her pregnancy and how she was so happy and wanting to get past a milestone (because her daughter Josie had been born prematurely before that). I started crying as I watched it because I know what she didn’t at that point. The sweet daughter she was carrying would not survive. I watched as my eyes grew hot and red because she had such hope. And I can’t help but see myself in her face, praying that our earthly desires will come to fruition…praying to the God Who knows what will and what will not.

When I think about Disney, I can’t help but imagine that the Lord was watching us as we hoped, and knowing we would be devastated soon. That’s a difficult thought, and I wonder if you have ever been there. It would be easy to allow the world to tell us that it wasn’t worth the risk. Why bother to hope at all?

May I dare to answer that for your heart {and mine} today?

In my life, hope has led me to pray. It has led me to believe Him. To have the boldness to say that I trust Him above the hurt. It has given me a reason to lift my head, to stake my claim, and to dismiss the shadows that whisper, “it will not be redeemed.” We do not know the ways of the Lord, of course. I’ve heard it said a thousand times and I agree. But there is more to say, isn’t there?

We might not know His ways, but we can know Him. 

My life didn’t get tied up in a neat bow when we had this crooked-ponytailed miracle you see above. And it didn’t answer the questions or silence the hurt.

What it did give me was a reminder of the power of hope. Not just in tomorrow. Not just in this life, actually.

But the hope that demands a response in the way we live our lives.

She is with Him.

She is with Him.

So while my feet reach one in front of the other, for all the years to come, I will remain steadfast in this:

I have hope because I have Him.

Disney will be great. I’m sure we’ll get sick on loads of ice-cream and lack of sleep. But there is no amount of adventure that can compare to the time I have ahead of me. I need that reminder a lot, and maybe you do as well.

This isn’t it, friends. Do you believe that more than the curve ball life is throwing you right now? I hope you do.

And hope?

Is a beautiful thing.

Eyes on Him, friends. Eyes only on Him…

Here’s to the audacity of hope.

Angie

p.s. We have been told that the song “I Will Carry You” has ministered to the Duggars as they have walked through the loss of their sweet Jubilee. I believe it will be featured on their season finale this month. It is an incredible honor to be able to share in their loss this way. Audrey still testifies to the power of hope, doesn’t she?

My friend Jen started an organization called Sweet Sleep which distributes beds & mosquito nets to HIV/AIDS orphans in Northern Uganda. Sweet Sweet Sleep’s vision is for every orphaned child in the world to lie down in their own bed reminding them they are loved, protected and cared for with hope for the future through Jesus.

Kind of neat – every bed that Sweet Sleep provides is purchased in the country they are working in. So not only are they providing children with a place to sleep but they’re building into the economy of the country as well. They send volunteer teams several times throughout the year to assemble the beds in the orphanages & show the children they are loved and care for.

Wondering how you can join in on the Fun Friday:Flipped fun & give back? You can help with a one time gift or by becoming a sweet sleep bedhead & donating monthly. It’s easier than you might think…

$8 will buy a net 
$10 will buy a Bible
$12 will buy a blanket
$20 will buy just a mattress
$50 will provide an entire bed kit for a child in Uganda (this includes a bed, blanket, bible, & mosquito net)

If you want to give, you can do so right on Sweet Sleep’s site here. Thanks for letting me flip things upside down today!!

Enough about me.

I’m not really a huge fan of the make-up either. Maybe it’s the lighting. It could be my head.

Ok, I’m really done now.

And despite all of these reservations, I still want you to watch this quick little video to hear about our latest selection for the Bloom Book Club. Maybe I needed the reminder…and maybe you do too.

Bloom Book Club Introduction from Bloom (in)courage on Vimeo.