the honorary swedish citizen

Couldn't Be More Proud

What can I do?  I’m just a mom.

I have been struggling with that question since the day Malin was born 8 years and 12 days ago.  When you become a mom, you feel like you give up a lot.  You give up your time, your hobbies, your tight abs, your hot clothes, and your passions.  Of course, its worth it.  But do we really have to sacrifice all of that on The Altar of the Tuned in Mommy?  Maybe it’s that we have to be creative to find ways to hold on to all of that.

Most people who know me find out very quickly that I am very passionate about looking cute about the humanitarian crisis going on around our world.  I can’t watch one of those “Susie Celebrity goes to Uganda to Hand Out Book Bags” television programs without crying.  I can’t hear something about the sex trade without thinking that I have to do something about it.  And I can’t imagine what it must be like to not be able to feed my children.  I try not to fret about the occasional Lucky Charm breakfast breakdown when there are moms around the world who would tear open the leprechaun emblazoned box with their teeth if it meant a meal for their kids.

Sometimes I get frustrated that I can’t do more.  I want to, but how can I when we don’t have a ton of expendable cash (How I wish we did!) and things like lunch boxes, diapers, and school forms that need to be signed take precedence right now.  But then something interesting happened a couple weeks ago.  I realized the power of the mind control I have over my kids. I realized that I can not only shape the way my children act in the world, but how they see it.

One of my biggest goals as a parent is to teach my children that they are extremely privileged, well, in the area of comfort at least, to live in the United States.  We are, and this may come as a shock to some, NOT RICH by American standards, but the fact that we have a CAR makes us richer than about 99% of the world that we live in.  I can bet that the room my kids share is bigger than a lot of the huts entire families live in in Africa.

When I got the World Vision magazine in the mailbox that August day, I had no idea what was about to happen.  I started thumbing through its pages and noticed a story about how World Vision is trying to stop malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.  Scientists have developed a way to make bed nets with a slow releasing insecticide in it that will keep children safe from malaria laden mosquitoes.  I quickly gathered the kids and read them the article.   They were pretty quiet, until Malin looked at me and said, “I want to give all the money I saved up for an American Girl.”  Aiden said, “I could buy FOUR bed nets for the price of ONE Webkin.”

The kids and I decided that for Aiden’s birthday, we would put a little note on the invite about their project.  By giving just three dollars, you could help us buy just one bed net.  We left the option open to the guests, no pressure.  I did not, however, let this gift be in lieu of a normal party gift because I don’t want my kids to be in therapy for years. I don’t want to have to explain to their therapist that when they say: Our parent’s never let us have any birthday or Christmas gifts.  We had to give all our money to children in developing nations. They forgot about that time the servers at Applebee’s sang them “Happy Birthday” and brought them a free sundae.  Ungrateful wretches.

After his party, we tallied the money and they had raised almost ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS.  That’s a lot of bed nets.  And they still want to do more.

I am proud of my kids for taking action.  Even though they are just grade schoolers, they did not let that stop them.  And I couldn’t be more proud.  I am not only instilling a heart of compassion in my kids, I have taught them that no matter what your circumstances, you can always do something.  And in turn, they taught me something.  I may not have hundreds of people listening to my podcasts, following my tweets, or paparazzi stalking my every move, but I can still do something.

I might “just” be a stay at home mom, but that doesn’t mean I have to wait to show compassion to the world, and I’m not going to put away my high heels just yet.

treasures for the m2m blogroll scavenger hunt!

i am participating in a ministry wives scavenger hunt, for a prize of course!  here are a few questions, and the answers to them!

1.  First Name: jenah

2.  State and Country of Residence: minnesota, usa

3.  Husband’s Ministry Title: associate is the official title, but really, he does everything but preach!

4.  Length of time in Current Ministry Location: almost 8 years!  (in january)

5.  Children: daughter malin: 8 years, son aiden: 6 years, baby vienne: 8 months!

6.  Number of unique  homes in which you’ve lived during your marriage: two, our apartment in chicago, and our home here in winona.

7.  Cook Sunday lunch or eat out: eat out!  and culver’s is usually the place.

8.  Typically on time for Sunday School or not? we don’t have sunday school. ;)

9.  Favorite TV Show: what not to wear

10.  Something you watch/like/do that you would never tell the church people. (Except now you just did…lol): well, i laughed way too hard at borat and knocked up.  my mom will be disappointed with me.

11.  Most annoying church-related pet peeve:  gossip.  i would really rather people say things to my face.

12.  One thing you need to throw away but can’t bring yourself to do it: malin’s car seat that we took her home from the hospital in.  it is past its 6 year expiration date, or whatever they are saying is the max time to use them, but it looks brand new and i just can’t part with it.

13.  The one food you can not live without: milk and other forms of dairy, in particular: cheese, ice cream, (especially if it has chocolate in it) cream, half and half and any other cheese related product.

14.  Parsonage or have your own home? we own our own home.  our church did not have a parsonage when we moved here.  although not having a house payment would be nice, i hear that parsonages are not all their cracked up to be, either.

15.  Freak when the doorbell rings or always ready for a visitor? almost always ready for a visitor.  i don’t mind a mild mess, and if its terribly messy, we’re probably in the middle of a large project.  i like my home tidy and keep up with it pretty well.

sunday school: all you need is love and other clichés

about six years ago (this goes waaaay back) i was asked to teach a sunday school lesson for the women’s sunday school class.  (shudder.)  being that i was only about 24, and not really anyone liked me, i am sure the reason i was chosen was because everybody else on the list had declined.  it also could have been that i proudly wore a “i read my bible cover to cover 17 times while attending mbi” and waved my diploma from moody bible institute around like a membership card to michelle obama’s “awesomely dressed” club.  i don’t know.

at any rate, i was asked to speak on “evangelism,” a word that generally sends shivers down my spine.  every time i hear this word, i think of street preachers in navy blue suits or clean cut bible school students wearing pleated khakis and ankle length jean skirts.  with them, they have a giant pad of white paper on an easel with large valleys and crosses as bridges scrawled on them in bright red sharpie.  and maybe the words “turn or burn” written across the top of the page in squiggly fire font.

i don’t really know much about sharing the four spiritual laws with anyone- i wondered why they gave me this topic.  i know a lot more about inner city schools, the dcfs, and humanitarian aid.  however, my 20-something mind figured that if they asked me, they figured i was the best one to speak on the subject.  so, i said i would do it and make myself look like an aficionado as opposed to politely declining.

i realized i had a lot of studying to do if i was going to pull this off.  first of all, i realized that there are not many examples of people with dry erase boards in the bible, or cross-shaped bridges, or any mention of the four spiritual laws.  there were no references to a god shaped vacuum.   there were, however, more lessons on love than i could possibly count.  take these for example:

1 john 4:6-8 dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from god. everyone who loves has been born of god and knows god. whoever does not love does not know god, because god is love.

1 peter 4:7-9 above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

1 john 3:13-15 we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. anyone who does not love remains in death.  anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

1 corinthians 13:1-3 if i speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, i am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. if i have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, i am nothing. if i give all i possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, i gain nothing.

these were just a few of the myriad of verses i came across when i started studying.  even though my thoughts were in their beginning stages and still a little rough, i was starting to get the idea way back then.  i remember stating to the class that this love thing starts with each other.  “if we can’t love one another, who would ever want to join in with us?  it starts here,” i said.  this was met with lots of chirping crickets.  i think they were wondering where my white board was.

finally one woman spoke up.

“love, love, love,” she stated.  “it didn’t work for the hippies, why should it work for us?”

i don’t know, maybe they had the wrong love/acid/elicit sex ratios.

i struggle to love like christ loved.  but i am a student of jesus, and if it takes my whole life to learn, so be it.  i am not perfect, but as it states in 1 peter 4:8, love also covers a multitude of sins, mine included.

oh, and if you were wondering, this woman no longer attends our church.  i think she wanted to find a church that teaches white board techniques on getting people saved.

manic moms

last week my friend jerry, who’s wife is expecting a baby any time now, was completely overwhelmed at the current state of his home.  “i feel guilty,” he said.  “all the stuff i have to do is inducing so much guilt!”

now if this sounds weird coming out of a man’s mouth, you must realize that jerry is a stay at home dad.  his wife works, and he is the full time, 100% on the ball, make all the meals, sign all the permission slips, make and take the kids to all appointments stay at home dad.

i know how he feels.  i had my life down to a pretty manageable science before vienne came along, but adding another person to our lives, not to mention our living space, has taken considerable time and energy.  i love her to death, and babies are some of the loveliest reasons to rearrange your life.

at any rate, we got to talking about keeping your life sane, and your home tidy.  i feel like i have gotten to the point in my life where my home is, for the most part, clean and tidy.  there are days when things explode and unravel.  but i can, within about a day, get a complete handle on it again.  it has taken a long time to find a system that works for me.  my life can be completely chaotic.

there are people that can devote entire days per week to cleaning.  i found that this does not work for me, because just when i get an entire day to devote to a week’s worth of cleaning, a disaster occurs and i have to attend to said disaster.

i have also tried making lists, (i forget i made them) setting priorities, (everything is a priority) just “doing stuff,” (like checking out thesuperficial.com or watching what not to wear on tlc) trying the fly lady, (no more emails!  please!) none of which had any lasting effects on my home.  i finally came across something called “motivated moms” and its made all the difference.  (my friend lindsay calls in manic moms.  ok, maybe she’s a little right.)

here’s how it works.  each day you have daily jobs, and rotating jobs.  the daily jobs are just that, daily.  they consist of things that should be done on a daily basis like sweeping the kitchen floor, doing dishes, wiping out bathroom sinks, and so forth.  the rotating jobs are ones that turn up every week or so.  they are things like, cleaning toilets or paying bills.  some of these jobs take no more than a few seconds, (taking vitamins) but none of them should take more than a half an hour (spending a half an hour on a clutter spot.)

the beauty of this program is that you don’t have to do anything but what the list says.  i don’t have to come up with a plan because it has already been planned out for me.  and if i miss a day, which sometimes happens, i know those jobs will come around soon.  most of the jobs are fast enough, that if i miss one, i can add it to the next day without overloading myself.

the best thing about this, well besides the clean house, is the fact that i don’t stress about my home as much anymore.  i don’t have to do the ritual “oh crap the inlaws are coming shake down” because my home is most often in a state of calm and cleanliness.  it is nice not to have a 10 hour “cleaning day” but also not have to devote tons of time each day to cleaning either.

www.motivatedmoms.com

free birthing?

i am a little annoyed, and its not because i got stung by a hornet in the bottom of my foot on the way home from central elementary yesterday.  there are a couple other things that are making me a little irritated.

i get really tired of people who demean stay at home moms.  we work really hard, and make really big sacrifices for our families.  we believe that by staying at home, and forgoing extra monetary income, we create richer lives for our children.  i don’t want a bunch of hate mail from work outside the home moms, i know you bust your butts too, i just want to encourage the moms (dads) who DO stay at home.  high five, you’re doing a great job.  here’s to all the nice things we forgo to be able to wave to our kids from the front porch as they come home from school.  and enjoy it.  your job description won’t contain the words “hannah montana” or “making cookies” forever.

but i digress.  the thing that has me most riled up was a piece i saw on the today show (clicky: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/32795933#32795933) yesterday.  they started out by saying there is a “new trend” among moms to birth at home, without doctors or drugs.  this piqued my interest a little because i have recently heard a lot about a new trend called “free birthing,” where you give birth at home alone, or with whoever happens to be sitting on the other end of the couch at the time your newborn pokes its head into the world.  these ladies are nut jobs, in my opinion, i mean, even cave women had a cave neighbor with a deerhide ready to catch a squiggly little cave baby.

a couple told their tragic story of how their own baby died when it was birthed at home.  it was so sad, mostly because their baby would have been born about a month after vienne was born.  i felt so bad, but i couldn’t help but think, newsflash, free birthing has risks.

however, as the story progressed, i discovered that the story was not about free birthing at all.  the couple had not only a midwife present, they had a midwife and her team present at this home birth.  they went on to explain that she labored at home for FOUR DAYS and went on to deliver a stillborn baby; its cord was wrapped around its neck.

as i skate nearer to the sign that says, “danger, thin ice,” i want to explain here that i realize that a baby dying is a horrible thing.  and my point is not to wave a finger at anyone’s face. (i’ll get to my point in a minute, just relax i’m setting a stage, here.)   but really, four days?  and what’s with that midwife?  while i don’t know the details of what happened, why they made the decisions that they did, it seems to me that after about, oh maybe, a day and a half, if i am STILL working on getting that baby out at home, i would demand that the scalpels be sharpened and sterilized immediately, and the hospital cafeteria food be put under heat lamps cause i’m comin’ in.

here’s where the story will take a different turn.

i was furious at the media for portraying midwives and home births in this manner.

if you want to make fun of a woman groaning naked on her jennifer converible, completely devoid of competent supervision, while in between bites of cap’n crunch her three year old screams, “WHAT’S COMING OUT OF MOMMY!?”  be my guest.  however, don’t scare women into thinking that midwives are a little more than a self taught baby catcher, and that if you want to labor in the comfort of your own home, there is something wrong with you.

women have given birth for thousands of years without so called “medical personnel” handy.  and even though i chose to have my babies in a hospital, i can completely understand why you would want to give birth at home.  (vienne was, for all intents and purposes, practically born at home anyway, but, i just like someone else to deal with the afterbirth.)

midwives are wonderful advocates for women, their  health and children, and they deliver thousands and thousands of babies safely in homes and hospitals around the world every day.  in fact, the stats say that they have less cases of infant deaths that doctors do.

i guess i just have a hard time with the media at large.  while i understand the risks of having a baby at home, i also have something called good judgement. i don’t need to be scared into thinking that all home births and midwives are bad because of the occasional tragic story.  and 9-11 was an inside job used to create pandemonium and a reason to attack afganistan. and why would you slam and entire workforce of women who’s sole goal in life is to deliver babies in the most natural and non-medicated way possible?

so matt, i guess all i can think of to say is,  just don’t be so glib, ok?