Prayer request

I'm writing twice in one day! This is a new record!

Anyway, I received an upsetting (and encouraging) email from a family member today. She(Kathy) was writing to ask for recommendations on how to write a blog detailing her daughter's progress.

I went to high school with this young girl, Jenny, and was a couple of years older than her. In fact, her sister was in my class! Now, she has become extended family, a daughter of my mother-in-law's cousin. She has a 19-month-old son, Tyler.

She just found out this last week that she has breast cancer. She is scheduled to see a surgeon specializing in breast cancer removal/treatment, but the treatment path is yet unknown.

In Kathy's email to me, I was so blessed to read the firm faith this woman has in a faithful, loving God. They are trusting God for his support, his provision. They are trusting in him. I can't imagine the battle with the unknowns. It seems to me that this would be where the enemy would wage his war; but, as I read her message, I was struck by this statement (and I quote): "But God is Great. He has been holding our hands every step of the way." Wow.

I am writing to ask for your prayers. Even if you breathe up one more prayer, it will be one more that God will hear on her behalf.

Some of you have faced cancer. Some of you have witnessed it in a family member. I feel as if you may be able to pray in ways of understanding that others would not.

Thanks in advance for being amazing people who are willing to pray!

My blog title

A quick history, and a story that makes me chuckle:

Every girl wants to have a song written for her. And, here's a tip: if you aren't a really good writer and your poetry resembles a haphazard assemblage of words that rhyme, then it's best to stick with making up nonsense songs. These, if done with the right amount of flair, can be heart-warming, treasured, and completely endearing.

The title of my blog means something. One my favorite things for my dad to call me is "Maresy Dotes". My whole life, my dad would randomly say/sing to me,

Maresy Dotes
and Dosey Dotes
and Little Lambsey Divey...

The humor in all of this was that my whole life, until I was 23-ish, I thought this was some special song my dad made up just for me, and I loved it. Most people I'm really close to call me "Mare" for short, and so I just assumed my dad, in a creative outburst, produced this high-talent precious song. **Swoon**

Well, one day as I was playing with my now sister-in-law's children, I sang this song to my niece. My sister-in-law turned and asked me to repeat myself. I sang it again, with flair. Laughing, she sang it back to me, slowly, deliberately, enunciating each word:

Mares eat oats
and Does eat oats
and Little lambs eat ivy

Okay, I had two thoughts:
First, what the heck - I thought my dad made up that song? and -
Second, what the heck - she is singing it all wrong. It is not about mares and lambs eating ivy. What the heck?

Then, it occurred to me - my dad has been singing it to me all wrong, all along. And, it isn't a song just for me, written for me, sung for me. It's a song about animals. And what they eat. Random animals. Animals who don't normally associate with each other. Mares and does and lambs. What the heck?

And, as if it couldn't get any better: this past Christmas, while playing cards at my parents' house, I asked them if they read my blog. My dad's reply was, "YES! I read your blog! And, I love your title, Maresy Dotes!"

Um, okay, dad? Sing that song for me... Please.

Um, dad?

Did you know that it's really mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy????

Apparently, he did not.

So, I don't feel entirely bad that it took me until I was 23 to figure out that that song has nothing to do with me because it took my dad 62 years to figure this out. He thinks he made it up for me! Wow. I feel better, but still prefer my dad's version, which, in my opinion, will always be the right version!

Kudos to you all!

Love,
Maresy Dotes

reflective

When I was in college, so many of my psych classes talked about how, in your 30s, you realize the mortality of life. Man, this is true. Every death is hitting me hard. On some days, I feel like I'm burdened under the weight of it. I sit silent, thinking of exact, precise moments of memory I have of them. My uncle. Brian's grandmother. My grandfather. Friends that are gone. You feel invincible until you are sucker-punched in the gut with a loss, and then you grapple with what remains. You grapple with "what if's". You grapple with how your very own life would change if you'd encounter death in your very own household. You pray prayers petitioning "never". Oy.

Today, I am just sad. I am just missing people. I watch my very own kids, and I'm so thankful for them. They provide a diversion, a distraction. Shoes need to be tied, double knotted, actually; faces need to be wiped; babies needed to be pushed in swings and reminded to go down feet first FEET FIRST!!! down the slide; the floor under the kitchen table needs to be wiped up, and then wiped up again (and again). Life marches on, but those lives were here at one point. At some point, Brian's grandmother was young and full of life and was a mommy to little kids. At some point, her laughter filled a room and there were no thoughts of it ever being gone.

Brian's mom once told me that grandma said to her, whispering, privately, "You know, I have never felt old. Even now, even in my 70s, I still feel like a young girl. Like, when did this all happen? When did life happen? How is it that my kids are grown and I'm old?"

I think about this frequently, and try to invocate inspiration to relish my time here. But, usually it just leaves me sad - that someday, I will be gone, too. That these early days with my kids will pass, and there will be no more shoes to tie, teeth to brush, swings to push, or floors to wipe.

I am in my 30s, and boy, am I grappling with mortality in a major way. My psych classes were spot on.

To Tell or Not To Tell the Truth: That is the question

You know, the other day, my daughter "corrected" me as I was making a return at Target. I told the cashier that my daughter had cut the tags off the shirt before she had a chance to try it on. This wasn't entirely true, but the truth happened in the fever of our morning routine and getting ready for school. In truth, I had cut off the tags in the midst of changing my toddler's disgusting night-long diaper, and I didn't recall exactly the cutting-tags-off-a-shirt part of it (wow - interesting, here: Soph could probably come up to me, ask me to sign something in the harried craze of me getting Mak dressed, and I would probably do it with out thinking... scary.). Sophia corrected me in front of the cashier, refusing to be blamed for the premature removal of the tags, because that would be not true. That would be a lie. In the glaze of the morning, I had forgotten the small details. But, in my push for her telling the truth, and in my enforcing of its importance, she reminded me to tell it, myself. She gracefully pointed out that she is NOT allowed to play with scissors; she is NOT allowed to cut tags off clothes without asking me first; she did NOT break the rules, because she came to me, asked me to do it. As much as I turned around, shushed her, she was persistent. She chased the truth, was unafraid of being heard. She didn't mumble, but she was also not disrespectful. She simply wanted to see that I understood the truth, reality. She didn't think of my embarrassment, she only thought of the fact that I have taught her, diligently, to *always* tell the truth.

I now know that this world has a metric system of rating lies - white lies being benign, maybe functionally necessary to preserve your (??) innocence or character, used sparingly or (??) not, all the while being distortions of the truth; half-truths cover details that could hurt - we justify these with the thought that ommission isn't a lie, isn't being dishonest, it's being KIND because we're thinking of someone else's feelings; true lies being complete fabrications are just the fantastical imaginations that someone believes are reality - and like a web, we do get tangled, because they lose their crisp details the more we tell them. But this rating system - is it necessary? Isn't a lie inherent in its nature just as being pregnant is? Isn't a lie, even in its "white" form still a lie? Isn't any version of the truth other than the real version a lie? Why do we rate them? Is it so that our consciences can bear the weight of our indiscretions and we won't crumble underneath them?

My reminder today is to live my life as a memoir to telling the truth. That, if I want my children to be honest and possess integrity, it is not my words that will penetrate their choices: it is my choices that will influence theirs. Sometimes the truth hurts, but so does life. Perhaps a healthy way of learning how to deal with disappointment is first with dealing with the truth at all costs. Either way, we'll all have our chance at this at some point in our life. Because, even though a lie seeks to hide the truth, there are just some situations we cannot avoid or hide from. They hurt, they sting, they are unavoidable, they are our reality. They are our truth.

Very Lumpy Boy

Today, Mak walks up to me and says, "hold me". I cannot resist. Compulsively, I will almost always pick him up when he says this. Many a' time I've found myself on the phone, making dinner, holding Mak. And, it is always at this time that I wonder, "what in the world am I doing holding this kid? He's big. He's heavy. I'm busy. My hands are already full." Anywhoo, and I digress..

So, today, his request came while I was sitting on the potty. Yes - he was sitting in my lap, while I was doing the business. I'm sure he was thinking, "Oh look-y! Mom is bored! She's just sitting there! Unoccupied! Bored! I will go and give her something to do. It is my job to give her something to do. It is my duty to give her something to do." Anywhoo, and I digress...

I swoop up my boy, who nestles against me. I rub his back and hit an obstacle. A large lump in the small of his back. A three inch by three inch pile of whoknowswhat.

I realize that the lump is made up of smaller lumps. I move the stuff around and ask him what all that stuff is. His response is, "I no no".

I reach through the neck-opening of his onesie, down his back, and piled up and wedged against the top of his diaper is this:

Two shapes from his shape sorter: an orange star and a green circle;
A magnetic letter L from our LeapFrog alphabet toy on the fridge;
A green Matchbox van, metal and heavy;
A felt Pink Panther magnet.

He did not put these into his onesie. I doubt the boy who struggles with shape puzzles would be able to human-gumbie these toys in through the neckhole and down his back.

No.... this was a doing of a big sister. Soph has done this before, but bless his little heart, we've missed it until we were changing him for bedtime. Thankfully, this pile of stuff was only in there about 30 minutes. And, bless his little heart, not a bit of complaining came out of him. No crying. He's a trooper.

But, we'll save the next toy pileup for the toy box.

Note to self: lecture Sophia about appropriate toy placement when I ask her to "clean up the toys".