How to Clip Baby's Nails in 35 Easy (!?!?!?) Steps

1. Position baby comfortably on the floor on his back with a toy to distract him.
2. Roll baby back over.
3. Start with toenails. Try giving baby a different object.
4. Clip 1/3 of one nail. Stop to
5. Roll baby back over.(lest the sudden motion cause you to snip his fingertip off)
6. Finish first nail.
7. Roll baby back over.
8. Offer a different object for distraction.
9. Repeat above pattern as many times as necessary (preferably before you extract all your own hair and eyelashes in frustration)
10. Consent to clipping nails while baby plays on tummy. Be prepared to pull baby back to you by his legs when he starts to crawl off.
11. Start on fingernails.
12. If necessary, resort to handing baby a strange baby care item of interest, i.e. a suction bulb (fondly referred to as a "booger sucker" at our house)
13. Reposition baby in favorite hold (i.e. Next to a big window with baby's legs straddling your waist and baby hanging upside down off your lap)
14. Catch baby as he pushes off your stomach and plummets head-first toward floor.
15. Recover from mini-stroke.
16. Finish first hand, start on second as baby stands while holding onto sliding glass door with other hand).
17. Watch - helplessly - as baby falls, knocking his face on the door on the way down.
18. Consider starting blood pressure medicine before baby starts walking.
19. Continue clipping, making up silly songs that have repeat baby's favorite word (Dada) often.
20. Reposition baby sitting on the floor, facing outward, between your legs. Hand him the booger-sucker.
21. Finish 10th fingernail (an average of 45 minutes from start of this endeavor).
22. Throw baby in the air to celebrate.
23. Catch baby, so as not to ruin the moment.
24. Remember you left groceries in the car before any of the above took place.
25. Take baby to the car to get groceries (so he doesn't eat & choke on fingernail pieces while you're gone).
26. On the way, mentally list steps of baby nail-cutting for numerous blog post.
27. Bring in groceries and baby, put baby on the floor to search grocery bags for treasures.
28. Begin writing down list for humorous blog post. Snicker to self, feeling clever.
29. Waken from self-absorbed reverie by a toilet lid slam.
30. Gasp. Run to bathroom.
31. Discover that baby has picked the plunger as his current toy of choice.
32. Gag.
33. Wash baby.
34. Finish list, feeling humbled and keeping an eye on baby.
35. Remember that the floor is still covered in baby fingernail and toenail pieces.

*Although this post includes a lesson I learned while nursing my son, it is by no means graphic. :-) It is also an opinion, experience-based post, not a "how-to" or "you should too." Please read, guilt-free, whoever you are.*

I always planned on nursing Elijah, from the time I found out he was coming. All the research points to health benefits of breastmilk, I didn't want to buy formula, and I certainly didn't want to suffer the disapproval of nursing gung-ho mamas.(note: this last reason is a very poor reason to breastfeed. If you are currently on the fence about it, save yourself a headache or two and don't let others opinions be a factor) To be honest, I am gung-ho about nursing myself, but I also appreciate that not everyone has the opportunity or the desire to nurse for months on end, or to nurse at all and I completely respect that. But I recently had a revelation while nursing my sweet (almost) 9-month-old this past week, and wanted to share. It's getting harder and harder to ignore the urge to write these days...my wonderful husband has been prodding and encouraging and I think it has been rubbing off...But anyway...

I guess this started with me realizing that my time spent reading the word and in focused prayer has been a little scattered. I lobby for routines for my baby because it helps him to feel established and know what's coming next and feel safe -- this has been a a good thing for our family and especially for E! -- but I had failed to establish routines for myself. I started doing some inventory and realized that I have this precious time called naptime (hallelujah praise Jesus that babies nap!!!!) and E's morning nap is a perfect time for me to have my quiet time. Because guess what? He takes a nap.every.single.morning. And if he doesn't have his nap he is a perfect little BEAR (and rightfully so). And guess what else? Without my time with Jesus I am a whole lot worse than a bear. So I started getting in to MY naptime routine. Put baby to bed, wait until I know for sure he is asleep, then take the coffee and the Word and the journal out on the porch and....

FEAST.

It has been glorious.

I feel like I am drinking in the Word. Words of life? Yes, they are. I am not usually having intense revelations of truth or huge theological breakthroughs but I bask in God's presence. And I am restored there. Journaling is so huge for me. It is a chance to expel my "emotional vomit" (yes, I am a woman, that is a thing and I have it) and maybe spare some unnecessary words from my poor husband when he gets home. :-) Aaaaaand writing is such an addiction for me, so I suppose that may be why I have started blogging again, too.

But last week I had been convicted about my tongue while reading James 2 (I can never get past that passage. Yikes, I am such a firecracker sometimes), felt refreshed and ready to go. I was thanking God for the addiction of his Word - once you taste a little bit you can't get enough...

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good..." Psalm 34:8a

Shortly after this, my sweet Elijah woke up from his nap. Rested and still a bit groggy, he smiled when I came into his room. He sat in the middle of his crib fingering his blanky absentmindedly as he beamed up at me with his sweet angel smile. As I came closer, he batted his long dark lashes at me and waved at me with his irresistible backwards wave and cooed happily. He reached up for me as I reached for him, his blanky a thing of the past. I snuggled him close and we chatted happily about his nap time and how he had slept as he briefly laid his head on my chest, then pulled away to stare sweetly in my face, then looked around the room. The busy man was waking, ready for another cycle of food and then fierce play (he doesn't mess around, my little beastling.

(*disclaimer: this is a routine, thrice-a-day happening at our house and it is THE.BEST. My job may be thankless and wearisome at times, but these special moments are what redeems all the cleaning up of pee and poop and spit-up and smashed bananas and also what make it seriously the best in the entire world*)

We walked into the living room. I checked the clock. 4 hours since his last feeding. He knew it, too. My son can tell time by his tummy. (can't we all?) We sat down on the couch, and he knew what time it was. He kicked his little feet in anticipation. The longer it took (though honestly it was about 5 seconds from sit to latch) the more antsy he got. His eyes got wider. He cooed excitedly. He leaned forward.

I offered. He accepted. (see, I told you this was NOT graphic)

As Elijah took in gulp after gulp of milk, he visibly relaxed. I saw the satisfaction on his face. I saw the contentment in his eyes as he was nourished in a place of safety and rest.

God spoke to me while I watched my baby nurse, something I have done AT LEAST 4 times a day, every single day, for the past 9 months. In that moment I instantly identified with my sweet baby who had found the craving of his tummy to be not only satisfactory but something that offered him rest and peace. There's nothing more peaceful than a baby nursing with his mama....even a wild and crazy, busy bee, crawling, pulling-up, refrigerator-shelf-climbing, power-cord-eating, loud, all-out baby (not mine, of course...) will stop for 10 minutes (15 if I'm lucky) to receive nourishment and rest during his very busy and all-important business of play. And I am the same.

I'll share a little excerpt from my journal later that day...

"I feel like Elijah when he is very hungry and I bring him to my breast to nurse. He lunges forward in eager anticipation, his mouth open wide to be filled with the milk I have to give freely - not conditionally, not grudgingly, not with anger in my heart. And when that sweet boy latches, God, his whole body tells me that he has found what he was seeking and was not disappointed. His eyes roll back into his head in peaceful satisfaction. His hands wave around in pleasure. He grunts contentedly. He sucks with a vigor that shows his hunger, but not with the intensity of one not knowing from where his next meal will come. He knows I will be there next time his tummy is hungry.
Thank you for being there for me when I need you - and even more perfectly and more willingly than I am for Elijah."

I would never deny Elijah milk in his hunger, and He knows that. He knows that I give without resentment ("What? You're hungry again? Why are you back so soon?") or inconvenience ("Well, it's not a good time for me. What about tomorrow?") or conditionally ("Well, you haven't really done enough for me today, so why should I give you what you need?"). That is psychotic. That is bad parenting.

As sad as that is, I often view God as that bad parent. I sometimes neglect time with Him because I am ashamed of the things I have done wrong and feel that I need to make myself better before I pray. In reality, God tells me in his word that I am welcome as I am and not just that but I can't clean myself up enough to make him love me. He just does. Just as I love Elijah without condition or pretense, so does God with me:

"As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust" Psalm 103:13, 14

That just makes me want to come to Him with an eagerness to be filled. He gives in love, out of the generosity of his kind heart, the truth of his Word that brings comfort and rest and peace and hope. And He gives himself. That makes me want to follow his command in Psalm 81:10 to the people of Israel. A command that comes with a promise, a beautiful, comforting promise:

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."

'Open wide' is not a very hard thing to do. A baby can does it instinctively, only seconds after exiting the mother's body. Or is it hard? To come to God 'with my mouth open wide' to be filled by Him, I need to be more like my humble, trusting, hungry baby.

Lessons in Broken Glass

I told myself when I became a mom that I would not become a "mommy blogger." I love to read mommy blogs....sometimes (other times I come away wondering why I can't be organized enough to plan my family's meals 30 days in advance and make eco-friendly laundry detergent that won't give my family all kinds of unspeakable diseases or travel across the world 13 days after giving birth. Guilt, guilt, guilt. The lesson here: read mommy blogs carefully). But I also haven't been writing lately, and my loving husband reminds me that I need to do that. We had a conversation about it this morning:

Ben (to Elijah): "Mommy is a songwriter."
Me: "I used to be."
Ben: (such a patient encourager) "She still could be. We talked about that, Honey. It's been a long time. Imagine if you were writing music NOW."
Me: (self-loathing...I'm working on this) "They would still be bad songs."
Ben: "Oh....right. Ok."
Elijah: "Ooooo, blahma?" (looks at us like we are clinically insane)

So for some reason over the past two years since I wrote my last blog post (really?) I have embraced the idea that I'm not really a good writer, of anything. Although that is neither here nor there at this point, I am writing again because a recent situation demanded it. It was one of those happenings that was laced with parallels to my life and my heart that lays deaf to truth sometimes. I guess this time it took a whole lot of broken glass to make me realize it.

I'm a mess-maker. The other week my mom and I were swapping epic mess stories on the phone, trying to beat each other out for the craziest messes we've ever cleaned up: broken glass pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge, exploded casserole dish that had been set on a hot stove eye, entire pitcher of spilled red coolaid on the kitchen floor...the list went on and on. She took the prize with an entire crockpot full of chili spilled in the car. Twice. But she's got 26 years on me. It took about 23 years for me to admit without shame that I can clumsy, but it's just a fact of my life and I'm no longer ashamed of it. I spend a lot of time cleaning up after messes that I made myself. (This is not a good problem for a mommy to have, diapers and drool and spit-up and mashed banana are enough mess themselves). My husband's family nicknamed him "Messer Uh-Oh" from the time he was a baby and didn't stop calling him that UNTIL I JOINED THE FAMILY. You get the idea. I generally don't get upset when things spill and break, because I know first-hand how horrible it feels when you accidentally make a mess and someone gets irrationally upset at you (no, it was not my mom and dad. They have always been incredibly patient with their clumsy girl). I decided early on that I would not do this to my kids.

This time it was nobody's fault. There was a vase, a heavy red-frosted glass vase, on top of my fridge. (What crazy person puts glass on top of their fridge I wish I didn't know). It must have been inching toward the edge very gradually, because nobody knocked it, nobody opened the fridge door, it just fell. We were all in the kitchen: Ben, me, Elijah. When this vase fell it hit the granite countertop first. And smashed into a billion trillion pieces. Not kidding. My sweet baby was playing on the floor not 2 feet away from where this explosion occurred. There was glass on the floor all around him, big pieces a foot away from him, smaller pieces even closer and shards on the other side of him, clear into the living room. The miraculous part is that there was not A.SINGLE.PIECE. anywhere on my baby. Not on his skin, head, clothes, inside or onto of his prosthetic helmet that he wears, NOWHERE. It was like a shield went up around him when the vase broke. Don't believe in God? Don't believe in miracles? Fine with me, but this was unexplainable. I think that I'm so in control - I plan Elijah's playtimes, I plan his meals, he eats and sleeps on a (loosely interpreted) schedule, I know when he is hungry and tired and sick and sad...but when unexpected things like this happen, I remember: I am not in control. And that is such a good thing. If it had been up to me to protect E from that vase breaking, he would have been COVERED.IN.GLASS. Praise God for his mercy and his power that overrides our reason and logic and false sense of control. How many times has He saved us from other perils without our awareness?

So anyway, although I know now that Elijah was unharmed I did not know that 2 seconds after the crash, so I did what any sane mommy would do. I screamed "My baby!", scooped him up, and turned him upside-down and inside-out to check for the slightest scratch. Meanwhile, a nice little pool of blood was collecting on the floor from my foot where a vase piece had hit me, but we dealt with that later. Important thing was under control: Elijah was unscarred, physically. Psychologically he seemed a bit perplexed because he had never heard Mommy scream before. He kept looking at me with a bewildered look on his face, even as I took him in the shower to rinse off any glass dust. I reassured and cuddled and kissed, but it took a few minutes for the shock of it all to wear off for him (poor babies, what must be going through their heads when they witness these things, especially for the first time ever. Talk about sensory overload. We don't let our baby look at screens of any kind, but a few seconds of crashing, hysterical mommy, and getting turned upside down and scrutinized all over puts all that effort to not overstimulate their brains out the window).

It took us a good 3 hours of sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and washing to get the house to a point of satisfactory cleanliness. That term takes on a whole new meaning when you have an almost 8-month-old who is crawling on his BELLY all over your hours and putting his mouth on anything and everything he can find. While we cleaned, Elijah sat in the jumper in the doorway crying because HE WANTED TO GET DOWN AND PLAY (really!?) until an unfortunate incident in which the vacuum cleaner bag blew its contents all over the place where E was playing (I said we're good at making messes, right? Did I mention we're also good at making big messes BIGGER?) banished him to the pack-n-play. (Pack-n-plays to 8-month-old boys might as well be jail)

In the midst of all the consultation over what needed to be cleaned, what did you clean already, should we vacuum this area again because I carried through a load of laundry that may or may not have been exposed to glass dust but probably everything in this house was exposed to glass dust (oh, did I also mention that I am self-diagnosed OCD and my husband is a germophobe?), my sweet baby boy continued to weep because he wanted to crawl. On the floor. Where there were hazardous particles that would endanger him. But he couldn't see them. He doesn't yet know what glass IS. All he knew is that he wanted to get OUT.OF.BABY.JAIL. and Mommy and Daddy wouldn't help him. So he cried. He cried huge crocodile tears and gave us his most pitiful looks. It made me want to cry, and the harder he begged the worse I felt, but I was not about to let him have what he wanted. Why? Because I knew what he didn't know. I knew that giving him what he wanted was going to hurt him, not satisfy his needs or make him happy. As I stood there listening to Elijah beg for freedom and washing glass-coated cookware in the kitchen sink, I felt a strong nudge from my spirit - God prompting me to think about all the times I asked him for something that He did not give and I accused Him of being unloving, unfeeling, unaware of my needs. Was I not being just as foolish as my innocent little boy who only saw his desires and not the consequences of having those desires met? (Let me clarify before I go on, I expect nothing more of my baby than exactly what he did. He's not even 8 months old. He doesn't know any better. This is an object lesson, not a weird, twisted opinion essay on why babies shouldn't cry when they want things, because THEY SHOULD. Ok.). It also made me stop and think that maybe if God had allowed those things - that failed relationship, that missed opportunity, that job that never called me back, that ministry opportunity that was going to do such great things for my faith - I would have experienced unnecessary pain or temptation or encountered situations I was not prepared for.

I guess the big picture here is that God KNOWS THINGS that I don't and that is a good thing. If I knew not just the things I was headed for but also the things I was avoiding, my little heart would not be able to handle it. I would be a nervous wreck. "You mean that man that I just passed on the street was planning to assault me?!? But you stopped him, God?!? What??? Ok, breathe, it's ok." (you get the idea) The longer I parent the more I realize that deep inside I am JUST LIKE A BABY - naïve, completely dependent, unaware of so much that is going on around me, and 100% reliant on someone who is more powerful and stronger than me. Lucky for me my "stronger than me" is actually the Strongest there is, and Elijah will have to learn some day that his parents are just people and God is who he really needs. But I am so thankful for moments and situations that remind me that I am not safe, I am not secure, and neither is my family, unless I find that in God. I can't manipulate my circumstances to make sure that my child never ever gets hurt or injured or distressed (although I will do everything with my limited power and resources to do that) but we have a God who the psalmist describes as a Rock, a Shelter, a Fortress, a Hiding Place from the hard times. This is the God whom I serve. And this is the God I want to show to my son. Even if it takes a houseful of broken glass for me to see it.