motherhood

Meet Bill and Ted, my Premature Furry Babies!

lindseygendke3 Comments
2013-10-05 01.12.55
For “baby” names, we wanted something simple and symbolic–a dynamic duo. I think Bill and Ted was an excellent choice, don’t you?

When we decided to have a baby, I didn’t plan on getting two puppies with the deal. Alas, my house is filling up with testosterone faster than I can keep up!

Ever since our dachshund, Hope, died last December, my husband has been bringing up the subject of more dogs…and when my brother-in-law found these two darlings abandoned on the side of the road last week, well, all signs pointed to our house.

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Bill is the white one, Ted, the black one. If you’ve seen the movie, though, you might have guessed that!

I was initially hesitant to get more dogs, because I knew I’d be the primary caregiver. I knew we’d get more dogs at some point, but I wanted to guard my last few months of freedom before baby. However, I’ve discovered my life is not my own anymore (never was, it turns out), and God is preparing me for motherhood by way of these puppies.

Some life changes I’ve had to make are:

  • Getting up in the middle of the night for potty breaks. Of course, I have already been doing this frequently for awhile, but the pups make it a little less easy to just flop back into bed.
  • Getting up earlier for “feedings.”
  • Putting up baby gates.
  • Cleaning up poop and pee.
  • Having to make arrangements every time I leave the house.
  • Worrying all the time what the “babies” are doing; trying to keep them in my sight.

I know there are some larger spiritual applications to all this motherhood training, but today I may be in too much of a hurry to see them. You see, it’s almost noon, and I haven’t even gotten down to the business of working on my memoir yet. As I thought about how my morning had gone so far, I realized I could either get frustrated that I hadn’t gotten any “work” done yet, or I could change my expectations for myself, because—hello—my life is changing pretty drastically.

I could choose to see my day so far as worthless because I haven’t yet  worked on my profession, or I could choose to see what I’d done as worthwhile because I am a wife and mother taking care of her household.

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Bill and Ted are interested in whatever we are doing, especially if it involves food!

Since getting up, I have fed the puppies; spent much needed time with the Lord; knocked on the doors of two neighbors trying to get to the bottom of two large (and scary-looking) dogs that wandered into my backyard this morning (protecting both my puppies and the neighborhood); baked a loaf of banana bread for my college-age niece who stays over on Tuesday nights; and I have put ingredients in the bread maker for French bread for my husband, who told me he wanted a spaghetti dinner tonight.

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Although they like to fight, Bill and Ted still aren’t too “grown up” to show one another affection. I love it when they sleep like this!

I have never really defined myself as a homemaker—I haven’t wanted to be the one who stays home and sees to it that everyone else is fed and clothed and clean and sane for their careers, because I wanted to have my own career. I still want to. I want to be a writer and a teacher, just like I’m doing (with more or less success, depending on the day). But the Lord is teaching me it’s okay if some of my days are spent doing homemaking things instead of career-building things. In fact, I know that the homemaking is probably ultimately more important. How quickly I forget that if there’s not happiness in the home, life is dismal. My home was unhappy, my life dismal, for too many years growing up, and because of my beautiful marriage today, I sometimes take for granted that a happy home is well worth the investment.

But each day I’m learning to take a little more joy in the simple things: puppies, babies, sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows…you get the picture! I continue to thank the Lord that he is straightening out my priorities, and my roles. Now, if I can just figure out how to balance them all!

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So far Bill seems to be Buc’s dog and Ted, my dog. Bill is more laid back, while Ted has a hard time sitting still (and a temper that flares up sometimes at Bill)…hmmm, yes, the analogy works!

The Pregnant Post

lindseygendke8 Comments
photo-1
This is the picture we sent to our family members to break the news, but it took our seventeen-year-old niece to get it. Everyone else thought we were making a statement about what we were cooking that night!

I myself don’t like pregnant posts—which is why I won’t keep you in suspense. Yes. I am. A post about pregnancy is okay, as long as it doesn’t resort to clichés, so I’ll opt away from discussing the obvious facts of my developing condition.

I do like irony, so I’ll point out that just a few weeks ago when I posted I May Be Childless (At Least my House is Messy), I really wasn’t. But best of all, I love answered prayers, so I’ll give you these lines from my prayer journal on March 31st:

“I know I should be happy in whatever circumstance I’m in—but I guess I’d like to ask for a breakthrough of some sort: a pregnancy, a job, an acceptance letter. I feel like you work through breakthroughs, and events. You also work through hard times and drought. So any of the above could happen, or not.”

When I wrote that, I was just getting back from my Minnesota visit, and my mother-in-law had asked me if I was glad to be back, and I had lied and said yes.

Truth was, I wasn’t excited about coming back to a house that was empty most hours of the day.

I also wrote that I’d figured out why I was having such an aversion to doing housework lately: It was added “alone time” to my “already lone occupation of writing.” It used to be “alone time after people time.” Now it was “more alone time after alone time.”

At the end of that entry, I recorded that I’d gotten on my knees and heard God say, “You are worried and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful.” So I decided to rededicate myself to the Lord, again (you’ll notice I have to do that a lot—like, daily), trusting that He’d work out the rest of the details.

Over the next few weeks, I recorded hearing God direct me to write…to write about some frustrations I’d been having in certain relationships…write to be an agent of change…use my swirling emotions as fuel…and I did…until I discovered I had a solid draft of that book I’ve been wanting to publish before thirty.

As to my hatred of housework, I heard God telling me I needed an attitude adjustment. He told me I needed to “plan to stay,” as in Jeremiah 23. I needed to trust that God had put me here, to nest, with or without children. Needed to get over my looking backwards to my past. If there wasn’t going to be children, I still needed to get my house ready…for friends and others we can minister to in our home.

Next to family time, the best memories I have in my home are those times when we held our small group Bible study and our Straight 2 the Heart prayer group. God reminded me that my ministry to others (and the growing of relationships) wasn’t done. I’d been blessed with a beautiful home, and no matter the status of our fertility, the house would be used, if I didn’t get in the way.

In a nutshell, God told me, “Write, and be at home. Get comfortable at home.”

That was also the period when He opened my eyes to see all the Friends in High Places I’ve had all along.

When I realized, on May 4, that I was guilty of the sin of ungratefulness (and a bad attitude), I prayed this verse I found in Micah 7:9—“I will be patient as the Lord punishes me, for I have sinned against Him. [My punishment, I felt, was extreme feelings of guilt and uncertainty that were literally upsetting my stomach—maybe it had something to do with pregnancy, too.] But after that He will take up my case and punish my enemies for all the evil they have done to me. The Lord will bring me out of my darkness into the light, and I will see His righteousness.”

I did write. I did get more comfortable at home during those weeks. I decided, “I can do this.” And then, when I wasn’t even looking for it, last week I got the unexpected news: “You’re pregnant.”

Yes, God works both through breakthroughs, and through wilderness experiences. And even though it’s easy to say when things are going well, I’d still like to quote the Apostle Paul to say this: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Phil. 4:11). If you’re going through a dark situation today, remember it’s temporary—and the morning light may be just about to break!