BLOG HAS MOVED January 31, 2011

Hello buddies and readers and secret friends who read but never comment…shamey shamey I don’t want to go to Mexico no more, more, more, more there’s a big fat policeman at my door, door, door.

The time has arrived just like New Kids said on Step 5.

If I haven’t lost you in the past two references, I’m glad you are here to know that I have moved to a domain. This page won’t disappear so if you forget the new domain, you can come here for redirection. For that matter, if you can’t remember the new address when you are referring someone here, just guide them to this page and they will find their way home like big hardy dogs.

Please follow me to:

www.the1sthundred.com =0)

See you round, kids.

January 26, 2011

Due to scheduling conflicts, I cannot sit down with my computer master to move my blog on Thursday. I’ve been trying to do it myself and I usually get part way, have to web chat customer service, ask them my questions, they answer, I don’t understand and just say thank you. It’s hard being me on a computer.  I’ve talked to George, Kacy, and Chris.  I ask real dumb questions and I tell them up front that it’s gonna be stupid, buuuuuuut I’m pretty sure they talk about me over their cubicle anyways.

I’ve been trying to move these words of mine, finish decorating the new extension of our church (for sure not going to happen in time), working on my latest craft addiction that replaces cakes, AND my old job asked me if I would come back in and train a new hire and believe it or not, I’ve been back at work. Don’t get carried away. It’s only for this week and next.  What do you think I like money or something?  Preposterous.  I like babies.  In your face.

Speaking of babies, I also forgot to add that I’m a mother to that list.

Mom is tired tonight. Not even bad American Idol auditions can save the day now.

Well, maybe.

Maybe if it’s really funny and they won’t take no for answer and just keep starting songs over and over again as if a different song is going to change the sound.  Those are funny.

Anyways, lucky for me I posted Stronger this week because, if not, this week would be a total blog sham.  Thanks to the person who subscribed last night in spite of its shame.  Also, thanks to my dad for singing Jesus music to my baby or I would’ve had nothing to say.

My life is falling apart from now until approximately Wednesday.  Alls I want is a new, shiny blog page with my own name and neat little things to look at that will make you say something fancy about it. When I finally get my new page, mail me candy and I’ll open the envelope real hard so it flies everywhere and I’ll say, “A parade for me?  Really?” 

Just consider it.

Get Your Passport Ready January 25, 2011

There are some things you will learn about your spouse only after you marry them. For example, I had no idea Lance snored and had conversations in his sleep on a regular basis until our honeymoon. Also on our honeymoon, I learned something about him that affects the way he handles minor stresses:

with a full-blown panic attack breakdown.

My first glimpse of this was when we were flying out of Mexico to go back to the states. We had
P
L
E
N
T
Y

of time but Lance was SERIOUS about getting in line with his passport ready. I remember sitting there in one of the seats at the gate watching him standing up around where they board with his passport in hand, ready and open. This was apparently a life or death situation and he could not take the chance of the pages being stuck together in his passport causing us to not be able to show his face and miss our flight.

I laughed at him then but really, I was the fool. This would be the rest of my life. We still joke about that in moments where he is, lets say, “over-reacting”. I call it “Get your passport ready” and that’s exactly what I say when he is entering his flip out mode. We even have a gesture to indicate the breakdown. All you have to do is give a big, dorky nervous smile and hold your hand up to your face as if you are holding your passport for quick and optimal identification. Even 6 1/2 years after the honeymoon, we still do this.

Last night we experienced this effect. I was on the phone (unfortunately) so my sister heard the total loss of Lance control.

He had chipped a ceramic bowl, stepped on the broken piece, and then upon trying to remove said piece, cut his finger. Sound the alarm, Lance has cut his finger!

Now what Lance would wish for me to tell you is that is wasn’t ‘a paper cut, Rebecca!’. It was a real gash.

True, and while it did bleed for about 45 minutes, worst case scenario is going to the ER to get it glued up.

I understood this so I was calm, as the situation would cause one to be. He acted as if he had severed his arm off onto the kitchen floor and here I was just a talking on the phone while he fought for his life.

Get your passports ready, please.

Because I wasn’t acting in accordance with this terrible disaster, he does what all logical people do and begins to walk around the house bleeding on to the floor, washer, sink in both the bathroom and the kitchen, hmmmmm, where else?

Of course this was because he needed a towel or something and, “I am selfish and don’t care!”

“Don’t care!!!!!” is one of my favorite things he says in times like these because he is acting like something traumatic has happened and I’m just humming a little tune to myself like it’s no big deal.

Sort of like when we went running in our neighborhood at night and he turned his ankle. I totally get that it hurts but all sympathy is lost when he sits on an electrical box and says in all teary drama, “I’ll never be able to play basketball AGAIN!” Not, “I’ll have to sit out a season. Guys, this is forever. Put the ole’ basketball shoes in a shadow box on the wall for memorial.

When that starts to happen I just completely watch him like he’s a sideshow and I can no longer take him seriously. It’s almost like the more he freaks out, the more I’m just a normal ole’ person.  This usually makes him freak out more.

The thing is, he never spazzes about things that matter or the big issues which is I guess good because I, like a normal person, do that. He’s more of the “foil got stuck to my oven pizza” explosive type.

“Lance, I want to use fertility treatments and have 14 kids.”

He would be totally calm.

“Lance, I burnt your chocolate chip cookies.”

You know what to do. Get out your passport.

Inevitably, he calms down after these ordeals and realizes that he was being a freakazoid.

I wanted to end this piece with a picture of the injury. Lance knew I was going to write a blog about it so I walked into his office and said, “I’m gonna need a picture of this.” He laughed and told me no.

I don’t know if you guys were ready to see a picture of an index finger with a band-aid on it. If you weren’t, Lance would totally understand. You could always google phrases like “cut my finger” “cut my finger with a knife” etc. like Lance did last night when I was “not caring” about the “tragedy at hand”.  I will warn you though that you may end up pulling up graphic images of hands slashed by knives which is totally not what happened to Lance.

At the end of the day, I’m just glad we pulled through.  He didn’t even get blood on his passport.  It was a good day.

Announcement January 19, 2011

I’m excited to announce that my blog will be moving to its own domain name next week! If you’re white, raise the roof or fist pound somebody. Then be ashamed. If you are black, do the Dougie and be proud. If you are Asian, do any kind of hip hop move because judging by all the dance competition shows, you could probably do that really well.

I’m super excited for years and days.

The domain will be www.the1sthundred.com and some of you have used that domain to be directed to my wordpress blog from other sites.  Now that blog will take you to my new page instead of to here.

Eventually, I hope to buy www.thefirsthundred.com but some dork domain company is selling it for 894 dollars. Basically that means that they don’t use it but want to sell it for some poor blogger or business person to buy. I have sad feelings towards them doing that. Until then, I’ll have the one I just gave you above and will probably keep both domains if I ever buy the one my heart REALLY wants.

When I move at the end of next week (or the following Monday), I’ll still be using a wordpress compatible host so not much should look different to you guys. HOWEVER, I will have more bells and whistles with the new site. Yesssssss!  Hopefully some things will look different.

I decided that this is my year to start making baby steps to make my blog even better and dare I say, money-making. Making this move will allow me to monetize my site which makes my wallet say thank you.

If you forget that I’ve moved, it’s okay because although there won’t be new posts on this page, there will be a final post on the top of the page with a link, telling you I’ve moved.

I am my hero. Also, my brother-in-law who is computer savvy and helping me do all this. He is before me in hero-ship.

Get excited.

Ann Wade Parrish Photography- Shelly’s Wedding January 18, 2011

Stronger January 16, 2011

I run in just a little late like I always do these days after having a baby. I hand Eden off to my dad. He smiles, admiring her face while she excitedly reaches for his styrofoam cup. Leave it to babies to like cups, spoons, and paper more than toys.

I quickly walk up to the stage and take one big step up to my spot at the mic and immediately began practicing for worship with Lance singing and playing right beside me.

Nothing is any different this Sunday than all rest: always busy, familiar songs, typical practice.

I turn the page and we start to sing the song “Stronger”. It’s one of my dad’s favorites so I look up to see if he realizes that we are playing “his” song.

With the light of the sun bursting in behind him, I see the silhouette of my father, holding my daughter with her little cream tutu and leggings bulging out around his shirtsleeves.

I can’t hear him over the roar of the music and the sound of the monitors in my ears but I knew what he was doing.

With one arm holding up my child and another raised in the air, he was singing the song to her.

Their faces were just a few 6 or so inches away as he convictedly sang in his nothing fancy, holding a tune in a bucket voice. sincerely, he looked at her and she intently studied his face.

With the sound of the electric guitar, piano, and percussion behind me, the sound of my husband to the left, I couldn’t help but watch him sing those precious words to my child.

“You are stronger;
You are stronger;
Sin is broken
You have saved me
It is written
Christ has risen
Jesus you are Lord of all….”

In my predictable fashion, I couldn’t help but to well up in my eyes a bit. Between the chorus end and the next verse, I ran over to Lance’s mic to tell him to watch them on the floor.

When the chorus played again, sure enough, my dad raised his hand and sang to Eden.

I watch Lance.

He glances at me.

We both smile, thankfully, back at one another for a brief moment.

It’s hard for me to describe what it does to me to see three generations there on the church floor: me on the stage, and my dad holding his grandchild on the floor.

There was something about singing those words and watching that take place that moves me. I felt a simultaneous gratitude to God for who He is and who He gave me in my father, and then for my father and who he has been to me and is being to my child some 28 years after I was born to him.

I felt an intense feeling of being rescued by the grace of God in my life both spiritually and the earthly grace I had to be raised the way I was. When I was just a little baby like my daughter with no choice or control in the world of who would take care of me, he gave me my parents.

It was another one of those moments in my life where I’m standing in the middle of the result of my parent’s faithfulness and God’s provision.

When he is gone, I will remember him in that mid-morning light singing God’s grace over my first-born on a regular Sunday morning.

Some days God’s faithfulness is apparent immediately.  Sometimes, it takes life times, and even generations to see clearly.  Three to be exact.

When that song finished, my dad and Eden ran up to me before the next song began and he said, “Some time when no one is around, I’d like for you and I to sing that song together up there.”

I smiled in a sort-of tickled way and said, “Okay”.

Eden and my dad went walking out of the sanctuary and I think to myself, “Sometimes he just doesn’t know how good of a man he is.”

As they disappeared around the corner, I’m so glad I do.

Please Break-up With Me January 13, 2011

I don’t like those ads that run down the side of a Facebook page. Number one, they look cheap. Number 2, they know your information and tailor the ads to you specifically.  I feel like they are trying to trick me.

“Are you a mom in your twenties?”
“Do you like babies?”
“Do you like eating so that you can live?”

Anything that applies to you, most likely will run as a janky ad on your page. Today, I saw the mother, father, sister, and homie of all ads.

The banner said:

SURPRISE YOUR BOYFRIEND!

Now one would think it’s something some sort of product you could by him, perhaps an iPhone or iPad. Maybe it could also be advertising entertainment, restaurants, or something you could do with him on a date.

One would think, at least.

Then at the bottom it had a picture of a baby. Now this is getting confusing.

Turns out the ad was for a site called ourbabymaker.com and you can surprise your boyfriend with a computer generated version of what your baby would look like.

There is nothing that a boyfriend wants less than for their crazy girlfriend to morph their pictures together in a computer to make a pretend baby.

I just had to laugh.

“Honey, I have a surprise for you!!!!!”

“I made our babyyyyyyy!!!”

I wish you could hear me saying that because a lot of comic relief is lost without my facial and vocal expressions.

If you want to be single at the quickest rate possible, please go to ourbabymaker.com and go on with your crazy bad self.

Your baby won’t judge you. Make-believe baby will love you unconditionally. Unlike the boyfriend you have who will make you look like a psychopath to the whole town.

So go on friend, make a freaky looking generated baby and give your boyfriend the surprise he really wants:  a picture of what his child would look like if he was crazy enough to stay with you after you make fake children on-line.

SURPRISE!

Disclaimer:  It is okay to make computer babies if both parites are conscenting and the baby is NOT a surprise.  Jillian’s could possibly have a machine that will morph your faces into children or half of your face and  half  of a monkey’s face.  I probably have never done that.

A Day at a Time January 11, 2011

It hit me that in 12 weeks Eden will be one. Really? How is that possible? People always tell you that time will fly but it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. What happened to time? I’ve had years of my life go faster than others but this is so fast that it’s disorienting. I have NO CLUE where time went. More than that, I don’t know what makes time so different now. Is it because I love her so much and enjoy being her mom so much that is zooms by? Is it because she is always changing so much that I can’t stay on top of how much time is passing? Is it because I don’t have a job-job anymore so I don’t look at dates so time just gets away from me? I don’t know what is happening.

My mom and I talked a lot about it this morning. She says it’s because I’ve never been so invested in something before as you do when you’re a mom. She says it’s because you are savoring every moment. She’s right. Every day I can’t believe who she is and who she is becoming. A week in baby time, definitely two weeks, makes all the difference in baby world. If a skill isn’t mastered in one week, the following week will have major improvements. One week they are learning to sit up and then a few months later your daughter is sitting on the table in her Bumbo mimicking you telling her no and she’s trying to say it! Who is this wonder, genius baby?

I think sometimes about how much I love her and how she won’t remember these precious times we spent together and it makes me sad. I feel like these days won’t matter as much to her as they did to me. I just want her to know how much I loved her, spent time with her, did anything to make her laugh, anything to makes things special for her and I know some day she will….. when she’s a parent.

You really can’t explain a parent’s love. You can’t understand it until you’ve looked at your child and you cherish even the sticky up hair on her head so much that you feel sad when it starts to lay flat. Where is my little fuzzy headed baby going one week at a time? It bittersweetly breaks my heart to see this tiny, rolly polly baby waving spoons above her head on the floor to look at her and I think, “I love you so much and one day, I’ll never see this baby again.” It may sound dramatic but something about knowing almost a year has passed without me even knowing it has made me so sad to think/feel these things. And when I say I’ll never see this baby again, I’m not talking about some exaggeration about when she leaves home. I’m being literal in that one day she will be 5 and I will never have this baby back. It’s the most quickly fleeting joy to have her as a baby. I’m gonna miss this little person one day.

Here I am talking like this and she doesn’t even talk or walk yet. I hear ya.  I guess seeing how these first 8 or so months have vanished makes me certain that those next milestones will come and go before I know it. Well, hopefully they won’t ‘go’ because I kind of dream of her being able to walk and talk her whole life.

In the stage I’m in now, it is so hard to look forward and see it all clearly. As stupid as I always thought it sounded when other people said it, and as much as it pains me to say out loud, I’m having a hard time seeing how I could love another child as much as Eden. Sounds sooooooo dumb.  I’m having a difficult time conceiving a lot of things about parenting and that, hypocritically, is one of them.

I read this quote on a new mom’s facebook page yesterday.

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, your bankroll smaller, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.”

Not only is Eden worth living for but she makes me feel like I just started to really live.  I am honored to be her mother and I love who she is every day.  I’m just sad you lose them little by little in the process.

Planted January 9, 2011

I never dreamed I would be a pastor’s wife. Some girls I know prayed that they would be but that was not what I was praying. Not that there is anything wrong with it but it’s not something I was seeking or pictured myself as when I was in college. When Lance first told me he was going to be in the ministry, I was singing in Nashville and pursuing that professionally with a nice offer on the table. He said he was going to do youth ministry and I was like, “Hold up!” How would that work? I would be singing and you just tell the church, that sorry I couldn’t be there because I had some tunes to sing…..

It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t a fit.

Obviously, things worked out but me, a pastor’s wife? I never really saw myself with 3 foot long hair, wearing crocheted sweaters with doves embroidered on the front.

Wait, I’m not done.

….with a white turtleneck underneath and a long denim skirt with a seam that runs up the middle.

One more thing….

With with white ankle socks folded down with chunky brown clogs that make my skirt too short.

Still, minus all the deep south Baptist stereotyped attire, I find myself a pastor’s wife. Oddly, but to God, purposefully, it all makes sense.

When I look at my gifts, it makes so much sense to me that I’m in this church with this man. I sing. We needed musical folks as a new church. I counsel. Not sure of a skill much more helpful in the church. I even decorate which seems weird to be used at a church but not when your church is in the new stages and under construction. We moved into a shopping center so it needed “a little transformation”.

I always been compassionate loved helping the down and out and where is our church? In the projects.  

I have always said I should’ve been a black woman because I love black people and their culture so much. I know, I know, black people are just like us…. except they are better atheletes most of the time and my favorite, better singers. I LOVE the soulful african american voice. Sing to me Beyonce! Yoddle to me, Jasmine Sullivan. Vocalize sweet melodies, Alicia Keyes. Yall know what I mean. You feel me.

I get to be in such a diverse community with all sorts of races and cultures. It’s like a little concentrated melting pot and I adore it.

More than any other church I’ve been a part of, it’s a joy for me to be there. It’s authentic. Sincere. There is such a missional purpose to everything done and I thoroughly enjoy it there.

I was just sitting there this morning, listening to my husband preach an excellent sermon and thinking, “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be and exactly where Lance is supposed to be.” It’s a good feeling because a lot of our lives we spend longing for something else but in this, I know this is where I’ve been planted and I’m content.

Two years ago this month, a small group of people started a church in an unconventional way in the small projects of my hometown. I look at around our church of African refugees, retired missionaries in their 70′s, college students, young families, even homeless people at times, and I know that everything God has given me and equipped me with my whole life has been for such a time as this,  for these people for God’s church.

In a 5 thousand square foot corner space of shopping center off a Kentucky highway…..

I was made for this.

Who works harder, men or women? January 6, 2011

There are two ways to really get to know someone: marry them and then have children with them. In some ways, it brings out the truest colors you will ever see of your other half.

Having a baby will either strengthen or destroy your marriage, or so my father says. I think he is right. One of the common times for divorce is not only when you first have kids, but also, when they leave and the nest is empty. The stress of children coming into your life impacts your marriage and totally redefines both your lives and, for many, that redefinition becomes about you and the kids and less about each other which leaves two strangers in the house together when the kids hit the road.

As a new mom, I naturally end up talking to other moms and I think the issue with most new families is the same thing from one couple to the next and it’s a BIG issue. It seems that the song everyone is singing is a two-part harmony. The lassie is singing that “he never helps me or doesn’t help enough” while the lad is singing “I work all day, I’m tired”. I think this has been a hit song since about 1400.

Luckily for me, I find myself on the good side of this story. My husband is wonderful at helping me out, although we both have our moments of pointing the finger at the other when we are tired. Sometimes this isn’t with words but certain glances or sighs when the baby cries and we both feel like it’s the “others” turn.  You know what I mean.  If you have kids, I’m positive you do.

BUT even though he’s great, I am still human and I have definitely felt like most women when I have those days that I feel like I do it mostly on my own.

I don’t work outside the home so I can’t speak for working moms but this is how a lot of stay-at-homers feel….

Our job is 24/7 and even when we leave ‘the office’ our office comes with us. Most of the time, getting out of the office is more stressful because it requires packing up the entire building and if the building gets out-of-order in the middle of a trip to the grocery, well….it can get ugly. Price check on anxiety pills aisle 3.

Lance and I recently had a real fast exchange of words about feeling like we never get breaks. He said to me that his job is stressful and non-stop. I totally agree and really, really, really appreciate that he works so hard so that I can stay at home with our daughter. But since we were one upping each other, that was beside the point… =0)

I said, “The day you carry your boss around with you all day on your hip and he cries and demands everything from you that very instance, then we will talk.”  Also he needs to poop his pants and play with baby musical toys all day long to add to that list.  Think you are going crazy at work?  Add add the ABC’s over top of your most stressful moment.  Ah, what a sweet melody.

It sounded like it was a serious argument but really it was lighthearted. I hate even typing stuff like that because it makes parenting and Eden herself seem like a burden but we love her and I want to spend all my time with her sometimes even if I feel like I need a break and that’s true for us both. Even in the moments when neither of us feels like going to get her when she cries, when she enters the room and starts smiling, all of the frustration sort of drifts away. At least until she fusses again…. ;0)

Still, I don’t care how much you love each other or how much you love your baby, at some point or at many points, the old familiar tune of who works harder or who is more tired starts to play.

Let me tell you what Lance and I have learned in this 8 1/2 months.

He works like a dog and he’s tired.

I work like a dog and I’m tired.

When that argument or thought comes up, here’s the universal deal: YOU ARE BOTH EXHAUSTED! And exhausted is exhausted no matter which way you cut it and since you can both relate, that is why you have to do it as a team. Parenting isn’t a one-man game and I pity the people who find themselves married but doing it all alone. If you can both do it together then you can both share the load rather than one person going way over their limit and then becoming useless in both areas of parenting and in being a spouse.

A spouse who is forced to carry the load alone is someone who is secretly heaping fault after fault of their spouse on top of each other building one serious case of bitterness towards their partner. This can and does destroy a marriage.

They argument should never be who works harder.  The whole premise of that argument is selfish because it’s saying, my time and need for a break outweighs yours.  If you are being a selfless spouse, when you and your partner find yourselves pooped on the couch together that’s where you should find yourself working together too out of love for your family and each other.

If you cook, he cleans.

You do the dishes while he folds a load.

He bathes the baby and you feed her dinner.

I heard my sister-in-law say that if my brother gives her a break with time out of the house on her own, when she gets home, it’s still team work and not one person taking on all the responsibility to make-up for having personal free-time.  If you do the whole ‘It’s all you now’ attitude then you will start to dread your break because you know you will have to pay by working overtime when you get home.  Team work works all times, in all situations.  I think this attitude and way of helping your spouse and your family actually creates within you to want to out help your partner. 

This is just how it works, folks.  It’s a practical way to love not just your spouse but your whole family.  You are teaching a silent but loud message to your kids this way too.  Living your life this way in your family breeds feelings of love from the wife and brews respect up for her husband.  At the end of the day, your partner’s needs are met and your kid’s  needs simultaneously.  It kills a lot of arguments to just support each other and be the active player in your family’s life like you should be, anyways.  

Dads:  You don’t want to check out when you get home because your job has been so tiring because only having the interest in spending time with your kids on the weekends means you only get to spend real-time with them 144 days a year out of the full 365.  Your time is short anyways and most dads have, at best, 3 or 4 hours with their children when they get home.  Your bonding time with them as children is reading the books, bathing them, feeding them, etc.  That is how you bond.  Hopefully you miss your kids during the day and see it as a joy to get the privilege of coming home to them.  When they are older they won’t care how tired you were.  They will just know you weren’t involved.  They grow-up one missed day at a time.

Furthermore, love your wife by caring for her and making her job feel important.  Love your wife so your kids will know how to love their spouses and be able to see how a man should love a woman when they make their choice in a partner one day.  When you miss out on your kids because you’ve had a long day.  Someone has to take care of them so your wife will end up doing it solo.  Then, you miss out on them both.  Be what you are:  a family.

Moms:  Trust your husband to care for your kids when he wants to and don’t criticize his efforts.  Even if he leaves poop on the baby changer and the wipes open.  I’m being such a hypocrite right now but I know I’m wrong for doing that to him. 

Staying at home is hard and it’s easy to think you are spending a lot of time with your child because you are physically present but that isn’t always the case.

It’s easy to give your child things to entertain them rather than being engaged with them.  You can be living for your child’s next nap or your next break and doing everything you can to make your day easier and in the midst of that, not be intentional in investing in your child.

You too can be so tired that you are checking out so it’s not specifically a man’s problem.

Both men and women can be MIA due to exhaustion.  Basically, you have to both be intentional in loving each other, loving your children, and working together.  As contrary to popular culture as it may be, love only occasionally comes easy.  The rest is work. 

So, who does really work harder, men or women?

If you are asking that question, you’ve already decided that it’s you that wins this argument.  I challenge you to not ask who works harder but value that you both do and get to workin’! 

Together.