Author Archives: TickingTimeMom

Monday Mom Prayer

Posted on by

6

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the unknown mom who loves the slow moving child who stalled the bus just enough to show up a few minutes late at our stop to allow my slow moving child to catch her ride to school. Barely.

Thank you for my slow moving girl and her confidence in wearing pumpkin orange polka dotted knee socks with pink shorts. And for her desire to talk to me, at length, about how much she loves these socks, which further slowed down the slow moving girl. Thank you for shutting my mouth and letting her wear the socks. Continue reading →

Smoking in the bathroom

Posted on by

14

I’ve been meaning to write for weeks. I have needed to write for weeks. Yet the weeks have been dragging on with no tangible documentation of our current events. The truth is that life has happened.

You know, the ‘life’ part of life that leaves you feeling like you’re in a time warp. The series of weeks where you lift up your head and realize a month has passed and you’ve just been plowing through your days trying to keep your head above water. The Groundhog Day season of life where you hear the alarm and can’t remember what day it is because you’ve executed the same pattern for days on end. Shower, get kids ready, pack lunches, get to the bus, work, work, work, make dinner, head to practice, feed everyone again, showers, stories, check backpacks, goodnight kisses, get waters, listen to the final fifteen pleas to use the bathroom yet again, wash face, brush teeth, crash into bed. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Continue reading →

Surrendering August

Posted on by

51

I am certain my angst with August seemed silly to many of you. After all, every year we send kiddos to school. And every year winter arrives and is eventually followed by spring. So, why on earth would a grown woman complain about an entire stupid month.

Well……

I’ve written and rewritten this post. I’ve trashed completed drafts in my attempt to share my thoughts. I just can’t seem to get it right.

You see, my intention is to share a bit about my lifelong friend. Known to me first as Krista Anne Lutterman.

It’s a gift to have a buddy, a kindred spirit, someone to share life with. It’s an entirely different thing altogether, a priceless treasure, to have someone you can share nearly every aspect of your life with for 35 years.

I had that.

Thank you, God.

But I, and SO many others, spent August of 2012 facing down the reality that our earthly relationship with someone we cherished was about to end. Continue reading →

Don’t tell me August isn’t a four letter word.

Posted on by

12

I dread August.

What started as a journal process for my kids has turned into a bit of therapy for me, as well. Killing two birds with one stone is always welcomed in my world. In looking further into the ‘therapeutic side’ of my writing, I’m hoping my kids might one day understand me a bit better. Heck, maybe I will understand ‘me’ a bit better which will eventually help them understand me better. A storytelling snowball of sorts. And so it goes….

I will say it again. I dread August.

I despise August.

I hesitate to use the word hate since I typically reserve it for serious, severe issues. Things like heartbreak or death deserve that word. However, August now carries with it each of those for me. So perhaps I do have permission to say that I hate August.

What began decades ago as mild irritation with the month that marks the end of summer has now evolved to include the start of school, beginning of my husband’s busy season and the approach/inevitable arrival of winter. I think winter weather is stupid and should be reserved for polar bears. Those of you cold weather lovers can keep your ski gear where the sun don’t shine. Which happens to be southern Indiana anytime from November through March. (You knew what I meant…… right?!) Continue reading →

On the road again. Again. Family Vacation our style.

Posted on by

9

We were fortunate enough to get a little more beach time this summer. In a grand attempt at welcoming my newest nephew into the family, my parents, brother’s family and my family descended upon North Carolina like a plague. In visualizing which plague, I’d have to say we would be the swarm of locusts.  Loud.  And everywhere.

All in all, we had a great week. There were the usual hiccups. And some unusual hiccups.

Whoever said that “half the fun is getting there” didn’t have 13 straight hours of requests for more drinks, snacks, movies, tech time, less shade, more shade, cooler temp, warmer temp, and on and on…..

Here are a few things I learned on vacation, as well as some random thoughts. And let’s be honest, most of my thoughts are random. Continue reading →

Christmas in July 

Posted on by

6

I know many of you have apps on your phone that tell you how many weeks remain until Christmas.  Your gifts, if not already so, will be wrapped and hidden neatly in a closet before school starts. You likely already have your Christmas Eve brunch menu pinned on Pinterest.

Your ways confuse me. They are as foreign to me as the nearly naked African tribes that cover themselves in gourds.

You confuse me but secretly I admire you.  (YOU who are organized. Although I probably should admire the gourd people, as well. That ensemble looks tricky.)

Well, let it be known, you overachieving planners…..this year you’ve got nothing on me! Because I’m sending out my Christmas cards in July.  Continue reading →

The Big V and Surprise C. How a vasectomy and a c-section changed my family forever.

Posted on by

12

Friday morning….

I am crying.

Quietly.

In public.

The kind of cry that only increases as you try to stop it. The runny nose, gulping kind. The ’tissue pressed to the eyes to stop the flow’ kind. Dare I say it’s bordering on….

The ugly cry.

Thank goodness the crying is silent at the moment. Onlookers have not identified me as the emotionally unglued woman I am.

Yet. Continue reading →

I’m so not doing IT. My public admission that I simply cannot do it all. (Part 1 of 3,000)

Posted on by

8

Our family life is such a hotbed of activity (polite way of saying circus side-show) that we don’t go too long without hearing the comment, “I don’t know how you do it!”

To which I always want to respond…..

I. Am. Not.

Not doing ‘It‘ that is.

My assumption is that their definition of ‘it’ is that I possess some semblance of order in our home. Or that we manage to have a scrap of control. Or that we are raising four kids and working full time jobs and maintaining a smooth status.

To all of the aforementioned notions I give a hearty chuckle.

We are a six man wrecking crew. A family of unorthodox superheroes, if you will. “Interrupting peaceful scenes wherever they go. Leaping tall stacks of dirty laundry in a single bound. It’s a bird, a plane….no, it’s my family!!!!”

And truthfully, I’ve gained some comfort with that scenario. When things are rolling along too smoothly, I tend to get a little nervous.

Try as we might, we don’t do ‘normal’ well. It is times when we feel we have the best grip on normalcy that things quickly erode into a parenting horror film. Continue reading →

White Knuckles. My struggle to lessen the grip and control on my children.

Posted on by

2

7:55 PM

I just laid my baby boy down for bed on the eve of his first birthday.

One year. One full trip around the sun.

Wasn’t I just complaining about my back hurting from the weight of his sweet body in my belly? Did I not just meet him for the first time and contemplate… again… the utter miracle of birth and life? Did I not just clean the hospital cafeteria out of chocolate no-bake cookies in my ravenous post-partum state?!

How does this continue to happen? This breakneck speed of life that seems to occur in the early days of raising little ones. (Although I readily admit some days feel like an eternity.)

The basis for scientific time says each year contains the same amount of days, minutes, seconds as the next.**

Science is a liar.

And a jerk. Continue reading →