“mama, what if we did NOT do resting?”

Resting: take two. The second half of the series on How We Spend Our Time. Following each author’s insights, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. MaryAnn writes about resting for Sabbath. Here’s my take:

“Mama, what would happen if we did NOT do resting?”

It’s his version of the endless “why” of being three - the constant questioning, wondering, imagining, repeating, seeking to make sense of the strange world around him.

I’m trudging him upstairs for rest time, the new name for nap, the matured moniker for the oh-so-big preschooler who long ago gave up his luxurious three hours of sweet daytime sleep. My mother-in-law wisely advised me that kids should rest till kindergarten, and I take her words to heart. I can tell that he still needs to lie down and slow down each afternoon. So while his brother naps next door, he has to rest for one hour.

And this is too much to bear.

“Mama,” he whines again at the top of the staircase, “what would happen if we did NOT do resting?”

“You wouldn’t have good energy for playing,” I respond for the umpteenth time.

He’s unconvinced.

“You would probably get really cranky by dinner time.”

Still not budging.

“You might have to go bed early.”

His brow furrows.

“Mama, what would happen if we did NOT go to bed early?”

“Sweet boy, it is Time For Rest,” I declare. I usher him to bed and snuggle him in with a stack of books, closing the door quietly behind me.

But once the house is still and I sit down again at my desk, ready to flip open the laptop and get to work, I wonder about his question.

What does happen when we do not do resting?

My litany of refrains to his plodding question rings clear and true for me, too. I don’t have good energy. I get cranky. I need to go to bed early.

And yet how often I don’t rest – how often I choose the clean kitchen or the updated blog or the finished chapter or the friend’s phone call or the Hulu with the husband or any other good-in-the-moment instead of simple, standard SLEEP.

I need it. I know I need it. I remember how much better everything flows around here when I prioritize it. Yet just like prayer or exercise or eating well, I still don’t choose what I know is best.

Saint Paul summed it up centuries ago – I do not do the good I want, but what I do not want is what I do - and still it flits past my frenzied brain when the hour comes to crawl into bed. There’s always one more thing to do or read or write or organize, and next thing I know 9:00 flies into 10:00 which slides into 11:00 creeping towards midnight before I can blink my bleary eyes.

And even though the second wind felt so good when I was sailing through it – when the writing turned to flow or the movie was so funny we couldn’t turn it off or the kitchen finally sparkled clean after a week of grubby grime – I drag the next day if I don’t rest. Drag my feet and drag my energy and drag everyone else with me down a tired tunnel towards total collapse.

Every Friday night I declare this must be the weekend we catch up on sleep and start turning in early so we can be more productive come Monday. We agree, resolve anew, revisit how better everyone does when we rest.

And then Paul’s catch-22 catches up with us, and we’re doing it again – the writing or the reading or the Hulu-ing or the putzing - past midnight, past our prime, way past what we know is good for us. Wearing out the flesh in which we live; wringing out the spirit that tires within us.

What happens if we do not do resting?

If I only took a sliver of my own admonitions to heart - if I only followed my own advice and laid down my own head to nap or sleep or rest - how much better would it be? Would I stop trying to outrun my own biology and realize that I need seven straight hours like everyone else? Would I stop trying to defeat my own mortality and remember that living well means letting things go undone?

Sabbath. Sleep. Slowing down. Savoring the rhythms we were meant to live by. There’s so much truth in ancient traditions and the simple fact of being a human on a circadian cycle. When I run myself ragged, even in the name of good things, I’m defying nature and wisdom alike.

I know exactly what happens when I do not do resting. I do myself no favors.

Do you get the sleep you need? What habits do you have to rest well? What do you wish you could change?

how we spend our time: resting

Today I’m delighted to welcome Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana to the How We Spend Our Time series!

MaryAnn is pastor of Idylwood Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, VA, and the author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time.

If you’ve ever wondered how to reclaim space for rest and relaxation into the chaos of your calendar, MaryAnn’s book is the perfect place to start. She tells the story of how her family of five decided to spend a year practicing Sabbath every week, and her writing is so honest and hopeful (and even hilarious) that it made me think this radical experiment might actually be possible.

MaryAnn’s book got me thinking about the place of Sabbath in our lives – not just whether we choose to go to church on Sunday, but how we set the rhythm of our family life to focus on what’s most important. I keep feeling this nudge towards a simpler, slower way of life, so I love the idea that the choices we make to spend our time well include time for resting.

Enjoy MaryAnn’s insights on parenting and practicing time for rest!

. . .

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

That there is not enough time.

I’ve often heard (and preached) a theology of abundance, of radical “enough-ness”: the idea that God provides sufficient resources for what we truly need. I know that works for some people, but it doesn’t work for me, especially when it comes to time. It sets an impossible bar for me to reach. If there is enough time, and I didn’t get important things done (a daily occurrence), then I must have done it “wrong.” I find it much more faithful to say that there is not enough time, but there is enough grace. I call this “holy scarcity.”

But! you may argue back. God does provide! And maybe that thing you left undone, didn’t need doing. Perhaps…but often not. What parent hasn’t had the experience of letting someone down, of dropping a huge ball? It happens. But grace abounds.

I am drawn to the image of parkour, the combined sport/art form that involves running and tumbling through an urban area. (Google it if you’re not familiar!) Practitioners of parkour will encounter obstacles (a wall, a stairwell), and the trick is to move creatively and fluidly through these obstacles. There is great beauty in that process. I strive to be a practitioner of spiritual parkour.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

 

Well, my book is about Sabbath so I suppose I should say that! There’s something very freeing about knowing that each week, you will have a time to rest, play, relax and recharge. It gives the busyness of our days a much more grounded perspective.

But here’s something else that’s really tactical: I am a huge believer in the Pomodoro Technique. The idea is very simple: spend a short, fixed amount of time on whatever task needs doing, take a short break of a specific length, and repeat as long as necessary. I like to work for 12 minutes and take a 3-minute break, then restart the process. I wrote the whole book this way! It gave me a way to tend to the distractions and monkey mind (Facebook, ahem) but not let them take over my life.

This is a good technique for anyone, but I find it especially helpful when I only have a short amount of time and a lot of stuff to get through. I get paralyzed by the choice of what to focus on—Pomodoro helps me get started somewhere, anywhere.

3)  What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

That children can be wonderful teachers for us.

As adults, we help them learn the language of faith, but they are not empty containers for us to fill. They already come to us with a sense of the spirit, of eternity, of the Holy. In our case, our children understood both the need for Sabbath and the joy of it.

Children are great Sabbath-keepers. Now that the year-long Sabbath experiment is over, we are still committed to the practice, although we’re not as regular as we were. But our kids will let us know if it’s been too long since we’ve had a Sabbath. They call it a lot of different names in addition to Sabbath: a pajama day, a stay-at-home day, etc. Sabbath is a day to remember that we are not God, that the world goes on without us. That’s a vulnerable but ultimately freeing realization. Children inherently get this since that’s their default state of being!

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

We have a state park about 20 minutes from our home called Mason Neck. In fact, if you watch the PBS segment about the book, you can catch a glimpse of it! We love going there every few months to walk around the woods and visit the small beach. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles there–a playground, an occasional program about eagles or other wildlife–but mostly we walk the trail along Belmont Bay, listen for bullfrogs, and draw designs in the sand using shells and old pieces of driftwood.

Having a regular place where we go often means it’s become a great “growth chart” for our kids’ development. Children who used to get tiiiiiiiiired halfway through the trail can make it all the way easily. We can go farther on our bikes as they get older. They are starting to prefer to the woods to the playground. But no matter how old they get, they all still love to play in the sand.

. . .

Your chance to read! MaryAnn and Chalice Press have generously offered a copy of Sabbath in the Suburbs to one lucky reader of Mothering Spirit. Leave a comment below before midnight CST on Saturday, June 8th, to enter the giveaway.

And be sure to connect with MaryAnn at her blog, The Blue Room!

to gather a child on your lap

What I hold on my lap defines me.

Part of the day it is a child, whichever one of my boys needs a snuggle or a story or a shoe pulled on his foot.

And part of the day it is a computer, the aptly named laptop which nestles on my knees as I work or write or (let’s be honest) waste time.

Today I’m posting at Catholic Mom about what it means to gather a child on your lap, to make space for someone smaller than you who needs your love and attention:

Holding a child on your lap means bearing the burden, the interruption and even the annoyance of all they will ask of you.

It is bending low, stopping and stooping, being weighted down by what matters most. It is opening yourself up to the love that will be demanded from you.

Parents, grandparents, godparents, teachers, caregivers, relatives and friends—we share the sacred weight of holding these least among us. When we let a child sit with us, we clear space for what matters most. We honor the gift of their presence.

We accept and embrace that they belong to us.

Click here to read the rest…

Some days I’m torn between what I hold on my lap, whether it’s two boys fighting for my attention or the back-and-forth of work-and-kids that parents know all too well.

But some days I’m simply grateful that my life is so full, that God has plopped the proverbial good measure – pressed down, shaken together, running over – into my lap.

What fills your lap these days? What do you learn from what you hold?

how we spend our time: waiting

Today I’m excited to welcome Peg Conway back to Mothering Spirit! Peg is the author of Embodying the Sacred: A Spiritual Preparation for Birth, a thoughtful guide for women who want to explore the spiritual journey of pregnancy.

Drawing from her wisdom as a mother, doula and childbirth educator, Peg’s book is full of prayers, reflections and creative activities for each trimester. She walks with mothers-to-be through pregnancy’s spiritual questions and concerns: Am I strong enough to handle labor? How will my life change once my baby is born? Who is God to me through this experience of becoming a mother?

Pregnancy is a heightened time of waiting, full of impatient expectation. But parents are always waiting for something. Waiting for babies to start sleeping in the night. Waiting for kids to start school. Waiting for teenagers to come home at curfew. Waiting for grown children to return for a visit.

Peg embraces the waiting of pregnancy as a spiritual practice. In a spring season bursting with new babies and pregnancy announcements, I’m reminded of how many people around me are preparing for parenthood through the practice of waiting. I hope you’ll enjoy Peg’s wisdom on how we spend our time as parents as much as I’ve enjoyed her writing on waiting and growing through life’s transitions.

. . .

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

As a mother of nearly grown children (two in college and one in high school), I’m especially aware that time is a gift. I’m thankful that I was home during their growing up years, though I perceive now that the motivation was as much from my needs as theirs. My own mother had died of breast cancer when I was 7 years old, and I began motherhood with a lot of unresolved grief that said, “Better be with them today — the chance might be snatched tomorrow.” By God’s grace, mothering brought deep healing and led me to a more balanced, less compulsive attachment, coupled with a healthy awareness that life is short, so important things shouldn’t be postponed.

The letting-go transitions of my present stage of parenting are teaching me further that time is a gift to be received rather than grasped. For a long while, moms with toddlers at the grocery store or a new mom nursing a baby at church made me teary with nostalgia. A lot of prayer and journaling shifted my view, to regard those earlier days as gifts I was blessed to receive; though in the past, they are still part of me. Likewise, today I savor the gift of friendship with my young adult children.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

Quite honestly, I’m not sure I have achieved this!  It took a long, long time for me to complete my book. I struggled mightily to balance priorities because I have a lot of interests and tend to underestimate how much time a particular commitment will require. My kids led busy lives too, so I was chauffeuring a lot. One practice that did help was to break down the book into smaller writing segments. This approach allowed me to be productive even during short blocks of time.

Now I really try to spend time writing at the beginning of each day, shortly after my husband and son leave for school and before checking email or Facebook or starting other tasks. My mind is most clear then, and no matter what happens the rest of the day, at least I’ve given priority to my writing. I focus on spending the time – the process – not a set number of words or pages.

3) What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

Embodying the Sacred originated with a question about faith prompted by visiting a hospice for the first time:  Why is there so much theological reflection on death and dying but not normal childbirth?  The desire to articulate the holiness of birth’s physicality just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. All I really wanted to do was write a magazine article and be done, but over time it became clear that a book was called for and that I would just have to keep at it.  Reflecting now on the whole meandering process, from first wondering to finished book, I see how the faith journey is really for the long haul.

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

The five of us have varied personalities and interests, so even when our kids were young, some of our best times all together were simply around the dinner table.  I think this evolved from very early days, when our older two were in high chairs and we began requiring that they remain at the table at least a little while past when they finished, while my husband and I continued to eat. Over the years, talking around the table became enjoyable for all. Now that we are all together much less often, dinner at home or a favorite restaurant becomes a ritual of reconnection.

. . .

Your chance to read! Peg has generously offered to give a copy of Embodying the Sacred to one lucky reader of Mothering Spirit!

Leave a comment below before midnight CST on Saturday, May 25th, to be eligible to win.

Be sure to visit Peg’s website for more of her writing or to pick up your own copy of her book – a perfect gift for any expectant mama in your life.

celebrating: take two

The second half of this new series. Following each author’s insight on How We Spend Our Time, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. Meg Cox got us thinking about celebrating. Here’s my take.

We pulled into the driveway – our new driveway! – grinning ear to ear, grimy hands on the steering wheel, the same hands that had held the pens to sign the deed on our new house an hour before.

And here we were: home.

It was a gorgeous spring day, end of April, full of sun and budding green. We spread out a blanket on our front lawn – our new lawn! – and made a picnic for dinner. No furniture was moved inside yet, so the soft grass was our table and chairs. And the meal was simple – sandwiches for a quick dinner. But it tasted delicious: a family milestone, a sacred moment of starting a new home.

So when it came time to celebrate one year in our new house, we knew exactly what we had to do. Swing by Jimmy John’s, spread the blanket on the grass, recreate our first meal. As we chewed our sandwiches while the sun set, I smiled at my husband. “We should do this every year,” I said. “To celebrate the anniversary of being here. Being home.”

This is how family traditions start: small and silly. Fast-food on the front lawn – nothing fancy. But if we do it every April, if we repeat the ritual and retell the story of the first day this house became our home, then it becomes a real celebration.

It says something about who we are and what we love. It tells a chapter in our family story.

So many celebrations are daunting prospects for parents: find the perfect presents for Christmas; create the elaborate birthday of their dreams. But I’m noticing that my favorite celebrations with my kids are the small, simple ones. The ones that spring up organically and help us mark the seasons in a special way, unique to our family.

What small celebrations do you celebrate in your family? What unique traditions did you love growing up?

. . .

We’re off to celebrate a big moment in our extended family, so I won’t be posting here for the next week while we’re celebrating together. But I’ll be back soon with the next installment in this series – a wonderful author you won’t want to miss!

And I want to wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day, whether you are celebrated for the work you do as a mom or whether you celebrate the women who have mothered you along the way.

May we all be blessed and be blessings to each other, held in the love of God’s Mothering Spirit…

how we spend our time: celebrating

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Meg Cox, author of The Book of New Family Traditions: How To Create Great Rituals for Holidays and Every Day. Her book is an irresistible treasure trove of ideas for celebrating big and small moments with kids of all ages.

Meg has gathered ideas from families of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, so no matter what your cultural or spiritual tradition, there are heaps of creative, easy, inspiring ways to celebrate and ritualize the moments that matter.

I had long eyed Meg’s book in Chinaberry’s catalog, and when I saw that the book was now revised and updated for its ten-year anniversary, I had to grab it. As soon as I finished devouring the book – dog-earing so many ideas I want to try with my kids - I knew she would be a perfect addition for this series on How We Spend Our Time.

Whether we’re planning a birthday party or wondering how to brighten up a long winter with a new family tradition, this is an important way we spend our time as parents: celebrating. Enjoy Meg’s insights on how families of all kinds celebrate life’s small and monumental moments with creativity and love:

1)     What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

Ritual time is intense time, and it doesn’t have to take a long time to mean a lot. You may spend only a half hour together at dinner, but eating together often, keeping the conversation flowing and having at least one good laugh together creates a very strong bond. I used to pack an enormous amount into 20 minutes at bedtime, including one or two stories, a prayer, and a special good night to everyone in the extended family.

2)     What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

I’ve tried very hard to work intensely while my son is at school, so I won’t be closed off, in the middle of interviews or deadline writing, when he comes home. I also try to model keeping all tech devices away from meals and family time: when we are together, we truly are, together.

3)     What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

For this and my other books about family traditions, I’ve interviewed families from many different faith backgrounds, and I think it’s extremely powerful to have one’s religious faith threaded through all sorts of daily and weekly rituals.

I interviewed a family once that tithed even when they played Monopoly: when you pass Go, you set $20 aside for charity. Now that paper money doesn’t feed a homeless person, but it sure sends a message about making sharing a constant habit.

4)     What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

There are many ways I love to spend time with my family, including summer vacations that usually include some time at the Jersey shore. We are all book-lovers, and enjoy a vacation where we can do a lot of reading.

But as my son got older, into his teens, I really learned to love spending time with him in the car, just the two of us, because it’s easier for teenagers to talk without looking a parent in the eye! This also works if you are fixing dinner together, or dyeing Easter eggs or frosting Christmas cookies, because there is a shared focus and not a parent-clamping-down-on-kid atmosphere.

. . .

Your chance to win! Meg has generously offered a signed copy of her book for one reader of Mothering Spirit. Leave a comment below about a special tradition your family celebrates.

Entries must be received by midnight CST on Friday, May 3rd.

Be sure to visit Meg’s website as well as her Facebook page for more resources and new traditions!

paying attention: take two

The second half of this new series. Following each author’s insight on How We Spend Our Time, I’ll offer another perspective on the same theme. Ginny got us thinking about paying attention. Here’s my take.

How does he already need new shoes?

Didn’t I just cut their hair?

When did his sweatshirt shrink so small?

They’re growing all around me, my wild young weeds. I shouldn’t be surprised. Isn’t helping them grow our goal as parents? We try to stuff them full of good food, let them run around in fresh air to breathe deep, love them up fierce so their bones stay strong.

But they grow so fast, and then the time of now is gone. In the busy present I can forget to pay attention and watch them unfurling in front of me, my own time-lapse images of seeds sprouting, seedlings shooting up out of the damp soil, green leaves popping apart to stretch up towards the sun.

When my husband flips back through a photo album or I pack away another pile of clothing, we often call to each other to come witness the change we hadn’t realized in front of us: How were they ever that tiny? Didn’t we just pull out this box of clothes?

We barely recognize the babies they were a year ago. Time flew but in the moment it felt like a breeze fluttering by.

Only when I see them with the wistful eyes of yesterday or the nostalgic eyes of tomorrow do I pay attention. Only then – when the too-small shoes or the too-long hair or the too-tight shirts grab me by the shoulders and shake me awake - do I see how much the present moment holds.

There is so much for me to pay attention to here and now. Not to worry about tomorrow’s to-dos or next year’s plans, but the fullness of all I have: the right-now cupped within my hands.

What makes my boys laugh today, what they’ll gobble up at dinner tonight, what they’ll request to read before bed – all of this will have changed before I know it. But if I see it, if I celebrate it, if I give thanks for it knowing it will pass, then I will have spent my time well.

When I practice the art of paying attention, I see their beauty: the baby-boy-ness of almost-two, the curious child of almost-four.

When I practice the prayer of paying attention, I realize this grace: the sacrament of seeing God right before me.

When I practice the love of paying attention, I celebrate this truth: the joy of imperfect enoughness as a mother.

Their fingernails need clipping (again). And the toilets need scrubbing (again). And that work project needs editing (again). But in the midst of everything that clamors for my attention, there are truths that simply ask me to pay attention.

To invest the gift of my focus on what’s important.

To spend most of my hours on what matters most.

To pay attention.

. . .

Today I’m posting at Catholic Mom about seeing poetry in the communion line. On the days I do pay attention at church (and believe me, with two antsy kids, those days are few and far between), I’m astonished to see what I discover: glimpses of myself in bored teenagers, antsy kids, frazzled parents, wizened elders:

I watch them all in the communion line, a long trail of those who belong to God, who come each week to remember and receive. For a flash of an instant, I see us as God sees us: so different, so similar, all wrapped in love and forgiveness.

Here we are, I remember. We become what we receive.

Read the rest at Catholic Mom…

What do you see when you pay attention to what’s around you?

how we spend our time: paying attention

Today I’m delighted to welcome Ginny Kubitz Moyer to kick off this series with her new book Random MOMents of Grace. I love Ginny’s writing for the glimpses of God she notices in daily life. She is a perfect author to start us thinking about one important way we choose to spend our time as parents: paying attention.

Ginny’s book is all about paying attention to the grace-filled moments that spring up unexpectedly among parenting’s challenges. I love her elegant and wise writing, the everyday subjects she tackles in search of motherhood’s spiritual side, and her chapters that are short enough to read in one sitting when my kids are quiet for five whole minutes. Here are more words of wisdom from Ginny on how she spends her time:

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

They say that when you are the mother of small kids, the days crawl by, but the months pass like a shot. I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes it is so isolating to be at home all day with your kids, especially because there are periods of your life as a parent when it is simply too much of a production to get into the car and go anywhere. Those days can feel endless (except for naptime, of course, which moves at twice the speed of light.)

But now that my boys are six and four, I look at baby pictures of them, and I have to catch my breath because I realize how quickly the time has passed. We forget that when we see our kids every day. And the fact is that every phase of parenting has its challenges and its blessings. I’m not changing diapers anymore (thank you God!) but oh, I do miss that adorable baby-hair that Luke had, which stuck straight up as if he’d been playing with electricity.

So, as I write in the book, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t will the time to pass too quickly. When things are frustrating now, it helps to look at my kids and realize what I have now that I will miss in a year, or five, or ten. That’s a reminder to savor it.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

I love this quotation from the writer James Thurber: “I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.” I’m not quite that extreme, but I can relate.

Writers usually want large blocks of quiet time in which to sit down and write, and the reality is that when you’re a mom, you almost never have that. So a lot of what I do, writing-wise, involves letting things simmer in my mind or mentally trying out various adjectives or squirreling away bits of information to use later. This means I can write in the car on my commute to and from work, or while making dinner. If you think about writing as being more than just putting pen to paper or sitting in front of a laptop, you realize there is actually a lot of writing time during the day. Then the only challenge is to remember it all for later ….

3) What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

All writers are people of faith, I think, because it takes faith to face an empty page. You need to have faith that you will be able to put your feelings or your experiences into words that other people will enjoy. I think it also takes faith to slog on through the writer’s block, those times when you feel like everything you are writing is about as exciting as a tax return, and why would anyone ever want to read it?

It was so thrilling to get the contract for this book, but at the same time, it’s a different experience to write when there is a firm deadline. Luckily, I’d been writing the book in bits and pieces for about two years prior to finding a publisher, so nearly all of it was already done. But there was still some work to do on it, and I found myself going on faith that the ideas would come.

I distinctly remember starting one chapter and writing a ways into it and thinking, “Oof. This chapter is not going anywhere. I should just abandon ship right now.” And then, about a week later, I revisited it, and guess what? I found that it was better than I’d thought, and I had some ideas about where to take it. It’s now one of my very favorite chapters in the book.  Sometimes, you just need a little distance … and faith.

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

Oh, so hard to choose!  I love the quiet weekend mornings when we’re all just hanging out in our pj’s.  I love going on trips where we are out of our normal element and we get to discover a new place or a new experience together.  It is so fun to play soccer outside, all four of us, on the front lawn (I am the least athletic woman I’ve ever met, and now I’m playing soccer?!?  Motherhood is so broadening.)

Most of all, I love hugging my boys.  There’s nothing sweeter.

Thank you, Ginny! Please visit Random Acts of Momness for the rest of Ginny’s Blog Tour over the next two weeks. And be sure to check out Random MOMents of Grace from Loyola Press, who has generously offered FIVE copies of Ginny’s book to readers of Mothering Spirit! (Full disclosure: they gave me a copy, too – but I was waiting to buy one anyway, so their generosity in no way influenced my opinion.)

To enter the giveaway for your own copy, leave a comment below. And if you’re inspired, share one way you try to practice “paying attention” in your daily life!

how we spend our time: a new series

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” –  Annie Dillard

From the second we wake up, we make choices about how to spend our time.

Shower or not? Black pants or grey? Cereal or eggs? Music or news? Work out or email? Highway or back roads? Speed or slow down?

Our days are shaped by decisions. How we spend our time is the defining choice we make with every moment. It becomes who we are and what we value.

As a mom with two young kids, a career to pursue, a house to keep, and all the key relationships of my life to nurture (you know, small things like God-spouse-family-friends), I get overwhelmed by all the demands on my time. But I also get tired of the same old “so busy” conversation. I have the same hours as everyone else. I make time for what’s important. I let other things slide. We all do.

But I’m fascinated by the implications of our choices, how the little and big decisions of our lives become our story and shape the stories of those around us.

My kids are no exception. They already notice how I spend my time. They whine when I check email over lunch; they grin when I sit down to read with them. They ask what we’re going to do today, this week, this month, and they sort through their reactions to the choices their parents have made. Even as young as they are, they understand how time matters.

In an ongoing effort to fight the “too busy, no time” cycle, I’m constantly wondering how to spend my time in more life-giving ways. How to enjoy each hour rather than exhaust myself. How to stretch out the margins of our family schedule so we all have more room to breathe.

Lots of ink gets spilled on the big choices that I make as a mother: for example, whether to stay home with my kids or work outside the home. But within these larger vocational decisions are a thousand other important decisions about how to spend my time. How do I structure my days according to what I value? How do I stay present to the task at hand? How do I prioritize people first and foremost?

This week I’m launching a new series about how we spend our time as parents. How do we use our hours meaningfully in the busy years of raising kids? What practices can help us to become more mindful about the way we spend our time? How have other parents learned to live into the choices they make about time?

In this series I’ll be asking four questions about time to a group of mother-writers whose work has inspired my own thinking on the subject. Each of them offers a unique perspective on the activities and attitudes we bring to our use of time. I hope they will inspire and invigorate you (and there might be a few giveaways of their wonderful work, too, so stay turned!).

Till then, have a wonderful day – all 24 hours of it.

when we all add up

31 + 31 + 3 + 1 

He’s obsessed with numbers now. All he wants to do is stand at his easel and scribble numerals in chalky pastel, then furrow his brow and punch the digits into his cash register.

Adding and subtracting have transformed his small world into an explosion of equations. He begs us to fill up the chalkboard or the paper with long strings of numbers he can add together. Then he greets the familiar ones as old friends.

70…that’s Papa’s age. 22 is my favorite song on the CD. 50 is for 50 states. 28 is the date.

This is how the world makes sense to him right now, at the still-small stage of 3.5. Neatly ordered by numbers, waiting to be added or subtracted at the touch of his fingers pounding the calculator keys.

It’s not my language – I love words and art and music – but I try to meet him there. (And try to remind myself as I struggle to scrape together interesting-enough equations to delight him dawn till dusk, that words and art and music sing with numbers all their own.)

But when he tires of adding up all the units of measurement I know and the phone numbers I can remember and the street numbers of family addresses and the birth dates of old friends, I always default to this one:

31 + 31 + 3 + 1

All the ages under this roof. Two parents, two kids. Added up together.

For a brief moment in time, our ages are caught up in a numerical anagram: they in us and we in them.

Back when my boy started this obsession with numbers, I realized for the first time that our ages would be patterned like this for a few short months. I’m no math whiz myself, so when I tried to calculate if and when this might happen again in our lifetimes, my brain got bored and slipped into pondering the grocery list. Suffice it to say, it seems a rare occurrence. (The left-brained engineer at my elbow agrees.)

But the rarity seems right for now – this slender sliver of a season when our lives are so intimately, bodily, exhaustingly bound up with each other. These months (because we still measure in months) when we’re still a clump of a family unit, not yet stretched by the sprawl of adolescents who strain to pull as far away as they can, or redefined by a Rolodex with separate entries for every adult child’s address.

Right now we’re all bound up together. 31 + 31 + 3 + 1.

Our two boys are their own selves, to be sure. But they are still so wrapped up in us, and we in them. Sometimes when these two squirmy worms are wriggling all over the couch and each other and my lap and the book we’re trying to read, I find myself wondering where each of us starts and the other ends.

Parenting brings about a strange and profound redefinition of self. You are at once the same person you always were and a new creation, birthed by the child before you. Magazines warn you not to lose yourself in the exhaustion of new motherhood, yet you can’t help but stare at the bleary-eyed stranger in the mirror and wonder what happened to the girl you once were.

And yet there is something of you in them, something of your younger self that glimmers back in their eyes or frown or laughter. You see your spouse in their smile, too, and bits of others in the shimmering hologram that is a child: the spitting image of grandma in this light, an uncle’s twin in that photo.

You catch your breath when you see it, and then it’s gone.

31 + 31 + 3 + 1. Scribbled on his dusty chalkboard, these numbers speak truth of this fleeting stage when we are so easily glimpsed in one another. When we are so closely linked to those who surround us.

When we all add up together.