Pause Life for a Moment Archives - Page 3 of 6

Pausing Life for a Moment- Praying for Christmas Card Senders

December 27, 2011 By Deirdre

I really look forward to getting Christmas cards every year. Some come from people I haven’t heard from all year.

The photo cards display how much friends’ and family’s children have grown, the vacations they have taken, and their wonderful homes.

Other cards contain updates on what they have been doing or changes in their lives.

These wonderful cards share give me something else too. They give me the opportunity to know how to pray for these special people along with the reminder to pray for them.

At our house, we put Christmas cards in a basket that we keep in the kitchen. From time to time we reach in, take out a card, and pray for its sender during our dinnertime prayer.

Here are some of the cards we received and prayers I have for their senders:

This card came from my one paternal uncle. He lives overseas. I last saw him at my wedding five years ago.

My prayer for him is safety abroad and good health. ( I have other prayers for him too!)

This lovely card came from a friend in Northern Virginia.

My prayer for her is that she would finally get to get married. She has been praying for a long time to have a family or at least a spouse of her own. If that isn’t God’s plan, I pray that she will find contentment in her singleness.

This beautiful card with an amazing creche came from a dear friend and her husband. She lost her mom this year. She wrote in her card about all the amazing support she has received this fall.

My prayer is that she will find peace and comfort in this difficult time. I also lift up praise that she is surrounded by amazing people who love her.

This last card came from my former pew buddy. Before I got married I sat with two widowers at church. I had grown tired of sitting with the singles after a while and sat with a lovely older couple. When the wife passed away, I ended up sitting with the husband and another widower. They were my Sunday pew buddies. One of them still sends me a card every year.

My prayer for Walt is for good health (He isn’t doing well at all.) and safe travel home from his winter stay in Florida.

I hope you will take a moment today to pause and pray for the people that send you cards this year.

Pause Life for a Moment- Grumpy Grateful Mom

December 13, 2011 By Deirdre

If you are looking for an honest and fun post about parenting and life in general, you do need to visit today’s guest. Grumpy Grateful Mom is a wonderful writer, a fun mom, a great blogging friend, and a commenter of many posts on many blogs.

I feel so blessed to have her comments on my posts regularly and am so excited that she is here today.

I love being a mom to my four kids. But there’s also something else I love, bedtime!

So last week, it was a little painful, but we paused our normal bedtime routine in exchange for a tradition I’ve been meaning to start for years. We got the kids in their pajamas and told them the first part of our plan.

Me: In the spirit of Christmas, tonight you kids will be giving Daddy and me a present.

My kids all perked up with excitement at the mention of the word present.

Me: As our present, you will be going to bed right now and staying in your beds.

The chipper faces vanished and were replaced with the saddest little expressions. Then, they turned against us.

My oldest three all complained and gave excuses why this was NOT a good present. After about fifteen minutes, my kids were finally resigned to their terrible fate; surprisingly, they were in their beds much faster than a usual night.

My husband and I then raced back into their room and turned on the lights.

“Get up! Get up! We’re going for a drive!”

Here are my kids, after bedtime, at Baskin-Robbins.
Don’t let my redhead’s expression fool you. It was fun.

—

At least this guy thought so.

I’m so grateful we paused our bedtime routine for a wonderful sugar-filled memory.

JDaniel would so love to have been at her house on this night! What a great treat!

Pausing Life for a Moment- My 3 Little Ducks

December 6, 2011 By Deirdre

I loved reading MyLittle 3 Ducks maybe it is because I was one of three little ducks a long time ago. It maybe that Dana takes amazing pictures and write wonderful prose to go with them. I love getting to see glimpse into the wonderful family she is raising with her husband when I stop by. I know you will too.

When the amazing JDaniel4’s Mom asked me if I would like to write a post for her Pause life for a moment series of course I said yes! When I sat down to write the post for her I thought…

Do I pause for life?

What if something happens while I’m paused?

That was back in October.

Since then amazing things have happened that have helped me understand myself better.

Understand why I have to always be moving.

Understand why reading a book to myself or to my kiddos has always been so painful.

Understand why my writing never flows and my spelling is always awful.

I now know Dyslexia plays a huge part in all of those things and starting the process of overcoming it has changed my life and my family’s life.

Now I am able to…

Sit.

Sit with my kiddos and read to them.

Sit and listen to them read.

Sit and do crafts with them.

Sit with my husband and enjoy our time together.

Before October I never understood how precious time was.

JDaniel4’s Mom asking me to write this post came at the perfect time. Trying to write this post before I got help was painful and made me realize I never pause.

Did I even want to?

And did that make me a bad mom? (Of course not!)

Sitting down to write this post after I got help made me realize just how far I have come.

Now my answer would YES! Bring on the pause!

Pausing Life for a moment is such a gift and I am so grateful that I can now see that.

I had no idea Dana was working through this when I invited her to guest post, but I know Someone who must have placed her on my heart. I am so happy I listened to His still small voice.

Pause Life for a Moment-Katydid and Kid

November 29, 2011 By Deirdre

I have been reading Katydid and Kid since I started blogging. I love her honest and heartwarming posts about family, her wonderful reviews, and fantastic giveaways. I am so honored to have her visiting here today.

Hi! I’m Kathleen from Katydid and Kid, and I’m flattered to have been asked by JDaniel4’s Mom to share my thoughts on her Pause Life for a Moment feature. As mama to two boys, aged 3 and 5 months, I certainly wish their was an actual “pause” button for my time with them; not just because they grow up so fast, but because there are times when I feel like things are spinning out of control and I need to slow down or stop.

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I try my hardest to practice mindfulness. Following my breath, paying attention to the moment (whether good or bad), and really making an effort to participate in life helps things slow down and give me a sense of calm.

Breathing in the delicious, fleeting scent of a baby,

or delighting the joy of a preschooler

seems to make time stand still and make me forget about everything except for that moment.

Practicing mindful living sounds easy, but it’s one of the hardest things in the world; allowing your thoughts to arise and gently letting go of them is a lot more difficult than it sounds, particularly in the thick of parenting wee ones.

But when all things fail, pull out the camera!
>
Now that’s a great way to pause time. 🙂 And a way to enjoy capturing a moment.

I love visit A Wide Line. Her blog is wonderful place. It is beautiful to look at and wonderful to read. Her son Quinn is so cute! I love to read what he is learning and doing. His mom’s thoughts and ideas are inspiring.

Filling Holes

I’m so honored to be here at JDaniel4’s Mom, one of my favorite blogs. Isn’t JDaniel4’s Mom just lovely? I love her series on pausing life for a moment, and I was thrilled when she asked me to participate.

Being fully present in the moment is a challenge for me. I’m the type of person who constantly charges full speed ahead toward the future – planning, preparing, paving my path. When I’m not paving, I’m usually wrapped up in knots worrying about the future – losing sleep, losing my hair and losing the days.

The concept of slowing down and savoring the moment never really occurred to me until I got pregnant for my son, Quinn. The pregnancy flew by, and for the first time in my life, I wanted nothing more than to slow time down so I could keep my baby close and safe just a little longer.

Quinn is now seven months old, and we’ve taken approximately 3,789 photos of him. A few weeks ago, I was looking through our photos, and I came across a picture.

According to the date on the photograph, Quinn was about four weeks old, and I have no recollection of the photo being taken. This realization felt like a punch in the stomach. How can I not remember this? How many other holes are there in my memory?

I began looking through all the photos more closely, and I came across several from Quinn’s early months that revealed more holes. While I remember the actual photographs being taken – the three of us together on Easter, Quinn and I on Mother’s Day, Quinn in his giraffe jammies – I can’t remember anything else about the events. I know we went to my Hub’s aunt and uncle’s house for Easter dinner, but I can’t recall anything specific about the day, other than our picture being taken. Aren’t photographs supposed bring back memories?

I spent the first months of Quinn’s life in a sleep deprived, post-partum depressed, “I-don’t-know-if-I-can-do-this” anxiety-filled haze. The fog has finally lifted, but the guilt for having been engulfed in it at all eats away at me. I look at my seven month old son, who is now more than twice the size of the wee baby in the photograph, and I want all that time back. Now his legs hang down far past my waist, and he has a hard time finding a cushy spot for his head on my shoulder. He rarely falls asleep on me anymore, and when he does, he twists and squirms, struggling to find a comfortable position. He’s no longer a little baby. He looks and act more and more like a little boy every day.

I do have many beautiful memories of Quinn as a tiny baby, but I know that some are forever lost in that fog. And that makes me sad. But I figure I have two options. I can feel bad for myself, wishing for the impossible – to get those moments back. Or I can make an effort to be more mindful in my parenting and be fully present in my moments with Quinn from now on so I don’t create new holes.

After I became a stay at home mom, I wrote a post that included a poem by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton entitled “Song for a Fifth Child.” My favorite line is the last one:

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.

These words are server as a reminder for me to pause and enjoy this fleeting time with my baby. The world can keep spinning and life will keep moving, but in the center of all the whirling and chaos are small moments I can capture and just be still – just Quinn, my husband and me.

This past Saturday, on our last day of vacation in Hawaii, I was putting Quinn down for a nap, and he fell asleep on my shoulder for the first time in so long. My first instinct was to put him down. I had so much to do – I had to pack, wash a couple loads of laundry, take a shower…. But then I realized that’s part of why his first few months of life are a blur to me. So I quieted the urgent voice in my head and slowly sat back down on the bed. As I laid my head on the pillow to take a nap with my baby son, I thought, “This is exactly what I should be doing.” Two hours later we both woke up refreshed and happy, and that nap was the best part of our vacation.

Please take a moment and visit A Wide Line.