The day unfolds as our days do: tea, breakfast, feeding the babies, changing the babies, dressing the babies, reading to the babies, putting the babies down for a nap. Then morning chores, stories, and school.

When the babies wake up, I nurse them. We finish school. I make lunch.

And this is where the day begins to unravel. Instead of having quiet time, which is what we would normally do after lunch, I pile everyone in the car and drive to West Seattle to pick up a crib. (Last week, I went into the bedroom and found a wailing Luke with his face pressed up against the slats of the crib rail, Ben happily draped over him. Clearly, the days of crib sharing are over. Hence, West Seattle and the new crib.)

The babies sleep in the car on the way there. They do not sleep on the way home. They do not sleep when we get home. Jane asks me to draw with her.

Jack remembers that he has Cub Scouts tonight and he needs to make a poster about something he likes. “I like baking, Mama. I’m going to make a poster about making biscuits.”

He wants me to help him make the poster – and the biscuits to go with it.

I do not want to draw. I do not want to make biscuits. I do not want to make a poster. I want to go lie down and take a nap.

But duty calls.

I do not answer graciously.

I bark at Jack when he’s reading the biscuit recipe. “You’re not on step three! You’re on step two! Quit fooling around and pay attention!”

“I’m sorry, Mama, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Jane comes into the kitchen with paper and a pencil. “Can you draw me a rainbow?”

I snap at her. “No! I can’t! Do you see that I’m busy right now? Why would you think I can draw you a rainbow when I’m making biscuits with Jack?”

Her face crumples.

I cannot stand myself. I slam out of the front door, stomp down the steps, and stand on the sidewalk, my back to the house, and try to breathe.

I know I’m being unfair, expecting more of my kids than they can give. They’re still children. They’re still learning. I’m supposed to be the adult around here. Trouble is, I’m still learning, too.

I breathe deep, inhaling and exhaling the Jesus Prayer, a cry for mercy in the midst of the ugliness that is me in this moment. After several minutes, lots of deep breaths, I turn around, slowly climb the steps, and go back into the house.

“I’m so sorry for being impatient and using unkind words,” I say to Jack and Jane. “Will you forgive me?”

They give me big hugs. Kisses.

Love.

Forgiveness.

As I sit on the kitchen floor, my arms around my children, I wonder if it’s always this simple, if the way out when you’re having one of those days is simply a few deep breaths, a prayer for mercy, an apology offered and accepted.

Jack and I make biscuits. We make a poster. I draw a rainbow, which Jane turns into a card for her dad. I nurse babies and make dinner and we laugh and sing -

and the day is redeemed.

But it wasn’t.

You see, it took both my in-laws and Luke’s godfather just to get the twins fed, diapered, and dressed for bed. Forget dinner or dishes or anything not baby-related.

When I got home at 6:15, dinner was half-finished, the table was half-set, and both babies were still awake. My father-in-law was rocking Ben who was, and I quote, “completely wired.” My mother-in-law was patting Luke’s bum as he lay wailing in his crib.

It took me about half an hour to calm the boys down and get them to sleep (with bum-patting assistance from my father-in-law; it’s much harder to simultaneously bum-pat now that the boys are in separate cribs). Meanwhile, Doug and his mom finished dinner, Jack set the table, and Jane and Uncle Sprague played in the urban wilderness behind our house.

At dinner, Sprague said, “I have a whole new level of respect for you, Kimberlee. It took two of us just to get Ben’s pajamas on him.”

My mother-in-law seconded. “I don’t know how you get them to bed and get dinner when you’re here by yourself.”

To be fair, I’m never here by myself. Jack often helps with dinner and always sets the table. Jane sings to the babies and holds toys over them while I’m dressing them, which keeps them happy and on their backs so I don’t have to wrestle Ben to the bed.

And I’ve been doing this every day for nearly nine months now. It’s a lot easier when you have a routine, when you’re used to it.

Still, it was nice to hear their words of affirmation. It was better than nice. It made me feel like a rock star, like a full on domestic goddess. Just call me Vesta.

*****

I invite you to come back later this week for some off-schedule posts: Thursday through Sunday I’ll have short reflections on the Triduum. Among the holiest of days in the Christian year, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday each deserve their own post. As, of course, does Easter. I hope you’ll join me.

But even the rooftops and power poles and electric lines poking up into the sky couldn’t block the beauty. The whole southwestern sky was the color of ripe raspberries, a whole bowl of them, spilled out and illuminated, as if they were lit from behind, or within.

I stood in the church parking lot and watched that vibrant pink drain from the sky. It faded really fast.

Not an hour before, my mom and I had been looking at baby pictures of Jane. Mama shook her head and said, “I just don’t remember Jane as a a baby.”

“I don’t either,” I said. “I didn’t realize how much Luke looks like her.” How could I look at Luke and not see the resemblance? How could I forget something so unforgettable as my only daughter’s baby face?

My memory fades so fast, and the days fade even faster, and I know that tired as I am, I will likely have almost no memories of this first year of the boys’ life, and that makes me sad. It makes me want to hold on.

It makes me want to pay attention.

I rush far too often and forget to pay attention to this moment right here right now. But you simply can’t rush a nursing baby – or a sleeping one. Being on the twins’ schedule has meant slowing down. And slowing has given me more space, more time to pay attention.

Attention is something we generally lack around here. We’re all worried and distracted by many things. But really, only one thing is needful.

The way my mother sits, legs crossed, in the rocking chair, working a crossword puzzle.

The way my daughter’s hair curls softly around her face as she sits beside me on the sofa, looking at a book. The dimple in her chin. The arch of her perfect eyebrows. Even the bug bites on her legs that she’s picked till they’ve bled and scabbed over.

The way Ben plays with my fingers while he nurses. The cool softness of his cheeks. The soft down of his hair.

The way Luke shrieks with delight when he shakes the rattle he’s managed to pick up. His chubby cheeks and chin. His Buddha belly.

The way Jack’s hair falls across his forehead and over his ears. The small scar beside his nose. His joyful singing as he sits at the table, drawing.

This moment. It’s all we have. And if we don’t notice it, we won’t remember it.

Because it fades really fast.

“Mama,” she says, “all I need to be a princess is to have hair like this, ” she makes a swooping motion over her forehead and ear, “and to be skinny right here,” she puts her hands on her waist.

I blink. A voice inside my head starts screaming, Oh God, no! She’s going to be anorexic! Or bulimic! Help! What do I do?

The voice I speak with is remarkably calm. “No, honey,” I say. “In order to be a princess you have to marry a prince. Or be the daughter of a king.”

“No, Mama,” she says. “I have to be skinny right here.” She lifts her hands from her waist and lowers them again emphatically.

The voice inside my head is freaking out. You idiot! You let those #@$%&* Disney Princesses into the house, and look what happened!

I kneel down in front of her. I say, “Did you know that some princesses are fat?”

She shakes her head. “No they’re not.” She knows all about princesses and they’re all skinny right here.

I try again. “Do you know who your Father is?”

“Dada!”

“Yes. But you have a heavenly Father, too.”

“God!”

“Yes. And do you know who God is?”

“God!”

“Yes. God is God. But God is also the King. God is the King of kings. God is the biggest King there is. And you are God’s daughter. So what does that make you?”

She thinks for a second, then grins. “A princess!”

“That’s right,” I say. “You already are a princess.”

She gives me a big hug and then runs to the bedroom to tell Jack.

I stand up and stir the onions on the stove, not at all convinced that I’ve handled this correctly or even well. I silently curse the Disney Princesses for bringing this crisis upon me.

I will freely admit that we live in a bubble. It’s an intentional choice Doug and I make to shield our kids from most of the commercial crap that’s out there.

But it’s a bubble, not an armored tank. So it’s permeable. Our kids have friends. And grandparents. And other relatives. And they don’t all hold the same views that Doug and I do. Which means things like the Disney Princesses seep in, regardless of how I feel about them.

For the most part I just let it go. I figure making a big deal about something just, well, just makes it a big deal.

But as I stir the onions, I wonder if we need a moratorium on princesses who are skinny right here. Jane is beautiful, and she has a beautiful athletic body. But she’s not skinny. And I don’t ever want her to think she has to be skinny.

For now, I’ve punted on this issue. But I know it will come back. It won’t always be the Disney Princesses who are skinny right here, but it will be someone. And how do I tell her so she believes me that she’s beautiful and her body is beautiful even though it doesn’t look like Cinderella and her ilk?

On Monday, I tell my mother-in-law, “No Disney Princess stuff for Christmas.”

Half an hour later, Jane is telling her that she wants Disney Princess Polly Pocket dolls for Christmas.

Once more, I utter oaths of loathing against those *%&#* Disney Princesses.

It’s 5:45 p.m., and I’ve bathed Jane, who is, admittedly, still running around the house in her towel, but hey, at least she’s clean. Jack is in the tub, scrubbing himself. Ben is in his crib, asleep. Luke is in the Moby, alternately wailing and whimpering on my chest. Dinner is bubbling on the stove.

I stir the pasta sauce with a wooden spoon and pat Luke’s bum with my other hand. I think I might finally be getting the hang of this whole life-with-four-children thing.

I smile.

It slowly dawns on me that Jane isn’t running around anymore. In fact, it’s suddenly quiet, except for Luke’s cries. Then, I hear giggles. Loud giggles. From the bathroom. Silence followed by laughter is always, always, a combination to be feared.

I head to the bathroom, my mad face already on. I don’t know what they’ve done, but I know I’m not going to like it.

Jane stands by the tub, her towel still wrapped around her. She leans over, lets the towel fall into the water, then jumps back, flinging water everywhere. She and Jack erupt into laughter. Fully a quarter of her towel is wet – no, soaked – and it’s making a small lake on the tile.

“What are you doing?” I bellow above Luke’s crying.

They both look up, the delight on their faces vanishing.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Jane says, and tries to run from the room.

“NO!” I say and grab her before she can get to the door. “You’ll just make a water mess out there! Clean it up!” I jab my finger at the floor. She stares at me. “I said clean it up! Now!” I yell. “Get a towel and clean it up!”

Jane starts to cry. Luke wails in the Moby. Water puddles on the tile. My socks are wet.

I turn on my heel and march out of the bathroom. I hate wet socks. I stand in the dining room and scream. I scream so loud and so long that Luke stops screaming. He’s that shocked.

I’m shocked too. Did I really just do that? Really? Who’s supposed to be the adult around here anyway?

It’s just water. It’s not hard to clean up. The floor is covered with sealed tile. Why oh why do I get so bent out of shape over stupid things like a puddle of water on the bathroom floor? Who cares? I mean, who other than me? And why do I care anyway? Jack and Jane are fully capable of cleaning up a water mess. It’s really not my problem…or it wouldn’t be, except that I freak out and throw a temper tantrum and make a bigger mess, a mess in my children’s hearts, in their souls.

I peel off my wet socks and throw them in the laundry. Barefoot, I go back to the bathroom where both kids are trying to mop up the water on the floor. I sit on the toilet lid. I say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t have more words than that. I mean, what can you say when you’re 35 and behave like a three-year-old?

Jack says, “It’s my fault, Mama. I told her to do it. Don’t be mad at Jane.”

I shake my head. “I’m mad at me. I’m sorry I got so angry. I’m sorry I yelled at you guys. I’m sorry I screamed.”

Jane gives me a hug. “It’s okay, Mama. I love you.”

Tears prick at my eyes. Why couldn’t I be the one to say those words? To look at the puddle on the floor and say to my children, “It’s okay. I love you”?

Someday, please God, someday, I will. I will walk in on a mess and laugh. I will walk in on a mess and love the kids who made it. I will walk in on a mess and say, “It’s okay. I love you.”

Until then, I’m just going to try not to break any windows when I scream.

I’m sure I’ll forget again, because you’re still tall and articulate and mature. But we’ve both grown up some this past year, so maybe I won’t forget so often. Or maybe you’ll rise to the occasion. Or maybe we’ll just muddle through and make the best of things: grace abounds in our relationship, in both directions, because your heart is large and my heart is for you.

As this new year of your life begins, these are some of the things I want to remember, my dear sweet girl, about the three-year-old you were:

All last fall, and through the winter until my belly grew too big, you fell asleep in my bed each night, lying on my chest. When I’d pick you up to take you to your bed, you’d wrap your little legs around my waist, your arms around my neck, and sometimes you’d sigh in your sleep, whisper “I love you, Mama,” against my shoulder, and I’d think every time I carried you that the weight of you in my arms was perfect.

You love to run. I love to watch you, the way your feet pound the ground, your legs pumping, your golden hair streaming out behind you.

You always mispronounce the word “pajamas.” You say “tajamas” instead. I’m dreading the day you outgrow this.

One night last month, when I came to tuck you in after I’d fed the babies at three a.m., you woke up just enough to say, “Will you cuddle with me right here for a little minute?” Though I was bone tired, how could I say no? I lay down beside you, and you put your hand in mine, and we both fell asleep.

On our daily walks through the neighborhood, you’re always calling, “Look, Mama!” and pointing out tulips in bloom or roses or dahlias or little johnny-jump-ups growing next to the sidewalk or the scarlet or yellow or sienna leaves of an autumn tree. “Isn’t it pretty?” you say. And I say, “Yes,” but I don’t say how grateful I am that you notice these things, that you’re teaching me to notice them, too.

Every once in a while, when I give you your bedtime blessing in the name of the Trinity, you tell me soberly, thoughtfully, “God is our Father in Heaven, and Jesus is God on earth, and the Spirit is God in our hearts.” And I wonder how you know this, who taught you, and how you came to be a theologian at the age of three.

Though I can’t hold on to the feeling of your hand in mine, I want always to remember that your hands are soft and warm and trusting when you slip them into my hands.

When you bought your first 200 piece puzzle, you cried because it was too hard for you – the first time, I think, that you couldn’t do a puzzle by yourself. Your dad and I sat down and helped you with it that first time. After that, you didn’t need us to help you anymore. But sometimes you wanted us to.

Every day for the past nine months you have faithfully prayed for your friend with leukemia. You pray for her at each meal and at bedtime, a prayer of thanksgiving for your friend and for God’s healing of her.

I also want to remember holding you while you cried because you’d fallen out of bed, or knocked your tooth against the arm of the sofa, or left your brand-new toy that you bought with your own money in the party supply store. I want to remember that you trusted me and that sometimes, I deserved your trust and responded to your pain the right way – with hugs and kisses and love and my own tears.

On the last night that you were three, you fell asleep in my bed. When I picked you up to carry you from my bed to yours, I noticed that you’d grown – a lot. Your legs around my waist were longer, your body was heavier. But the weight of you was still perfect.

Seven.

No longer my baby, you’re turning into a boy. I love the boy you’re becoming, but I miss the baby and the child you were.

I miss cuddling in bed with you in my lap, reading stories for half the day.

I miss long, slow mornings at the zoo, hours spent watching the peacocks, waiting for them to open their tail feathers.

I miss yogurt and applesauce on the front porch after your nap.

I miss the words you used to mispronounce and the way you’d say “Bam” whenever you didn’t know the answer to a question…or you knew and you weren’t telling.

I miss your lawn mower run, the way you’d jerk your right arm up and down like you were trying to start an old gas mower.

I miss chasing the recycling truck with you on spring afternoons, following behind it as it belched its way down the street.

I miss your little boy voice, the piping cadences and lilt of it that I can barely remember now.

I miss the softness of your hand in mine when we crossed the street.

Even though you’ve been healthy as a horse since we brought you home from the hospital seven years ago, I worry sometimes about you getting sick or, God forbid, dying. But what I’m beginning to see is that each day is a little death. Each day you grow a little older, a little further away from me. And that is natural and good. It is as it should be.

But I somehow didn’t expect it. They forget to tell you when you’re pregnant that motherhood is a long, slow process of letting go, a daily dying to what was in order to embrace what is. They forget to tell you how the heart breaks and breaks and keeps on breaking.

They forget to tell you how much it hurts to love a child.

But painful as the letting go is, I wouldn’t trade my years with you for anything on this green earth or for all the stars in the sky. I can’t say I’ve loved every minute of being your mom – there are quite I few I’d like to do over, for both our sakes – but I do love you. I love who you have been, I love who you’re becoming.

So even though, on this last day of your seventh year, I weep – because I miss you, because you’re growing up – even though my heart aches and the tears stream, I wouldn’t have it any other way. This ache, these tears say to me that my heart is still soft, and love grows in soft, broken places.

How else should I live, except by loving? How could I not want than a heart capable of deeper, richer love? A heart that holds you close and also lets you go? A heart that breaks with joy as well as pain?

It is my prayer for your life, too, my beloved boy: that all your days you will know the joy and the ache of loving.

I love you, Jack. Happy birthday.

I am eight weeks postpartum with twins and I made grape jelly.

Okay, so before you start being too impressed (or hating my guts, depending on the kind of person you are), you must understand that Jack and Jane spent two days picking the grapes from our grape arbor and they begged me for two more days to make the jam. My son especially wanted to make it “because it came from our own grapes, Mama.” Apparently, that somehow makes it way cooler.

Luckily for me, it is a lousy year for grapes, at least in our yard: they only managed to pick two pounds.

Unluckily for me, when my sister was here and went on her cleaning rampage through my house (which, by the way, looked like a photo from one of those home decor mags by the time she was done), she gave away all my canning jars and lids because I knew, with four children, I was never going to use them again. Rrrright.

But since we only had two pounds, I decided we didn’t really need to can the stuff. We’d just sock it in the refrigerator as soon as it gelled (or should that be “jellied”?).

Anyhoo, the kids and I peeled all the grapes (it sounds harder than it actually is); pureed the peels with sugar; cooked the puree with the peeled grapes, some more sugar, and lemon juice; stirred this little concoction while it boiled; ran it through a food mill; and then stirred it while it boiled some more.

Of course, right about the time we got to the food mill, both babies woke up and wanted to eat. Can I just say I love having a six-almost-seven-year-old? He did all the stirring, while I sat on the sofa and lactated.

And even though Jack did most of the work, I get bragging rights: I made grape jelly from grapes I grew myself (well, they grew in my yard), and it actually tastes good.

Color me supermom.

Of course, when the new owner drove my beloved Accord away, I cried. Be careful what you pray for, eh?

My tears surprised everyone, especially me. I wasn’t expecting them. At all. I knew we needed to sell the car. I had been bugging Doug for over a week to get it listed. I had prayed it would sell. And then I go and get all weepy about it.

I tried to laugh as I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve. After all, it’s just a car.

But it was a good car. My first car. It was reliable, paid for, and, compared to the sofa-mobile, fun to drive. It also represents my life as it has been, and I really love my life, so watching it pull away from the curb and drive off never to return was sort of symbolic: my life is about to change, and it will never be the same, and I’m grieving the loss of this life I love.

Oh, I know my life with four children will still be good. I know it will be rich and full and all that. But it will be different, and I’ve never adapted to change easily, even good change.

I probably should have had some sort of good-bye ceremony for the Accord. Not that the car would have cared, but it might have helped me.

As I sat there weeping and laughing at myself for weeping, Doug held up the stack of hundred dollar bills the buyer had brought and waved them in front of me. I’d never seen so much cash at one time in my life. It felt like drug money. Or blood money. I cried harder.

But within the hour I’d pulled myself together and driven the sofa-mobile to the credit union and deposited the stack o’ cash into our account. Then I went home and did something really sexy with it: I paid off our credit card, padded our emergency fund, and threw the rest at our car loan on the *&^% minivan.

Maybe I should have kept a hundred bucks and bought a commemorative plaque for the Accord to hang in in the driveway. A small reminder of a life I no longer have.

Our pastor began his meditation by mentioning that the word Maundy comes from the Latin mandate. Though you pronounce it like it’s Spanish—mon-DAH-tay—when you see it written you realize right away what it means: mandate, law, command.

The command to which this word refers is from Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34)

Jesus’ love was wide and long and deep. His love took Him to the cross and the grave and the pit of hell.

His love was costly.

And it came to me, as clearly as if the words had been spoken aloud, that the “one another” whom I am supposed to love in this costly way are my children. I knew, too, that the cost for me would be my fledgling writing career.

The next day we found out about the twins, and I realized my Maundy Thursday revelations were meant to prepare me.

A few days later, my writer friend Lynne emailed me and her words confirmed what I already knew: she said she knew having two more babies was going to be hard for me because it would mean I could not write as much as I would like to.

I emailed back: “Letting go of my dream of writing another book, of finding an agent for my novel, of being a multi-published author is my little cross to bear, my act of self-sacrificing love. I know you will understand and not think me melodramatic for calling not being able to write a cross to bear. It’s a small cross, I know, but it’s hard for me.”

She responded, “Writing is who you are, Kimberlee. I think not writing very much will be more than a little cross to bear. I think it will be a pretty big cross.”

Her words were like water, easing the guilt I felt for not wanting to let go of these words, these dreams I carry. I drank them down.

Over the weeks of Easter I have struggled to let go of what I want—to find an agent for my novel, to write another novel, to have a career as a writer. Now.

Never mind that I daily run out of energy long before the day runs out of hours, that my brain is a sieve, that I am sometimes so tired I can’t string six words together to form a coherent sentence—I still struggle to hold my dreams lightly, let alone surrender them for a time.

On Sunday at church, our children’s minister, Dianne, found me. “Oh, Kimberlee,” she said, “I was reading something this week, and I thought of you. The author was talking about vocation and how sometimes people have two vocations that seem to conflict with each other, like they’re working at cross-purposes. But he said that eventually those two vocations would flow together, and both vocations would be stronger because of the other one.

“And I thought of you, and I know it’s hard that you’re not writing much right now, but I just knew—I know—that your mothering will make you a better writer better, and your writing will make you a better mom. So hang in there. They’re going to come together.”

I carried those words in my heart all day. They gave me hope.

And I realized: that’s one of the main reasons I write—to give myself and others hope. That is the gift of good words.