Christmas Letter 2013

Dear Family and Friends,
You may have noticed that we don't normally send out year-end letters with our Christmas cards.  That's because if it happens to be a year we randomly choose to create Christmas cards, we don't get started on them until December, and we rarely get them mailed until the week between Christmas and the New Year. In other words, our belated cards should be enough to let you know that we're alive and still kicking.
Even though I have mailed most of my cards, (I still have a stack of cards waiting for their addresses to be tracked down and scrawled in green pen across their sealed envelopes) tonight I'm writing a little year end letter.
Because I don't want to.
Because my heart is thudding heavily and that's usually the sign that I need to speak.
Or type.

Yesterday amidst all the Merry Christmas greetings that packed my Facebook feed, on friend asked, "What was your favorite gift this year?"
I tried several times to type a response, but I couldn't bear the cheesiness of my truest response.
My favorite gift this year is my children's safety.
It is a gift. No matter how hard I try, it is not something I can guarantee. I can put the household cleaners out of reach, keep the Hunter's guns unloaded and locked away, secure those car seats properly and... whatever else, but sometime I might will slip up. Many times I am going to slip up and my protective mom self will fall asleep or be distracted or just run out of capability.  I cannot ensure my children's safety; it is a gift, an act of mercy.
I never fully realized this until Christmas Eve 2013.
We were enjoying a stay at the Potawanomi Inn at Pokagen State Park in Indiana with some of our extended Ruffers.  When the phone rang at 2:45 in the morning (barely Christmas Eve) I knew it couldn't be good news. Probably someone among our group vomiting. My husband answered the phone.  I could quickly tell he was upset beyond vomit.  He fumbled for the light as he said, "Are we missing one of the girls?"
Ginger's blanket was empty.
My stomach twisted in a knot that has yet to be untangled.
I ran out of the room, heedless of my pajama-clad body and bare feet.
I sprinted down the carpeted halls that I'd spent the weekend telling my children were not for running.
To the front desk.
To my baby.
My precious, safe, sobbing baby.
She had wandered out of our room while the rest of us slept, pulling a door handle we thought out of her reach. Once in the hall, she couldn't reopen the door.
And we (four people who love her best) slept. A fan for which we couldn't find the switch muffled her cries.
Someone else heard.
Someone else took her by the hand to the hotel lobby where they deciphered her toddler gibberish into enough information to figure out who we were.
She calmed down much sooner than I did.
I curled my body around hers and agonized over what could have happened, over what we nearly lost.
Honestly, the inside part of me isn't all that calm yet.
Do you know what an auger is? It's kind of like a giant screw. I felt as if someone had begun twisting one right into my middle, below my heart and lungs, just north of my abdomen.

What kind of mother am I? How could I have slept through that? Why didn't I check to make sure the door was locked properly? How am I going to protect her in the future if I can't even hear when she wakes up?
For better than two hours, long after everyone else had returned to one form of sleep or another, my fearful imagination kept me awake and in pain.
Someone heard me.
Quite simply, He reminded me that my children's safety was an act of His mercy.  That was the very word that soothed my anxieties and stopped the auger screwing though my belly.  MERCY.
But...
What about the mothers who wake to find their children gone and there is no reassuring phone call?
What about the mothers who are enduring their first Christmas beside their child's headstone?
What about the mothers who weren't even able to kiss those darling faces before life was snatched from their womb?
What about the toddlers whose crying is unanswered?
What about those broken hearts? Where is the mercy for them?
I don't have an easy answer.  But as I snuggle my children a little more, I ask the Source of mercy to hear them, to find them. I have seen a little glimpse of their pain.

And so, dear friends and family, as I close out this letter, please join with me in gratitude for the many ways we've seen mercy in our lives. 2013 is nearly done. Let us use the remaining five days to hug our beloved ones a few extra times.  Relish the luxury of staring at their faces, young or old, for a bit each morning.  Give the dog a bonus scratch behind the ears. Send a message to your old highschool or college buddies.  Call your cousin (especially if your cousin is me). Let's savor the living peices of sunshine in our lives, finishing the year basking in mercy.
But... if you can't bask in mercy, if your heart is heavy and broken, give me a call. Let's have coffee. I don't claim to know all the answers, but I am trying to listen for them in the middle of tears.

Love,
Honour

A Man Worth Knowing

Yesterday we said a final goodbye to my Grand Poppy,  Harry A. Stout.  I just cried a little more typing those words, and I am tired of crying. But some people are worth crying over. Some people deserve a fuss being made over them.  Grand Poppy certainly deserved it, but he may not have liked it.

In my memory, Harry A. Stout was a good man, an honest man, a humble man. He did not talk much about his childhood with me, and yet he was a wonderfully child-like grandfather, always willing to go for a walk or play a game of cards.  He could nearly always be talked into a bowl of ice cream.  He didn't seem to care what name we gave him, and he answered to all of them: Grandpa Harry, Bobby, Grand Daddy and Poppy.  Maybe names weren't such a big deal to him, as I often heard him say "There's my girl!" when someone new walked in the room. I usually had to look to see if he was talking about my dearest Grandmother, Piki, or one of his daughters,
 or one of us granddaughters or one of his dogs.  He loved all of his girls, and he made each of us feel like his favorite, his special girl.  I wish my daughters could have known him better.



But why do we wait until someone is gone to say nice things about them? I said "I love you" each time I saw him, but never told Grand Poppy how much I appreciated his humility, or his generosity, or his ability to pretend that our hands were glued together. I hope that someone expressed to him in words what I left unsaid.

Today I will begin saying the nice things that others need to hear.  I will tell people that they are wonderful, that they can do great things. I will pretend with my children, and I will tell them family stories until they can recite them back to me, until they are sick of hearing them, until they know the good people that have come before them.  Today I will speak my love and admiration.

And I will have a dish of ice cream topped with a few salty tears.

Grandma Claus

This is The Man's Grandma.  She came over with toy catalogs and let the children give her ideas.

She's pretty much a terrifically Great Grandma.  I am proud to share last names.  I'm also proud of those little kridlets. Not one of them was rude or whiny. Although they do tend to have expensive taste.

Perfectly Thankful

Through various conversations & readings lately, I've been reminded of the pressure we women place upon ourselves to achieve perfection.
Perfect marriage.
Perfect children.
Perfect home.
Perfect meals.
Perfect body.
Perfect job/hobby/creations...
Perfect spelling.

Perfection is the four-lane highway on the guilt trip of motherhood. 
Anyone who's read my stuff before knows that I am not perfect in any of these aspects.  Really not perfect. Some days, I'm determined that my imperfections will not keep me from joy.  Some days I do allow my imperfections (and those of people around me) to keep me from joy.  Some days I forget I'm not perfect, and I actually do something that impresses myself.  And then my camera reminds me. 

See, I made this perfectly cute turkey shirt for GBaby.  Everything about it impressed me: I made it without a real pattern, loosely following an adaptation from one of my mom's sewing patterns from the 70's.  I used only scrap materials, left over from other projects.  I hand-embroidered parts. I even finished the seams and top-stitched it, people! 
It fits perfectly. 
"Gee, I'm so pleased with myself.  I must be perfect.  I'll take a picture to show everyone that sometimes I do things right. I can almost be a craft blogger (except for that whole I'm-not-a-Mormon part)."

Then.
I realized.
I dropped my camera two weeks ago.  And now it doesn't like to focus. (Anyone want to sell me a lens for cheap?)

Durn.
I was this close to being perfect. 

Now I have to pretend my picture is from the 1960's when I was perfect (except for that whole not-being-born-yet part).

Don't tell me that it's all The Awful Worldly World's fault, because it only has as much influence over me as I allow.  So, what drives my (ugly) desire for perfection? Insecurity? Pride? Control? Painful Memories? 
God sees every part of me, the perfect and imperfect.  And still, He loves me.  Amen.  That's enough to be Thankful.  With or without a turkey shirt.

Now, as a bonus reminder, go give a good listen to these two songs from a really great artist.  And be thankful for your imperfections, because they can showcase the enormity of God's love.

Just so you know that I'm not making this imperfect stuff up: I had a really crappy attitude for about 36 hours. You can pray for me (and my poor little family). Thanks.

A Little Pumpkin Love

Little things make me happy.  Like the mini pumpkins we have in over abundance around here.

 This little pumpkin, however, did not have any friends. He was very lonely.

 Sometimes when we're lonely, we just have to look around.  There's probably another pumpkin out there who also needs a friend.

 See?

No wait a minute.
This is not that kind of blog.
Please. Get a mini-pumpkin room.

I'm sorry, folks. I had no idea pumpkins thought these kinds of thoughts.

Puttin' On The Feedbag

Hungry complaints.
"I don't like sitting here, all I do is watch you guys eat and I don't get anything but these crummy little puffs."

What is this new thing?

By tradition: Daddy feeds Baby her first cereal.

Unsure...

But she's liking the spoon!

An overly-helpful audience.

A (rather hungry) audience member. How does that hair taste?

And so it begins. We are no longer solely dependant upon Mama. Just one little step in a lifetime of moving away from me.


I think I'll go cry into some fudge.