These little cookie cutter neighborhoods have been sprouting up all over this place - looking eerily like the subdivisions devouring rapidly the diminishing open spaces between our town and the shopping center we frequent the next city over. A week ago, I found THIS printable worksheet and its been, More, mommy, please! More houses! ever since. Mary just likes to cut them out. Priscilla and Ben find textured surfaces, like our antique furnace covers and heavily plastered walls, that make interesting patterns when paper is laid over them and rubbed with a crayon. I like these homemade ones better because at least they vary in color and I can gather them in a pile to put away and bring back out whenever the children and I feel like it. They aren't rooted by concrete to our fields and farm land, encouraging our addiction to excess with their insane amount of square footage, cathedral ceilings and three car garages. They can't bury us in debt, can't separate so severely the haves from have nots. I appreciate their accessibility, and heart windows.
If someone were to say to me, So describe a typical evening in the Sabourin home, I would show to him or her the above video and simply reply, Well, there you have it. To most, I would guess, this two minute clip might seem pretty uneventful but to me its like capturing a significant era and my children's characteristics in a bottle. They won't always be content to sing over and over again every 7th word to a Disney ballad while prancing around, turning in circles, on our rug . In fact, as you can tell, Elijah, now ten years old, is nowhere to be seen. He created this repetitive form of amusement when we still lived in Chicago and passed it down to his younger siblings but presently prefers to spend hours in his room with legos, a drawing pad, and more recently, J.R.R Tolkien.
You will notice that, as usual, my niece, Jane, is over and that she and Mary are wearing Princess dresses much too big for them. That is their main shared activity, whether here or at my brother's house - playing dress-up and then making us watch them "do a show," a show believe it or not we never get tired of gaping at because those are our tiny girls and their every move thrills us. This is also a perfect example of Benji's exuberance for life, for music, for body humor, which he consistently maintains (much to my joy, chagrin and fascination) in all situations he encounters. Priscilla, no longer content to spin idly like the little ones, is off in the corner, memorizing the lyrics she will later perform with the utmost seriousness to a crowd of thousands gazing at her attentively from our couch, which is really an auditorium. And I will let her have that moment (much to the disgruntlement of Ben and Mary) all alone on the "stage." She, too, is growing up and needing time to herself - snippets of uninterrupted time to explore, under my watchful and yet, hopefully, non-intrusive, not over controlling eye, her own likes and dislikes, her dawning passions and ambitions.
I want to remember these days with clarity - their breezy unselfconsciousness, the sound of my happy and carefree kids being just kids, the nights of free and live entertainment I will ache for when they are older and desperate to fly from this nest. I want to more fully grasp and and be thankful for the fact that, for now, my "typical" is exceptionally transparent, extraordinarily rewarding, remarkably fleeting. I want a front row seat to this craziness as long as possible.
When any of their grandsons turn ten, Troy's parents (A.K.A Papa and Nana) take them to the Lego store and let them pick out something especially grand. For months, Elijah has been talking about it, dreaming about it, deciding what to get and then changing his mind. This past weekend, his time to shop for that perfect Lego something had finally arrived. When we picked him up, he was beaming. In one hand was a gigantic Lego bag and in the other, a much smaller one from McDonalds.
He chose Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull. Since Monday night, he has been busy piecing together an impressively realistic, adventure fraught, play scene complete with trap doors and evil enemies half the size of my thumb. It is cool - so cool, in fact, Elijah declared it an even better gift then the Nintendo DS (the one he keeps desperately begging for and we keep not buying him because, first of all, its too expensive and him owning it would mean he'd never make eye contact with us again) would have been.
In an effort to save his birthday treasure from the same tragic fate of so many other toys and games we've broken and scattered, Priscilla, Ben and Mary have been forbidden to touch and/or breath on any of the Lego blocks that comprise this specific set. The girls, for the most part, are fine with this but Benji, oh boy, he is struggling. It was just my fingernail!, he yelled this afternoon when Elijah accused him of breaking the Sabourin commandment by brushing his pinky against the whip in Indiana's c-shaped hand, I didn't even feel it!
Hold on buddy! Only four years from now, it will be your turn!
I like to call these two Laverne and Shirley. My Mary and her cousin, Jane, could not look more opposite. They bicker, dream up hair-brained ideas, and are fiercely loyal to one another. It makes my sister-in-law, Paige, and I laugh to watch them interact. It's like my husband, Troy, and my brother, Bobby, have gone back in time and become inseparable little girls. It is weird as a parent to see your spouse's features on the face of your child - weird and completely endearing.
On another note, we are leaving in the morning to spend a long weekend at my in-laws. I am so looking forward to it. Papa and Nana (I know you are reading this and thank you for that), break out the cereal and ice cream! :)
For a long while, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It wasn’t the exhaustion or sudden loss of freedom per se; I was sure that eventually time and experience would remedy (or at least numb) the ill effects of those violent intrusions on my health and emotions. When the claustrophobia and hormonally charged periods of baby blueness came and went and came again those first several months, I knew deep down in my gut that they were not the cause, not the root anyway, of my discontentment either. I wanted to be a mom. I was committed wholeheartedly to this invaluable opportunity to raise and nurture my children. No matter how hard I tried, however, to line up my thought life with my set in stone convictions regarding the sacredness of parenthood, I couldn’t make one consistently reflect the other. In my mind, bouts of resentment, impatience, and insecurity were obviously signs of failure – were simply incompatible with good and prayerful parenting. What was dampening my experience as a mother (aha! I finally figured it out!) was that impossibly wide chasm between my ideals and capabilities. My main objective in life, then, became to cross it.
To combat my incompetence I sought voraciously the advice of others. I positive disciplined, sleep trained and chore charted my way to success – success that would last a week or so before I’d lose steam and give up, and then agonize over my laziness? my selfishness? my flightiness? To be honest, I didn’t know what exactly was wrong with me! Somewhere there was a key that could unlock that mystical secret of maternal satisfaction and until I found it, I would dart all over the place testing theories and hypotheses claiming posession of precisely what I was longing for. Out there lay my happiness, perfection and fulfillment. I was always but an article or surefire tip away from arriving at that mommy plateau from which everything runs smoothly and where everyone, parents and kids alike, respond pleasantly and appropriately from that point forward to life’s challenges.
In the midst of a never ending voyage toward an ambiguous and elusive finish line, I began to open up, out of frustration, to my fellow mom friends. What I discovered repeatedly, surprisingly enough, was that each of us was struggling with our own unique self-doubts. Each of us was worn out from trying to live up to our impeccable standards. Each of us was concerned that our children were abnormally something – shy, aggressive, willful, behind in development, you name it. It also began to dawn on me, however, that those conversations so honest and yet seemingly unproductive in which I vented to a supportive and empathetic peer provided comfort unlike any how-to manual I had ever combed through for answers. Feeling part of something bigger than the little lonely world I was dwelling in and worrying in and yet would sacrifice anything to stay in, brought me real and sustained peace. In apartments, houses and condos around the globe were women and men just like me – parents who adored their kids, parents whose families were flawed, parents inching their way toward enlightenment two steps forward and one step backward at a time.
Several years ago I got an idea in my head. I wanted to chronicle my experience as a new mom coming to terms with the actualities of her role. I wanted to state clearly and candidly the misconceptions holding me back from taking ownership of my position as the mother of these distinct children placed divinely in my care. I desired to scream from the pages of a book not, “Here is how you do it!” but rather, “You, my friend, are not alone!” I am abundantly thankful for Conciliar Press and for their willingness to take a chance on me. With Conciliar, I was able to freely and thoroughly examine motherhood in light of the Orthodox Christianity I had converted to. It was rigorous work, writing with four small children on my lap and at my feet, staying up later than I should to finish just one more thought, one more paragraph. It was (and still is) scary, I’ll admit it, to become so vulnerable through the sharing of my faults and fears. But bigger than the challenges were the revelations! I was floored to find out how applicable and transforming are the teachings of the ancient Church to modern day men and women in the throes of disciplining, praying for, and doting on their children.
It is finished; I can scarcely believe it! Close to Home: One Orthodox Mother’s Quest for Patience, Peace and Perseverance is now available to pre-order at Conciliar’s website. I am honored for this chance to reveal how my numerous mistakes and disappointments, a sense of community, and the teachings of Jesus as revealed through the mysteries of His Church, are enabling me to focus less on what I can’t be or do and more on what God can. I want to take this opportunity to thank you, all of you who have listened to these podcasts and read my blogs and who have inspired me to wake up each morning and try all over again to be a little more like Christ than the day before. Let us continue pursuing the unearthly gratification that comes from serving one another, uplifting one another – from loving sacrificially in the name of the Holy Trinity our spouses, sons and daughters, siblings, parents and neighbors.
feasting on petit fours
Isabelle and Elia
Mary Catherine
yum
the lovely Miss Kris
a fancified Paige
my Priscilla
GLITTER!
dancing 
angels
We fought all the way to the library. We fought off tears and the urge to run away from one another. It's too much sometimes, having to love and raise and educate my children. I'm not always up to it. To tell you the truth, I lose momentum, cave into frustration, run out of steam. As usual, I was bundled, but I neglected to put on boots. Through my silvery flats and black stripy knee socks I felt the slush, dirty slush. Well that figures, I thought, like Eeyore counting his mishaps, on top of everything else, my feet are wet. Oh bother.
Once inside, the five of us scattered. In separate aisles, separate spaces, we unwound. I watched toddlers running loose - heard screams of protest, whispered warnings; all around me were mothers in the messy, demanding, thick of it. I was comforted, in good company, not alone. Check this out, said Elijah, my nine-year-old. And together we marveled at a picture of hands painted expertly to resemble zebras, alligators, lions - spectacular stuff- in a kid's magazine. That is amazing, I assured him, relieved and grateful for the olive branch he was extending to me, having cooled off and forgotten entirely how unfair, how intolerable is his life as an eldest son.
The moment passed, as it usually does. Our despair gave way to acceptance, warm and manageable, with but a simple change of scenery. We weren't broken it turns out, only shaded for awhile from the goldenness of our potential. We lost sight of what is good, even holy, about being bonded, fused together, for all eternity. We forget and then remember and then forget again all the time. So it goes with faith and sacrifice: up and down, mountains and valleys, joy and sorrow.
It isn't less cold than before but the sun is bright, brilliant. The icicles (or "sharps," as Mary prefers to call them), so jagged and intimidating, protruding downward over our porch have begun melting. Seen this way, transparent and dazzling, reflecting the light, winter seems pure and clean and promising.
Harsh, healing, hectic, invigorating, binding, freeing - it's all just a matter of perspective.
Photo by Austin Warnock-Indianapolis Indiana austinwarnock.wordpress.com
