Reflective Moments...

I spoke with a friend on the phone last night. It was nice to catch up, and have a few kid-free moments to talk about something that is difficult for both of us, and I'm sure every mother out there. I'm sure its hard for dad's too, but we don't represent their perspective, because we are two women talking. The topic was; how do you live a prayerful life, or to word it another way, how do we as mothers integrate prayer, thoughtfulness, reading, or being reflective in some way into our busy crazy lives? My friend said she was reading a book by a male author who spoke of his reflective, prayerful life, his commitment to community and all that stuff Christians are called to do... and she threw it across the room... why? Well for the same reason I would have. Its hard for us to imagine fulfilling all those callings when you have children. Its not that we use children as excuses to get out of being prayerful, believe me I would love a few minutes each day to be kid-free and sit and think. I would even love it if I could sit and think with kids. But seriously, I have a toddler, and I take care of a friends child who is also 2. My daily life is NUTS. Don't take me wrong, I love my baby, I think she is the coolest kid ever, I think she is the cutest little pixie baby too. But lately she has been biting her best buddy for no reason at all, and he's into jumping off of everything, which means climbing on top of everything. These two toddlers have one huge bag of tricks and never stop thinking of new ways to make me crazy (did I mention they also stuck their arms into the toilet today!).

Anyways back to the book conversation, here's the deal, a man wrote this book, nothing against men, but the guy who wrote this book is a university professor, his job is to THINK... all day. He gets paid to think, so what is his wife doing? Is she home with his kids being able to live this reflective life he writes about? Maybe I don't know, but what I do want to know is, are there women who have kids and get moments to be thoughtful? Of course there are, there are lots of you out there, you just don't have the time to write books about it because you are cleaning lunch off the walls, kissing scraped knees, stacking blocks, giving baths, scrubbing that mysterious stain out of the carpet and potty training that child who just peed under the bed.

The more I talked with my friend we did think of a few women who have moments of thoughtfulness, Anne Lammot wrote Operating Instructions during her sons first year of life, as a single mom. This book came about as a result of her taking the time to sit and write a few moments a day, or week, or whenever she got a "moment". My husband just introduced me to newsletter called Notes from Toad Hall. Margie Haack writes this thoughtful little jewel. I love reading it, over and over. I have only gotten two issues and I have read them several times because they are encouraging, honest, thoughtful, and prayerful too. My husband and I just ordered a book by Image's Gregory and Susanne Wolfe, Circle of Grace. This couple writes on ways to integrate prayer into the family life, I have not read it yet, we just got it in the mail yesterday. So I'll write a review on it later. :)

Anyways, I was thinking about this during nap time (during which my daughter only slept for 25 minutes... so it was a short nap time... I'm still bitter :) ) and I thought about my friend Stacy's blog, she writes with some regularity in her blog and its always good. Sometimes is a conversation with her 5 year old, sometimes its a crazy day she had with her three boys, either way, did I mention she writes in her blog regularly and has THREE boys! (she also takes time out of her one break in the day, nap time, to call me back, thanks Stacy)

Alright, I'm sure this will become a topic I write more about. If any of you out there have any tips on how to be a more reflective mother I could use any of your suggestions, for now, I'm off to fold cloth diapers, and rest on the couch with my husband who just made me dinner because I had a rough day with my two little toddlers.