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Brilliant Father’s Day Present Ideas?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller??

So, um, Father’s Day is this Sunday, and I have, um, absolutely no very few ideas about what the kids and I should do for Andy.

We’re going to the Reds game, so at least we have our activities for the day planned, but I have no ideas about a present from the kids, which is where you come in. I need help! So of course I’m turning to you.

And for those of you who are in my shoes – here’s all I have to offer. The bright ideas I’ve had the last two Father’s Days…

A personalized galvanized tub:

And a fire pit:

Both were big hits, but I am fresh out of ideas this year… and I’m really a little short on time!

So please, leave a comment with your best Father’s Day present, craft, activity, idea, whatever. Help us slackers all out!

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Enough

“How’s your brain?” a friend asked me this weekend. Meaning, to ask, of course, if I was still losing my ever-loving mind.

“Eh. I have good days and bad days.” I replied.

Which is true, but it’s not quite that simple. Some days I have really good days, and some days I have really bad days, and some days, I am just not quite right. Some days it is my mental health that needs a tune-up, and other days my hormones still torture me physically.

I am working on it. I have medication, I have routine doctor’s appointments, and now, after a good talk with the aforementioned friend, I have some social and activity-related goals I am going to set for myself. To be proactive, and perhaps, help my body chemistry along a bit.

But the truth is I am tired. Tired of trying to get better, tired of waiting to get better, tired of not being better. Tired of feeling totally awesome for a couple of days and then the crushing disappointment of feeling the opposite of awesome the next day.

And sometimes, I am afraid. Afraid that this will be the rest of my life. Afraid that I will end up laying in the middle of my lawn speaking jibberish and wearing my underwear on my head. Afraid that if I post about being crazy I will not be invited to cool mommy blogger events or win friends and influence people (hey I never said my fears were rational.)

What will I learn from this…period in my life? I want to know it, this lesson, I want to have learned it, earned it, put it into practice. I want to tuck it into my back pocket and say, “Oh, I am so glad I had that experience because it made me a better person.”

The Bible says we are to count our trials as joys. Because they build faith, and character. It also says they that wait on the Lord will soar like eagles. And soaring instead of muddling sounds lovely right now, and I want to do it. So I wait. And I remember, in my saner moments, in the quiet, in the stillness, that it is enough that God knows. He knows the number of my days, which ones will be a battle and which ones will be full of effortless joy. He knows these things that it is not time for me to know yet, and for that I am so thankful. It is unknown to me but it is not unknown.

It is enough.

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The $1 Million Question

Wayyyy back in the day when Jenny and Bobby got married, I gave them a card that said something along the lines of “Congratulations! You’re never going to have to hear ‘When are you going to get married?’ again!” on the outside, and on the inside it said “So when are you going to have a baby?”

And then after the first… “Ready for another one??”

Then after the second (and I presume subsequent children as well), the common refrain is “So are you done now?”

Which, my friends, is where Andy and I are right now.

Before Sammy was born, I would have (and did) answered that question with an emphatic “Hell yeah!” I mean, I practically had him scheduled for the ol’ snip snip.

Now, though, it’s more of a {face contorted} “Yes. I think so. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.”

And that’s just it – I don’t know.

It doesn’t make sense for us to have more kids. We don’t have another bedroom, and Sammy’s is already super small. We don’t have room for another car seat. And I can’t even begin to think about the financial implications of another baby.

But… I see things like Megan’s ultrasound or hear a tiny baby cry and my uterus skips a beat.

I also realize, though, that those things probably happen regardless. I mean, what are you supposed to do – keep having children until the sights/sounds of pregnancy and babies are repulsive? That doesn’t sound like such a good plan.

So tell me, readers, how did you know that you were done? Or how did you know that you’re not?

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