You might be a mother if...

This morning while emptying out the contents of my purse in order to make room for the camera to take pictures of Little Bit's dedication, I came across the following...

Yes, that is a partially eaten three day old hotdog in the instance that you were wondering. I wrapped it up at dinner the other night in case Little Bit was still hungry later...I think the time for "later" to eat that has well passed now though!

I just had to laugh about it...because no one but a mother would wrap up a partially eaten hot dog and shove it into the depths of their personals bag...right alongside car keys, sunglasses, grocery lists, changes of clothes, crayons, and the list goes on...and on!

I thought I'd take this opportunity to think of a few other little gems to add to the treasures in the "you might be a mother if..." category.

You might be a mother if....

• You have ever popped at home and smuggled into the movie theater an entire bag of dairy free popcorn so that your allergic child can have popcorn during a movie.
• You regularly defy the laws of gravity during any family car trip by crawling back and forth from the front seat of the car to the back to make sure that each passenger has all the snacks, coloring books, movies, drinks, etc that they may need....every 6 minutes.
• You can make trail mix...just by cleaning the floor of your car.
• You have ever realized that the burning from rubbing your eye was the result of a stray particle of poop that had gotten on your hand during a diaper change.
• You have ever climbed to the top of any fast food playground, even though they are expressly for individuals who are less than 44inches tall.
• Alone time has been narrowed to just your time in the shower.
• You rarely ever have the luxury of peeing without a tiny audience.
• You buy bathing suits made for "active" lifestyles in an effort not to be the family beach peep show when you are holding a struggling toddler.
• You regularly wipe a child's nose with nothing but your bare hand...or the hem of your shirt.
• You have had pee, boogers, poop, and throw up all end up on you...in one day.
• You traded in your BMW 328i convertible to end up one day with a minivan.
• You now wonder how you ever survived without a minivan.
• At the end of a realization of all of the ridiculous things that you find yourself doing and saying that you always swore you wouldn't do or say...you find that you wouldn't trade any of it for the world...

You just might be a mother.

The other day I was thinking about all of the things that I wanted to do for myself and by myself for Mother's Day...that this day was going to be the day that I could finally catch a break and be alone for a bit. I was thinking about how much I have "earned" a day like that.

Tid Bit had a Mother's Day tea at his school on Friday, and honestly, I felt guilty for feeling all those things. I looked at pictures of my now 5 year old and saw summed up in 10 minutes, a slideshow of all the changes that have occurred, even in just the look of his face, over this past year...and suddenly I found myself already missing this little boy who will be grown for far more time than he will be small.

I read it all the time from women who must be far better than I...from women who either know the value of this time more because it has passed for them, or from women who must somehow do a better job embracing the right here and now than I do.  But I do try...I know these days are precious, even though oftentimes they are hard.  And every time I read something about valuing these days...treasuring this time...holding close these small hands and hearts, I think, "she is so right...I will miss this."

The truth is that I already do.

So this Mother's day, if you are a mother, I encourage you to focus not on all that you do and have done...because we all know that is a hefty and applaudable list.  Let us focus on what we have been given in this role of Mom. Hands to hold, boogies to wipe on our shirts, tears to wipe with our hugs, lives to shape with our influence...because THAT my friends is a gift that no one can ever buy or give to us.

Proverbs 31:28 " her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her saying " many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."

Happy Mother's Day friends...if you are a mother...I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a mother...rise up and bless her...not just today.

PS.  For those of you who aren't mothers yet, but wish to be...I know that this day has probably been hard for you.  I've been there too.  And I think that tomorrow I will tell you more about that.

Recipes for life...Pie!

Ok, so the pie I'm talking about here isn't exactly a real recipe per say.

I probably just lost half of you after reading that statement, huh?  So I'll make you a deal.  If you read this today, then tomorrow I'll post a recipe for a killer real pie, alright?!

The pie I'm talking about isn't usually as sweet, and I sure as heck don't look forward to it like I do to dessert at the end of a good meal.  The pie I'm talking about is none other than...

Humble Pie.

And i ate a big fat slice of it today and felt like I was going to throw up the whole time.  Then afterwards I cried...because the reality is that I should have stuffed piece that down my throat a long time ago.

You know they say that first impressions make lasting impressions....well they do.  But if every first impression I ever made was the one people went to the bank with, I'm POSITIVE that some of my most amazing friends wouldn't have ever come around to actually end up being my friend.

Several years back...and I do mean like 10, I remember meeting a girl at a restaurant after church one day with a big group of people.  I didn't remember her name, or even that I'd met her really til she reminded me much later on.  But apparently the first impression I made was horriffic!  I'm so embarrassed to tell you this, but before I tell you about the particular piece of pie I ate today, I wanted to let you know that in no way do I consider myself above this particular tragedy of a destroyed first impression.  Anyways, this friend (notice she is a friend now) seriously had to be convinced by multiple mutual aquaintances to give me another shot.  She thought I was awful!  And now we laugh about it, and when I think about myself 10 years ago, in a lot of ways I'm sure I can see how she may have thought that I was awful given impressions of only a few things about me, but boy am I glad she let me have another chance.  Because I can't tell you the ways this friend has changed my life...and one day I'll interview her on here because her story will change yours too.  All to say....I'm glad she didn't take my wretchedness of one encounter to the eternal bank with her....I'd have missed out big time!

Now about today...

Well over a year ago, I had a business encounter with a person that rubbed me so horribly wrong, I somehow just flat decided there was really nothing redeemable about the person.  (Mistake #1...and yes, I'm a big fat jerk.)  So for all this time since then, I've totally found something in me tense up even seeing the person, hearing other people say something relatively nice about the person and finding myself in complete doubt that the nicety could be true. (I know...I'm a jerk....but if we're being honest here, surely this has happened to you too.)  But I've just ignored it...and had no reason to really encounter or interact with this person at all since then.  So I pushed it to the back burner....which by the way will still boil over if you leave it long enough.

So lately we've found ourselves in a conundrum...the Hubs and I.  See, the very business need from before came up again.  And this time, there's a person the Hubs really likes working for this business that I was so offended by before.  But still, we'd like for said friend to benefit financially from a service we have no choice but to use someone to accomplish.  You see the conundrum?

Maybe you don't.  But it has been a conundrum for us.

But here's the deal about finding yourself in a conundrum.  You have to ask why you're in it, and sometimes you'll maybe realize you need to eat some humble pie... and then you have to actually admit that you may have been wrong.

GASP!

I will grant myself that it was a horriffic first meeting by multiple counts, but I have taken that encounter to the life bank about that person.  And I let it color how I view him/her, how I view the thoughts of others, how I feel in general.  That's a lot of coloring of a really ugly color.  And here's where I have been wrong.  I judged someone so severely because of one meeting.  Judgement isn't mine anyways...I'm just as sinful as the next person. And I'm thankful as all get-out that God is in the business of second chances...and thirds, and fourths...and more.  Because heaven knows I use those up for sure!

So today....I walked up to the person and introduced myself.  (I'm so horrified to even confess that I had to introduce myself...person didn't remember meeting me and here I've been harboring resentment.)  So I said "Hey, I'm Logan Wolfram.  And I need to ask for your forgiveness." 

Literally...that's exactly how I started out.  How's that for an intro?!

I can't imagine what the person must have been thinking at that moment, as I freaking introduced myself and in the same breath asked for forgiveness.  But, where I'd expected there to be something harsh about the person, I saw geunine concern and sorrow.  The person asked what they'd done and I shared a tad, but mostly just absorbed the blame because it really doesn't matter what they inadvertently did a year and a half ago.  It doesnt matter....and I let it matter so much for so long, that the problem became mine, not theirs. 

Get that...the problem became .... Mine.

And mostly then I wrapped it up, awkwardly hugged this person who's clearly not "a hugger" like I am, and then I walked back to where I'd been and sat down.

I cried then.  I cried because I felt free from bitterness.  I cried because I was mortified at my own wretchedness to hang on to something and make a mountain out of a mole hill.  And mind you that was a mountain that I had to climb....not the other person.

But you know what, that 3 minute interchange....it freed me up.  It freed the other person up too.  And in the time it took to do that, I wouldn't have even finished eating a real slice of pie.  This pie...it made room in my soul for something better.  And while it was definitely a harder pie to order, it's one that will leave me feeling much more satisfied with myself and my life in the long run.

- Logan

**Anyone or anything in your life maybe beckoning you to eat a slice of humble pie?  Once you order it, I promise you'll be glad you did.  So do it...and make room in your life for something much sweeter!