“How can I pray for you?” he asked.
“I feel overwhelmed,” I said. “I am behind in everything and have extra things to do this week. I want to do them, but now my group is leading Sunday school praise and worship so we need to practice for that, the Webale group is leading praise and worship on Friday so we have three days of practice for that, the aunties are leading praise and worship on Sunday so that also means practice Thursday afternoon. I haven’t given reading lessons in weeks because I was waiting until I could get special needs cleaned up but that hasn’t happened yet because other things keep coming up. We need to write our newsletter and plan assemblies and… I’m just tired. I want a break.”
We prayed for rest.
On Monday afternoon, my head felt the slightest bit funny. I took my temperature and had a low fever, and a faint headache soon followed. Thinking it was possibly malaria, I told myself if it felt worse by the next day I would go to the clinic. We were scheduled to have a group of 12 teenagers come to our house that night, though, so just to be safe I took a Covid self-test. Not expecting it to amount to anything, I even planned on taking the test and then picking up Elliot from daycare during the 15 minute wait to see the results. However, I didn’t even make it out of the bedroom, let alone the house, before two dark lines showed up on that stick. This was something new.
I called the doctor to find out what the protocol on the compound is concerning quarantine because it has changed so many times in the last two years. Five days home with the whole household, then test again at the end of the week. We tested the rest of the family and somehow the girls both managed to test positive and the boys were able to avoid it. They must not give us enough hugs and kisses.
To some extent, my first reaction was relief. I could be done with organized activities for the rest of the day. For the next several days. I imagine some other people feel the same way when faced with forced downtime, even when it is the result of “sickness” (I put that in quotes because neither Patricia nor I feel more than a slight cold, so I don’t count us as actually sick).
God had answered our prayer and given us rest.
Sort of.
We live in a 527-square-foot house with two toddlers.
Can you see where I am going with this?
On Monday evening, as Christian and I were calling Patricia’s teacher, his office workers, my librarian, and anyone else who needed to know of our absence this week, we half-jokingly said things like, “Well, we needed to write our newsletter this week anyway. Now we have plenty of time for that!” and “This will be a great time to finally clean out my inbox.”
I know those of you with young children are shaking your heads and wondering how we could be so naive. In the back of my mind, I also knew we were being too optimistic, but in those moments I chose to let optimism win.
That lasted about 12 hours.
Because the children were sleeping.
We didn’t set any alarms on Tuesday, opting instead to sleep in for good health. Remember, we are “sick”! Tuesday morning felt like a Saturday, the only day of the week we are not rushing to either school or Sunday school as soon as everyone is dressed and at least 50 percent of us have brushed our teeth. When the mid-morning sun poured over our verandah we borrowed the neighbor’s swimming pool and hauled 20 buckets of water from the bathroom to fill it ten inches. Patricia and Elliot were in heaven! It gave them a chance to be outside without running away from the house and gave Christian and I a chance to sit at the table with our laptops in front of us and a good view of our swimsuit-clad kids out the front door.
Two sentences into whatever I was doing: “Mooooooommy! We want more water!”
“Okay, just give me two minutes and then I will get you some more.”
Ten seconds later, this time from child number two: “Mommy, mo’ water!”
“Hold on, just a minute.”
Eight seconds later: “Mommy, we want toys!”
I fetched them some bath toys and several more buckets of water. They squealed in delight and shock when I poured the cold water as a waterfall on their backs. Patricia wriggled in her butterfly swimsuit and Elliot’s eyes grew wide as he decided whether to laugh or cry.
I sat back down at the table.
I should have known better.
“Mommy, Elliot is beating me with the cup!”
“Elliot, did you beat Patricia with the cup?”
He nodded and said yes. At least the kid is honest. I told him to apologize, which he did in the adoring manner in which he always does, and they went back to playing and pouring and making the whole verandah wet.
I typed another sentence.
“Mommy, may we wash your shoes?”
“Yes, it’s okay.”
“Then we need soap.”
I gave them soap.
“Where are the scrubbers?”
I gave them each a scrub brush and then sat down to work. Half a sentence later I heard a scream and crying from outside. Patricia had soap in her eye.
You get the idea.
I read once that being a parent is a lot of getting up when you have just sat down. That is one of the most accurate descriptions of parenting I have ever heard.
Nap time… well, that was an adventure all of its own. Patricia was going to try sleeping on the top bunk for the first time, which meant Elliot wanted to sleep in her bed on the bottom bunk. I didn’t realize until the fourth time he climbed out of bed and asked me to sleep with him that he had probably seen me lie down with Patricia so many times in her bed that he assumed that was a given every time someone slept there. As I lay next to Elliot, watching him suck his thumb and drift off to sleep, Patricia’s voice floated every thirty seconds from above: “Mommy, please sleep with me?” When I told her I would do it another time, I had to force myself out of the room as she slumped over the railing, arms crossed, brows furrowed and lips pursed. I wasn’t sure if an hour or two of sleep would be enough to make her forget and forgive.
When the children finally fell asleep, Christian and I got in two hours of work.
It was a fun day, but by 10:00 that night the kitchen counter was piled with dirty dishes and I was exhausted. “I was home literally the WHOLE day,” I told my mom. “How could I not find time to do the dishes?”
On Wednesday morning, I asked Christian what I could do for him that day. “I would appreciate if you could give me an hour or two do some work on my laptop,” he said. So to keep the kids busy I painted Patricia’s toenails and fingernails, and to keep her still I found We Sing in Sillyville on YouTube and half-watched nostalgically.
After 15 minutes, they wanted to do something else. We tried swimming again. That also lasted 15 minutes. Elliot beat Patricia so many times on the head that she wanted to get out pretty quickly. He seemed content to play in the water by himself, until he pinched his finger in the handle of a bucket. I rescued him and kissed his finger.
That happened four more times.
In the afternoon there were no other kids in the neighborhood, so I told my own they could finally do somersaults in the grass. I grabbed my laptop to sit on the verandah and purge my inbox for the first time in two years while keeping an eye on the kids.
I opened one email. That’s as far as I got.
Elliot rushed to my side. “Mommy, sit on my lap?” (He gets possessives mixed up.) We argued for a couple of minutes. He won. I closed the laptop and before I had even laid it aside, his cute little butt was on my lap and he had snuggled into my chest. It was sweet, but it was a problem for his sister.
“Mommy, I sit your lap?” she asked in her best imitation of Elliot’s voice.
“No, you can sit next to me,” I said.
“But I want to sit on your lap also.”
“Okay, but then you sit on my knees behind Elliot.” She did that. Her brother squirmed and protested. Sometimes there is no winning.
I still have 516 messages in my inbox.
Last night I lay beside Patricia as she was going to sleep. Well, as she was trying to go to sleep. Let me rephrase that—as I was trying to get her to try to go to sleep. Elliot lay in his own bed, calling for me, reciting his favorite book, and babbling about this and that. Patricia’s eyes sprung open. “Mommy, Elliot is making noise for me,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “Elliot, it is time for sleeping!”
“No!”
Again, at least it’s easy to tell what he wants.
Since I can’t leave the house to run, I am using this week to catch up on some yoga. I started a 30-day yoga program in January… of 2021. Today I did day eight. Just as it is taking me a year-and-a-half to finish a month’s worth of yoga, it took two-and-a-half hours to do a half-hour session. Blocks went flying from one room to another while I closed my eyes and tried to hear what the instructor was saying, let alone do what she was telling me to do.
“I want you to think about—“ Boom!
I will never know what she wanted me to think about because my one-year-old fell on the floor because he thought that was a good moment to try to climb to the top bunk for the first time.
Then he decided to join me. Elliot sat on my back while I touched my toes and screamed when I sat up and he fell down. He lounged on my legs with my feet as a backrest. He and Patricia tried following the video themselves. After a few fights over the second yoga mat, I made a masking tape line down the middle to make it two. (Patricia wanted to cut it in half.)
Relaxation at its finest.
Today Christian told me he would attend to the kids so I could get some work done. I couldn’t help but think it was unfair that when it was his turn to respond to every cry and need, one child fell asleep on my lap and the other one sat quietly on the couch looking at pictures. He must be magic.
As I was doing my devotions this morning while the birds and the family were still dozing, I tried harder than usual to sit and listen to anything God had to say to me. I knew it would be the only quiet moment of the day. “I want you to experience my love for you today,” he said. “I want you to be filled by it. I will love you through your children—through their smiles, laughter, hugs and affection. Their love for you is my love for you.”
I love being loved by my children. But the reminder that being loved by them is being loved by God… this has become a blessed day indeed.
Two notes about this post:
- Christian is an amazing husband and father and has done so much for and with us. To illustrate that fact, this morning he got up and cleaned the refrigerator before breakfast. Yes, I am bragging. I do not do this parenting thing alone.
- I write all of this not to make our experience sound more difficult than that of anyone else. I am sure it isn’t. On the contrary, I expect that most parents, especially parents of young children, can relate on some level and probably have dozens—or hundreds—of such stories to tell.
