Martha Metzler.com

We have an amazing 12 year old boy named Malcolm that lives on our street. Malcolm loves to skateboard. Bud could watch him for hours. One day I was outside without the children (I know, I’m just as shocked as you are) but I saw Malcolm and asked him out of the goodness of his heart  paid him $10 if he would teach Bud how to skateboard one afternoon. I told Bud about it and he literally talked about it every. single. day. for a week and kept asking when “Malcolm skatebo-ERD wit me?” Finally, the sun came out one afternoon and Malcolm knocked on our door for Bud to come out and play (yah I died of cute overload as well).

Here’s how it went down in my head: Bud runs out of the door, throws his Lightening McQueen helmet on and hops onto the board with complete joy and bad-assery.

Here’s how it went down in reality: Bud froze.

Like, f-r-o-z-e. Frozen. No movement. FUH-ROZE.

The kid had talked about it until I thought I was going to have to hire Tony Hawk to come give my son a ride on a skateboard just so I didn’t have to hear about skateboarding anymore….  or up my payment to $20 to Malcolm. I’m not sure which would have been harder. And he FROZE!

Yall- I’m not talking the cute, shy toddler who looks down at his feet and whispers, “no tanks”. That would have been adorable. But instead, Bud stiffened up like a board, went pale, and for the first time in his 2 and a half years went silent. Then he looked up at me with his jaw dropped and mouth breathed for the longest 3 minutes of my (and I’m sure a 10 bucks richer 12 year old’s) life. I looked at Malcolm and told him that we’d meet him outside in a minute or two when Bud pulled himself back together…. or at least stopped mouth breathing.

So we shut the door and I wanted to look at Bud and in a really sweet tone say, “DUDE! You’ve been talking about doing this for a week now and what’s wrong??? Why are you freezing up?? Why can’t you breathe through your nose?!” Then I remembered I gave up being a jerk for Lent (kidding). So instead, I knelt down and took his hands and asked what was going on.

He couldn’t believe it was happening. He had hoped for this for a week and it was finally happening and he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. He was having a hard time accepting the goodness.

Does that sound familiar? Because it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized I’ve been frozen because I couldn’t believe the Goodness. I was having a hard time accepting it because I didn’t think I deserved it. But as sure as Malcolm was still waiting on our front porch to take my son skateboarding, blessings were still waiting for me in spite of the fact that I don’t deserve them. Grace. Just Grace. 

After a couple of minutes of talking through what a happy time this would be and how special Bud must be for Malcolm to want to take him skateboarding, Bud shoved a granola bar in his mouth (whole) and ran out of the door clothed in his Lightening McQueen helmet and bad-assery.

Bennett Rippy and I sat on a blanket watching and I couldn’t get the smile off of my face. How wonderful life is when we just open our eyes to that Goodness that God so richly wants to pour on us. Can you believe it? Can you accept the Goodness? 

Y’all are the best! Seriously I am loving all the advice and stories. I’ve been counting sheep and that alone has made me crack up so if nothing else, y’all have made me laugh instead of curse into my pillow at 4:30am.

The winner is Meredith! Yay Meredith! I’m going to email you and get your address and you have a ridiculous, full of random fun things in a care package heading your way!

Lets just say the last winner of my last care package got a package brought to you by the letter “C” full of chocolate, candy, condoms, and chew toys for her dog….. you’re welcome Leslie.

Bet ya think I’m going to go on a rampage about sleeping training my infant don’t ya? Well think again!

Yall- I need to be sleep trained. I’ve never had troubles sleeping in the past but the past 6 months I’ve been waking up around 4:30am…. for the day. It’s like there’s a switch that goes off inside of me at 4:30am on the dot and I’m wide awake.

I try laying in the bed, praying, reading, forcing myself to go back to sleep but nothing works. I turn off all screens 30 minutes before I go to sleep and read before I go to bed. I’m at a loss.

SO my friends, I’m going to do a care package giveaway of my favorite things if you can help me out.  If you have any good sleep advice then leave it in the comments! I’m going to randomly pick a comment on Sunday and send you a care package! It’s a win win! You get a hilarious care package and I get sleep advice. And lets be honest, it doesn’t even have to be real advice because at this point, humor is my medicine.

“This will fly by…”

“This will pass…”

“But it’s such a short season!”

Confession time, I’ve said all of those things to people before and I have heard them a million times over the last 6 months. They are wise words, no doubt and certainly have their place. But, sometimes, I don’t want to hear them. Sometimes we need our friends to look up at the stormy sky and yell, “OH CRAP YOU ARE RIGHT! THIS IS ONE  HELL OF A STORM!” and sit right down in the storm shelter with us. Sometimes we need someone to grab their cans of pinto beans, radio, and bottled waters and realize this storm might take awhile to pass and there’s not much we can do to make it blow over quicker. We need someone to hunker down in the storm with us.

Now hear me on this, there will be times when I will need someone to grab my hand and pull me out of the storm and point my eyes towards sunnier skies. But what I’ve come to know is this. You can learn a lot from the storms.

Character, humility, and unrelenting hope are all born in stormy weather.

We shouldn’t rush that. And, I firmly believe that God blessed us with community for a reason and sometimes we need to sit with each other in the storms instead of ignoring the weather reports.

Next time you are going through a hard time, I will try and read your heart. Do you need me to point you to the tiniest clearing in the sky or do you need me to hunker down, grab hold of something bolted to the ground, and pray with you?

I think we have to learn that its ok to have stormy weather every now and then. Here in the PNW, we love the summer so much because we are seeing the sun consistently for the first time in about 9 months. We appreciate the sun because we’ve seen rain for a very long time.

This season in my life has been hard. Not because I have it harder than others, believe me I know I have it pretty damn good. But I think it’s been hard because I’ve recognized that I’m in a storm. I’m not running around in a summer dress with flip flops in the middle of the winter. I’m bundled up and facing it head on. I don’t know if it will blow over quickly or if I will be riding it out in the shelter. But one thing is for sure, I have what I need to endure it.

Yay! Kristen Scarbro you win you feisty redhead you! Email me your address and I’ll hook you up!

Thanks everyone for entering. I have a couple new giveaways coming up so stay tuned.

Y’all- is it possible to have a crush on an inanimate object? Because I have the biggest crush on my new camera bag from TheIt Bag Company. The amazing folks over there sent me this AMAZING, gorgeous leather bag that is the epitome of function and fashion. Granted its a huge step up for me since I used to wrap my camera in a t-shirt so it wouldn’t get banged up in my 8 year old purse but now, I can slip it right into its merry little spot and carry that bag around as if I’m actually fashionable and not wearing underwear from 2006.

I cannot brag on this bag enough. I’m not a model, not even close to a “well she could be a hand model” type. In fact, when I look at this picture all I can think about it how glad I am that I don’t have my fly down and how desperately I need to start wearing lipstick BUT I had to snap some pictures for my friends at TheIt to show off this amazing bag they sent.

As a special gift to my readers, they have set up a special 15% off discount on all of their camera bags. Just enter the code, LOVEMM15 and it is good through the end of March. And, right now, they have a free shipping special for all orders $199+ to anywhere in the US/Canada (regularly about $28.95) so its definitely the perfect time to make the most of the special discount!

Thanks again TheIT for making an amazing product and y’all treat yo-self to that discount!

So admittedly, my kids are not “lovie” kids. They don’t get attached to blankies or specific stuffed animals for sleep. But when GooseWaddle contacted me about reviewing their blankets I was intrigued because they looked so dang soft! I figured Bennett Rippy would like it to play with but it wouldn’t be one of those things that he got attached to.

YALL- homeboy loves that blankie. I put it at the top corner of his crib just out of curiosity and I looked at the video monitor the other night and he had grabbed it and was just snuggling with it under his arm. I’ll watch him nuzzle it against his face and curl up with it. So sweet. And I have to say, these are the softest blankets I have ever felt. I have felt all the high-end blankets and the ones people swear by, but these are definitely the softest I have ever felt.

Bud tries to steal the big blanket and the stuffed goose…. because he’s a big brother and that’s just what he does.

So my friends at GooseWaddle have GENEROUSLY offered to do a giveaway for my readers! They are giving away a GooseWaddle gift box which includes one big blanket, a blankie, and the toy goose! You even get to pick the color!

I’ll pick a winner next Friday the 14th. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with your email address! SO EASY! 

Good luck!

Never.

Oh sweet Bennett Rippy,

As your daddy and I listened to you scream late last night for 40 minutes because I’m sure something devastating woke you up like your sleep sack brushing up against your foot or an electric Hybrid car drove by 5 miles away, and with a grand finale of wanting to start your day at 5:30am, your daddy looked at me said, “He is a sweet baby, but he is NOT an easy baby.” These 5 months with you have stretched me as a mama beyond what I could have imagined. You still don’t like consistently sleeping even though we have you on an awesome, consistent schedule and do sleep training like it’s our ever-loving job. But man, you are so sweet. You love to snuggle, you love to squeal and babble, and you still give the best smiles in the whole world. You laugh a gleeful laugh when I tickle your neck or thighs. And you break out into the greatest, gummy smile any time big brother Bud plays with you or Roy the dog walks near you.

You have mastered rolling over from front to back but still can’t quite roll over from back to front. You love to grab at everything in sight, especially Mama’s hair. When you’re in your infant seat or crib, you love to kick, kick, kick your legs and you’d think an elephant was walking through the house. You my friend, have delicious thunder thighs.

You’re still eating well, taking a bottle 4 times a day (you started hating nursing at 4.5 months because my let-down was so slow so bottles it is!) and 2 little meals of “mo-meal”, sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, pears, or avocados. You got your first tooth this month, just shy of turning 6 months! I think the other bottom tooth is making its way through because you’ve been a bit fussier this week.

You, my poor dude, are battling a little cold right now. You have gotten more colds courtesy of Bud in your 5.5 months than Bud did in his entire first year. But, you’ve been a pretty good sport through them all.

You are SO close to sitting on your own. You can do it for a few seconds but then your giant dome-piece just starts dragging your sweet, chubby body towards the floor. Mama is always right there to make sure you never hit the ground. Bud and I love playing with you and Bud continues to amaze me at how much he loves you. I’ll be in the kitchen and I’ll see him just kneeling next to you cupping your face or holding your hand saying, “I wuz (love) you dddooooo (so) much Ben-Rippy. Now hold my hand!”…  I pray the two of you are always best friends.

I adore you Bennett Rippy, my Sleepless in Seattle, my snuggle buddy, and my humbling blessing. Happy 5 months my son.

Love, Mama

It snowed. We played. We made snowmen. We made igloos. We made snow angels. We tried to keep Bud and Roy from eating all the pollution snow. We embraced all of the magic that is a snow day. And in true PNW fashion, the rain came that night and by the next morning you couldn’t even tell it had snowed. But the memories? The rain can’t touch those…

Music: “Everything” by Sam Metzler