Archive for April, 2013

Hello. My name is Heen.

Posted by KK on Monday, 22 April, 2013

I’ve been keeping a secret. I have only shared the below with a very few select friends who know me deeply. It’s really just weird more than embarrassing or humiliating or sad. It’s going to come out eventually (as it has already been spoken out loud in Target, Earthfare, etc.) so I would rather you all hear it from me firsthand. It is time to come clean. Maybe saying this out loud will change something. Maybe blogging about something this ridiculous will help another mother out there struggling with a similar problem.


‘Mommy, Mama, Mom, Ma, Mother, Mommy Dearest, Mimi’….all pretty normal references to hear from a child you’ve raised, er…, managed to keep alive, right? (ok maybe not Mommy Dearest…that’s creepy. I am calling DCS if your kid calls you that.) I’ve even known some kids to call their mothers by their first names. If this happens in your house we cannot be friends. Sorry. But no.


My kids have always called me ‘Mommy’ (from babies to toddlers) until they get to an age where it’s just not cool so they begin calling me ‘Mom’. Even all of the foster kids we’ve had come and go have called me ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mom’, some even from day one, because it just felt right to them and I let them.


Enter: Blu Belle & Everest


Their first word was ‘Daddy’ (around about 10-12 months old) it sounded more like ‘Dayey’ and still does. I was cool with it. I’m pretty sure all our boys said ‘daddy’ first as well. I didn’t really care. So once the twins began saying ‘Dayey’ every time Jason walked in the door from work or somewhere I began waiting to hear ‘Mommy’ or something similar. Sadly, I am still waiting. That’s right, folks. Our twins are 26 months old and have been calling Jason ‘Dayey’ for more than a year, more like a year and a half now, and I am still waiting. Up until just a few months ago we realized they didn’t call me anything at all and we talked about it, thought it was a little weird, but then realized I am with them all the time and never leave their side, like, ever, so why would they feel the need to call me anything? Jason has been quizzing them for months by asking “Where’s River?” and they both point to River. “Where’s JJ?” and they point to JJ. “Where’s Mommy?” and they point to me. Yes, that’s right…they KNOW I am Mommy but they just don’t call me that.


At Christmas I was perusing through baby dolls on Amazon and wanted to get Blu Belle a Baby Stella doll for her gift. I had it in the shopping cart and everything and then came across a “Sweet Sounds Baby Stella” and turned to my big kids and said with way too much enthusiasm “Guys! Look! This Baby Stella says ‘Mama’ when you squeeze her hand! If I get this Baby Stella doll for Blu Belle instead of that other one that’s dead inside and says nothing then she’ll start calling me ‘Mama’!!” I got it for her and guess what?? She calls her Sweet Sounds Baby Stella doll ‘Mama’ now. I die.


You’re gonna love this next part…


So just a few months ago they began calling me SOMEthing, which I saw as huge progress to much greater things, but it isn’t exactly great like ‘Mimi’ or ‘Mema’ or anything remotely similar to ‘Mom/Mommy/Mama’. What do my darlings call me?


Heen.


That’s right. Heen. Pronounced like the word keen but with an H.


What the #$%, right? I have no idea…


At first we thought they were saying ‘hen’ and we thought ‘awe…that’s cute…like mama hen’. Nope. There was no mistaking it, folks. There IS no mistaking it, folks. I am Heen.


Scenario 1:

<insert any family member over the age of 2> says “Say cheese!”

<twin> says “Cheese!”

<???> then says “Say Lake!”

<twin> says “Yake!”

<???> says “Say Lissy!” (our cat)

<twin> says “Yissy!”

<???> says “Say Mommy!”

<twin> says “Heen!”


What the whaaat?


Scenario 2:

I walk into the twins’ room when they wake up in the morning or after naps and they alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) say “Hiiiii Heeeeen!”


Scenario 3:

When they’re being possessive of me, because they tend to be VERY possessive of me at times, and they see another child walking towards me looking like they’re about to want something they run to me as fast as they can and wrap their arms around my leg and proclaim “MY Heen!”


My big kids have all at some point said how cute they think it is that the babies have chosen such a unique name for me instead of calling me what every other child in this house calls me let alone every other child on the planet calls the woman in their life who has nurtured them into being to which I say “Thanks boys. That’s sweet. But you’re still not playing Minecraft so stop brown nosing or I will make you sleep outside.”


Can they physically say the word ‘mama’? Why yes. Yes they can. But they CHOOSE to call me Heen. Somebody please freakin’ explain this to me because I’m about to start perusing therapists. For me AND my precious babies.


#mamaneedsadrink …er…  #heenneedsadrink

Jesus IS Enough.

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 10 April, 2013

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Sticks and Stones…

Posted by KK on Sunday, 7 April, 2013

Just a little Sunday afternoon adventurin’…

A barefooted church.

Posted by KK on Friday, 5 April, 2013

Hypothetically….

As you approached the altar to take communion, what if your church leader tells you about how just down the road from your church there is a homeless community in dire need of shoes, GOOD shoes, because the only shoes they ever receive are worn out because they were someone else’s old, dirty castaways. What if he then prompts you to, as you take your communion, leave your shoes at the altar for this community.

Would you do so without hesitation? {I would hesitate}

Would you look down to see which shoes you were wearing first? {If you did not know what shoes you currently had on your feet without looking you may have bigger problems}

Would you wish you had known in advance that he was going to do this so you could have worn your $2 Old Navy flip flops or your work-in-the-yard boots to church {as. if.} instead of your pimped out Toms wedges or your most expensive loafers? {I really heart my Toms wedges even though I’ve not worn them once}

Would you fake a trip to the bathroom if you wore your favorite shoes? {I wouldn’t. That would be too obvious. I would fake a notification from the nursery instead.}

Would your decision to do so be based upon the outside temperature knowing you’d have to walk barefoot to your car after church or not be able to go eat out afterwards without having to first go home for another pair of shoes?

Would the church leader where you regularly attend church ever even have the guts to ask his church to make such a sacrifice?


“…and I heard Jesus whisper: This is how I want My church to look. I want her to rip the shoes off her feet for the least every single chance she gets. I want an altar full of socks and shoes right next to the communion table. I want to see solidarity with the poor. I want true community rallied around My gospel. I want a barefooted church.” {excerpt taken from Jen Hatmaker’s book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess}

A barefooted church. Divine. …said the girl who thought she was sacrificing by only alternating between two pair shoes for 30 days which happen to be Birkenstocks and Vibrams. Lord forgive me.

7

Posted by KK on Tuesday, 2 April, 2013

If you don’t follow Jen Hatmaker’s blog or Facebook page or Instagram then, well, get your act together. You’re missing out. She and I should be friends, not because I think I am cool enough to be her friend, but just because I wanna be. She’s real. She’s funny. Just do it, ya hear?

My bestie recently began reading Jen’s book “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess”. She told me and another friend of ours she was reading it, loving it, and invited us to join her and then go to hear Jen speak at an upcoming event in Knoxville. We agreed and have all been reading and chatting about it. To say I am having fun is an understatement. The book is. just. incredible.

So if you haven’t read it, well, Google it because I am too tired to tell you about it. If you retained anything from grade school about context clues you can probably read the title and get an idea. Here’s a condensed description from her web site:

7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence. In the spirit of a fast, they pursued a deeply reduced life in order to find a greatly increased God.

The seven areas of excess that Jen explores are food, clothes, spending, media, possessions, waste and stress. She spent a month exploring each topic where she only ate seven foods and only wore seven articles of clothing, etc. I’ve only finished food and have just started clothing. Food was great, and hilarious, but I can’t say that I gained much from it except sore stomach muscles from laughing. If you know me then you know that I am insanely uptight about what my family eats and what food we buy and where we buy it and how I cook it. It’s just who I am. I’ve tried to change this occasionally and buy cheaper food and eat more processed/convenience foods but my kids hate me. I have spoiled them and my husband. It’s their fault our grocery bills are out the wahzoo. Not mine. However, that section did encourage me to begin making homemade bread again which I did for some time recently and just stopped for no reason. So perhaps I shall resume…

The clothes section is hitting me harder than I thought. Again, if you know me (warning: I may toss that phrase around a few times) then you know I mostly wear orphan t-shirts and jeans. Even my kids rag me about it. One day a while back I went out with River (7) and he wore an orphan t-shirt and jeans & I snapped a photo of him wearing my hippie tam. Lake said “River, you look like mom!” because he was wearing my hat with jeans & an orphan shirt.

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So why is this section hitting me hard? Because I have so many clothes and especially because I have so much and wear the same thing all the time. In my defense I must say that I don’t buy anything full price and if I buy anything new at all then it is on big time clearance. (Big time clearance = $3 or sometimes less) I mostly buy second hand clothing because I love funky brands like Free People and, well, buying it at full price is just plain stupid. My favorite store is Planet Exchange in Knoxville and has been for years. I buy everything there. I have asked to sleep in their store room so I could be the first to see what might come in the next day. I love the idea of recycling clothing for the same reasons I recycle paper, plastic & glass. It just makes sense.

Another “in my defense” justification (I’m really good at justifying things) is that aside from when I was pregnant, breast feeding or the summer of 2004 when I swelled like a tick from taking back pain meds I have largely stayed the same size for many years only slightly fluctuating a few pounds more or less (please don’t send me hate mail) so I have been able to hang onto stuff just in case it “comes back” in style. It doesn’t. Ever.

So why keep it? Why have so much? Why have so many clothing articles hanging around or stuffed in drawers that rarely even see the light of day when so many people in this world have only the shirt on their backs if that? This, friends. Hard stuff.

On a whim I decided to play along with Jen during this section on clothes since yesterday was the start of a new month. I only decided to play along, however, late in the day after I jumped into my van that morning throwing on an outfit at the last minute to haul my sickly babes to the pediatrician. So, the orphan t-shirt (of course), skirt & leggings I wore to the doctor automatically became 3 of my 7 articles of clothing. I’m ok with it. I looked cute in a hippie-ish, ragamuffin kinda way. I added another orphan t-shirt, a thin, long sleeved sweater & a second pair of shoes (the “ugly” shoes I wore to the doc needed a quick, slip-on style counterpart to go with them & Jen allowed herself two pair of shoes for the month while only making ‘shoes’ themselves count as 1 of the 7 articles). Lastly, I threw in a pair of jeans. I could only choose between three pair of jeans in my closet because that’s all that currently fit me (no thanks to a new homemade banana pudding recipe I have made twice in the last week). The jeans I chose are the most comfortable jeans I own and if you hold them up to the light you can actually see through them in the crotch area. Like I said, I buy used jeans and those had been USED. REAL well. Ain’t no tellin’ what went on in them britches.

I should mention…underwear doesn’t count. It just doesn’t. That’s all I’mma say ‘bout that. Socks do not count either. And I purposely didn’t make one of my 7 things any type of sleeping attire so I guess I will be sleeping sans my typical fuzzy pants, fuzzy socks, thermal shirt and robe. My husband is going to be so flippin’ happy about this. I could sleep in my comfy jeans if this creates a problem.

So to recap…

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  • Off-white, long-sleeved sweater
  • Green “Love Orphans” t-shirt
  • Red “Simply Love” t-shirt
  • Comfy Jeans
  • Hippie Skirt
  • Black leggings (I don’t shave October 15 – April 15)
  • Shoes: Birks & Ugly shoes (they have a name but it doesn’t fit the look)

So if you see me in the next month I will have on some assortment of the above. I may or may not smell fresh. Just being honest. I do laundry around the clock every. single. day. But I also have plenty of clothes and am not necessarily conditioned to make sure certain things get washed. We’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I must challenge you to ask yourself what is excessive in your life right now? What are you willing to do about it? What if there is something so much greater planned for you that you cannot see because you are blinded by excess?

I’mma go lookin’…