Author Archives: Chayli

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Almost two months ago, I was trying to catch up on my stash of WORLD magazines and came across a book review that piqued my interest so much that I literally grabbed my phone and ordered the book on Amazon. I couldn’t wait for it to arrive.

It was supposed to come the day before we left to go camping with Ian and Abby, and I imagined lounging in a camp chair reading all day long while my baby played happily in the dirt.

The book came; I took it camping; our campsite was on a slope; my baby trundled around precariously and had to be watched every moment; I did almost literally no lounging in a camp chair; the book remained untouched. (That’s okay, we had a lot of fun without getting any reading done.)

So I just started reading the book here and there in the small pockets of time I had where I didn’t feel like doing anything else. And it didn't disappoint. In fact, literally five minutes after I finished it, I printed Sebastian a bazillion train pictures to color like he’d been incessantly asking me to do, and then I closed out the coloring pages tab, and I opened Word, and I started to write.

It was that good.

I had hoped it would be. ...continue reading →

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I ended my last blog post with these words:

Thank You, Jesus, for the hope of a life hereafter.

A few nights ago (the night my Uncle Wes died), in between what felt like endless wakings with my baby, I went out to the kitchen around 1am and turned on the computer and wrote most of the following words. I had been going to post it on the end of my last blog post, but it got so long, and I wanted Uncle Wes to have his own post anyway.

Just think of this as Part Two. 🙂

Here's a link to that previous post if you missed it: Until We Meet Again.

(When my dad heard that I had done what he wanted to do--stay up late writing a tribute to Uncle Wes--because my baby kept getting up anyway, he said he guessed he'd better borrow Emmett for a night. Then he wondered if I had a Rent-a-Grandson program in the works. 🙂 I have a very funny dad!)

But back to the topic at hand . . . thinking of heaven in regards to Uncle Wes got me thinking about heaven in regards to those who have gone before him, and I must say, the older I get the more heaven feels like it carries a tinge of familiarity with it. After all, I know some of the faces there. I know their names. And it makes the thought of heaven a little more real. ...continue reading →

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I've had a story on my mind for a while now, a story from a year ago that I had decided I'd like to write out and post exactly a year after it happened. Well, I got my dates wrong, and by the time I realized my mistake that one-year mark was past. So I guess it can be a year to the month instead. 🙂

It's kind of a crazy story, about an absurdly hard day I had with my boys, and I couldn't quite decide if I should even share it. I wrote it out and read it to my boys, and at first they were all enthusiastic about me sharing it.

But then they actually heard the story, and they heard what their old selves had done, and those vibrant smiles got a little more sober, and the laughter came a little more haltingly, and at the end when I asked again if they minded if I shared it, they both immediately shouted no.

Alec said, with big, somber eyes, "Word would spread."

Oh, dear boy . . . I am no advocate for sharing dirt on my children, no matter how naughty they can be sometimes.

I reassured the boys that I would make sure people knew that these were things they had done when they were much younger and that I was so glad they didn't do things like that anymore. I told them they had grown up a lot since then and that I would make sure people knew that.

But I also really wanted to share the story because the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe it could be encouraging to another mother in the same shoes. Not just a "this too shall pass," not just a "been there done that," but an honest "what you're doing is really, really hard, and it doesn't always feel like you're doing it well, and it often feels like it will never end, but it will get easier, and your children will grow in both age and maturity, and there will be different challenges as that happens, but it won't always be this level of unending crazy." ...continue reading →

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They started to trickle in as I was paying business bills. First Sebastian, legs speckled with mud, shorts wet, grubby little hands showing me “a big ouchie” he got on his wrist.

They weren’t supposed to be playing with the hose before naptime. I’d seen them out the window though, so I wasn’t surprised. Emmett was taking an early nap (getting up before 5:45am for days on end will do that to a baby), and I wanted to get a few things done, so I figured why not let them play.

It did make things harder on the other end though. I finished writing the check I was working on while Sebastian gingerly took off his flipflops, taking care to baby his hurt wrist. I helped him out of the rest of his soggy clothes and hauled him to the bathtub.

I wanted to hurry. I knew Emmett could wake up. I knew Alec could decide to come in as well. I knew how many more bills I had to pay, and all the fun things I was hoping to get done after that while Emmett was still sleeping. Some photo projects. A memorabilia project. Some laundry-folding with a movie I’d rented and needed to finish.

But instead, I slowed. I felt how slow my movements were, and I pushed back the hurry in my brain, and I enjoyed being with my middle boy as I washed him off and got something for his owie.

These moments are passing too quickly. I cannot grasp them in my hands.

But oh, how I want to. ...continue reading →