IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK COLUMN BY LIZ FLIPPO
F riends, we have made it to December. It is the final month of this crazy year of COVID-19. Hallelujah! For so many of us, 2020 has brought fear, uncertainty, loss, anxiety, and memories we want to leave behind a locked door. Through the chaos, I have been able to find a few experiences I hope to carry with me into 2021 and beyond. The Brothers, our twin boys, were born in January 2019. We had been a comfortable family of three for almost four years, and I knew growing to a family of five would force me to let go of some things and lighten up a little. I made a promise to my anxious, striving-for-perfection, alter-ego that 2019 would be the year of giving grace to myself, to my husband, and really, to all the people on all the days. I was going to give all of us permission to throw away old expectations. It was going to be okay if the bed wasn’t made every morning or the dirty dishes stayed in the sink while my husband and I watched a movie after the kids went to bed. After our daughter was born, we fed her plain flavored yogurt for quite a while. I thought I was winning at this mom thing by not introducing “sweets” until later in her life. Poor child. I remember watching her drink her first Capri Sun at two years old, after swimming lessons, and she sucked that juice down in .02 seconds. Fast forward to my year of grace and guess what… The Brothers were eating macaroni and cheese, like the powdered, unnaturally orange kind, by eight months old. Whether it was plain yogurt or microwaved pasta, I found the result was still the same; my kids were fed, they were happy, and they were so incredibly loved. Do you know what could force someone to extend that year of grace indefinitely? A shelter-in-place order with a five-year-old girl and 18-month-old twin boys! Our baseline for success went from the middle of the road straight down to the ditches. If we were all alive at the end of the day, we won. The Brothers pulled down a set of the living room curtains one day. The next day, they pulled the other set down, and the curtains are still not back up because they will probably just do it again, anyway. Our daughter slept on a twin sized blowup mattress in a tent in her bedroom, right next to her actual bed, for six months because it made her happy. The glass from a small glass top table has been removed after one of the boys crawled under the table and stood up with the glass balancing on his head. Silverware was picked up by little fingers reaching from tiptoes, licked, and put back in the drawer. Someone is usually standing on a table, dumping a bucket of toys, or zooming by on a scooter. Our home is in disarray at all times. I’m ok with it though, because I know one day, I will have fresh flowers and pretty coffee table books back where they once were. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Let me tell you, this is not our season for a perfectly decorated home or prime organization. GRACE… The New Normal
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COMMUNITY & CULTURE
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