the beauty of the village.

October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

I officially went back to work full time today. As I type this, I’m 7 hours into my 11 hour shift and, so far, feeling pretty good about my stats.

I got 100% of my kids fed, dressed, and out the door this morning by 8:10 for preschool drop off. Then, this afternoon, I got 100% of them home, fed, and down for their afternoon naps. (Although, my numbers look more like 66% if you want to look at the exact number who are willing sleep in their respective beds.)

Additionally, we’ve only had 2.5 toddler meltdowns, 1 pair of pants peed through, and 1 smashed tupperware container (which found itself too close to an angry foot during one of the aforementioned meltdowns).

Things are going remarkably well.

Before Sawyer was born, I got a mixed bag of reviews as to how hard it was going to be. Some warned me that going from two to three kids was the hardest transition of any, while others suggested that it was really no big deal.

The answer according to my one month of experience with three? Bringing a new baby home is hard regardless of all outside circumstances.

You can sugar coat it with phrases like, “I’m just soaking in all those newborn snuggles¹” or “I wish they would stay this small forever²,” but it’s still hard. It takes time to catch your bearings–to find yourself again.

And I’m filled to the brim with gratefulness that I didn’t have to regain my balance alone. That I have had a village of people around us, near and far, willing to offer support and generosity and encouragement.

For the last four weeks, our refrigerator has been overflowing with meals we did not buy or make. A few of those meals even came from people I had never met before they showed up on my doorstep with arms full (a story for another day, I suppose).

And then there are the postal deliveries. The cards and packages that show up on your front step unannounced, reminding you that someone, somewhere is thinking of you. A village that transcends zip codes is a beautiful thing.

And there are also the prayers. The people, who I know, have been silently interceding for us. We felt, and continue to feel, the answers to those prayers.

And if that’s not enough, then you have the people who are willing to live in your house for weeks at a time and do all the things you shouldn’t have to do when you stay at someone else’s house–wake up early, clean bathrooms, do laundry. Between my mom and Jake’s parents, our house was the cleanest it’s ever been.

It’s not anymore, of course. But it was.

I have been reminded throughout this past month of the beauty of the village and the ridiculousness of the notion that we could do this child rearing thing alone.

I don’t have any particularly deep thoughts on the matter. Rather, as I look back on the complete upheaval our life has undergone in the last four weeks, I mostly just feel grateful.

I feel the village.

My stats aren’t always going to stay this high. I narrowly escaped a meltdown this morning that would have been equal to 3 normal toddler tantrums. I won’t always be so lucky.

But I will always have the village. Near or far, I’m thankful God has placed so many supportive people in my corner.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an afternoon of meetings to attend to. As I understand it, The Land of Make Believe is voting on some new playground equipment and my own two toddlers are going to have prepared some snack time proposals.

It’s a good gig, this one.

¹ See: My kid makes me hold him all night, and I’ll go crazy if I don’t find some silver lining. (Thankfully, we’re on the other side of this one.)

² See: I’m actually kind of ready for month two.

the one where I turned thirty.

September 13, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

I have arrived, and it feels good.

Now, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’ve been thinking about turning thirty since right around the time I turned twenty-nine. I like to really gear up for things, you know?

But as this particular birthday approached, I found myself more drawn to reflecting on the past than setting plans or goals for the future.

Can there be a more transformative decade than the twenties? (I have no way of knowing the answer to this question.)

I turned twenty about a month after Jake and I started dating. A year later, we got engaged, and a year after that, we had graduated college and were living the newlywed life. I started my “career” as a teacher at 24, had a couple of babies by 28, and had moved across the country to a city of champions by 29 (Jake and I like to take credit for all the various successes in Cleveland since our arrival).

I often ask people when I will start to feel like an adult, but in looking back, I see that it happened slowly over time. I was just a kid when I stepped foot into my twenties, and then each year shaped me or refined me or challenged me in some way. I walk into this new decade a completely different version of that doe-eyed college student who thought the end game was predictability and a white-picket fence.

My twenties changed me for the better, so I processed them the only way I really know how: I wrote about them.

I thought about each year of my twenties and tried to pinpoint what exactly it taught me. And what I found as I combed through each year of the past decade, is that God has taught me things all across my twenties which have perfectly prepared me for where I am today. Equipped me to continue to take steps forward even if I’m not entirely sure where the road ahead leads.

So, if you’re interested in all those thoughts, you’re welcome click the link below where you will find a PDF file–a compilation of essays I wrote in reflection of what each year of my twenties taught me:

thirty-ten-things-i-learned-during-my-twenties

It is nothing out of the ordinary. The writing doesn’t contain any real tragedy or nail-biting cliffhangers (unless you’re particularly riveted by things like marriage or car trips across the country).

But I’ve come to decide that even the ordinary needs to be celebrated and acknowledged. It is real, and it gets us to where we are today. And, for me at least, that felt worth writing about.

So, here’s to thirty and all it has in store for me. For us. I like it already.

dear teachers, I promise to never say this to my kids.

August 31, 2016September 2, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 2 Comments

I went to my first preschool meeting last week and officially shifted my school lens from teacher to parent.

I was all, “This is no big deal” about it until Lily’s teachers started talking about how they are the first teachers she will meet in a long line to follow. How they help set the tone for the rest of her educational experience. How this is the beginning of many years to follow.

And that’s kind of a big deal when I really think about it.

So, I’ve been thinking about the grand scheme lately–what I want for my girls out of their educations and what I hope to model for them in the process.

And in thinking through that long list of things, I have decided on one thing for sure: There is one phrase my kids will never hear me say in reference to the things they are learning in school.

“You’ll never need to know that in the real world.”

I have gone rounds with middle school and high school students on this one during my time spent on the teaching side of things.

My mom said I’ll never have to write a paper once I have a job.

My dad has never read a book in his entire life, and he makes tons of money.

My sister is in 10th grade, and she told me she never uses English. (my personal favorite)

Kids innately want purpose. They want to know that the things they are doing matter. I see this now even with Lily and her propensity to ask, “Why?”

And yet, teachers have such a limited time to convince kids that what they are doing matters in the long run. Especially if when they go home, they hear how much it doesn’t.

Now, I haven’t written many formal speeches since I passed my college speech class. I don’t regularly utilize the distributive property in my daily life or analyze the parts of a cell underneath a microscope. I have forgotten the conjugation of Spanish verbs, the major scale on my flute, and the words to the preamble of the Constitution (which I once had memorized).

Instead, what I do on a daily basis is think and analyze and process and problem solve and learn.

The things that matter are so often hidden within the things kids think don’t.

And that’s where I come in as a parent. I think it is my responsibility to teach my kids that there is value in learning for the sake of learning. That if they approach even the tasks they hate with hard work, determination, and a positive attitude, they will gain skills that will take them far in life (even if they decide to never read another Shakespearean play after high school).

Lily spent the first 15 minutes of her first day of preschool sitting at a kidney table doing puzzles. I suppose I could have let her know that she’ll hardly ever need to complete a physical puzzle once she’s an adult (I certainly don’t do them very often).

Instead, I chose to praise her problem-solving skills, focus, and refusal to give up.

It seemed a no-brainer to me.

So, here’s to the teachers doing the hard work of convincing kids to learn. If my kids ever grace your classrooms, I’ve got your back.

(Also, I may need some extra tutoring sessions on Spanish verb conjugation and the distributive property.)

i want the best time of my life to be now.

August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

When I was a senior in college, a girl who had recently graduated told me that she would give anything to go back to school.

“It was best time of my life,” she said. “Nothing will ever compare.”

Now, I had quite a lot of fun in college (see: hosted floor talent shows and road tripped with my friends to every football game so I could watch the cute wide receiver for examples), but even then I think I balked a little at her comment.

Maybe I’ve been thinking about it because the weather dipped back down into the seventies yesterday and reminded me that a change in season is on my horizon. Maybe it’s because all my teacher friends are decorating classrooms and meeting new students. Maybe it’s because Lily starts preschool on Monday.

In any case, my resolve remains strong: I refuse to believe that nothing will ever compare to right now.

I want the best time of my life to be where I’m at now, but, more importantly, I want to be able to say that in every season. With every new milestone.

This thought process always makes me think of the Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour,
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I suppose I could sink to grief. Agonize over the fact that Lily is entering this new, more independent phase or wish I could freeze everything exactly as it is right now.

But, what good would that do anyone?

And, besides, when I think of every new phase—the new jobs, the new people, the new kids, the new houses, the new milestones—each one has added something beautiful to my life (even if it was hard to see at the time). Even during those hard seasons, I don’t think I could ever say, “I just wish I could go back.” (at least, I hope I didn’t.)¹

I want to be a person who balances nostalgia with realism. Who holds onto and cherishes the moments while I have them but also finds joy in the moments of letting go and moving forward. I want to embrace the beauty of new seasons rather than trying to keep my feet rooted in the past.

That’s what I want.

(So, feel free to remind me of these thoughts when Lily starts kindergarten, leaves for college, and/or gets married someday.) 😉

¹ I certainly don’t mean to downplay the tragic and/or devastating seasons of life some people face. I imagine those moments are wrought with many feelings of wanting something back that has been lost or taken away. I’m mostly talking here in terms of the natural changes and milestones we seem to continually face as a family. The mostly trivial but necessary things.

my kids are teaching me about forgiveness.

August 18, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

I stand by my theory that one of the hardest parts about being a parent is adjusting to the constant ebb and flow of kids. They master one thing, then regress in another. They conquer one milestone, then change their mind on another. In my case, it always feels like just when we’ve found a good rhythm, they up and grab a different instrument altogether.

For instance, all summer, the girls have been waking up at 7:30 a.m., a time everyone in our house felt really good about. Then, suddenly last week, they decided 6:15 a.m. would be more appropriate. Even better is that they have decided it’s best to just stay in bed and yell angrily until someone comes and gets them. They started beating a drum just when we had gotten used to the soothing sounds of a string quartet.

I did not handle this change well. And as I worked to adjust, I realized that I had this innate need for the girls to know that they were inconveniencing me. I wanted them to know how terrible it was to wake up to angry screaming, and I wanted them to feel bad about it.

As it turns out, guilt trips are not a highly effective means toward change when it comes to small children. Go figure.

Anyway, it has me thinking about forgiveness, an act that is much more difficult to come by when the offending party hasn’t actually asked for it.

I err on the side of over-sensitive and easily wounded. I’ve certainly come a long way in this regard (mostly thanks to Jake’s magical prowess with reasoning), but I can still pinpoint times in my life where I had to move forward from something without an apology. Parenting included (let’s talk about how irrational I can get when inadvertently head-butted in the face or made late to something because of an ill-timed tantrum).

And, lately, it’s in each one of these moments that I’m always reminded of what God says to Jonah after Jonah is whining about how unfair it is that God showed mercy on the people of Ninevah.

“Do you do well to be angry?”

Loving kids is to understand sacrifice. Sometimes it’s just easier to be mad. But in these moments, that simple question has started whispering in above the beating drum: Do you do well to be angry?

The answer is always no (even if there is a strong justification for the anger¹).

The principle transcends parenting, really; it’s just another example of how this whole being-a-mom thing is refining me into a better person or whatever.

So here’s to burying the anger, the self-pity, and the other bummer qualities that distract us from better things. Good things. Important things. Refining things.

At least, that’s what I’ll be telling myself at 6:15 tomorrow morning.

¹ For the record, I don’t think a 6:15 a.m. wake-up call is reason to justify being angry. It’s not such a bad time to wake up; it just happens to be the most recent change that has me reeling a bit. And, It’s not my fault that I’m so tired in the morning. I blame NBC, Eastern Standard Time, and Simone Biles.

what finding things taught me about lost things.

August 10, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about lost things today.

This train of thought started a few weeks ago when Lily found an opal stone in our driveway. The stone had fallen out of my grandmother’s wedding band six months earlier, and I had given up hope of ever finding it. (I’d like to emphasize that this tiny, white jewel sat on our driveway for an ENTIRE WINTER of snow and ice only to be found by a three-year-old one warm, summer night. It was incredible.)

Then, this week, I lost one of my favorite earrings. I realized it was missing long after it had fallen out, and again assumed it was lost in one of the various cavities of our house.

Last night, Lily swooped in yet again. She picked up a very tiny, silver arrow stud from her bed and said, “Hey mom, is this your earring?”

(That kid notices the small stuff, let me tell you.)

So, I’ve been thinking about lost things today.

I love a good metaphor (old English teacher habits die hard), so I’ve been wondering in the broader scope what exactly the lost things in my life are. What are the things that need to be found?

That question took me to Luke 15 and the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal (lost) son. Every story follows the same structure: Something is lost. Something is found. A party is thrown in celebration.

Those lost things? They are people. Those lost who are now found.

About five minutes after I read those parables, I got a text message from my friend, Breanna, with an excerpt from Interrupted¹ by Jen Hatmaker (which seems to be wrecking her life much the same way it wrecked mine a year ago). Our conversation ultimately ended with her sending me this quote from The Tangible Kingdom² (as referenced in Interrupted):

Change must be about new, which to us means “fresh, bright, something that intuitively feels right, that causes us not only to dream but to move on our dreams.” That kind of new is good if it compels us into a world of faith again where we can battle fear and despondency with action that makes a difference. That kind of new is okay, but it really isn’t new. It’s just been hidden, or covered, or we’ve been distracted from it…

This type of new is about a returning. Returning to something ancient, something tried, something true and trustworthy. Something that has rerouted the legacies of families, nations, kings, peasants.

Something that has caused hundreds of thousands to give up security, reputation, and their lives…What we need to dig up, recover, and find again is the life of the kingdom and Jesus’ community..the church.

So, to summarize: I asked myself what the lost things in my life were and, 15 minutes later, I had all that sitting in front of me.

The answer to the question is people, most certainly, but, I think it also comes down to uncovering a life that brings me to those people. In the times when I start to get comfortable, God reminds me to dig up and recover the life of His kingdom now. To return to the true and the trustworthy which is really about finding ways to love people well each day.

It really is about rerouting. A willingness to give up security, reputation, and even the comfortable life.

Not easy. Easily worth it.

I’ll start by throwing a party in honor of all my found things. You’re all invited (and can hopefully help me find the library book that went missing a few weeks ago. That’s the one thing Lily is yet to uncover.)

¹ Hatmaker, Jen. Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity. NavPress, 2014.

² Halter, Hugh, and Matt Smay. The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community: The Posture and Practices of Ancient Church Now. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

how to deescalate a tantrum.

August 4, 2016August 4, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

Jake, the girls, and I drove to Michigan last week, and about three hours into our drive home, I lost it.

Oh, you thought this was going to be about how to reduce toddler tantrums? Sorry, I haven’t figured that one out yet. I only know how to deescalate myself.

Now, our girls are champion travelers for the most part, but for whatever reason, last weekend they were especially owly. They’d yell for a book only to throw the book on the ground. They’d yell for their water only to throw the water the ground. Eventually, they were just yelling to yell, and, I’m not proud of it, but they broke me.

Luckily, when Jake and I are together, it seems like at least one of us has it together when the other hits a breaking point, so as any good parent would do, he lied and told the girls I was asleep, so I could chill myself out.

It always gives me a little perspective and grace when I realize that sometimes I just want to throw a tantrum too.

I was thinking about it today, and I realized that tantrums are almost always the result of a lack of control: a kid trying desperately to assert herself and a parent realizing she, in fact, has no ultimate control over said kid’s choices.

I can control my own responses though. I don’t always (see: usually don’t) do this well, but today I have been trying especially hard to breathe in some reminders so as to keep my cool.

She doesn’t fully understand emotions yet. It always helps me to remember that I literally know my kids better than they know themselves. This won’t always be the case, I know, but for now, I am able to put words they don’t even know to the feelings they don’t even know they are expressing. It helps me to remember that sometimes tantrums come simply because they don’t know the words to say.

She’s not actively trying to destroy you. Right? Please tell me this is true.

She’s watching you. This is the one that usually stops me in my tracks, and I see it more now that Lily periodically tries to calm Norah down amidst her own fits of wild rage. Sometimes, she will calmly say, “Shhhh, Norah. It’s okay.” Other times, her voice rises with frustrated emotion. Both responses could have equally been learned from me (although the latter often seems more likely).

I am the dependent variable. The control factor in each thrown tantrum around here. I can coach and I can teach, but I am only ultimately able to control myself and my own responses. At least, If I choose to.

I stumbled into James today (a remarkable “coincidence”) and have now added a necessary new mantra to my daily interactions with the girls: Quick to hear. Slow to speak. Slow to become angry.

If I can breathe those phrases in each time I feel my body temperature rising, then maybe, just maybe I can set an example worth emulating for my girls. If I can choose to respond well in my heightened states of emotions, then maybe they will start to respond similarly in theirs.

And then I suppose I’ll be ready to write my next post: How to Eliminate Toddler Tantrums Altogether.

[insert all the laughing emojis]

marriage: something better and something new.

July 27, 2016July 28, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

Jake and I love when the girls go to bed.

We also love when they’re awake (you know, most days), but there’s a certain relief in knowing that you’re not imminently needed for a few hours (until, of course, a kid wakes up screaming because her fan isn’t close enough to make her blanket “really, really cold”). There’s a satisfaction in telling a story with fewer than twelve interruptions and a sense of accomplishment that you made it through the chaos and demands of another day.

Jake and I used to leave our house a lot. We loved to go out for dinner or take long walks after dark. We’d see movies in theaters, play cards at Starbucks, and take drives with no particular end destination in mind.

Now, 7:00 rolls around, and we’re knee deep in toothpaste, bedtime stories, and toddler negotiations. And, then, once both girls are asleep, we’re usually homebound. The late night spontaneity we used to enjoy together is long gone and has been replaced by the surprise of what the other person will choose on Netflix.

Let me tell you something, though: This is the most fun I’ve had being married to Jake.I used to get pretty anxious thinking about moving to Ohio and away from the family and community we had filled our life with. And in those moments when it felt like it was going to be too much and too lonely, I would remember that I wasn’t going alone. I was going with Jake.

Before we had any friends here, we had each other, and as I think about how hard our eighth year of marriage was in terms of transitions and change, I’m equally reminded of how easy it has become being married to Jake.

Of course it’s still work. Of course we still come up short at times. And of course we still drive each other crazy at least once every day (Jake: “Why would I unpack and move my suitcase from the middle of the room when I’m just going to need it again in three weeks?”).

But here we are, 8 years in, and still happy we’re doing this thing together.

I read in this really great book by Donald Miller¹ recently that relationships are teleological–that they’re going somewhere. Miller went on to say that “If you’re coasting, you’re going down hill. Unless [you’re] practicing, [you’re] getting worse. We can fall into reactionary patterns in relationships rather than understanding they’re things we build and nurture and grow.”

Eight years ago, I made a choice to enter into this marriage relationship with Jake, but I never got a choice as to whether or not it will move forward–it’s going somewhere regardless of the effort I put forth. The ongoing choice, then, is whether or not I want to continue to build and nurture and grow what we have together into something beautiful.I think it would be easy to stop working at it now that kids are in the mix. To take that time when the girls are sleeping only for myself because “I deserve it.” To stop talking to Jake about real and important things because I’m too tired. To stay married but not really be friends.

And that’s what I’m really thankful for after these eight years: That we’re better friends now than we were when we started off on this life together. Sure, it looks more like rocking chairs on the front porch and late night, take-out dinner dates at our kitchen table after the girls are in bed, but that’s time I wouldn’t have any other way.

Time that, I think, is turning our marriage into something better and something new each day.

¹ Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy (2015)

i’m in love with summer.

July 23, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

Summer, you are exactly what we needed. It feels a little hypocritical, really, because a few weeks ago, I wrote about a life of long hours and time spent apart. Now, here we are nearing the end of a month in which Jake has been home with us far more than he has been away.

This is something I will not take for granted.

It’s funny though. Seasons of relative ease always leave me feeling a little anxious (to which Jake would surely reply, “Well, that’s not hard to do.”). We are becoming pros at readjusting our routines and rhythms every four weeks, but that still doesn’t make it any easier to go from what we’ve got going now back into the real world demands of shift work and long days.

To put it plainly, I think summer is spoiling me.

When I start to get all angsty and tightly wound about it (again, not hard to do), I try to remind myself that each season has something good to offer even if some seasons you have to dig deeper to unearth that good.

But here we are, living presently in a four week season in which the good stuff is staring us square in the face.

For instance, Jake and I took the girls to a castle the other day (yes, a CASTLE). While we were there, I sent my mom a picture of Jake and the girls, and she reminded me of how good this life is that we’re building together.

She re-centered me without realizing it and reminded me that I bear a great responsibility to try my best to live all our days well. To create experiences for our girls in which they feel well-loved and important. In this season and the next and in all the ones that follow.

So with that in mind, here’s to now. To a summer filled with family and friends and unexpected visitors who show up on our doorstep here in Cleveland. To watermelon stained sun-dresses and bags of fresh cherries that I ‘forget’ to share with the girls. To plastic pools, sprinklers, and splash pads. To homegrown tomatoes and functioning air-conditioning on days like today.

We try to live all our days well around here, but today I am just especially thankful for the ones in which that comes a bit more easily.

the problem with kids.

July 19, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 2 Comments

People used to laud Lily on her sleep habits. “Oh,” they said, “How wonderful that she’ll sleep anywhere!” “How fantastic,” they said, “that she sleeps through the night.” “She,” they said, “is a great sleeper.”

Then she turned two and a half. Suddenly, she started waking up in the middle of the night and refusing to go back to bed. For a time, she decided 4:45 a.m. was a reasonable time to wake up in the morning. She held hour long bedtime standoffs and decided naps could be grounds for a battle as well.

Everything I read and everybody I talked to said the phase would be short. “Be consistent and sleep habits will go back to normal,” they said. But months and months passed, and on more than one occasion, Jake came home and found me tear-stained and prostrate on the floor of a quiet house because it was the only way I knew to decompress the terribleness that was bedtime.

But sleep isn’t what this essay is about. It’s about the real problem with kids which, if you ask me, is this: They convince you that they are good at things and then they decide to stop being good at those things.

Or more plainly, they constantly change.

Lily was my champion sleeper. And then, she up and realized she could have her own opinions about things and changed the whole ball game on me. I wasn’t ready for it. She blindsided me and there was no fancy Daniel Tiger jingle to convince her otherwise (believe me, I tried all the things).

Right now we seem to have reached a treaty–a season of bedtime peace–and I’m learning to enjoy these times because I know they are bound to be short-lived. Surely there is another regression in our future which will shake up our rhythm and force us to find a new beat altogether (if Norah stops inhaling all food as she threatened a few months ago, so help me).

It can be defeating. For me, it always seems like my girls hit a regression or make a change just as I’m feeling pretty good about things. When I feel like I have it all together, I’m always reminded that I actually don’t.

As parents, I think it would be easy to live in constant frustration that nothing ever stays the same. It’s in these moments though that I am reminded of the power in my own insufficiency. I’ll never have it all together, and I’m thankful that constant change reminds me of this. Regressions in parenting are a thorn in my flesh, but there is joy knowing that my responses to these frustrations can give room for Christ’s strength if I let them.It doesn’t make it easy, but it does make it worth it.

And so, I’d like to dedicate these thoughts to my sleeping babes. To Lily who has learned that the sleep-time battle isn’t worth fighting and to Norah who hasn’t yet figured out that there’s a battle to be fought. May the beauty of her ignorance be long lasting and may we have patience, wisdom, and plenty of coffee the moment she figures out otherwise.