Being a mom can be so doggone hard sometimes, and walking that line between disciplinarian and grace-giver is a bumpy and imperfect ride. We must nurture, but not shelter. Kiss boo-boos, but not coddle. Give consequences, but not forget second chances. Teach, but not demand.

And I’m supposed to do all this while dealing with my own inadequacies and depravations. Sheesh. A recent Desiring God blog said it this way: “Being a parent doesn’t mean I’ve graduated from His school, but that now I am in one of the most intensive courses.”

Ain’t that the truth?! And we Christians and a lovers of liberty often feel like we’re in the the trenches of raising up the next generation of warriors in this topsy-turvy world. This post-modern world is the devil’s playground. People are no longer just moral relativists or deniers of objective truth: the mobs have actually become repudiators of reality.

But I know Christ has already won the war. And I know that God will equip and strengthen me for all battles, big and small. Still, all that daily disciplining, all that minutiae can really suck the life right out of you, if you let it.

Fortunately, I’m not a safety zealot. I slather (supposedly) carcinogenic sunscreen on my kids. I let them occasionally pig out on candy, processed food, and soda. We don’t eat a diet free of gluten, red dye, trans fats, or GMOs. I sometimes let them watch too much TV. We often stay up too late and almost always sleep in. And that’s all okay by me.

I’d rather lead a more chill life than kill myself trying to meet all these modern expectations. We’re all on that reluctant, yet inevitable march to death anyway. What does irk me, though, is people intentionally wasting my time. I’ve mentioned our slow-schooling ways before and our struggles with that.

And I’m sure I’ve written about the trials the boys (but mostly Gabriel and Zeke, admittedly) have with time management. I told them the other day that I’d rather have spare time more than be a millionaire, although the latter could buy me a personal assistant, a chef, and a chauffeur; that’d be nice.

Point is I spend so much reinforcing the little stuff, like “wash your hands, brush your teeth, wipe your butt, shut the door, don’t talk with your mouth full, don’t interrupt, don’t hang on the towel rack, don’t run in the house, keep your hand out of your pants, don’t throw boogers on the floor,” etc., that I’m often too worn out to handle the big stuff with any aplomb, grace, or even maturity. It’s exhausting.

Moreover, all that reminding and reinforcing (I like to call this having to “cattle-prod the kids”) of three separate people forces me to have to multi-task my thoughts and tasks — something that even a youthful Rebecca with her much healthier brain would have trouble accomplishing.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that los gemelos still have tantrums on occasion?! Sure, the episodes aren’t as lengthy or as often as those of the toddler years, but they are intense nonetheless. More importantly, tantrums should really be a rare-to-nonexistent occurrence by the time you’re 7 and a half. I mean, c’mon!

Although Houston usually has stellar time-management skills and doesn’t typically have major meltdowns, he is known to pick relentlessly on his little bros, if the mood strikes. Frustrating thing is it always seems that this happens when Gabe and Zeke are exhibiting calm or good behavior. What’s up with that?

I know it’s probably some kinda “I’m exerting my power of these dudes just ’cause I can” sibling thing, but it is so lame! And so unnecessary. I mean, c’mon!

All this, of course, makes for one twitchy Rebecca. My nature already tends toward the high-strung, so this is not a good place to be: more scatter-brained, more frazzled, and twitchier than ever. Breathe deeply, mama … you got this.

The other day, Stephen was bummed out about a minor inconvenience while running an errand with Zeke, and I offered him some sage advice: make the best of it, and enjoy the one-on-one time with your son.

And here I have endless time with my kids, getting to witness their youth up close, personal, and daily, so I know I need to lighten up and appreciate the greatest show on earth, even if our days are peppered with unnecessary annoyances. After all, I do have the best seat in the house.

So yes, I must remain sternly vigilant in my parenting or else the freight train that is the 3 Amigos will run me over flat. But I also must not forget to handle this in a more consistently compassionate and patient way, with way more humor, and way less bitterness. That will lead to a more reliably calm and peaceful home.

James 3:18 says, “Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” But man oh man, does that reaping seem like such a distant thing. It sometimes even feels like an impossibility. But I know I need to just keep pouring in the love and encouraging wisdom and know that the only thing I can control is me. The rest is up to God.

Granny inspired the boys to write me a Mother’s Day note by explaining “Why we love Mommy.” Zeke wrote, “You are nice. She helps me when I’m stuck.” Houston said,”She’s generous and a good teacher.” Gabriel wrote, “I love everything about you. You are silly.” And then they all concluded, “She loves Jesus.”

Turns out that I’m doing okay after all. Thank you, Lord, for covering my kids from all my inadequacies and giving me the heart to know and do what’s right in your eyes … well, at least, some of the time.

I’m still trying my best to create more simplicity in our busy schedule, but that can obviously be a hard thing to do with three kids. I mean, just getting them all to church in one piece and on time can be a major undertaking.

We are considering not doing Awana next school year. Even though it is an incredible Bible study and has been a true blessing for the kids over the past three years, I think nixing it from the calendar may be one of the things required to achieve that peace and ease I’m striving for.

Plus, I would love to have more free time to do whatever the heck we want, perhaps not having so many things on our schedule to begin with, so that we don’t feel like we have to squeeze in a spot for relaxation or random fun, or push to some later time spur-of-the-moment discussions on silly or deep topics. Having time for going off on tangents is a good thing.

Moreover, there’s talk of the twins playing competitive baseball this fall. And that means a doubling of practices and games if they’re on the same team, and a tripling if they end up making separate teams. And being that Zeke has gotten pretty skilled by practicing with Houston, I think the latter is more likely.

That’s a whole lotta baseball. So I told my little “time thieves” that unless they become more considerate of the family schedule and better managers of their own time, their baseball dreams ain’t gonna happen. I really hope and pray that they pull it together this summer.

Speaking of baseball, Houston’s team is in the midst of playoffs. With only one loss in the regular season, they started things off in first place, lost a game by just a few points on Wednesday, but then demolished their opponents on Friday. Fingers crossed for a happy end to a really awesome season. Go, Tigers!

Houston also got selected by his coaches to represent his team in something called the Coaches’ Select Tournament. Extra teams are made up of a few players from each team and from each league. This will entail a few practices and then 3 to 4 games in mid-June. It’s no cost, so it’s really just extra baseball for the love of the game.

Houston’s rec league got to walk the perimeter of the Grasshoppers’ field before a game — kind of a big deal for an 8-year-old baseball fan. Funny thing is we arrived at the stadium at 5:15, but the game didn’t start till … 8:10 (gasp!) due to rain delay. “Classic Dillingham,” as Stephen would say.

There were plenty of friends for the kids hang with while we bided our time, but we all had low blood sugar ’cause were hungry. If the game got cancelled, we wanted to go out to eat downtown and not pay for overpriced ballpark food.

There was also some intermittent kid whining and maybe even a dash of mommy complaining (since you know how protective I am of my scarce spare time). But despite the l-o-n-g waiting game, it turned out to be a nice family outing, and the Hoppers won!

Odd thing about our lifestyle is that uninformed people always comment that kids need to go traditional school in order to be properly socialized. Yet, our social calendar is always jam-packed with a myriad of outings, hangouts, and travels.

Like as I write this part of the blog, I’m at the park with Matthew (who’s not even my child) while my kids are around the corner at Miss Julie’s for a piano party. We have an hour to kill before Houston’s tournament games, so the five us plan to grab a pre-baseball dinner en route to the fields.

And this all come at the tail-end of a full day on home education, complete with two meals, chores, and one kid tantrum. No wonder I’m so twitchy. At least I’m getting to blog while poor Matthew plays by himself. Oh well, that was the the deal, and we’re sticking to it … ain’t nobody messing with my prized free time!

We hosted a Memorial Day party in which Stephen cooked all the food, and I did all the cleaning. He wanted to make brisket for a few of his favorite co-workers, but ended up doing a spread of different other meats, since the store was out of brisket. (That was the “minor inconvenience” mentioned earlier.)

The backyard bash was a great success, of course, ’cause that man can cook! He’s so serious about his food that he had to start grilling at midnight before the party to make sure everything was done to perfection. Yummy!

We also invited our friends, Jim, Penny, and Tyrnan, as well as a slew of our awesome neighbors. It was a shindig of international proportions, since Penny’s from Australia, and Stephen’s work pals, Dan and Gabriel, are from South Africa and Romania, respectively. We joked about having people where flags of their home country, but that might’ve been weird.

Our clan had a much-needed low-key camping excursion with the J-Crew, and Dan and his son, Brendan. It was a weekend thing up in Spout Spring, Virginia, at a chill campground called Paradise Lake.

Highlights were fishing, some light hiking, swimming in the frigid lake and taking on the steep sliding board out in its depths, and waxing philosophical and political around the the fire — a perennial camping favorite of ours.

Tricia and Jeremy had the family over for a nice meal. While the 3 Amigos played video games and Apples to Apples, and watched “The Office” with Bret and Bella, the adults smoked cigars and discussed spiritual and political topics. I love having good friends with whom we can engage in these types of conversations.

And just today, we returned from Mike’s 40th birthday celebration in Hickory. It was a cowboy-themed soirée complete with the honky-tonk music of Mike & the Moonpies. The boys swam (while paid babysitters kept an eye all the kiddos!) as Stephen and I danced, feasted on margaritas, Texas-flavored fare, and cigars, and just relaxed … twitch-free!

It was Mike and his bros, Adam and Steven, who introduced Stephen and me, so this bash was also a reunion of sorts. Adam was visiting from his home base of Austin, and Mike and his wife, Anah, just recently moved to Hickory. We had hung with the Steven, Paige, and Owen in the fall, but we hadn’t seen the rest of the gang in many years.

We talked old times, caught up on new times, even got a late-summer camping trip in the works, and simply enjoyed watching all our offspring play. It was truly a grand ol’ time!

Last but certainly not least, Houston had his two-year eye checkup. When we last saw the ophthalmologist, he had explained that it’s common for kids with Horner’s Syndrome to eventually need glasses.

Well, amazingly, Houston has 20/20 vision! And the doc even said that he doesn’t have to come back EVER, unless, of course, there’s some reason we think Houston’s vision is worsening. Nothing like yet another one of my kids bucking the medical stats. God is good.