Tag Archives: Virginia Forste

Moms in Progress: Melody Thompson

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Virginia

Hey Melody, I’m excited for you to share your wisdom with our readers!

Look at this happy group. Tell us a little about your family. 

Melody

I would be delighted. Here we have my husband Jason, our oldest Levi (6), Jonathan (1.5 yrs), baby Solomon (6 mo), and myself. We are far from pErFeCt – notice the lack of professional quality to the picture. I don’t even like how I look in this picture but I love it because it is actually my entire family in one picture. Our family has been going through a rough season and just to be all together in one place is a blessing.

 

Virginia

Well, I’m glad you’re in it! It’s easy for moms to be absent from the picture for the sake of looking good but this proves you were there. 🙂 

So we can see that you’re totally a #boymom! No one rocks it like you do, my friend. What should we know about these sweet boys? 

Melody

My oldest, Levi, who just turned 6, is spunky, outgoing, encouraging, smart, inventive and strong-willed. I love him and all his inventions and art projects (that may or may not end up in the trash), but boy has he driven me to read and re-read parenting books.

 

My Jonathan, who is just over 18 months, is my sweet, helpful, funny, entertaining, and, who like his older brother, is also strong-willed. I think God is playing a joke on me and he’ll turn compliant at age 2, haha. He can entertain an entire group of adults and keep them in stitches, and he doesn’t even talk in full sentences yet.

 

My Solomon is just 6 months old. He has a winning smile and a calming presence about him. He has had a very busy little life with a couple days in NICU, lots of doctors visits, and 17 days in the hospital that ended in major surgery. I’ll get into it more later but, long story short, he’s doing great! In general anyway, I’m typing this from a bed in the ER at John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital because he has walking pneumonia. Thankfully,  they are sending us home with meds. Whew!

Virginia

You and I both know people love putting you in charge, especially when you’re up to your eyeballs in responsibility. What else is going on? 😉

Melody

Besides being a mom, I lead a Mommy & Me playgroup at church once a week. I also head up our church’s nursery volunteers. My husband, Jason, is a high school band director so sometimes I am running errands for the band.

Virginia

I remember those errands, like cooking A LOT of BBQ in your own kitchen! ? You get into the craziest predicaments but you handle hard and crazy stuff with grace. 

How do you keep your sanity and encourage yourself?

Melody

It’s not easy, that’s for sure. Right now, I’m enjoying Lysa TerKeurst’s book “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way” and her other works. I love the Calm Parenting Podcast and Dr. Dobson’s Family Talk, too. 

Virginia

Would you mind sharing more about Solomon’s medical issues and how that has impacted your faith?

Melody

Sure. At the age of 4 months, Solomon landed in the hospital after having a breathing episode where he turned blue. That began a 17-day hospital stay, including a major surgery. Basically, it was similar to open-heart surgery but they worked on his windpipe instead of his heart. The challenge during this time was giving my children back to God. They are His anyway. Why am I worrying about them when the Creator of the Universe has them?

 

Virginia

Definitely! So how did you make that happen?

Melody

Basically, you let some stuff fall through the cracks, but for a purpose. I had to give up making sure Levi’s Kindergarten homework was done (and I still haven’t really picked that chore back up ?‍♀️). I had to give up knowing what was going on all day everyday with my older two children while I was stuck in the hospital 1.5 hours away. I had to give up knowing what’s best for my baby and trust medical professionals with his life. 

Virginia
Contributing

You had a lot of challenges. I remember you texting me that you weren’t allowed to feed him for maybe 7 hours and how stressful that is/was with a newborn? You had the ability to feed him but not the permission. Now, that’s a test!

Contributing
Melody

Yeah, that was a bit insane. I couldn’t control any of the things I normally control for my children: bedtime, teeth brushing, meals, books, clothes, snuggles, nothing… But you know what? They all survived and handled the situation with ease. The medical professionals knew how to handle Solomon. Friends and family took fantastic care of Jonathan and Levi. And somehow Jason and I survived on little to no sleep and strange hospital food.

Virginia

Ugh, the loss of control is SO hard, even though it’s probably want God wants from us the most.

What advice would you give someone going through that kind of struggle?

Melody

Keep giving your children and family back to God, because we all know as a moms we keep taking things back from God when we shouldn’t. In this life you will have situations that are more than you can handle. But if you entrust those situations, your entire life, and family to God, a peace will come in those overwhelming situations. Don’t give up trusting the Creator of the Universe when life seems to not give you any breaks. Sometimes some of “life’s setbacks” are actually setting you up for success in harder situations to come.

Virginia

That’s great advice that comes from seeing God come through for you personally. I’m so proud of your faith!

Let’s lighten this up a bit. I know one of them has said something silly lately. Care to share? 🙂 

Melody

I was cleaning something with a little bleach in the bathroom and for some reason my 6 yr old knows that smelling bleach can burn your lungs and he says, “Jonathan, we got to get out of here. That smell is going to give us the pneumonias”. ?

Virginia

Lol, at least Levi’s trying to take his bro out of there, instead of pushing him in further! 🙂

Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Melody

My best advice is to trust God with everything even those little people that you might consider selling to the traveling circus. Pray to Him about everything big or small. Pray in the heat of battle with your child. Pray over their angelic sleeping body. Pray over their health. And when the tough times come it will be easier to use His strength to carry you through. And secondly go find yourself a mom BFF. One you can text, call, encourage and rant to or in my case, angry text. 

You’ve heard this before and it needs to be said again, and maybe put on a tee shirt: God has specifically given your children to YOU, not to anyone else but YOU. He knew you would be the mom they needed. Don’t ever forget that. 

Virginia

I’m happy to be one of your happy/angry/crazy text recipients. To be fair, a lot of times they are also infused with comic relief. You really need to write a book, as I say regularly. 🙂 

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

Me Time and Mom Goggles

In this week’s post, Katie shares that our highest calling in motherhood is to love. A big part of love is sacrifice. We sacrifice our time, our energy, our sleep, and our agenda to put our children first. 

But do you know what I don’t think we should sacrifice? Our mental health. I know I have done it too many times. Motherhood can require so much and we need to invest in regular self care, like a girl’s night out. (I know, I know. It’s hard to do. A “GNO” sounds like fun on a Monday but not so fun on a dark Thursday evening when you’re almost in your PJs!) Sometimes it’s just hard to squeeze it in when there is so much to do. But we need to take care of ourselves so that we can return to our families refreshed. I know we hear this from well-meaning people but it really is true! We fill up so we can then pour out.

But do you guys feel the same way as me when you take some time out? Isn’t it crazy all of the thoughts that go through our minds: What if my husband doesn’t remember all the details only I seem to know about? What might go wrong while I’m gone? What am I forgetting? 

Check out this video called “Mom Goggles” by The Skit Guys’. I love a funny spoof and don’t we all wish our husbands and kids would say these sweet things to us about our role in motherhood?!

I’ll be honest, I used to go to Target and fantasize about my kids misbehaving while I was away. Certainly, then my husband would finally see how hard parenting really is! (You too? Glad to hear it’s not just me!) I know that’s not the most gracious response to some time away, but I admit it’s what I was thinking. Unfortunately, there are no magic spectacles to help us understand our spouse and his perspective. 

After reading dozens of marriage books and taking time to really try to see the situation from God’s perspective, I have learned a few things. What if we pondered these three ideas before spending time away from your family?

First, your husband isn’t like you. That does not mean he’s any less equipped to take care of your children. You have been given these children as a gift; so has your husband. You parent in a unique way; so does your husband. Unless he is not keeping them safe, disagreement about parenting methods does not equal your superiority. He may not do the things with the same flair or method or standard. And that is okay. (Ugh, I know. This is a hard one. I have to continually remind myself of this truth!)

Second, I’ll say it again: your husband isn’t like you. He will never understand what it is like to be a mom. He most likely does understand that parenting is difficult and he appreciates you being a part of that team, even if he doesn’t verbalize it. (Oh for those mom goggles, right? But until those are invented, let’s try to remember to be a little more gracious and a little less critical. #preachingtothechoir)

Third, and maybe the most life-changing truth: God does understand everything we go through. He gives us our portion each day. God sees every washed dish, every battle chosen, every struggle and every small victory. When you don’t feel understood, remember God understands. 

Motherhood requires a lot of sacrifice as we know. But what if we flip this issue on its head a bit and take a moment to give our husbands credit for trying to be good fathers and not criticize them if they don’t do it our way? Besides, when you get that moment to get out of the house, see it for what it is and don’t worry if the everything wasn’t done the way you would have done it. And maybe they even had more fun! Go and enjoy that time away. Soak in the refreshment so you have more to give.

~Virginia