Plus, your parents are always intentionally making your life difficult by demanding that you call upon your God-given talents in order to properly open a box of granola bars or properly close a box of cereal.  Totally unreasonable.

Folks, we have an 11 year old girl living in this house.  She goes by the same name and likes the same basic things that my eldest daughter did, but she is…well, have you seen my real daughter?  The one who is eager to please and amicable and compliant?  She was way easier to manage than this new model, I gotta be honest.

Things irritate her these days.  Lots of things.  And people.  And when she’s irritated, she shows it in her body and on her face and with her voice.  There’s no subtlety with this one, no ma’am.  If looks could kill, I’m quite certain our entire family would have been a smoldering heap of ashes as of last Thursday.

But if my looks could kill, she’d have been a heap of ashes way before she could incinerate the rest of us, anyway, so I guess there’s not really anything to worry about. 

Because mama don’t play that game.

You know the game.  The game where pre-adolescents and adolescents don’t actually do anything wrong so they think they can’t get in trouble.  Like stomping on their way to clean their room.  Or, worse, giving us the slumped-shoulders shuffle-walk when we tell them to help their sibling hang up the wet laundry. Or…well, you get the picture.

“Your actions speak louder than your words,” we say.

“Your attitude is as important as your behavior,” we say.

“Your body matters.  What it does has meaning.  Change your body and you’ll change your feelings,” we say.

Because it’s true.  No one learns to like doing something they ought to do by never doing it.  And no one learns to like doing something they ought to do by doing it through clenched teeth and with clenched fists, shoulders tense, mumbling about how absolutely unfair it is that they be expected to do this thing and how, HOW ON EARTH! could any sane person like it.  Or even like being done with it enough to do it willingly to begin with.

The fact is that sometimes, well…sometimes you gotta fake it ’til you make it.  Yes, plaster a smile across your face even if you don’t think you mean it.  Shake out those shoulders.  Stand up straight.  Take a deep breath.  If insert-name-of-person-who-inspires-you were here, how would you sound?  Make your voice sound like that.  What would you do?  Do that.  How would you act?  Act like that.  If they make a movie of your life someday, how would you want people to see you?  Be that kind of person.

This is why kneeling in prayer matters.  This is why bowing before God matters.  This is why standing in His honor matters.  Because what we do with our bodies changes how we feel in our hearts and what we think in our heads and what we say with our lips.  So even if your heart and head and lips aren’t quite there yet, kneel anyway.  Bow anyway.  Stand anyway.

Fake it ’til you make it.

Trust me- you’ll make it.

Dwija Borobia lives with her husband and their four (soon-to-be-five!) kids in rural southwest Michigan in a fixer-upper they bought sight-unseen off the internet. Between homeschooling and corralling chickens, she pretends her time on the internet doesn’t count because she uses the computer standing up. You can read more on her blog house unseen. life unscripted.

So in celebration of being almost almost done, I thought I’d share just a few of my tips and tricks for surviving pregnancy with all of you, starting with…..

Dwija’s 5 Favorite Exercises for Pregnant People

running shoes not required

1) The Clutter Buster

Locate an item of clothing or small toy that has been abandoned in the middle of the floor by a kind member of your family or their equally generous friends.  I mean, they obviously know you’re looking for a way to get in a workout.

Balancing on your left leg, use your right foot to pick the item up off of the floor, using your toes as if they were fingers.  Channel your inner monkey if you must.  Quickly pass the item from foot to hand.

Repeat with opposite leg.

Advanced Level: toss the dirty laundry or toy into its proper receptacle using your foot, bypassing any hand participation whatsoever.  Keep those abs tight, ladies!

2) The Kneeler Wobbler

Go to Mass.  Attempt to kneel without your belly ricocheting off the back of the pew in front of you.

Advanced Level: bring toddler(s) with you.

3) The Tub Lift

This exercise will focus on your upper body, particularly the bicep and shoulder regions.

Purchase a reasonable quantity of ice cream, “reasonable” naturally meaning you’ll be dealing with a handled bucket.  Lift and lower the bucket repeatedly as you walk from your car to your sofa.

Don’t forget the spoon!

Advanced Level: two buckets + two arms = fit and toned

4) The Hoover Mover

If you’re seriously pressed for time, this one will work your whole body. Time management for the win!

Turn on the vacuum cleaner without  clearing the floor first.  Attempt to maneuver your machine around the toys and clothing and pieces of tupperware whilst children careen about recklessly and accuse you of “really trying to ruin my stuff for real this time”.

Advanced Level:  Instead of walking while pushing, do lunges.

Super Advanced Level: Combine Clutter Buster and Hoover Mover for a truly aerobic experience.  You’re welcome.

5) The Flapping Flamingo

First, balance on one leg.  Without bending over, attempt to insert free leg into a pair of pants which you cannot see because your mid-section is completely obstructing your view.  When your toe gets caught in a belt look and/or pocket, flap your arms wildly in an attempt to remain upright.

Repeat daily.

Advanced Level: Perform this exercise during the last 3 weeks of pregnancy.

In some circles, this procedure may also be referred to as “getting dressed”.

Et voila!

You can thank me later.

Dwija Borobia lives with her husband and their four (soon-to-be-five!) kids in rural southwest Michigan in a fixer-upper they bought sight-unseen off the internet. Between homeschooling and corralling chickens, she pretends her time on the internet doesn’t count because she uses the computer standing up. You can read more on her blog house unseen. life unscripted.

Lately I’ve been forcing myself to marvel at this fact (you know, to keep my mind off the muddy paw prints in the carpet and that place where someone broke a pen and forgot to tell me about it) and , whadya know, was able to come up with a handy list of 5 frustrating things my kids do that apparently God wants me to be thankful for.

1) The growing inside my actual torso in a manner that is equal parts irritating and completely out of my control.

So here’s where it starts.  A whole human being growing inside of me, kicking me in the bladder first then in the lungs eventually.  The heartburn, the waiting, the doubling of the rear end for no good reason, the exhaustion, the waiting, the cankles.  The waiting.  Have I mentioned the waiting?  Yeah, the waiting really sucks.

And I’m all “can’t you just have them pop out of huge egg pods or something?” and God’s all “but then would you have to truly live the fact that you’re not really in control of anything in this life?”  Touche.

Hey God, thanks for knowing I can do something that is so ridiculously hard, that if I knew how ridiculously hard it would be I never would have done it to begin with, and then I would miss out on all the incredibly good that can only follow the ridiculously hard.

2) The waking up in the middle of the night for no reason.

So you get them out of your torso and you’re all excited that you can finally sleep without a second butt jamming itself against your ribs.  And then it starts.  The crying.  The fussing.  The general wide-awakeness with no obvious solution.  And even though you want to just sleep, you can’t.  You have to get up and, like, do stuff.  In the middle of the night!  It’s just so unfair!

Hey God, thanks for showing me that my needs don’t always have to come first.  Even when I really, really, really, with every fiber of my being, want them to

3) The refusing to do what they’re supposed to do.

This one might be my favorite.  So, you tell your son to put his cars away in the bin.  Easy, right?  He dumped them out, he knows where they belong, and he’s capable of doing it.  What could possibly be go wrong?  And then it starts.  The wailing!  The gnashing of teeth!  The negotiations!  The stomping!  It is, honestly, a more ridiculous display than you could have imagined.  What the heck?  It’s silly and foolish and a waste of energy and….

Ooooooooh, well when I have to clean up the messes I’ve made or take care of the stuff that’s MY responsibility and I throw a little grown-up temper tantrum, it’s not nearly as bad because…..um…well because….

Yeah, okay.  Sorry about that, God.  Thank you for showing me how silly I sound when I throw a fit and refuse to do the things that I know I’m supposed to do.

4) The being hungry several times a day, every single dang day

We feed them.  Then they’re full.  And then, THEN, they’re hungry all over again!  So inconvenient.  But we keep feeding them.  Because they need it.

No, the biggest concern among the concerned was: SOCIALIZATION.  Ahhhh!  Socialize those kids!  Learnin’, schmlearning- those kids need to be among herds of other kids their exact age in order to learn how to be normal.  In other words: homeschooled kids are annoying and weird, and you don’t want your kids to be annoying and weird, do you?

Annoying and weird.

Well, if someone tries to tell you that their kids are never annoying, they’re lying to you.  And if someone else tries to tell you that any child of mine isn’t going to be at least a little weird no matter how they’re educated, they’ve lost their minds.

But I digress.

Why is this perception of the weirdo homeschooler so pervasive?  Why is it that despite the clear academic achievement of most homeschooled students, the fear of them “acting like that one weirdo guy I knew when I was a kid” is enough to turn otherwise supportive folks against the idea?  I’ve thought about it a lot and the best explanation I can come up with is this: ridicule.

See, everyone is born with a certain temperament.  Parents of more than one will all attest to this.  Same parents, same environment, same rules….completely different reactions from their children.  And some kids- well, some kids are annoying.  And what do I mean by “annoying”?  I mean what people mean when they say that homeschooled kids are annoying.  I mean kids who ask too many questions and know too much information and like certain stuff and refuse to like other things and don’t care what other people think about their silly hobbies and their know-it-all-ness.

When “annoying” kids like this go to a traditional school, they’re ridiculed.  They have a hard, or even impossible, time finding their niche.  They must either hide their true personality and inclinations in order to be accepted or they’re pushed to the fringes and made to feel abnormal.  Not good enough.  Made to feel less likable than those who keep their ideas and opinions to themselves or fail to form any to begin with.  Made to feel that convictions and fascinations are stupid and that pop culture is the only culture.  Not because “normal” kids are mean.  They mostly don’t even know they’re doing it, I assure you.  They just don’t know what to do with someone who’s so, like, weird.  Ya know?

I know.  I was one of those weird kids.

My eldest daughter knows.  She is one of those weird kids.

But when one of those “annoying” kids is homeschooled, no one makes fun of their outfits that don’t match.  Or the fact that they like to memorize things and wish the math assignments were harder.  No one looks at them askance when they know every answer to every question and are eager to share their knowledge.  When an annoying kid like that finds a new hobby and wants to learn everything they can about it and talk about it incessantly, no one treats them like there’s something wrong with pursuing an interest like that, no matter how dull it may seem to the other members of the homeschool classroom.  They are not ridiculed into trying to be who God didn’t create them to be.