(I was going to write this post yesterday, but April was crying and wouldn’t get to sleep, so I couldn’t. You’ll see just how fitting… or perhaps ironic? that fact is…)

Every afternoon, I make myself a yogurt shake. Blend 3/4 cups of plain yogurt, 1/4 cup milk, a packet of stevia, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, a tablespoon of stevia-sweetened chocolate chips, and exactly 13 ice cubes, then pour it in a cup and rinse out the blender so I can use it later. It’s a cherished ritual. For over a year I’ve done this every afternoon. I would blend up my shake once Violet was in bed, go settle into my own bed, and read or listen to a podcast or watch a show while sipping. Mmm, cold, delicious, and guilt-free.

Then April was born.

Sometimes she waits patiently in her bouncy seat for me to make my shake, but more often she’s crying the whole time. I finally scoop her up and carry her and the shake into the bedroom for naptime, then I have to nurse her and/or pat her on the back until she falls asleep. Both of these activities usually require both arms to do to her satisfaction, which means usually by the time I can drink my beloved shake — it’s more than a little melty.

Most mornings, I wake up with her spitup on my shirt. I change my shirt and throw the old one in the washer (we’ve cut out the middle man of the laundry hamper) and within an hour or two, it also is stained. Yesterday between the two girls I ended up with spitup, drool, tears, and snot all on one shirt. I just needed a little poop to give me the complete set!

Thus, I end up changing my shirt about a dozen times a day. I’m running out of shirts.

I used to publish one book a year. I had my system — so many words I would shoot for daily, getting my next book written before I published the latest, just so I could be ahead of schedule. I was a fast writer, and I prided myself on it. I was speeding through my series, along with a few standalone books. A couple years, I even published two.

Then Violet was born.

I had been working on getting Firmament: No Man edited, and my progress came to a screeching halt, then sped up again… to a crawl. I went a whole year without publishing anything, and finally got it out… without any more books written and ready to go. No longer ahead of schedule. No longer really in the vicinity of any schedule at all.

It’s easy to get frustrated by these things.

I love my shakes (can you tell?), I have a normal amount of fondness for clean clothes, and I love getting things written and shared with the world. And it’s not that I don’t have these things at all any more, it’s just that they look much, much different.

One day, as I was nursing April and watching my beloved shake melt before my very eyes, a thought popped into my head.

What if this shake is supposed to be melty?

I don’t mean that in any deep, providential, fate sort of way. Just what if that becomes my expectation of my shakes? What if the way they are is just a little melty?

The thought changed my entire mood. No longer was I annoyed I couldn’t have my shake the perfect way (petty, I know, but I really love my shakes). Instead, I changed what “perfect” meant to me.

What if my shirts are just supposed to get dirty? What if that’s just the normal, expected way for them to be right now?

And what if my writing is supposed to be a little bit slow? Instead of frustration at “failing” at my identity as a “fast writer,” why not embrace a new self as a “slow writer”?

I used to try to do a version of this when I was a boy-crazed teenager. I got tired of being disappointed when my crush didn’t happen to be at any given social event, so I would try to psych myself out by telling myself, “I bet he won’t be there!”

That didn’t work, though. Why? It was disingenuous. Deep down I knew I was just trying to play mind games with myself, but I really WANTED him to be there.

This is different. This is authentic. This is a perspective change. It doesn’t mean I go, “Maybe the shake will melt!” so I can keep from being disappointed when it does, or be pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t. This means I re-align my thinking. It means I stop seeing things that happen in the course of my calling as a wife and mom as “failures,” and instead see them as the new successes. Melty shake? Hallelujah! That’s just the way I like it! Dirty shirt? My favorite kind! Two years between book releases? Or even more? That must be the perfect way it’s supposed to be!

Because if I’m truly living my calling, then how things are must be the way they are supposed to be. And it’s kinda fun to learn to rest in that.

And you bet your yogurt that I’m looking forward to making myself a nice, melty shake this afternoon while I cuddle that precious baby to sleep.