parenting

Just When I Think I’m the Teacher

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I find her curled into herself, all knobby knees to her chest and tears sticky on her cheeks. She loves them to stay there, craves for me to see their dramatic fall. It’s the stuff of an aspiring teenager and that’s about enough to take the wind right out of me- the changing I’m witnessing.
With elbows on my legs I bend to meet her gaze and ricochet her emotions.

“You’re angry. I get it that Mondays are tough. And I see you.”

“I just hate going to school because it’s so hard for me and I couldn’t find my other slipper and I’m freezing (oh, the desperation). I want to be home with my family.” (Ah, yes. Bringing out the big “family” bomb sounding so well and good.)

We were in the aftermath of the flinging bootie, her burst of growling. I saw myself plain as day in those angry eyes.
“I’m really glad we had two days together. What if our government made you go to school 7 days a week?” (Which at the moment was tempting me beyond what I could handle.)

The brother interjects just like a brother. “Yeah. At least you have the weekend.” Not now, oh righteous one. Eat your Fruit Loops quietly. 

“Then we would get longer summers.”

“What if you didn’t? What if you had to go to a school where you couldn’t pick your own friends and the teachers made you hate God or you got in trouble?”

Why? Why do I say things like this? Guh. 

“I would still love Him.”
The crease in her forehead relaxes to curiosity. “Are there schools like that?”

“I don’t know.” It’s then I consider stopping but that would be wise and stuff so, I keep going.  “But there are people who lose their lives and even their heads for trusting in Jesus and not following other faiths.” And I believe in my bones He weeps at each family and limb torn apart, for every child found face-down on the beach or bloody and forgotten, every ounce of pain in every lonely mother.
“What’s great about where we live is we have the right to guns so we can protect ourselves.” I say it aloud so they’ll feel safe, and how do I explain that death means nothing when we know where we’re headed? How do I really even explain it to myself? Because what, Lord, of the things happening that words can’t contain? It’s heavy, too much.

The day moves on with a morning bell, an exhale in the car once the noise of the three of them hits the school sidewalk, me cursing my decision to say oh the many things. I scrub at tacky milk spills on the table and pick up wadded toilet paper from the floor and think, thank You that I never have to tell them we don’t have breakfast…or food at all. Thank You for not asking us to hide or risk being murdered. 

We get a mailer of a handsome boy in Africa whose name we try pronouncing. We’re told of the way he doesn’t learn ABC’s or 123’s because he has to work for his family at his tender 6 years old. How the prevalence of auto-immune diseases threaten his existence, and his favorite food is rice.

I become frustrated at their giggling, their poking each other’s sides in tickling. When I’ve washed my hands of them, put them to bed, she sneaks down to me in the dim light coming from above the stove. As I whip around to march her back to her room I see the way her hands cup the box. Tears come again but this time she’s keeping them full, rounded like bubbles at the crests of her lids.

“Here, Mom. He needs this more than I do.” The words hang in the kitchen with the lingering smells of dinner. I choke and grab her to me, the whole of her many months of saved dollars smashed between us. The doll she’s giving up, an afterthought.

Just when I think I’m the one teaching, she gives me the lesson of my life.

“…and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent.
      …for they put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”   -Mark 12:41-44

  

Whispers of Adventure

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They were like raindrops on paper, nearly undetectable with a simple glance. Right there in the middle of my pillow, forced through the sheet were five nail brads. 

Don’t react, I told myself. It’s only the most sacred of places where I lay my head after the children have been awake all the livelong day and are finally perfect- as in asleep. But don’t panic. 
 
I called my son upstairs because let’s face it, girls don’t randomly want to puncture furniture with sharp objects. Very often. 
“Um,” I said pointing to the nightmare before me. “Were you mad or what made you want to do this?”
“Yeah.”
“All right so what’s up?”
“I don’t know.” 
Wildly insufficient right now, Sir. “What were you mad about?”
“Always having to do stuff I don’t want to do.”
“I get that. I don’t like doing stuff I don’t like too. Actually I’m frustrated right now so should I go cut up your favorite ball cap?”
“No.” His voice cracked just a bit as the pieces of understanding started to fall together. “But the girls told me to do it.”
Yeah, no. “Let’s come up with better ways to be angry.” And by the way you don’t get candy, well, ever again.  
 
It’s not even this civilized sometimes. In the four weeks since they’ve been out of school I’ve already found myself not wanting to parent several times. A day. I get into a pattern of trying to manage them apart from me instead of engaging. It becomes a chant. 
 
“Stop.”
“Shhh.”
“Don’t touch that.”
“Get down. Settle down. Slow down.”
“Quit it.”
“Take that out of your mouth.”
“Why did you hit her, cut those, carve this…” 
 
To which they say, “I’m about to pull down my pants so you better get out of my room!” 
 
These aren’t the kinds of coping skills I’m modeling for them, I assure you. Hilarious though it may be. 
 
Last night I did one of those desperate pleas to my husband: “I beg of you. Please. I must get coffee. Alone.” They weren’t sentences, just a series of gasps. I took with me a book that had radically changed my approach to parenting when I first read it, and my own understanding of God’s view of us.
 
“I think a Father’s job, when it’s done best, is to get down on both knees, lean over his children’s lives, and whisper, ‘Where do you want to go?’ 
God asks what it is He’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us,  He whispers, ‘Let’s go do that together.” -Bob Goff, Love Does
 
This comes from a chapter where Mr. Goff describes taking all three of his kids on an adventure when they turned ten. It’s a dramatic act of whimsy that celebrates thinking outside of schedules and preparation. Literally, he and his daughter leave for Europe a week after she suggests she’d like to sip tea in the fashion of royalty. 
 
When I got home I snuggled between my oldest two and draped my daughter’s legs over my own while we watched Harry Potter. Imaginary worlds and heroism in the face of evil- past bedtime? Let’s do this together. 
 
“…when Jesus invites us on an adventure, He shapes who we become with what happens along the way.” -Bob Goff

In the Belly of My Closet

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It isn’t a thumping like they say in books. Nor does it sound like the hard edging of her slipper hitting the floor- bomp, bomp, bomp. It’s a river, a desperate rush of adrenaline that mimics the overflow of our Colorado spring.

I am stuffed into the dark belly of my closet, clogging my ears with fingertips so the only thing I hear is my pulse. Crouched and spent I begin to speak honestly.
I’m unraveling. I can’t do this well.

Because I could scream and cuss and take out all my frustration on them the way they’ve been doing with each other. God knows I want to.
Oh I’m sorry, do those statements make you uncomfortable? Well. Welcome to the guts of good parenting. The place where you put yourself in timeout for the sanctity of everyone’s survival. The moment that brings a meshing of surrender and relief. Sometimes it’s enough to just choke out loud, “I cannot. Do. Another second.”

Her screaming seeps through to my hearing and so I make a mad dash to the door. “Is there something you need?” I ask as she flails in the hallway.
“I don’t want to be out here!”
I consider kneeling down to join her but how would that be helpful. “We are all split up and taking a break. You need to look at books quietly before you can get up.” And also so I don’t call the psychiatric ward on myself. 

The morning has been reduced to this. The broken glass because he was doing chores because he’d hit his sister because she was copying his every nuance because her sister was egging her on because no one in this house can have breakfast in civil fashion.

Summer vacation is supposed to be laughing and pools and s’mores and relaxation and book-reading and you know, a vacation. But the thing is, they are always, just always there. And they are always fighting. (Ok not always.)     

When I can finally trust that my voice will stay at manageable levels I gather them close. We sit on legs, feet, and the little one rolls on her back. I approach with a question since listening, I’ve learned, is actually more telling.

“What do you think about how things have been going? How do you feel about the way we’ve been acting?”
“Stressed,” says the oldest with a half-smile. Don’t start with me, girl. 
“What do you mean by?” says the other with her toes in the air.

“Pick one of these: sad, mad glad, scared.”

“Sad.”
“Mad.”

“Yeah, and why?”

“Because she was-”

“Eh!” I close my eyes in dramatic gesture. Maybe there are times when they need to listen. “We’re all guilty here. And we don’t treat each other the way we have been. We’re a team that has each other’s backs, loves well, and helps out.”

“Ok but can I play the Ipad?

What have I…don’t even…”No.”

“Let’s all try to do better.”

They scatter and I open the fridge to find the milk jug decorated in my son’s signature design. Some things aren’t worth the energy.

Mommy, Mommy, Mommy

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My bedroom feels new since we put in blackout curtains. Hanging them may have been the smartest decision of my adult life. So when my youngest comes in all snuggled as a bug on my stomach, it’s easy to drift into the serenity of our breathing.

“Mom?”
“Hm?” I keep my eyes closed.
“No, Mommy?” She demands my full attention as well as visual contact. If I play dead she will stop this early morning insanity.

“Mom? Mommy? Mommy?”

I consider not inhaling, or exhaling.

“Mommy…Mommy…Mommy.”

Don’t. Give. In.

She becomes music, matching what was once our rhythmic slumber. “Mo-mmy, Mo-mmy, Mo-mmy.”

“What.” Period intended.

“Does maybe mean yes?”

Are you for real right now? 

Folks, it’s only week one of summer break.

Why We Need You

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“…when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it.
And all the rest, the distracting noises of insecurity and the flattery and the flashbulbs will flicker out like a turned-off television.”  -Donald Miller, Scary Close 

If you haven’t been stuck in a car outside an elementary school pick-up line, quite frankly…you’re among the few still sane in this world. But if you’re like the rest of us, you know what that 20 minute standstill is good for. All those texts. Just as many stray eyebrow hairs. (What is it with daylight bringing those suckers front and center?) Screaming toddlers who throw sippy cups at the dashboard. And of course, catching up with the other soldiers in the trenches. I like to call us moms.

It was on such a day, as I was likely checking my teeth, that I spotted her. I knew her car from when our girls weren’t in kindergarten. Before they dumped their Crayolas into a big bin together. Back when they wore pink tights and tutus and were barely potty-trained. Back when we each only had the two children.

I waited for her to look up, the timing of this particular social medium still a mystery to me. Eventually her head turned and I shot my hand in the air like I had suddenly noticed her too. But she didn’t wave back. Oh, she didn’t see me, I thought.
Except we quit talking. She wouldn’t return my texts. News traveled that they were moving. And I was crushed.

It can be daunting, can’t it? Friendship isn’t always like those flowing beach novels. It isn’t as faithful as a Thursday night sitcom from the nineties. We try, we get hurt, and somewhere deep inside we make a vow to never let it happen again.

“…it is a surrender. We open up to another person, and to God, our particular questions and dilemmas.” -Emilie Griffin, Small Surrenders

It would be a tragedy if we were to stay safe. My heart, your heart is beautiful. And it is desperately needed in this culture. Even the parts you don’t like about yourself, they are a piece of the beauty too because something incredible happens when we say we struggle, fail. It allows another the freedom to say, “Me too.” It allows the Spirit to start changing and growing us.

“How can we be loved if we are always hiding?” -Donald Miller, Scary Close

When we offer the wisdom of our life experiences and the truth of our inadequacies we harvest an intimacy with someone who will be there when tragedy strikes and we are brought to our knees. We share a bond that pushes us beyond stagnant faith. We live out the love of the gospel, because don’t think for a minute it won’t stretch us to also love well in our communities.

Been hurt? It’s okay. We all have.

Follow me through Lenten season at southeastcc.org/lent

A Letter From Heart-Pup

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Today is our birthday. Can you believe it’s been ten years since Dad picked me off the gift shop shelf? It was a happy place with all the balloons and cheerful t-shirts but, I was mostly glad to be chosen. Sure, somewhere I was manufactured, stuffed and threaded and given a tag. But the bunny in that book is right. You aren’t really alive until you love.

Those first days you slept a lot. I sat in the corner of our Pack ‘N Play, listening to the cadence of your small breaths. So tiny that sometimes Mom would lick her finger and put it under your nose. I’m still not sure why she did that. Even your cries back then were soft. That of course took no time to change and soon I was grateful to be there to comfort you since you usually felt safe when I was close.

Remember how it felt like a tent when they put us in your carrier seat and took us places? Dad would find a big blanket, the one our sister uses every night now with the pink ribbon around the edges, and he’d snuggle us together between the straps. Then he’d hide us so the cold couldn’t reach and I remember how I was so content in there with you. You found my ear once while you sucked your thumb and slowly, this became our rhythm.

The first time you called my name it confused Mom, but I knew. I knew right when you said “Butterfly-Pup” that you were calling for me.
“What, Honey? What do you want?”
“Buh-fly pup!”
“Oh, Sweetie that’s a heart. See? Heart-Pup.”
I still like to think my name is “Butterfly” though. Because that’s what you named me.

We spent hours on the princess potty, you reading me stories of other dogs and cats named Oscar or Tilly. I loved your made-up stories. When you’d slide a tiara down the length of my ears or pour me a water in a Tinker Bell tea cup. Your hair was so crazy at times, a fountain spilling from your head because the pigtails had dried it funny.

But I also remember those never-ending nights sitting beside our silver bowl and the clank of your fingernails while you were sick. I stayed until Mom gave me a hot washing. But all that soap was worth not leaving you. I’ve endured plenty of coughing, snot, tossing and dropping. Remember I was lost among the shoes? You had showed me those animals, the elephants and zebras, and then we were going home when I felt the cold tile. There were so many soles and ankles and I just wanted you. I heard you yelling at mom, and I’m so glad you told her where I was because what if I had never seen you again? What if I missed dancing in the living room, hideouts in the front yard bushes where you tell me your secrets, the smell of your face in the morning, the way you’re growing and needing me less and less? But don’t worry about that. Even this is joy for me.

After that I had to stay home more. Mom didn’t want me getting lost so she said I couldn’t come along as much. Remember when they bought the other Heart-Pup that was so not me? You could tell. They didn’t fool us though I was glad you had the company. At least until you brought home Black-Pup. He has been my best friend besides you. He was with me after Nana gave me surgery and new stuffing, when you were trying out your new camera, and the first day you went to school. I don’t know what I would have done all these school days since if it weren’t for him.

What I see, when you aren’t paying attention, when you are busy with your Spirograph or licking your latest wounds from our brother, is a lot of love. Mom sees you, adores you, is so proud of the way you know yourself enough to say your voice in a tone that is not demanding but simply is yours. Dad thinks you are beautiful, gets teary at night thinking of how little time you have left with us. Brother looks up to you. In fact that’s why he’s always trying to be faster, better, right-er, because he knows you’re two years ahead of the game. Sister wants to be you in every way. She wants your clothes, your mature thoughtfulness, your freedoms. And it’s all love. I know because I watch when you don’t.

So happy birthday from me, Heart-Pup. Your best friend who will forever keep your secrets and always be here.

What Engagement Means to a Boy

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The girls mirror each other on the couch with pillows and blankets and fevers. They have made a cocoon out of a comforter, and I nearly dive in with them.
Kyle is keeping his distance in the kitchen, happy to have an all-access pass to our Netflix subscription at the expense of his sisters’ miseries.
The belly of my coffee mug swells against a backdrop of physician notes, a listing of side effects for an antibiotic McKenzie needs. It’s long enough to make a person wonder if it’s humanly possible to survive any given medication.

Though I worry about their health in the midst of spy movies with gadget sounds and words like “vortex” and “Armageddon,” it’s my son’s disengagement that really has me bothered. I watch him as I have so many times and think, How do I engage this boy? What makes him come alive, and let’s do more of whatever that is because I’m terrified of his own cyclone of impending demise into an eternal pit of withdrawal. 

“You’re going with Dad.”
He bends the way he does when he’s feeling intense emotion. “Why? I don’t want to,” he says with a quiver in his voice.
“I’m sorry you don’t want to. Why don’t you want to?”
“Becausssse, there’s nothing to do and it takes soooo looong. It’s so booooring.”
“I’m sorry that it’s boring. Is there something that would make it more exciting?” As in, You’re going so suck it up Bud and find the fun. But less insensitive.
“No.”
“Well, it may be a long couple of hours. Here, let’s pack a few things in case you get antsy.”

I gather a Target bag of goodies and do not insist he change out of P.J.’s. He tromps to the garage door with dinosaur pants stuffed into the necks of his snow boots. It carries a sort of indignation that reminds me he is still alive somewhere in there.

Soon I get a text from him, which I’d like to pause and say is the weirdest. My children texting me. (sigh)
“Hi mom hows ‘i goin’?”
“Hi buddy! Good how are you? Miserable? :)”
“No. Bored.”
“I’m sorry you’re bored. What would make it more exciting?” And I’m annoyed at my own repetition.
“Freddys! We’re here right now.”
“Lucky!!”

Later when I force the T.V. off he wanders around our family room like the vultures in Jungle Book with their British accents and stunted syllables.

“So what we gonna do?”
“I dunno. Watcha wanna do?”
“Don’ start ‘at again.”

 Tap-tap-tap, go the small discs on the checkerboard. They send him into a tizzy of laughter until he can hardly catch his breath. “That is so funny. It was like tap-tap-tap.” 
I laugh because he is, and soon he’s found an energy that will not be stopped.

He blows milk bubbles to the lip of his glass.
He sucks in air as he speaks so the pitch of his voice rises a couple octaves of irritating.
He covers his mouth with his hands and says, “I can’t be quiet.” I noticed.
He scoots a rocking chair around the hardwood and gets his legs stuck in the sides.
He chews up…an eraser.

But he’s back, he’s him and I wonder how, when it becomes obvious.

His dad engaged him.

The night before Chase hit a breaking point with the noise of three children. As he tucked Kyle to sleep I saw them get forehead to forehead in a tender moment amid the most important parenting words I’ve heard: “I’m sorry.” It was vulnerable, priceless. It set the tone for the next day when they downed hamburgers and recited lines of movies. When they hopped in the truck and braved the snow. When they talked about respect with words like s&$!. When they came home as men.

Now please, go disengage. It’s bedtime. 

As Big As

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Even with the swirl of air in the car I can smell her hair. Like some sort of laundry candle from a body care store where they entice me with lotions and potions that mostly just leave me wanting dessert.
I’m reminded of how all my children need haircuts and really, why can I not ever complete the task of making the appointment?

“How old is God? Like, as tall as a hundred million?”
“Bigger. He is forever.”
“Is He like, as big as our neighborhood or somethin’?”
I try to stay focused on my speed. “Or somethin’,” I respond with a laugh.

This is why I need children in my life. For the fun of it.

When Calvin and Hobbes Take Over

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“Babe, come listen to what he just said.”

We are in Costco with all the mountains of bulk items a family of five can pack into one cart. I was scanning aisles because sometimes it’s easier to leave the brood near the socks and go hunting for applesauce alone.

“What.”
“The girls said they were going to be the mice and he had to be the cat.”
“Yeah.”
“And he said, ‘Why do I have to always be the evil nemesis?'”
“How does he know that word?”
“Calvin and Hobbes.”

Well, read on my boy. Read on.

More Than Bags and Bows, What Girls Want From Their Daddies This Christmas

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“I didn’t really want to run away. I just wanted you to find me and bring me back here and tell me things are going to be okay…like they used to be.”  -Jessica Riggs, Prancer

Perhaps it’s all relative, this being a girl thing. Though I can drive, vote, write a check to a mortgage company, and have bore three children, to many of you my thirty years still leaves me in a class of naïve innocence with plenty yet to learn. Or if you are my husband you charmingly call the silver-haired woman in church next to us, a girl- evoking all the whimsy and femininity I vow to awaken even when I’m old.
Sweet man of mine, please do this when we are both wrinkled and smell like menthol.

Truth be told, pieces of the girl in me never leave. My counselor makes sure of it.
The same longings we discover in the days of pigtails carry into our marriages. What needs are not met as hop-scotch jumping, Miss Mary Mack-reciting elementary students is played out for years in various relationships.

Dads, we need you so very desperately.

We know you’re scared because you didn’t have a dad, or had one that beat you or shamed you or told you that your worth was nothing compared to his work schedule. But we’re scared too. Scared that you’ll live out our childhood not really knowing us.

PURSUIT

It’s a moment that holds so much. You walk in after being gone all day, after we fight with our mothers about when to do homework, and we look to your face. Do you notice our presence? Are you happy to see us? We internalize your expression, too young to disconnect and understand that the scowl around your eyes is from the ass-wipe in your office who badgers you incessantly about the unfairness of life being all your fault. About the numbers not adding up. About the way you question if you can always provide for us with a job you hate.
All we hope is that you’ll want us. That you’ll twirl us, hug us, ask us about the last eight hours and pause in anticipation to know what we have to say. Five minutes of this does more for our hearts than a hundred perfect boxes from the store.
When we’re angrily stomping upstairs don’t let us cry in our pillows forever because if you don’t come for us, that teenage boy with the great hair and not-so-great intentions will.
Teach us that the things we speak, feel, experience- matter to you, and you’ll be pursuing what matters to us.

SAFETY

The sand still lingers on her hands while we cry from the stinging pebbles in our eyes.
Words of hate hang in the whispers of girls who use us to feel better about themselves.
Our kisses leave traces on the lips of the boy who said he’d love us even after we gave him everything.
Empty bassinets, a husband with a private life, a friend’s cancerous death sentence.

We need a safe spot to curl up and ugly sob. And we need that spot to be you.

We don’t need it fixed, though that would be stellar. We need you to listen, validate that what we are going through is in fact nothing of the likes of Friday the 13th (and sometimes it is), and hurt with us. We know the pain won’t go away, but if we have you next to us, somehow it seems bearable.

ANSWERS

I remember it like it was today. The right color eyeshadow and new mascara, so carefully selected from all the others, would make him notice. How I scrubbed my hair in the shower, dried it into submission so it would grace my cheeks in that specific angle I liked, and wore my Sunday best. My Dad will think I’m the most, beautiful, girl.

Airbrushed legs and photoshopped waists are thrown at us with overwhelming speeds. We question our beauty when we don’t know we’re questioning our beauty. And usually the answers we come up with ourselves are nothing less than harsh.

Is this dress pink enough?
Do these shoes match enough?
Have we developed enough?
Are we thin enough?

But really just, are we enough?

We very much need you to answer this for us. See the way our laugh ignites giggles in others. Notice that our giving spirit is striking. Tell us how you watch our hearts grow to love people deeply and how gorgeous you think it is. Remind us when our hair is greasy and we’ve been fevering for days that we are just as captivating as when we’re dressed for Homecoming.

ADVENTURE

Always, Prancer. At the end of the movie Sam Elliott who plays John, the father of precious, chubby-cheeked Jessica, and a man whom I would take to coffee every day just to listen to him talk…sorry, digress.
He takes her against doctor’s orders to a cliff so they can release a reindeer he has hated the entire movie, back to Santa. Jessica searches, wonders, and you can see the excited playfulness on his face when he says, “Maybe he flew. It is Christmas Eve.”

We need you to throw our toddler frames so high above your head that our moms gasp and scold you. We need you to drive the shopping cart through the parking lot like a race car. We need you to tickle our armpits until we pee our pants, and give us our first bouquet of flowers.

We need your sense of risk and for you to teach us how to appropriately push ourselves. Then we’ll know we’re capable when you move us into our first dorm room or apartment. We’ll know the fun is in trying, and failing is allowed.

Dads, we need you. We need you in our lives more than we care if you don’t do it well. So kick your fear of inadequacy in the neck, take us by the hand, and let us know that even if this journey is difficult you “will find us and bring us back and tell us that things are going to be okay.” Believe that you can. We sure do. And it’s truly what we want this season.