Divided Mind

Worry divides the mind.  –Max Lucado 

I’ve just returned from a wonderful, decadent four day getaway with my lover of 17 years. We visited wineries, hiked on the shore of the Rappahanock River, rode our bikes through dapple-lit leaf tunnels, and laughed with friends over amazingly fresh and fabulously cooked food. But I missed my kids. 

How is it we can’t wait to get away from them, but once we’re down the driveway we worry what they’re up to and crave their intrusions? When I’m caught up in the planning of our escapes, four days doesn’t seem like long enough, but after I’ve been gone only a few hours I worry whether my youngest will be in tears at bedtime or my oldest will remember to feed the cat. I worry about my four footed children also. What if their caretakers forget to check the water trough? It’s hard to be gone from them. 

As my kids get older it is getting easier to relax another state away. But only a little. I know that my parents raised three kids of their own – quite successfully, mind you, but that still doesn’t keep me from worrying whether they’ll be overwhelmed by my children’s demands (the two and four-footed dears). 

I imagine that this condition of the worrying divided mind became acute upon pregnancy. The quote about motherhood meaning that your heart is now outside your body and walking around on its own is painfully true. And it is not a fact that any pregnancy or parenting book can warn you about. It strikes the moment you learn that you are becoming a parent. Sometimes it is a suffocating notion and at other times you are just incredibly grateful that these people have helped you discover places in your heart you never knew existed. 

That’s it. Parenting is a life-long condition. No escape. Vacationing serves only to remind me of the invisible thread that tethers me to my children.  

One of my babies turned sixteen this week, adding an entire new level of worry to my already overly divided mind.  

I suppose the real skill in parenting is letting go of these worries. It’s trusting the universe with my most precious creations. It’s knowing that I’m doing the best with what I know and so are they. Laying down my worries is an act of faith. Parenting then is an affirmation that this world is a good place. It’s underlining our trust in the world as a sacred and safe place.  

I let my babies go beyond my grasp and try to beat back the worries to a manageable state. But worry will forever divide my mind, maybe that’s why parents are so good at multi-tasking.

Fabric Memories

People talk about how a song or a smell can bring back memories, but for me it’s clothes. There are certain t-shirts, dresses, even socks that transport me to days gone by, some of them special, but many of them the simple ordinary moments of childhood. The watermelon dress that my daughter wore incessantly was a soft red-checked poplin sleeveless number with a big watermelon framing her face. She wore that dress to preschool, church, play dates, even to ride her pony. And the Tigger sweatshirt that my oldest adored, forever captured in a photo at Disney World. The look on his face when he met Tigger reflected the enormity of the moment and reminds me of how magnificent his imagination always was and is. My youngest has filled my storage bins with sports t-shirts. His first year as a Phillie in T-ball ignited his love for baseball (and the Phillies). Or the England jersey stained with blueberry syrup from the year his soccer team went to the championship game under the lights.  

Baby clothes make me especially emotional. I remember the sweet faces capped by the tiny hats I’ve saved. The funny onesies that made everyone laugh at my baby showers – “Don’t call me cute, I wanna be smart!”. Gift clothing is a double bonus of gratitude – the giver and the wearer. The tiny crocheted booties a friend brought my daughter back from Ireland still sit on my dresser. I could never part with the gorgeous baptismal outfit chosen when an older and wiser friend took me on my first outing with my newborn baby, patiently waiting while I loaded every possible necessity in to my diaper bag and calming my worries about feeding him in public. Even the flannel receiving blanket that swaddled my babes in the hospital nursery, the one with the blue and pink line, the same given to every other child born in that hospital, makes me sigh.  

These days my children are still cute, but not quite so cuddly, yet I still hoard their special clothes. The t-shirt my daughter made that says, “You Laugh At Me Because I’m Different, I Laugh At You Because You’re All The Same“ captures a moment that must be saved to pull out when her own daughter is challenging her sanity. The purple tie worn to the first Homecoming dance recalls my teenage son’s awkward confidence. The faded T-shirt that proclaims, “My Uncle Flies Airplanes at Seymour Johnson AFB,” reminds me of the bond my youngest has with his uncle and makes me proud. These are the fabrics that embody the moments that have shaped who they are becoming. These get stashed in my “Keepsake Clothes” bin (actually three bins now).  

I have a friend who makes memory quilts as a side business. She is a master at sorting through a pile of old clothes and creating a sacred and treasured family heirloom. Some day I will enlist her skills to create my own quilt of memories. I don’t know if I’ll be able to cull the herd down to the material for one quilt. It may require several. Maybe one will be from when they were babies and I’ll wrap myself in it when I am missing them. Another can be comprised of their teenage years and when I’m doubting my own abilities to overcome obstacles, I’ll draw comfort from those memories. And one will be comprised of clothes that tell a story. Someday I can curl up with a grandchild and tell her about the “cow jammies” that her mother insisted on wearing every night, stubborn as she was. Or maybe I’ll just wrap myself up in the memories, knowing that the fabric of this quilt was worn soft by the lives of my babies.

Gotcha!

As I opened the kitchen door, returning unannounced after my appointment was canceled, I heard scuffling in the living room. The door to the stereo/DVR consul clicked shut and a light went out. Little feet thumped up the stairs. I listened quietly and then set my keys down with a clunk on the counter. Kicking off my shoes I called a greeting to my lazy cat curled up on a stool at the counter. Mama’s home. (an hour too soon) 

I am well-aware that my children were doing something elicit. I could bust them. But I don’t. I’m not up to the scuffle tonight. Tonight I’m tired. Their father has been traveling for two weeks a continent away. I don’t have it in me to confront them, wiggle out the truth, and deal out the consequences. Not that watching a little illegal television drivel is so bad. Still. 

Later I tuck them in to bed and I say nothing about their earlier actions. They are more obedient than usual, kind of like how everyone on the highway slows down when they receive a pass from the cop with the radar detector. Count the blessings, and be very careful. At least for a little while. 

When I tucked my own self in to bed, I lay awake worrying. This isn’t the first time I’ve pretended not to catch them. There’s the missing chocolate chips and jello mix obviously eaten by the child with the sugar addiction. There’s the crumbs left on my desk right next to my open laptop that is still warm. And what about my dead phone battery run dry by Rat on a Scooter?  

I cut them a break on a regular basis, but is this the best parenting? Are they learning bad behavior is OK as long as they don’t get caught? This seems to be a universal condition. I’m just as guilty. I speed, turn illegally, park where I shouldn’t. When I do get a ticket, I hide it from my husband and appease myself by thinking I owe the state this fine since I’ve gotten away so many other times. 

There is a guilty pleasure in getting away with something. We’ve all felt it. Does it make us bad? I think that twinge of guilt, that moment of heat on our neck, proves that we are decent human beings. 

Calling my kids on their violation of the house TV rules tonight may have taught them something. Or it may have just reinforced that they need a better look out. I’ve resolved to bust them next time. If for no other reason than they need to be reminded that their mama always knows what they’re up to – eyes in the back of the head, as they say.  

Better they learn that now, so when they are 17 and tempted to host that keg party on an evening I’m out, they’ll make the smart decision.

What are you, Chicken?

It was time to let the chickens out. Every spring I coop them up in their pen for the duration of the gardening season, and every fall I let them loose again to eat the grubs and turn the soil. This past spring we introduced twenty new chicks to our brood. They had grown in to beautiful and interesting hens. This time around we ordered not only for egg production, but for aesthetics, choosing different colors, hair styles, even chickens that appeared to be wearing Ugg boots.  

When I opened the gate for the first time, late on a warm and windy afternoon, the old girls raced out and didn’t make it further than ten feet from the pen before applying beak to ground and getting right to work. The new hens watched from the doorway in a state of shock. There’s a world outside these walls? They clucked their concern and waited for the other hens to return. They even poked their heads out the door before scurrying back to the safety of the pen. 

The kids and I watched, calling, “Hey what’s the matter? Are you chicken?” The chicks were not tempted by our taunts and remained firmly planted in the safety of the familiar. 

It’s hard to leave what you know. Besides that, what’s the motivation? They had plenty of food, a soft place to lay eggs, a big yard to run around in, and a cozy house to roost in at night. Why leave? So they didn’t for the first four days that the gate was open.  

But then one ventured forth in to the wild blue yonder. The others cackled and fretted, but soon followed her out in to the world. Sometimes taking a leap of faith requires a leader. Or at least a guinea pig. Once you see someone else do it and survive, it doesn’t seem quite so impossible. 

This philosophy has inspired all kinds of creatures to do things as crazy as start a business, try out for a team, perform in public, marry, or have children. Others have done it before us, so we can do it too. 

But what about when the first one out of the pen is eaten by a fox? Or captured by a hawk? Or gets lost and can’t find its way back to the hen house?  

Amazingly, chickens, like people, don’t focus on these catastrophes. Chickens, to my knowledge, don’t have the capacity for imagination or empathy. They don’t care that the other chicken didn’t make it and they can’t imagine that a hawk might come for them too.

People are not chickens. Truth. Our fears have nothing in common with poultry fears. Many of us are afraid to leave the pen because it could lead to failure or rejection or embarrassment. For some, those fears trump even the fear of boredom, mediocrity, or repetition.  

My three kids each fall somewhere different on the chicken and the pen spectrum. One of them never even notices what the other chickens are doing. He ventures forth following his own lead. He is not easily embarrassed and would consider boredom a failure. He tries all kinds of things while his parents are stunned in to submission. We are not like him. At least, I’m not. When I was a teen, I was never brave. I walked to my own drummer, but quietly while no one was noticing. This child of mine doesn’t concern himself with how he should dress or act or speak. His curiosity drives his decisions about his personal time. He would most likely be one of the first out of the pen, were he a chicken. 

Another of my brood is somewhere on the outside of the fence also, but she would not follow any other hen out. She would go out her own way, perhaps flying over the fence or tunneling under. She would not let expectations dictate her actions. She does wrestle with her own fears once free. She does not like to fail or lose or be made a fool. Lucky for her, she is a fairly competent chicken.  

What she does better than most is to lead. So once she has successfully scaled the fence, she will go back to help a few others get out too. She is very un-chicken like in this way. Chickens may stick to their flock, but they could care less about the individuals in that flock. Not my chick, she’s watching the others. She worries about their well-being, wants their company, and craves their support. 

My last little chick is still learning to trust his abilities. He needs to see the leaders go first. He is willing to follow and to learn from them. Next season, he will be the first out of the pen, I just know it. 

All of our children will leave the pen some day. Our children must learn to believe in their own abilities to handle what they may encounter outside of the comfort zone of their chicken pen. They must be equipped with confidence, competence, and the ability to ask good questions.  

We must encourage them to take risks, rather than shielding them from every danger. Helping them learn to trust in their own abilities by allowing them to use them. Mostly, we must teach them to be curious about what is outside the pen. 

How do we do this? I have a few ideas, but must confess right upfront that this is an ongoing experiment for me as my chicks have yet to truly fly the coop. 

I believe we must let them make their own decisions as often as possible. As a young parent I believed whole-heartedly with the “give them choices so they feel in control” parenting philosophy until it became ridiculous. Truly, children don’t need a choice at every meal. I finally hung a sign that says, “Dinner Choices: 1. Take it. 2. Leave it.”  

But I do believe we must let them make their choices (and endure the consequences) when it comes to school work, what to eat or not eat, and who to be friends with.  

My oldest child’s first grade teacher said something on back to school night that has stuck with me all these years. She said, “If you sit with them and make them do their homework now, you’ll be doing the same when they are in high school.” I’ve never sat with my children while they do homework. Now, I have been blessed with children with no overwhelming learning disabilities, so that helps, I know. 

I do believe that all kids want to do well in school. And I also believe that kids sometimes battle with parents just because they can. If you draw a line in the sand over homework, I promise your child will cross it. They don’t want to fail. Trust me, no one does. Now, does this mean I never mention the H word to my children? Nah. But I do restrict their computer time (Windows 7 makes this very simple), and provide them with a “clean, well-lighted place” in which to work. I told them all at the beginning of their academic career – “I will never nag you about your homework unless you give me a reason to nag.” And for the most part, they haven’t. 

Food can get trickier, it being my own holy grail of sorts. I prepare a dinner five nights a week and my two older children prepare one dinner a piece one night a week. In the beginning we helped them, but slowly we are backing away and letting them take the lead. What is served is the only option. If you don’t want to eat it, that’s your choice. You can help yourself to something else, but it must be healthy dinner-worthy substances. They choose their own snacks each day. This gets a little hairy when they snack on too much and don’t want dinner, but allowing these freedoms provides the impetus for us to discuss all sorts of food issues like snacking vs eating a meal, what makes a healthy meal, not getting enough protein, eating while distracted, eating because you’re bored, and why exactly your stomach hurts. 

I don’t like every kid my kids are friends with. Who would? I’m not Mother Theresa, I don’t like everyone. I do talk to my kids about the friends they choose. I ask what they like about their friend. We talk about the interactions they have with their friends, and I tell them about the people I encounter. I’m open about my frustration with some people or my disappointment with others. I also tell them what I love about my friends and sometimes offer comparisons about my relationship with a particular friend and my child’s relationship with one of their friends. “She’s like your Linda,” I might say to my daughter when talking about a friend you can tell anything to because my daughter knows how close I am to my oldest friend Linda.

These seem like such small details of parenting – homework, food, friends, but truly they are the building blocks of life. They are the training ground for work, well-being, and love. Three things that can make or break the happiness we all seek for our children. If we control and dictate their behaviors when it comes to these areas of their lives, how will they have the confidence or competence to survive outside the pen?  

I want my children to step out in to the big wide world confident in their own abilities, knowing they can handle all that life throws at them. I also want them to know I believe in them and I trust them to lead their own life wherever it takes them. Even if it is far away from the hen house.

The Rules of Life

Lately I’ve done a lot of listening. I’m deep in the heart of tomato season and with over 100 pounds of tomatoes canned and at least that many to go, I don’t dare predict a finish line. My legs ache and my feet throb from standing for hours at a time peeling, seeding, chopping tomatoes (and herbs, onions, peppers, etc.).  

Sometimes while I work, I listen to Pandora, but this is a maddening exercise because my hands are too covered in glop to press the thumbs down button when a song I don’t like comes on. My musical tastes are sporadic and varied and creating my own station is a lengthy progress. Somehow, my channel skipped on to a whiny woman/man (couldn’t tell for the nasally voice) and I had no choice but to endure. Now that lovely sound is entrenched and the station is nearly ruined. 

When I turn the music off, the house becomes my entertainment. I can hear my daughter in her bedroom playing her guitar and working out a new melody. I hear the cats arguing over the lounge chair that is my laundry basket. I can even hear one of the new young hens when she makes the distinctive “I’ve just laid one!” announcement up in the chicken house. 

Mostly I hear my younger son and his friends in the living room discussing the rules before they begin their latest nerf battle. This intrigues me. They spend easily twice as much time arguing over the rules as they do actually shooting each other. And then the game has frequent pauses while they argue even more over who is actually dead and who is just “gassed”.  

I can’t help but giggle. This seems like rehearsal for future congressmen. My older son comes in the kitchen and asks why I’m laughing. When I tell him, he smiles and says the rule making is part of the fun. We listen together and laugh conspiratorially at the ridiculousness of the whole activity. Finally, I can take it no longer and call a halt to the war with the peace offering of lunch. Seems food trumps fighting. At least for now. 

After they are fed and dispensed to the woods to begin a new battle, I have time to reflect upon their behavior. It’s very human. We seem to thrive on rules and regulations. Keeps everyone and everything in its place.  

I was talking with a friend from a neighboring state about taking treats in to our children’s classrooms for a birthday. I told her I was going to make “magic wands” (pretzels dipped in chocolate and sprinkles) and she was horrified at the idea. How can anyone be opposed to homemade chocolate anything? It wasn’t the product she worried about, it was the idea of taking something “not packaged”. What if there are germs? I’m sure there are. But I’m guessing that the germs on my magic wands are much better for children than any kind of artificially flavored and colored concoction that comes in a package. 

Seems other states have rules about these sorts of things. They don’t allow unpackaged food to be brought in to the classrooms. Thank God, Pennsylvania hasn’t thought of that rule yet. 

I believe that men have a larger propensity for rule making. Take sports. What man can’t argue for hours about the rules of his favorite sport? And sitting at any organized ballgame, be it professional or amateur or even little league, who hasn’t listened to men debate an umpire’s take on a particular rule or a coaches ability to interpret a rule. Frankly, it’s exhausting, all this rule making. 

As a mom, I get to make rules on a daily basis. My rules, for the most part, are bendable. I am a fair dictator. I must admit having rules makes my life easier. It’s much less taxing to say, “That’s the rule” than to listen to the explanation and make an exception.  

But exceptions to the rules are what make life bearable (and interesting).  

I think we must be careful when we make rules. I believe the less rules the better. All encompassing rules are the best ones. Rules like “Respect each other,” cover a multitude of situations. It is not respectful to shoot nerf darts at your sibling when he is still sleeping. Telling your brother he is an idiot as the parting phrase of every encounter is not respecting him. Playing your drums or your bass guitar at 7am is not respectful of slumbering family members. Monopolizing the bathroom for longer than 30 minutes, borrowing shoes without asking, forgetting to give a phone message – all not respectful. Putting the empty milk container back in the fridge – again not respectful. (OK, maybe that’s stretching the rule a little.)  

I think the Respect-each-other rule should be a world-wide rule. Think of how much better things would be. There would be no invading of other countries, no suppressing rights, no intolerance, no discrimination. I think we should make it the 11^th commandment. Although when Jesus said, “love thy neighbor as yourself,” I think he was basically saying, “Respect each other.” There’s no such thing as love without respect. It’s a basic ingredient. 

A little later in the day I found the boys playing a game of Blokus in relative peace. Sometimes it’s nice to have all the rules laid out in black and white. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from arguing over who ate the rest of the cheezits or who cut the last fart, clearly stated rules can only take you so far.

 

 

 

Nearly Empty Nest

Being thrown from the nest can be a good or bad experience depending on your ability to adapt and your attitude. This week I threw three chickens and one child from our nest.  

Broody hens are uncommon. At least that’s what the chicken books say. Today’s domestic chickens have had all the broodiness bred out of them. Their job is to lay eggs or become dinner. For the last two years I’ve had a silly number of broody hens. Broody hens are hens that have become overwhelmed with the desire to hatch eggs. They will park themselves on the eggs and refuse to move, foregoing food and water, and pecking anyone who tries to move them. 

Last year I humored three of my hens and allowed them to hatch chicks. It was all fun and memory making and all that until the chicks grew up to be roosters (five of the seven) and we had to butcher them. Not fun. Not happy memories. So this year when three of my hens started in with the brooding, I cruelly (and carefully) removed them from their eggs each night and stuffed them in the hen house with the rest of the girls. I did this for nearly a month grumbling all the way. I confess that I was less than gentle with my words and actions many nights. It was a battle of wills. 

Alas, the hens proved more stubborn than I, and I was forced to not only remove them from their nests, but also from the chicken yard. Having tried to convince them to give up their brooding dreams the nice way, it was time to stop asking. With the addition of 25 new almost grown up chicks to the chicken yard, there was no room to be spared in the laying boxes. We have three lovely laying boxes that our girls share happily. During the brooding fiasco, the broody hens allowed the other older hens to climb right in with them and add their eggs to the nest. Not so for these next upstarts. When the younger hens venture near the laying boxes the three old biddies start clucking and threatening and getting their feathers all ruffled up.  

Nature is soon going to dictate that these young hens lay their first eggs. And in years past there have never been any issues with the younger hens copying the older hens and laying their eggs in the boxes too. But right now there are no available boxes. So, in a fit of frustration I threw all three hens out of the chicken yard. They have been frantically pacing the fence wanting back in. This is somewhat ironic to me since I have to clip all their wings each spring so they will not escape the yard.  

Never mind that what these hens have been sitting on lately is the golf balls I left in place of the eggs I will not let them hatch. They are frantic to get back to their golf balls. One of the hens is so stressed out her feathers are falling out.  

The young hens have been carefully exploring the boxes full of golf balls. It won’t be long before they lay their first tiny eggs. The first eggs a chicken lays is comically small, but they get successively bigger. 

And what about the child thrown from the nest? Although she protested as we packed her up for camp (a camp she decided she wanted to attend four months ago), once she saw her tent and tent mates she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. I suppose removing this one from the nest follows a natural path of separation. It is a trial run for when she separates herself from us for good in just a few years. If that event is anything like this one, I’ll have to be careful the door doesn’t smack me in the butt when she thanks me for the ride and shoos me away.

 The hens are another story. It’s been five days and two of them repented of their broody ways and are back with the other girls. The third one still stalks the fence line by day and huddles in the rafters of the barn by night. At least half of her feathers are gone now and she is a sorry sight. She cannot seem to let go of her dreams of hatching a golf ball. I suppose I understand some of what she’s going through. Only it wasn’t so hard for me to leave my golf ball since she’s all grown up and in good hands.  

Still all week I have missed her and wondered if she is enjoying camp. I wonder if she has de-toxed from the sudden break from her electronics. I wonder if she is learning to make a friendship bracelet and a dream catcher. I wonder if she is playing her guitar around a campfire and singing songs I learned when I was a kid. I worry that she isn’t brushing her teeth or using enough sunscreen. 

Her leaving the nest for a while is good for her and for me. She’s remembering that she can take care of herself and that life can be rich without an internet connection. I’m realizing all the ways she adds sparkle and energy to this household. I’m also realizing that the quiet is only nice for the first few hours. After that I want my golf ball back.

A Mother's Comfort

When my children were little and they were hurt or afraid, it was easy to gather them in my arms and make everything okay. It’s not so simple now that they look me in the eye and question my competence.

My middle child is sensitive to any slight in the distribution of parental tolerance, reprimands, and praise. She sees injustice everywhere and well she should. Life is not fair. Never once have I suggested it is or should be. If life were fair, we wouldn’t have the abundant blessings we take for granted. But I digress.  

Because this child perceives that I “like the boys more”, she does not welcome my comfort when it is offered. She craves my attention, yet pushes it away when it is presented. My husband says she is exercising her woman’s prerogative.  

Earlier this week I carted her off to the oral surgeon to have four permanent teeth pulled. While she is my loudest child, ironically she has a tiny mouth. There is not enough room for all her teeth; and her permanent teeth are vying for front row seats creating a multi-tiered smile. Four have to go and then we have years of braces to look forward to.  

The original plan was to have my husband escort her to this appointment. While I am a woman of hearty stock, I become squeamish at the sight of a man with pliers in my daughter’s mouth. She has had eight baby teeth pulled in previous visits, trying to help the permanent teeth find their proper place. Each time I held my stomach and my tongue as I watched the doc work. This time it was to be my husband’s turn. 

Events conspired against us – the doctor had to change the date and the only date available was during a week my husband would be safely hiding on the other side of the planet. It fell to me. 

I let her use my coveted iphone to play games during the drive to the office and reassured her repeatedly as she let out small, whimpers each time she looked up to see that we were closer to our destination.  

Once in the chair, she was stoic. The doc was very impressed, gushing, “You’re awesome!” as he stuck her repeatedly with his nasty needle. I survived the ordeal by looking out the window and concentrating on the whir of nitrous oxide machine rather than the crunch of the pliers extracting each tooth (“Oh – the last baby tooth – bonus!”).  

Afterwards, as we stood by the check out desk, my daughter looked lost and beaten and kept holding her numb chin to be sure it was still there. I pulled her to me and wrapped my arms around her sharp edges hoping she would accept my comfort. When I looked at her face, it was obvious my hug was more painful than the teeth pulling, so I released her. 

She was quiet until about 15 minutes in to the ride home when the blood seeped through the gauze stuffing her mouth and spilled on to her shirt. I pulled over and tried to help, but she just screeched at me through her cotton-filled mouth and smacked my hands away. 

Once home, the tears finally came. I offered ibuprofen – the liquid form in the blue-raspberry flavor she loved (to heck with the food colorings). She swore she couldn’t drink it because her lips were too numb. I hunted up a straw and placed it in the tiny dosage cup, and held it out to her. She put the straw in her mouth and then cried even harder, shoving the cup back at me.  

Thirty minutes later she found me in the kitchen and through teary eyes informed me that her mouth hurt. I leaned towards her, arms outstretched and she leaned away, so I offered ice cream instead. She rebuked me like the idiot I am – how could she eat if she couldn’t feel her lips? 

I retreated to my desk to write, but she followed me there, still whimpering like an injured dog. I offered my kindle fire – maybe there was a show she could watch. She looked through the offerings and said there was nothing she liked.  

Today I could not offer my daughter the comfort she needed. In the end all I could say was, “I’m sorry this had to happen.” That seemed to be what she needed. She nodded and left to find the cat who apparently can offer much better comfort than I.

Mom on Strike

My husband called from the other side of the earth the other day and said, “So I hear you’re on strike.” Apparently, my oldest e-mailed to alert him of the dire situation at home.

Last night after cleaning up the dishes, spilled jelly, and mashed blueberries that covered the counter, I reached my breaking point. I realize those small tasks don’t seem like enough to justify a labor dispute, so let me paint the picture for you.

First of all, it was the just about the bazillionith day of six-thousand degree heat which improves no one’s mood. I had begun the day by dragging my beautiful children out of bed and forcing them to go to church with me. I was in need of some sanctuary. In the afternoon I ferried them to the swimming hole two miles down the creek and indulged them with all manner of snack food. I played an endless game of monopoly and allowed them friends, mindless TV, and unlimited computer time the rest of the day. Dinner was a free-for-all (hence the blueberries and jelly). So, with the exception of forced-church, it’s not as if I’d been taxing them all day.

For me it was the endless mess and the prospect of ten more days of solo parent/maid service/cook duty that was pushing me towards that dangerous edge of Angry-Mom. These children are smart, resourceful, energetic, creative souls. Certainly they can clean up after themselves.

My request that they put their own dishes in the dishwasher was met with disdain as was my appeal for someone to feed the dogs and cats. But it was the cheese puff bag under the coffee table that sent me over the cliff. First of all, I had turned a blind eye to the child who placed the cheese puffs in the grocery cart, so the fact that they ate them in the living room (not allowed) and then had the gall to leave the empty bag on the floor lit the fuse that I had been dragging behind me all day.

I blasted them verbally and then retreated to my room to fume to my journal. After I had written myself calm, I went back downstairs and informed them that I am on strike. I’m not doing anything for them until they start pitching in. No rides, no playdates, no meals, no laundry. Mom is on strike.

So the next went a little better. I didn’t fix anyone’s meals or do anyone’s laundry (except my AWOL hubby’s). I told them their rooms must be clean by this weekend. Amazingly, no dishes were abandoned on the counter. My oldest simply skipped lunch rather than fix it himself. Miraculously the cats and dogs got fed. My youngest even helped me bathe the dog that won’t stop scratching. (please God, let it not be fleas)

I decided to cross the picket line and fix dinner, but I didn’t put down my sign. I do realize that I have no one to blame but myself (and my husband) for the lazy inclinations of my children. It’s a little late in the game to be asking them to start picking up the slack which is precisely why extreme action was called for – hence the strike. I was resolved to hold my line.

The next day I caught myself washing the dishes abandoned on the counter before I remembered that I was on strike. I considered calling for the culprit, but was too tired for the fight that would inevitably follow. Which is how this strike ended peaceably. Later in the day I picked out broken glass from the dishwasher where some well-intentioned but annoyed worker had actually put his/her glass in the dishwasher without being threatened first.

After dinner I watched as one of my boys dumped his ketchup laden plate directly in to the dishwasher and dropped his utensils ala clothespin-in-the-milk jug in to the utensil holder, two out of three making their mark.

Was my strike effective? Hard to say, but it registered my unhappiness and it even inspired a tiny change of behavior. Will it last? Again, hard to say, but once the other boss is back in the country it may be time to renegotiate this contract.

The Power of a Box

There is power in a box. I’m not talking about what arrives inside the box; I’m talking about the box itself. Doesn’t it just make your day when the UPS truck pulls in and the happy man in brown walks up to your door with a box? (OK, my brown guy isn’t always happy and sometimes he tosses the box on my porch with very little flourish while scanning the horizon for my dog who is on record for having bitten a UPS man – the only person she’s ever bitten in her 15 years – I swear!)

Years ago I signed up to be a Mary Kay consultant mostly because I loved the little boxes that the products came in. Recently, I ordered jewelry from a friend who does home sales and adored the boxes that arrived - they were decorate on the inside! Even when it’s just more vacuum cleaner bags, I’m still happy to see a box arrive with my name on it.

But the best boxes, I mean the very best boxes, are the BIG boxes. The ones that come with the new refrigerator or other large appliance. Those boxes have real power.

When we first moved in to the house where we live now, the packers used enormous boxes. Boxes large enough for three children to fit inside. My children had an endless supply of “Transmorgafiers.” What?  You've never heard of a “transmorgafier?” Well, a transmorgafier can do anything – change you in to a different species altogether, plus it has its own weapons system and can travel through time and space.

A big box could grant my children hours of escape from the reality of gravity, time, and the normal disdain for a sibling. After we had settled in to our new house, we were blessed with big boxes once again as we had to replace each large appliance in the house one by one. More transmorgafiers, and eventually simple time machines that catapulted my kids back in time to before the dinosaur age. They would hide from us and then chatter on walkie-talkies about the strange beings on two legs and the even stranger ones with fur and claws.

I just love the power boxes have over children. So when my birthday present arrived on Saturday in the biggest box ever – I wondered if the magic still worked. We unloaded the beast, a treadmill which was thankfully in pieces, and left the monster box on the front porch. All of my children were happily ensconced in front of their respective favorite boxes (computers). So I casually approached the nine-year-old, figuring he would be most susceptible to the thrill of a big box. “There’s the biggest box I’ve ever seen on the front porch,” I said.

Without even looking up from his screen, he said, “Uh-huh. I’ll come at look at it when this is over.”

A few minutes later, I heard a loud whoop, followed by his cries for his siblings to come see this! His 13-year-old sister could not be bothered and when I told her it was a big box, she said, “So?” and went back to her personal box.

My 15-year-old was wandering around with his ear buds in and watched his little brother with growing interest. The 9-year-old retreated to the house for markers and his nerf weapons. He proceeded to draw all the necessary buttons and levers on the inside of the box, still yelling for his siblings to come and be amazed.

When my husband and I looked out a few minutes later, both boys were in the box. They were discussing the control panel. We overheard the oldest say happily, “I feel like I’m four years old.”

As expected, once there were two boys in the time machine, their sister had to crash the party. She wandered around saying how silly they looked for awhile, but in the end she joined the nerf battle that broke out and soon all three were running around the yard with nerf guns battling whatever creatures they had encountered in the next galaxy.

My husband came inside after sneaking a few pictures and said, “That’s the best Father’s Day present ever.”

I love boxes. They have the power to keep my kids, kids.

Some past favorite boxes -

Addie in the first transmorgifier

Many boxes became fortresses to be defended

Faith Like a Rock

Unloading the dryer this morning, I found the source of last night’s clanging. I put a load in when I went to bed and soon heard a distinctive “ping” acknowledging the fact that someone left something in a pocket of the jeans that were tumbling dry late in to the night. I was already snuggled in, the house shut up tight, so I ignored the pinging. I figured it was a marble from my youngest or a rock from my contemplative oldest child who picks up stones to roll around in his hand as he listens to his ipod.

It wasn’t a marble and it wasn’t a rock. Well, actually it was supposed to be a rock, but a synthetic one. It was brown with green mottled markings. The top was lumpy, but the back smooth and flat and obviously machined. I’d guess there are thousands just like it, but I have no idea where it came from or whose pocket it fell out of. On the top of the rock the word, “faith” was stamped, which leads me to believe it was a gift from a Sunday school class. My kids haven’t been to Sunday School in at least a month, so someone has been carrying this inspirational manufactured stone around for awhile.

I pocketed the rock, but it’s been nagging at my conscience all day. I can’t help but wonder which child will claim it, but even more so, I wonder how that child interprets the rock’s message. “Faith”, as in have faith in God or “faith” as in have faith in yourself or “faith” as in have faith that everything will be okay? Or, if it belongs to the nine-year-old who confessed recently that he has no idea what they’re talking about in Sunday School, it might mean nothing other than a stone that would be great for tossing at the chickens to see them run.

What do my children think of the word faith? What do they understand about it? Do they have faith? As a former Youth Minister, you’d think my kids would be Sunday School standouts, but ironically they would more easily be labeled Sunday School slackers. I’ve always believed that everyone’s faith is between that person and God. I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone what to believe. My own kids included in that everyone.

But I hope I have instilled in them that they should believe something. We say grace before dinner each night and I’ve prayed with all three when I tucked them in to bed when they were little. The nine-year-old won’t go to sleep without his prayers – one with Daddy and one with me. If we are away, he’ll call on the phone and insist we say prayer with him long-distance. My husband has said prayer with him while riding in a crowded taxi cab in Bejing and I once recited a prayer with him while riding on a bus with suddenly quiet drunk people on our way home from an afternoon and evening in the honky-tonks of Nashville. But what does prayer mean to this child?

I hope it gives them a sense that there is something more powerful than us. I hope it gives them peace to know there’s a plan. How that “something” is interpreted has created and destroyed countries, races, lives. I would like to believe that my children see that something as benevolent, not judgmental. I think that is the belief that has driven me away from church. I want to put my faith in something that builds up, offers grace, and encourages exploration, but too many times the church demands that we parrot a set of beliefs and live, vote, and love accordingly. That doesn’t require faith, only obedience.

Faith is huge and complicated, yet remarkably simple. Carrying faith around in your pocket seems like a very reasonable religion. One that I’m hoping at least one of my children follows. Either that or he’s just waiting for the right moment to scatter the chickens.

This Kind of Mother

Cutting the pasture today gave me a lot of time to think. I thought about the kind of parent I am. And the kind of parent I want to be. Then I thought about the kind of parent I should be or that parenting experts think I should be. Which led to thinking about the kind of parent my own parents were. Having a lot of time to think can tie my mind and heart in knots.

Here’s what I thought.

My own parents were much tougher than me, but also much more lenient than me. No, that’s not a contradiction. They were tougher in that I didn’t have much say about things like what’s on the menu and if I had to eat it, whether I’m taking tennis lessons, the clothes they bought for me, or whether we went to church. My own children actually have voting rights about all those things (although the votes are weighted when it comes to what’s on the menu). 

But they were much more lenient in that they never restricted our “screen time” (granted the only screen available to me was a TV that carried only the major networks), and they gave us a lot of independence – letting me go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted with whomever I wanted. I never really abused that trust, so maybe that’s why it worked.

This morning my daughter called about 30 minutes after she got on the bus to say she needed her homework folder by second period. And I drove it over to her because A) she asked nicely and B) she hasn’t forgotten anything in a while and C) she’s overloaded with responsibility right now between school work, extracurricular activities, and sports. But as I drove to the school I thought about what Love and Logic parenting would say about what I was doing – I’m teaching her that she isn’t responsible for her own mistakes. Maybe. Or maybe I’m teaching her that her mother loves her and will help her out when she’s in a bind and she’s doing the best she can.

This afternoon I’m rescuing my son from school at 2pm. I wrote a note that says he has an “appointment.” I didn’t specify what that appointment was – to him or to the school. This afternoon the school is having a school-wide “reward” for all the kids who earned enough “punches” this month. Punches are earned for good behavior. Ian didn’t get enough punches. 

No, he’s not a behavior problem. In fact, in the five years he’s attended the school, I’ve never once gotten a call home about his behavior. Most teachers write “is a pleasure to have in class” on his report card. And no, his grades are not suffering and he doesn’t neglect to do homework. He’s made the “Academic Excellence” report each marking period and has had only one homework slip all year.

He didn’t get enough punches for the second time this year because he forgot to take his punch card with him everywhere he went and missed out on punches he earned because he couldn’t produce his card. So today at 2:15 he’s scheduled to spend an hour in the principal’s office with all the kids whose behavior (or inability to take a silly little card everywhere they go) landed them in the same predicament. They have to sit with the administrators and come up with a plan for how they will be successful next month. Ridiculous (with a capitol ridiculous R). 

So I’m springing him. He has an appointment to do something better with his time – like get a reward for being a good student and a well-behaved child. We’re going to try the new ice cream place in town.

As I turned circles on the mower in the field, I wondered, am I spoiling him? Should I make him stay at school and face the consequences of his actions? I would if the consequences of his “actions” made sense. Making him sit for an hour with kids who are truly behavior problems because he forgot his card a few times seems like the worst kind of overkill.

Maybe I’m spoiling him, or maybe I’m teaching him that his mother’s got his back. Maybe I’m teaching him to question authority when that authority doesn’t make any sense. Maybe I’m teaching him that he is a good student and a good kid, and I won’t let the school tell him otherwise.

Time will tell what kind of mother I’ve been. My goal is to raise conscientious, kind-hearted, decent kids who can think for themselves. They’ll figure out soon enough that they have to remember to take the things they need with them to work every day. They’ll have a boss to teach them that, although I have great faith that they already know it. But for now, when they are only 12 and 9, the bigger lesson is that when someone needs your help, you give it. When you are treated unfairly, you stand up for yourself.

Driving Around the World

As I was driving my son home from one of his many after-school activities, he asked if the car had yet gone a million miles. He was curious what the odometer would do when the car reached that milestone. I had to smile because this week it does feel like I’ve driven a million miles in that car. I think there have been several days when I’ve spent more of my waking hours behind the wheel than not.

I told my son that our car has driven 121,000 miles but even though it is a reliable Honda, it is unlikely to go a million miles. 121,000 miles still impressed him. He said, “That means if you hadn’t turned the wheel you would have circled the globe 7 times!” We didn’t talk about the difficulty of driving over oceans, we just marveled at the distance covered. I thought about this more and taking in to account the fact that my husband does most of the driving on long trips, I still have probably personally circled the globe 4 times, more or less, in the past 8 years of owning this car. Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

As a mom, hours and hours are spent behind the wheel. For me, most of those hours are whiled away within the 8 mile radius of our town. Most days I just wander in circles from school to studio to field to store to office to houses. What if I didn’t turn the wheel? Something to think about.

When the kids were young, the hours behind the wheel were pretty tortuous. The fighting, the screaming, the crying, the incessant kid music. Back then I didn’t have a GPS and we were new to the area, so it was stressful just finding my way around the winding roads of PA where the state must consider it a weakness to post road signs.

My kids begged for a car with a TV like so many of their friends. Being an anti-TV parent, it was never a consideration, but I did find myself distracted at time watching The Incredibles playing on the monitor in the van in front of us. For long trips we “borrowed” a small DVD player and my husband built a stand for it between the two front seats. We were rewarded with several hours of peace until it was time to negotiate the next movie and then the screaming began. The “borrowed” DVD player actually belongs to us and stays hidden in a closet until the next big trip. After being forced to listen to A Bug’s Life repeatedly (we have 3 kids, but the DVD player has only 2 headphone jacks, so we play the DVD through the car’s stereo system), I’m not the least bit tempted to install it permanently.

The interior of my car is a wasteland. There’s no other word for it. There is trash, food remnants, dirty soccer cleats, smelly basketball socks, dried out silly putty (just so you know – silly putty does not come out of carpets, no matter what they say on the internet), plus the crumbs of a million snacks and the tops to half the water bottles ever consumed. Yes, I do clean it out. I clean it out every time I stop to put in gas, but one woman with only 2 minutes a week cannot keep up with three kids who like their sty the way it is.

I have friends whose cars are immaculate. I can only imagine that they pay someone to clean it or they don’t sleep more than 3 hours a night. It’s that or they don’t have kids. My husband shakes his head at the mess in my car. His car is spotless. But then again, he is only driving his neat, tidy self to work and back everyday. He is not racing helter-skelter all over town trying to get three kids to three different places at the same time while feeding them a healthy dinner.

I’d like to try the experiment they did back in high school where you had to carry an egg around with you for a week and not break it or leave it alone. The purpose was to simulate what it’s like to be a parent (ha!). I could put my husband in charge of transporting our kids everywhere they needed to go for a week. I’d like to see what his car looked like after that!

These days the kids are bigger and it’s not so painful to transport them, although there’s a lot more transporting. They still fight, but it’s over who gets to ride up front, and whose music is turned up too loud on their headphones. I really like it when I get to drive just one of them somewhere. Now that they are all big enough to ride up front, it’s allowed for some excellent conversations. My kids are really interesting people. It’s not that they weren’t interesting when they had to be strapped in to special seats in the back; it’s just that when they ride up front, they talk to me. It’s less of a chauffeur/chauffee relationship. We talk about what’s on the radio, but we also talk about the things we pass, the way others are driving, and sometimes big issues like religion, dating, and what apps you can get on the i-phone.

In only a year, I will hand over the keys to my faithful car to my eldest son with his newly minted driver’s license. I will trust this car to take care of him and him to respect the privilege and danger inherent in driving it. I will sit home and watch the taillights leave the driveway and I will enter a whole new realm of parent worry. Riding in the passenger seat with him at the wheel I have no doubt I will wear out the floor mat on the brake pedal that is not there, just as my own parents did. I will be sure not to distract him with too much chatter and hold my tongue right up until the moment our lives are endangered.

The “leather” on the driver’s seat is cracking now, and the metal covering on the door latch has flaked off. The button for switching between channels on the radio is blank, the little music insignia long gone. We are wearing out this car. I think it can traverse the globe at least 5 or 6 more times, but when it is gone I will miss it. I’ve passed a good portion of my children’s lives watching them in the rear-view mirror and now I’m trying to capitalize on the captive audience in the front seat. But I know about the time this car spins its last mile, is about the time these kids will move beyond our little 8 mile radius town.

Maybe I’ll get a convertible, like I’ve always wanted. I won’t need that back seat. Or maybe I’ll get a VW bug and no one will punch me in the arm every time they see me because they spotted a “punch-buggy” (is it only my kids who play this game?). And my car will be spotless, maybe. But no matter what I drive, it won’t be the same without the chatter in the backseat or the company in the front. Makes me want to capitalize on the captive audience I’ve got strapped in right now before they head out on their own long and winding road.