Tag: parenting

What is even happening right now?

My internal voice keeps saying it. My external voice keeps saying it. Over and over and over again in the last couple of weeks.

What is even happening right now?

Daily death tolls. People need medical care and can’t get it. Countries and states on lockdown. People stranded and they can’t get home. Grocery stores with limited or empty shelves, reminiscent of the market in Gilead.

How is this suddenly our life? No school. No office. No church. No gymnastics. No spring break plans. No roaming around TJ Maxx. No salon. No Skinny Dip. No teenagers packed in my car for basketball or football or lacrosse games.

Now, instead, it’s work-at-home and learn-at-home and church-at-home. Cooking and SkipBo and 1500 piece jigsaw puzzles.

How did we get here, and what is even happening right now?!

What are people doing with all the toilet paper? I bought some TP, and instead focused on caffeine, chocolate, OJ and carbs. I don’t know what the rest of you are eating, but it’s not normal to “go” so much you need 96 rolls of Charmin during your four weeks at home.

Then, Virginia schools are closed for the remainder of this academic year. Ohhhhhhhkay. I mean, that seems like jumping the gun a bit with only a handful of cases in our state but I can work from home so I think this will be OK.

Then, I start receiving emails about remote learning and instructions for guiding my children through the exercises. Wait, what? I’m not an educator. Someone trained to educate needs to be responsible for that. And most importantly someone patient and relaxed. And patient. And without a full-time job. Do these guys running all the school stuff and making these decisions realize how many classes were skipped by those of us now responsible for this distance learning of the next generation?

And then, I miss church. It’s funny how sometimes I struggle to get up on Sundays, but in the last couple of weeks when forbidden to go I am up and feeling like something big is amiss. I have watched so many sermons on Facebook recently and while the messages are good, there’s just something about being in a room full of people worshipping. With the exception of the four years I was in college when Sunday morning was primarily about recovery and the year or so after I had Audrey, I’ve said The Lord’s Prayer with a large group of people every Sunday my entire life – but I never knew how special community prayer was to me until I wasn’t able to do it in the last couple of weeks. It turns out it’s so special to me that I broke into tears during a Facebook live when I heard familiar voices saying it.

And then the longer I’m stuck at home the more snarky my internal voice becomes. I KNOW Jesus slept on the boat during a crisis, but Jesus didn’t have to shut out the noise of a child in roller skates on hard wood floors racing to catch a cat while also shouting because she discovered someone ate the last Krispy Kreme without us all talking about who should get it.

And then the Texas Lt. Governor said he and other grandparents are willing to risk their lives for the economy. And some people applauded him and agreed. I dare even one of those people to tell me they vote the way the do because they are pro-life. The tigress in me is ready for lunch.

And now the President of the United States is tweeting words like “lamestream media” and talking about the virus in relation to how it effects his re-election. It just makes me want to scream NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU! Can the President be presidential just this once? Pretty please.

What is even happening right now?

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?!

Oh how I long for the What is even happening right nows of just three weeks ago, when Chipotle removed carne asada from its menu. Remember that? I do. And I’m *still* mad at you, Chipotle!

March 26, 2020
Go Go Go

It was such a beautiful day today, even though I didn’t get to really see much of it. After 6 am Ancient Greece instruction for my 8-year old followed by a Food Lion run to secure TP and OJ followed by 9 meetings, I walked outside of the house – by myself – to our neighborhood circle, and just laid down in the grass.

I didn’t care about allergies or mosquitos or wet earth on my hair and jeans or the people who walked by and tentatively asked if I was OK because they thought I was crazy. I just needed a few minutes of feeling not like a robot who must go go go.

Go to help with school work. Go to work, even though it’s inside my house right now. Go to the market to keep the pantry stocked. Go to run errands for prescriptions and dry cleaning. Go to follow up on baths and teeth brushing. Go to prepare meals and do laundry and declutter and clean.

Go. Go. Go.

I already had a full schedule and now suddenly I am also not in the office where I’m organized as well as helping two children with distance learning. I am not patient or even that smart, and I don’t have any additional hours in the day.

And in that maxed out moment today when I really wanted to give in to the desire to complain about all that’s on my plate, I reigned it in to focus on what all the GOing really means.

I’m thankful to be able to work from home while my girls are out of school and while there’s so much uncertainty about sickness. I’m thankful all of my parents and my children are home and healthy and safe. I’m thankful to see my girls in the middle of the day and that they are always close by. I’m thankful that they share little musings and findings during the day, which is not something we normally can do. I’m thankful for made up games and pranks and dances and songs that make the girls giggle, and I’m thankful for the time to encourage culinary creativity.

I’m thankful for technology that enables me to work remotely and that keeps us all occupied. I’m thankful for a stocked pantry. I’m thankful for my job and my work family. I’m thankful for messages and texts from friends and family near and far.

I’m thankful for 20 minutes to myself today, to lay in the grass and feel alive and thankful again. And I’m guessing I will soon be thankful for Calamine and Benedryl. I’m thankful I take terrible selfies and can provide a source of laughter for teenagers.

I’m thankful, thankful, thankful in all my go go go-ing.

March 20, 2020
Super Tuesday in Virginia

We voted this morning. Taking our time, reading every name on the ballot with me whispering explanations about what I liked/disliked about each candidate and why who can win is sometimes just as important as who should win.

Our children need to see and hear us talk about real issues, and know that we think and we research – not just that we blindly support a party or a person. Most importantly, I want Audrey to see and know that I will always vote for candidates who support her and the thousands of kids who will eventually enter adulthood with some sort of pre-existing condition.

We talked about everything from socialism to racism to sexism, in littler words. She asked Are there people who won’t vote for a girl? Yes. And it made me sad to answer.

But in only the way she can, Audrey summed up voting on Super Tuesday with this question/statement: So basically, though, we really don’t care as long as it’s not Trump. Yes. And, again, it made me sad to answer. It makes me sad that we have a leader I wouldn’t leave my children alone with for even 30 minutes because he’s such a poor example of humanity. I have voted red, blue, and Ross Perot, and have never felt that way until now.

No candidate and no person is perfect, and yet I have always had this desire to really believe in the people I vote for. At the same time, it’s very often hard to find someone that doesn’t have skeletons and wasn’t at some point on the wrong side of an issue. But it’s never, ever been easier to vote for someone, anyone, as a comparison to what we have now.

March 3, 2020
Good Humans in the Middle
It’s Presidents’ Day, and this year we’re going to elect a President. As I’ve gotten older, our choice of leadership has seemed more and more important – not just because I think we chose so poorly last time, but also because 20 years ago I would have told you that I wasn’t sure all our votes were counted. I guess five key things have changed since those days:
1. I became a mother, and now I feel the responsibility to do something about the world my girls live in.
2. I have encountered children, including one of my own, who will be categorized as pre-existing condition when they reach adulthood and will desperately need health care after their parents can no longer cover them.
3. I have seen first-hand how the privileged have access to better everything. Better legal services. Better education. Better health care. Better chances of getting a second chance. Better chances at being given the benefit of the doubt. Money and education make a huge difference in the kind of treatment and care people have access to, and ultimately their odds of survival and their quality of life.
4. The world has changed. People with guns enter places that used to be safe and they take the lives of others, including our nation’s children.
5. Al Gore lost the presidency, and I truly started to believe that votes are counted and they matter.
The more I think about this coming election and all the craziness in our country right now, and the more I encounter people of all backgrounds and who vote in a variety of ways, the more I’m convinced that the majority of America is not represented by what we see in Washington and what we see on the news. The majority of us are not just right or left, or Republican or Democrat, or liberal or conservative. The majority of us are somewhere in the middle, in an area defined by shades instead of absolutes. Our life experiences move our political needle, and hopefully also our empathy needle, as we make mistakes or get to know people not like us or get a diagnosis or someone we love is hurt.

But the candidates we’re presented with right now seem to either fall at the far sides, where the absolutes reside, or act like they do simply to secure votes.

It’s absolutely crazy to me that someone would say that any political party has no room for someone who believes differently. You can’t be a Democrat if you believe abortion is wrong? Or you can’t be a Republican if you think access to guns should have limits?

That. Is. Stupid.

And incredibly short-sighted.

You know what else is crazy and short-sighted? Our thoughts on instances or events have suddenly started getting us lumped into an absolute value type of category.

I can see a video of police brutality and think the officer in it is an asshole while also believing in the goodness of other law enforcement officers. I can kneel during the national anthem and still love America and care about our military and be thankful for their sacrifice. I can think that abortion is wrong and still respect the right of others to make different choices or even just believe that government should not have control over those sorts of things.

You can vote Republican and believe in restrictions for assault rifles or funding for climate solutions. You can vote Democrat and believe in prayer in schools or not want federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

What most of us can agree on, I think, is what makes a good person. Someone who is kind, who tries their best, looks for the truth, helps others, has empathy, and does the right thing when no one is looking. We are not all ever going to agree on the issues of the day, but it seems like we could at least agree on the need for our country’s leaders to be good humans – and to vote accordingly. In all the years I’ve voted I have never seen so many good people get caught up on opposite sides instead of focusing on the simplicity of who’s qualified and who’s a good human?

This is not the time to not vote. It’s not the time to stick our heads in the sand and worry about our hair while we let the rest of America figure this out. As the old saying goes if we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for absolutely anything – and that’s true in our personal lives, in our professional lives, and in our politics.

It shocks me how many people can listen to our current President and think there’s a good human. Set the political issues aside – really look at a person who laughed about grabbing and mistreating women, who belittled the family members of a fallen soldier, who made fun of a former POW, and who made fun of someone with a disability. I challenge you to then look at yourself in the mirror and say I want my children to be like him or I aspire to be like him.

A number of people, including our current president, are interviewing for the job of leader of our country. It’s our job to decide who gets that job and that decision is not just about key metrics, but also, and most importantly, about each candidate’s goodness or lack of it.

The supreme quality for leadership is integrity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
February 18, 2020
I Believe

My youngest is eight years old and all throughout this season I’ve been a bit melancholy. I suspect this is the last Christmas where she’ll believe in Santa, and it makes me a little sad. I’m frankly surprised we made it to this age with that magic intact.

In years ahead there will still be the shaking of packages throughout the season and Christmas mornings filled with anticipation, but it won’t be the same when there’s no one one remaining who believes. In some ways it will be better – I truly envy those of you posting pictures of fancy dinners with wine with your adult children. ONE DAY, I think, each time I see one of your photos, as I sip hot chocolate after a meal that included french fries.

Earlier this month, I had a few long seconds of panic and thought this would end up being the year that the magic of Santa disappeared. Audrey came home from school and announced that not everyone in her class believes in Santa. My heart sank. I knew it was coming, and I really should have been prepared. But unprepared, and way outside of my comfort zone, I gave an answer that I had not thought about or considered all the positives and negatives of. I winged it, or whatever the right tense of winged is. (Wung it?)

You know how not everyone believes in God? That Jews believe in God but not really Jesus and Muslims believe in a different god and some people don’t believe in any god? Not everyone believes in Santa. We believe in Santa and we believe in Jesus.

And then I waited another very long few seconds while she considered my answer. “Oh. OK.” And then off she went on her hover-board.

So simple, really. She just accepted my answer and moved on. For about a minute I thought I was Mom of the year. I had successfully avoided a Christmas season “what do you mean there’s no Santa?!” catastrophe, and I had answered her in a grown up way with grown up words. And then came the internal panic: What the hell did I just do? Why, why, why did I do that? Why would I compare Santa to Jesus and connect God and faith and Santa? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Once she loses faith in Santa then she might she lose faith in Jesus.

THIS is why I am person who likes to be prepared and who likes to think about what she believes. I cannot handle all of the tragic possibilities of winging it. The reason I obsess about thinking about why I think something and what I should say about something is to avoid situations exactly like this. UGH.

A full 24 hours passed before I realized that I once believed in Santa and Jesus, and I still believe in Jesus. And that’s true for millions of other people as well, so probably it’ll all be OK.

At a craft fair at the start of this season, I picked up a sign that I love. It has Give Thanks on one side and Believe on the other, and it’s a perfect fit in our farmy antique-filled family room.

I’ve stared at it many evenings this month thinking about what I actually believe about some things. What I actually believe is most important. How I show the girls what things are really important, and how I convey why I believe the way I do about everything from abortion to Noah’s flood and ark. Because I believe that one of my greatest responsibilities as a parent is to show them that I really think about what I believe and that they should, too. They need to think about what they see and experience and think and believe, and about the why – not just believe what I believe. And I want them to know that God, I believe, delights in us even when we have doubts and we’re not sure what we think, and He encourages our learning and our thought processes.

Jesus said to doubting Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

It doesn’t say Jesus was frustrated or exasperated or at the end of his rope with all of Thomas’ questions. It says he asked Thomas to touch Him, to seek the answers to his questions. Jesus wanted to help Thomas find the proof he needed.

I believe in Christmas. And I believe in love. I believe that the story of Christmas is a story of a parent’s love, a spouse’s love, a family’s love, a neighbor’s love, and a child’s love.

I believe in the magic of Santa and of elves, and of tooth fairies and of Easter bunnies. I believe they have made countless children smile over the centuries and I believe in and love the power of that.

I believe in reciprocity. The world gives back what you put out there. The more you give, the more you will be given. You reap what you sow, which can be either ominous or glorious.

I believe that when you don’t know what to do, the thing you should do above all is simply plant. Sow seeds. Positive seeds. And, I believe in what Elsa has to say on this topic: just do the next right thing.

I believe our choices always reveal our priorities and our character.

I believe in healing. The kind that comes in miraculous God-moments, the kind worked by doctors and caregivers, the kind that comes with time, the kind that comes with travel and in amusement parks where we just let ourselves have fun and relax, and the kind that comes while driving along country roads with the windows down and the radio on.

I believe effort, not time, heals some, but not all, wounds. Those who have been wounded can choose help and choose healing, or they can choose to focus on pain or disappointment or self. Faith is what can heal all wounds.

I believe words have power. It’s why I held a chubby little baby and whispered, “Audrey Grace is cancer free” thousands of times before it was actually true, it’s why I like to mention how smart or clever my girls are when I also comment on their appearance, and it’s why I keep journals – an outpouring of words reveals what I truly think in a way nothing else can.

And I believe in the voice of music and art and doodles. Specifically that they can reveal to us and others what we think and what we believe and what’s important. I love that Ella’s go-to music isn’t something you’d hear a snippet of on TikTok, but it’s worship music. I love that Audrey’s journal and sketch pad are filled with heart doodles and words of affirmation.

This morning I sat down at our desk to check all my notes for today and found a doodle Audrey left behind. It speaks volumes about what’s in that little 8-year old heart and mind, and it was like getting a Christmas card from heaven.

I believe and am thankful that God is constantly and patiently working to reveal Himself to every doubting Thomas, that He’s constantly present in my daughter’s lives, and that He’s constantly maneuvering ways to calm the hearts and minds of Mommas like me who fret too much.

This isn’t the last year for Santa or for Elf on the Shelf or for Jesus. Just because we all eventually learn that our parents buy all the Santa gifts doesn’t mean we don’t believe in Santa. We choose what we believe, about literally everything, whether we actively think about it or not. And this house believes.

December 25, 2019