Here and There

Today was the first day of school! Hurray!

Of course, last night as the boys were playing one last game of soccer before bedtime I got that old familiar lump in my throat. It's always so surprising when that thing shows up, because I am generally counting down the days to September starting August 8. That's the time of summer when I feel like the grace is gone but the heat and humidity are here to stay. Tough combination.
So here we are, school days again. I love it (and so do the boys. They had a great first day.).

My goal for myself is to spend the next few weeks digging us out of summer and the inevitable toll that takes on my home. Bathrooms must be scrubbed, floors mopped, baseboards... well, the baseboards won't improve for another 10-15 years. I've made peace with that. Almost.

I don't usually do a good job of linking around the Internet Superhighway, but today I came across a few posts that were just spot on with my own feelings/emotions or experiences of late.

For instance, here is a cute little momma writing about her hair falling out post-partum. She writes about that and now I don't have to -- no need for me to tell you all about how I'm totally self-conscious about the handfuls of hair that I find on the bathroom floor. I'm actually a lot less embarrassed about those clumps than I am about the place on my head they used to be. This part of post-baby madness always freaks me out. And then the hair always grows back. Lord willing. Also, along with that post, we gave up TV recently and have had similar positive results.

Another place I visit has a beautiful article about homeschooling. What I love about this author is she is quick to point out that homeschooling isn't perfect -- but it's what works best for her family, for this year. I don't want to stir up the Us-vs-Them thing, but it's so easy to start thinking all homeschoolers think their way is the best, that homeschooling is the answer and it will solve all our problems. Or vice-versa -- that people sending their kids out the door to school think this is the absolute best. I sing the praises of our small private school -- but they are the praises of what works for our family. This school is perfect for us. We all do what works best for us, to fit our personal goals and needs for educating our children.

Finally, I love this post over here. The best part are the photos of the dad and brother watching the sister open all her girly-girl stuff. Because that is totally my life -- guys making those faces when anything remotely foo foo is on the scene. And it made my heart swell to think about Isabel and all the foo foo she will indeed be bringing! Bring on the faces, boys. Bring it!

At Risk

This right here is the best $25 I have spent in recent history. The board game Risk, the one my boys have been playing for the past TWO hours. Thank you, Hasbro. I love you too.

Gold Medal Momma

I don't want to ruin the moment with a lot of words or whatever, but I just want to share a bit of the amazing victory I had tonight with Lord Henry the Three Year Old. It was a battle of wits and I WON.

To recap briefly: I said "Goodnight darling Henry. I love you." He said, "Yeah, I don't think so." I said, "No, I'm serious." And he was all, "Like I said, I'm not feeling it."

And so it went, for quite some time. Finally, I texted my mom (she who is the Queen of Putting Children to Bed Without Them Winning) and I said "what do I do?"

She texted back "pull the door shut and hold the handle."

So I did this. I firmly and with great love put Henry (back) in bed. I kissed him. I said "you're not the boss of me I am going to win this fight." But not in so many words. Really I just said (again), "Goodnight darling Henry. I love you."

But this time, I walked out of the room and pulled the door shut. Then I stood there and (here is the key) I held the door shut. Sure enough he got out of bed. He turned the handle but it did not move. Then he knocked on the door. He stood there knocking while I held the handle shut. This went on for about two minutes while I stood there in disbelief. Also I reminded myself that I was the boss. Because it's really easy to forget this when dealing with three-year-olds. It's very easy to start to believe what they believe which is they are the center of the universe. A Henry-o-centric Universe.

And then, four minutes in, silence. I was on the phone with my mom and I said "it's quiet."

"I bet he fell asleep," she said. I couldn't believe this. It was just too easy.

But it was true! He gave in that quick. Once he could no longer escape his room and just wander about the house, his very tired little body gave in. When I checked on him a bit later he was indeed in his bed. His head was resting comfortably on the pillow, his quilt pulled up to his shoulders nestled in safe and sound like the sweet little boy he is.

How do I feel you ask? About like this:



Goodnight!

Jesus Others You

Weekly column
Frustrating happenings were afoot in our home one recent end-of-summer day. The boys were moving very slow, enjoying one of their last lazy mornings before the onslaught of September’s early alarm clocks. After an extended time of lying on the couch, one boy ambled toward the kitchen to get some breakfast.

“Can we open the other box of Cookie Crisp,” he asked, referring to the on-good-sale special cereal I let him pick out at the store.

“Sure thing,” I said, but as I rummaged through the cupboards I couldn’t find it. That box, we were sad to discover, had already been eaten.

The boy took a deep breath and asked if he could have an actual cookie instead. Feeling generous I told him yes (reminding myself to throw in a Flinstones vitamin to even it all out), only to remember that the special container of cookies had also been devoured.

Feeling desperate for a treat (and recognizing Mom was being uncharacteristically accommodating) the boy asked for some form of candy bar. Perhaps some chocolate might lessen the pain of the already-eaten cereal and cookies?

No can do, I hated to tell him. Your brothers already ate up all that too.

The boy, now feeling totally defeated, threw his head back and walked out of the kitchen. He was annoyed with his siblings, those over-active little food snatchers – they had hogged up everything before he himself had a chance to do the same.

I recognized his frustration. Too often I have similar agitations, exasperating encounters with people around me whose actions directly affect me. It’s not that I don’t love people, it’s just they can sometimes complicate matters.

How many times have I thought that I really could be a saint if only I didn’t have other humans to contend with. If it were just me and the Lord, I too often think, well then I would be golden.

The real issue of course is not other people. Yes, people sin and do obnoxious things. But ultimately what bothers me about dealing with others is often less about their behavior and more about my own.

So many times the state of my interior is revealed to me through my attitude towards others. In these moments, when I am faced with my own shortcomings, when I recognize that I am judgmental or selfish or impatient, I see how the Lord uses other people to help me work on my own imperfections.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to serve a friend in need. I went into the situation excited and blessed to help. Once I was in the midst of it all, however, I found myself just really annoyed. A whole host of details in this scene were dealt with in the exact opposite way I would opt to handle them. If I were calling the shots, I kept thinking, I wouldn’t do this.

But I wasn’t calling the shots. I wasn’t in charge, I was there to do what needed to be done. There was no wrongdoing involved – things were just different.

The issue, of course, was not the details themselves but my own reaction. What I learned about myself – about areas in my own life I needed to work on – that was the real struggle in the situation. While a bit painful, in the end it was a very good thing.

When I was a girl, we used to sing a song about Jesus. “Jesus and Others and You,” we would sing, “What a wonderful way to spell JOY!” I used to love that song, until I got a little older and realized the absolute irony of it all.

But the truth is it can be wonderful and there can be joy. We just have to look at these interactions as our path to holiness, as part of our sanctification.

It isn’t just God and me. While that one-on-one relationship is what it’s all about, a huge part of growing with God involves dealing with others.

So often, my path towards deeper love of Christ often involves deeper love of neighbor.

Oh-Nine-Oh-One

Over at Faith and Family I'm paying a little homage to Neil Diamond as I bask in the beauty of September!

Do you just love fall? (Or is it Fall?) It's my favorite. It's even starting to feel a little cooler around here. Not much but just enough to let me know Fall will arrive, indeed it will.

Sweet Victory

This afternoon I was working with eight-year-old Augie on a particular life skill that I will not mention here because I dropped the ball and it's something he should have learned a while ago. You can guess but I won't own up to it publicly because it's one of those things that I always said "no need to stress because what 8-year-old can't _______" (insert this particular behavior here).

Unfortunately, that attitude produced just that: an eight-year-old who couldn't. And I'm only (quite vaguely) telling the story now because my son now officially can do this task. Thank the Lord because there was no way I was going to join him at college just to help him (insert behavior here). (And YES, he can read.)

So I had that attitude, thinking he'd eventually just figure out how to do this thing, the thing all other kids can do. But he didn't eventually get it. And so, with the hot hot heat of Third Grade breathing down my neck, I crossed over from suggesting my son work on this skill to getting downright obsessive about. He needed to get this skill learned and done with. The End.

"Your teacher," I'd say every time he started to give up on learning this skill, "she is going to be really upset that you can't do this." That would motivate him a bit until it would cross over from being motivational to unnerving. He couldn't handle the pressure of working on the skill while imagining his teacher being annoyed with him. Truthfully, the teacher is a kind lady but she is also a former Catholic nun and has just enough Old School in her to keep children on their toes, which I absolutely used to my advantage.

In the midst of being *this close* to mastering the Life Skill, Augie was getting really frustrated and exasperated. This attitude, I might add, probably accounts for why I had not pushed through with forcing him to learn this in the past. Oh never mind, I'd usually say, just let me help.

No more!

Today, he got it. But not before I made him try ten times in a row. At the third attempt, he still hadn't totally mastered it and was starting to get worked up per usual.

"You know what they say," I patiently reminded him, "if at first you don't succeed..."

"....then you're not Chuck Norris," he said in all seriousness, before taking a deep breath and trying again.

Hiccup

I have a little informal survey I'd like to conduct here. I have a "friend" who really (really really really) likes ice cream. When Ben and Jerry's is on sale, she buys that. Her question is: do you think it's normal to be able to eat an entire container of B+J's in one sitting? Is this something other people do and if so please publicly admit it here on this blog so our "friend" can feel less weird about her (very very very bad) eating habits.

Au Naturel

At one of her showers, Isabel got a plush toy purse as a gift and tonight one of the boys pulled it out with some intrigue. Inside the tiny pink bag were plush accoutrements -- a little plush lipstick, a set of plush keys, some kind of pink plush cellphone with texting capabilities.

Elliott made a comment about not using too much mascara (when someone was eyeing the lipstick) and I wondered if he even knew what it was.

"That's not mascara," I said.

"I know," he said, "mascara is that stuff you rub on your eyes."

I was curious what else he thought about ladies and make-up and asked if he even noticed the difference. He totally did (and kindly noted that my mascara must have come off earlier in the day).

"I think ladies look good with make-up," he said, "as long as they don't actor themselves."