Black Friday

After hearing the reports about Black Friday violence, after reading about the lines, the crowds, the billions of dollars spent on "great deals", after seeing the abandoned Ford factory parking lot 2 miles from my house converted into "shuttle parking" for Twelve Oaks Mall, I have been in a kind of sick depression for the last 24 hours.  I am feeling ashamed to be an American during this season.  It seems like more than ever our sole focus is on consuming, buying, getting, having more stuff, more electronics, more food, more clothes, more crap that we do not need and do not have room for.  Does anyone really need to stand in line for hours to buy an Xbox for $200?  Which is probably their third game system, played on their third (or fourth or fifth) plasma TV.  And of course, then you need to spend another $200 on games, controllers, headsets, and rocker chairs.  What value is ANY of this stuff?  And the time?  What value do we place on our time when we spend hours buying this junk, hours setting it all up, and hours playing?  And next year there's something better and we do it all again. 

It is easy to say "that's not me, I don't do that", but it is our culture.  I am sickened and embarrassed by the way the world views us as Americans for the way we "celebrate" the "holidays".  Even a modest celebration entails buying gifts that we don't need and are often meaningless and involves quantities of food that are practically obscene.  How is this celebrating?  Everyone is stressed, anxious, petty, jealous, greedy, and this is what we teach our children is a "magical Christmas". 

I know that I see the world differently that most people.  I remember picking up Solomon and Tinsaye and getting ready to leave the orphanage and telling them to get their stuff.  Every possession they owned fit in the front pockets of their shiny new Land's End backpacks we brought for them.  The clothes they were wearing had to be returned to the orphanage for the other children.  I saw people in Ethiopia stand in line for six hours or more not to get an Xbox,  but to see a doctor.  They didn't pepper spray anyone, they didn't get overflow parking.  How could the $400 you spent on more electronics have changed the lives of any one of those people? 

It's easy to say "we can't fix the world, Ethiopia has their own problems, it's not about me, I'm an American and I deserve this stuff".  In case you hadn't noticed, it's not Ethiopians coming to get food from your local food bank.  It's not Ethiopians lined up at the Salvation Army trying to find winter boots for their kids.  I have students that I see every day that take showers at school because they have no running water in their house.  I have students who live in their cars or with relatives with no electricity.  When we ask parents of needy children at our school how we can help their family for Christmas, they ask for socks, mittens, and gift cards to gas stations so they can keep gas in their cars to get to their minimum wage jobs and be able to pay the heating bill.  When Brian was handing out food baskets at our church last year he tried to give a family a turkey for their Christmas dinner, but they refused because they were living in a motel and didn't have an oven to cook it.  They took the packaged food that they could heat up in a microwave.  How could the $400 you spent on more electronics have changed the lives of any one of those people?

Does anyone else see these people?  Does anyone else think America is asking for some serious cosmic smackdown by living in such smug oblivion?  DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!  You!  Today!  Change something about the way you live so that others suffer less.  If you want to give your children a magical Christmas, make it about people and not things.  Make it about Jesus and not Santa.  Make it about lists of things you can give instead of lists of things you want..  Instead of spending three hours in line to see Santa at the mall, or three hours in line waiting to buy more stuff, spend three hours with your kid volunteering at a food bank.  And then do it again in January.  And keep doing it.  Listen to the people you meet there and then listen to what God tells you to do about it.

Sorry if this post bothers you, it bothers me too. 

Why I Love My Cleaning Lady

We have had a cleaning lady, Alla, since about 2006.  We had to lay her off when Brian got laid off in fall 2008, but she was "recalled" in the fall of 2009 when his work started picking back up.  She is a pleasant, serious Polish immigrant lady in her mid-fifties and she cleans my house far, far better than I ever would.  She comes on  Wednesdays while we are all at school/work, and it's like the good fairies came in and worked their magic all over the house.  When I walk in, it smells clean.  There are fresh vacuum tracks in the carpet.  The faucets are all shiny.  There are no piles of junk laying everywhere.  The microwave doesn't have exploded Chef Boyardee ravioli inside it anymore.  The beds are all made up, smooth and fresh and I can hardly wait to climb into my clean sheets.  Thanks to Alla, Wednesday afternoons are my favorite part of the week.

She will leave me little notes in funny European printing with ESL spelling/grammar, "Plese to buy Soft Scrub" or "You are needing paper towel".  Sometimes she comes later or I am home on break and then she will tell me things.  She can't pronounce 'Joan' however, and she calls me 'John'.  One day this past summer she said to me, "Last week I am cleaning your ceiling fan. It was too dirty, I must clean it."   I said to her, "Alla, I'm so sorry, I know it was filthy!  I didn't know how to clean it on the high ceiling, how in the world did you do it?"  She replied gravely, "It was very hard, John.  I am standing on chair and it is still too low, so I am getting small stool and put on chair and get long duster.  Is very dangerous, but fan is too dirty, I must clean."  I squeaked out, "thank you", but I was envisioning coming home to find her lifeless body on the living room floor under my filthy ceiling fan and living with the guilt that my dirt cost this poor beautiful woman her life.

Alla's grandson is about Thomas's age and she has always really liked Thomas just because he reminds her of her grandson.  Once she had just cleaned the boys' room and Thomas came running in from outside, ripped off all this clothes, chucked them all over his room, threw on his bathing suit, and was half way out the door when Alla yelled, "TOMAS!  YOU ARE PICKING UP YOU CLOTHES!  I AM JUST TO FINISH CLEANING YOU ROOM AND YOU ARE MAKING MORE CLOTHES!"  Thomas sheepishly turned around and picked up all his mess and apologized and left quietly.  I smirked from my couch, not having to say a word. 

One time my mom and dad were at my house on a Wednesday before I got home from school.  Alla said to my mom, "You are very proud of John."  Mom said yes, she was.  Alla said, "Her kids, they are good kids."  Mom said, yes, they are.  Alla said, "This house, it is full of love.  I am finding the notes."  Mom asked her what she meant and she showed her... the sticky note on my mirror from Tinsaye that said, "I love you Mom" and Solomon's drawing in his room of our family that said "I love my family".  When I started looking around, I noticed the 'love notes' were everywhere!  I never really noticed them much before.  I was too focused on the piles of laundry, papers, shoes, and dirt.

I love Alla because she cleans my house and helps me maintain my sanity.  But I really love her because she reminds me that every house she cleans is messy, but not every house she cleans is full of love.

The Dish Canary (or Joan is a Crappy Mom)

Tonight after dinner, Brian was dealing with a client crisis on the phone, Thomas was starting trouble with his sisters, I was trying to clean up the dishes while keeping the kids quiet for Brian and stopping the fight.  Solomon came in to me very seriously and said:

Solomon:  Mom, I need your help, I'm starting a Dish Canary.

Joan (not really paying attention)...I told you to leave them alone, Thomas!  Get up to your room and practice your clarinet and don't make me tell you again!

Solomon:  Mom, Mom!  I need you right now!  I'm starting a Dish Canary!

Joan (increasingly annoyed and only slightly paying attention):  What is a Dish Canary?

Solomon (with huge eyes and great shock in his voice):  YOU don't know what a Dish Canary is?  You're a TEACHER!

Joan (finally paying attention but completely blowing a gasket):  Solomon Martin, I am tired of all this ridiculous attention-seeking behavior!  I do not have time for whatever nonsense you have going on right now and if I said 'what is a Dish Canary?' then I obviously do not know what a Dish Canary is!  Now if you really want my help then tell me what you need and stop wasting my time! 

Solomon (quietly and with regret):  Well, a Dish Canary is a book that tells you all the words and what they mean.  I saw it at school and thought I could write one.

Joan:  A dictionary?!?  You mean a dictionary???  You want to write a dictionary?

Solomon:  Well, yeah.  I said I needed some help.
 

What kind of a horrible mother yells at her kid who wants to write a dictionary?!  I laughed out loud, got down on my knees in the kitchen and hugged him and said, "I'm so sorry I yelled at you.  Where should we start?"  and Solomon grinned and said, "How about 'absolutely'?  I don't think I spelled it right."

First Day of School

Six weeks ago was the first day of school.  Here's what everybody looked like on that exciting day!

Thomas started sixth grade and is now in the middle school.  Notice the dark porch?  He catches the bus at 6:50am.  He is loving having his own schedule, more freedom and independence, the challenge of multiple teachers and more homework.  He is playing clarinet in the band and he is AMAZING (that is his critical self-analysis).  He intends to switch to saxophone later this year and follow in his Aunt Mandy's sax footsteps.  He is following in his dad's footsteps by running cross country and he's doing pretty well with that also.  He struggled at first remembering gym clothes, instrument, homework, lunch, running shoes and everything else every day, but he seems to be getting the hang of things now and seems very happy overall.

 

Tinsaye started fourth grade.  She skipped third to catch up with same-age peers.  She is doing much better emotionally this year.  She has gone from crying about something at least once a day (usually more) to maybe tears twice a week.  She has just settled in and leveled out emotionally.  I think her growth is settling down too... she grew 5 1/2 inches and gained 25 lbs in her first year here.  Hopefully that will slow because we can't keep her in clothes.  

  So far she is doing fine in fourth grade in spite of some pretty big gaps in her learning.  On her last math unit she started out with a 30% on her pretest.  At the end, her final test was 90%.  She is just a really hard worker.  She adores her teacher and is developing a whole new set of fourth grade friends.  Her vision is 20/20 in her good eye but she is legally blind in her bad eye.  It doesn't seem to affect her, though.  In another year or so we may get her a contact for her bad eye because it is correctable to about 20/150, but the ophthalmologist isn't sure her brain will use that eye even if it works.  

 

 

 Meredith started third grade this fall and I think she's having her best year yet.  She does not love school like the other kids do and her usual answer to "how was your day?" is "fine" or "okay".  This year I'm getting "GREAT!"  She likes her teacher and her class and I think she's catching up academically to some of the other kids her age.  She is still taking piano lessons and doesn't love to practice, but she loves her teacher and she loves to be able to play the pieces she finishes.  Her class will go on an overnight trip to Mackinac Island in the spring and she is very excited about doing that all by herself (no sisters or brothers or parents dragging along!).  Mere is taking gymnastics with Tinsaye on Saturday mornings and she really likes that (and it's not too taxing on our overloaded schedule).

Solomon  is in second grade this year.  He was disappointed that none of his best first-grade buddies were in his class and he was nervous about getting glasses in August and starting school with his new glasses.  All his fears were unfounded however, when everyone loved his glasses and he made lots of new friends right away (plus he still sits with his old friends at lunch).  

His vision continues to improve.  He had surgery to correct his wandering eye in May and now he has improved depth perception.  The eye drops continue to lower the pressures in his eyes and now his vision is correctable to 20/40 and 20/60.  Solomon started karate this fall and he is going to be a Ninja for halloween.  He's all about kicking, punching, jumping, spinning, and any other smashing that he thinks counts as "martial arts".  He loves to read and is the kid we never have to remind to do his daily reading minutes.  He also does math worksheets for fun.  It relaxes him.  Seriously.  He's the child of my heart, but clearly not my genetic material.

We could not be more proud of these terrific kids that God has given us!

Catching Up

Catching up.  It's what I do.  It's how I roll.  It's what this blog should be called.  I never seem to be able to stay on top of everything in my life, so I'm always "catching up" with something or someone. Since my last post in July (!!) many things, of course, have happened.  Nothing monumental, just life.  We spent lots of time at the cabin, worked our tails off on the house and yard, got everybody ready to start school, started school, started fall activities.  Also started going crazy, losing perspective, working too hard, and forgetting to laugh.  Started developing a short temper, unrealistic expectations, irritability, and impatience.

So now I'm catching up.  With this blog, with the people in my life, with my priorities.  Will it ever be thus?

Here's my new motto:

Find the joy.  If you can't find the joy, find the grace.

God put this in my head a few weeks ago while I was developing my crappy habits of irritability and impatience.  It seemed lovely.  When it came to me, I was like, "YES!  That's what I need to do!  My life is full of joy and grace.  This will be easy and will totally keep my perspective!"  

I was wrong.  Finding the joy is really, REALLY hard at 9:10pm when I am exhausted and Tinsaye is whining and Meredith STILL hasn't brushed her teeth and Thomas just remembered a math test tomorrow and Brian is yelling at Solomon that he CANNOT buy "crazy cheesy bread" for lunch tomorrow because it is garbage and he'd better get in there and make his lunch RIGHT NOW and all the kids should have been in bed 45 minutes ago and my whole body aches and I just want to crawl under the covers and never come out.  

Finding the joy is also really hard when it's 4:15pm and I have foolishly used up all my energy on my 225 students and am now late to pick up Thomas from cross country practice on my way home to get the other three off the bus and get someone to the dentist, the doctor, the therapist, church, a friends' house, Target, a piano lesson, or the library to return late books (see previous post) before figuring out what to make for dinner that is not a) expensive, b) fattening, c) more complicated than 3 ingredients, and d) going to take longer to prepare than 15 minutes.  

Finding the joy would also be considered difficult at 11:30am, when I have already seen 150 adolescents, have 30 minutes for lunch and am starving, but have to answer the 15 emails and 2 voice mails that have appeared since 8:20 when I last checked, have a stack of makeup quizzes to grade, have a blown speaker that needs repair and three mp3s that need to be burned to disc, have to call the counselor about one student, call a parent about another two, and write one up for behavior, have a concert next week that needs parents called to help out, two fundraisers that need attention, a trip that is not getting planned because other things need to happen first.

But this is my life.  And there IS joy.  And lots of grace.  When I am completely blowing my stack, Brian will say in a quiet (and definitely snarky) voice, "How about that joy, Joan?  Did you find it yet?"  (See what I live with?).  But when I stop and take a breath and pull back from the minute, I can almost always find the joy.  

Working with kids at school definitely brings me joy.  The paperwork and deadlines are bad, but the kids are wonderful.  I love what I do, I love that I am good at it and that the kids leave my room happy.  

Spending 5 minutes alone in the car with Thomas on the way home to the insanity is joyful and precious.  He is changing into a teenager before our very eyes and I love the quiet minutes alone with my oldest baby as I listen to his latest negotiating strategy to get a cell phone.  

There is grace at 9:15pm when God gives me the patience that I no longer possess on my own to remain calm and move each kid steadily toward bed.  And then there is joy at 9:30pm when I have a clean face, clean pjs, a warm bed, and my Nook for 30 minutes of quiet.  Plus a couple Tylenol PMs.

See, it's always there.  You just have to look for it.  I think it's getting easier for me to find.  

Blogging helps me find the joy and grace in my life so even though it's another thing to do, I'm going to keep at it.  I will backtrack a bit to catch up on the last three months.  Thank you to everyone who gently said to me, "I miss your blog posts!"  I haven't even posted on Facebook for a month, it's been that crazy.  So thanks for your patience, support, and prayers.  We are still alive, even though we've been media dark.  We've just been finding the joy.

$!*@&*! Library Books!

Seriously, I have a major problem with library books.  We love our library and go all the time to get new books, but we seem to be forever on the hunt for missing items.  Theoretically, there should be 14 library books at our house at all times because each of the four kids is STRICTLY LIMITED to 3 books each and I generally have a fiction and a non-fiction that I'm reading at the same time.  That should be completely manageable.  Plus, we have a System!  All library books MUST be kept in a basket in the living room, easily retrievable when it's time to take them back.  14 books, The System, clear expectations, completely foolproof!

This plan works flawlessly for all of us...unless there was one book that we weren't quite finished with and kept, or one that we couldn't find and renewed online and still can't find, or one that someone got when they were at the library with a friend, or one that we got at the library up north, plus the school library books, plus classroom library books, plus the extra one that I found on the new book shelf from my favorite author that I had to get, plus the one that I had a hold request on and it just came in!

And the books do NOT want to adhere to The System.   They wind up under the car seats or under the bed or in the basement under the couch or shoved down in the side of the chair cushions or in a pile of papers in the kitchen or in a bag that went to the pool or a laundry basket full of dirty laundry from up north.  No one told our cleaning lady about The System and for months she was shoving them in the bookshelf full of our own books, never to be seen again! 

I have tried to come to terms with this problem.  I have made the kids pay their overdue fines with their own money.  I have forced them to retrace their steps and remember where they were reading the missing book (they all blame their sibling who 'wanted to read it after me').  We have held FBI-quality manhunts at 9pm for missing books.  But I am, undeniably, a librarian's daughter, and nothing makes me feel like more of a social degenerate that when I go to the library website, log in to check my account, and it says, "USER IS DELINQUENT".  Me!  A delinquent user!  How did this happen???  Why can't I get this under control?

I know, I know, I should be glad they are reading.  And be grateful that we can borrow books instead of forking out cash at a bookstore for all these millions of pages we are going through.  But it just drives me crazy when we go to check out our books and the little library clerk says sweetly, "It looks like you have a small fine due today..."

Summer Joan

I feel like I have an alter ego in the summer.  Call her Summer Joan.  She even looks different than regular me.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself walking past a mirror and think, "whoa, who is that?".  I am tan, I have little or no makeup on, I'm wearing Teva's instead of heels, my hair is either wet, scrunched dry, or if I'm at the cabin it might even be under a bandanna that no 40-year-old woman has any business wearing.   More significantly, I"m not frowning and I don't have stress wrinkles all over my forehead.  I even stand up straighter since the weight of all my responsibilities is mostly off my shoulders:  200 students a day? Not my problem.  Hostile parents/administrators?  They are mad at someone else right now.  Car needs fixing?  I've got all day to sit at the shop.  Sick kid?  Bring it on, that's what I'm here for.  Last minute party and I need to get a gift, make a dessert, and buy new shoes before tomorrow at 7?  Sounds like fun!  See, these are not my normal responses to these situations.  Summer Joan has nothing but time so nothing freaks her out. 

One of my favorite responses to frustrating situations is "I don't have time for this!"  Brian and my sisters make fun of me a lot for this stock line.  I say it all the time:  water heater breaks at 6am?  zipper on kid's winter coat won't zip on the way out the door?  phone call from kid's teacher comes in while I'm driving down I-96 in a storm late for a meeting at church?  towel bar rips off the wall while I'm drying my hands after cleaning up a quart of spilled orange juice and yelling at the kid who spilled it?  I DON"T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.  But what I actually mean is "I am already overloaded and I don't need another little frustration adding work to my day and making me late for something that I think is important."

I wish I could have more of Summer Joan's attitude all year round.  The reality is that I do have to work full time and so does Brian and we have four kids all of whom are involved in school and activities.  We generally have a very full schedule that is not going to get any less full for about a decade.  Plus, I look WAY better with makeup, heels, and a close relationship with my blowdryer.  So, as always, it's about finding the balance.  Remembering the calm feeling of unscheduled summer during crazy times and prioritizing people over deadlines.  Acknowledging that there will always be broken appliances and spilled juice and that IS life and I DO have time for it. 

The View From A Year Into This Life

It’s been a year now since Solomon and Tinsaye came home. 

In the middle of the day-to-day struggle to figure our new lives out, I NEVER thought I would feel sad to see these days behind me.  And believe me, I am really grateful to be able to relax a bit and say things like, “Let’s go to Target” without having to explain seat belts, automatic doors, the giant signs hanging from Target’s ceiling, credit cards, and that you’re not supposed to stand next to the checkout lady to see what her cash register looks like up close. 

However, I do feel a little wistful that their innocent fascination with American life is over.  For them, everything is no big deal now.  They understand how American life works.  They know what they like (and more importantly DON’T like) to order at Wendy’s, they understand the rules for riding the school bus, they can use amazing American technology like the toilet (you can put the paper IN it!), the pencil sharpener,  and the microwave (which they called ‘microphone’ for a long time).  They understand and are no longer fascinated by the tubes at the bank drive through (which I actually still think are really cool).

They can also program the DVR, Google anything, download songs from iTunes, and find a Selena Gomez video on YouTube within seconds.  Additionally, in the last year they have learned how to ride a bike, swim, dive, kneeboard, drive the waverunner, canoe, skateboard, rollerblade, ice skate, sled, hula hoop, play basketball, baseball, and soccer (with rules).  In other words, they have accumulated an American kid’s lifetime cultural knowledge in 12 months.

Their English is so good now they aren’t even funny.  Everything they said sounded cute with improper pronoun usage (“Me is so hungry”), lack of prepositions and conjunctions (“what is bagel? Is like donut?”), and general massacring of all grammatical structures so as to sound remarkably like Yoda from Star Wars (“Me is verrrrrry hungry!  Bagel is hard, like tire, no soft like donut.  No sweet like donut too.  Where is sugar?  Maybe bagel is need sugar?”).  The thing that stinks is that this sounds hilarious and precious, but when it is accompanied by a kid climbing on the counter to get the sugar and then dumping it all over the kitchen floor in the 30 seconds I was out of the room, it is not funny, it’s just stressful.  So life is easier now that they say “let’s go to Tim Hortons!  Can we get chocolate glazed this time?” but there’s nothing funny or wonderful about that.  I wish there had been a reality TV crew following us around the whole last year filming.  Then I could watch it all after the fact and enjoy it more.

I feel exactly like I have spent the last year climbing a mountain with a huge pack on my back.  It has been really hard going and required all my focus and energy just to move forward a day at a time.  I wish I had been able to look up and notice the amazing view more often.  Now we are all at a plateau and the pack is lighter and the incline is less steep, but the scenery is not as breathtaking.  I feel like that is true of all our life’s journey.  When we avoid the risks, the hard stuff, the challenging places we are called to go, we miss out on the richness of this life. 

So I’ll keep blogging just because I enjoy it (as I said to my friend recently, “I’m such a massive dork that I write narrative essays for FUN!”), but the days of stories of the wonder of discovery are mostly behind us.  Now, however, both Thomas (11) and Tinsaye (10) are just starting down the path of adolescence.  I’m seeing glimpses of surly attitudes and emotional blowouts.  The day will come (sooner that I’d like to acknowledge) when all four kids are flaming teenagers living under one roof and I will spend my days trying not to kill them or allow them to kill each other or me.  Then you can all remind me of this blog post and tell me to look around and enjoy the breathtaking view.   

4:21pm

Every afternoon at 4:20, the school bus stops on our street.  Every afternoon at 4:21, four kids burst through the door, dump backpacks, coats, shoes, papers, lunchboxes everywhere and fight over who gets my attention first by yelling over each other in a non-stop stream of overlapping voices.  The following is an actual transcription of actual 4:21 statements I heard in the past week.  Recognize that I do not actually respond here, this is all four kids talking over each other:

              “Mom, read this note!  It’s super important!  Mrs. Rohde said so.”

              “Mom, can I have a snack?”

              “Mom, Solomon got in trouble on the bus!”

              “NO I DID NOT!”

              “Yes he did, Mom.  I saw the whole thing.”

              “Mom, mom, mom, you will not even believe it…today was the best day of my life!  I got 100% on my math test!  LOOK!”

              “Mom, I seriously need new shoes right now!  Look at these!  Today on recess I kicked the ball and they flew right off and then my sock got all muddy.  So can we go get some new shoes right now?”

              “Mom, you HAVE to volunteer for Field Day or we can’t have it!  They said we need more moms RIGHT AWAY.  Maybe you could take the day off work?”

              “Mom, are you going to make me watch the Reproductive Health video at school?  You have to sign this paper.”

              “Mom, do I have to go to Thomas’s game tonight?  Can’t I PLEASE go to Carly’s house?”

              “Mom, someone stole Jessica’s popcorn money and she was crying and I said ‘you can have mine’ and then she stopped crying.”

              “Mom, what are we having for dinner?”

              “Can we have mashed potatoes?”

              “No, yesterday she said we were having tacos tonight.”

              “I hate tacos!  Are there any leftover mashed potatoes?”

              “Mom, can I go play with Alex?”

DING DONG (doorbell rings, random neighbor child comes in)

              “Mom, when is dinner?  Do I have time to play basketball with Derek and Pujan?”

              “Mom, look at my art project!  It’s a bird!  Some of the glitter came off her wings in my backpack.  Actually, kind of a lot came off in my backpack, now it’s all over my folder.  And my lunchbox.  And my sweatshirt.  Oops.”

              “Miss Joan… can I use the bathroom?” (remember the random neighbor kid?)

              “Mom, guess what?  Miss Johnson’s dog got sick and pooped all over her house!”

              “That’s disgusting!”

              “Yeah, I know.  Joey said that happened to his dog too.  When is dinner?”

There is no way that I can actually respond to this overlapping litany of urgency.  After they wind themselves down (about 4:27) my response is usually something like this:

“Put the papers on the desk, go outside and clean the glitter out of your backpack, dinner is tacos and no mashed potatoes, I don’t want any complaining, and we’re eating in 20 minutes, you can play for 15.   I’m not volunteering for anything, we’ll get new shoes on the weekend, I did NOT need to know about Miss Johnson’s dog and there had BETTER NOT be trouble on the bus.  Great job on the math test and that was really nice to share your popcorn money.   Hey Carly, when you get out of the bathroom go ask your mom if the girls can stay at your house while we’re at Thomas’s game, and yes, Thomas, you have to watch Reproductive Health and then we’re gonna TALK ABOUT IT!  Muahahahahahahahaha!”

               

Next fall, Thomas will come home before me.  There are only a few more days of the craziness of 4:21.  Believe it or not, I think I will really miss it.

               

Random conversations

I seriously do not think people get how weird my kids are.  I suppose all kids are weird, but mine appear to be thinking about some very strange things all the time.  In the last 24 hours here are the beginnings of three conversations I participated in (along with some Easter egg party photos):

Thomas: Hey mom, imagine you were driving a car that was incredibly aerodynamic, almost like a knife, and you were going about 400 miles an hour and you hit a deer.  What do you think would happen to the deer?  Would you slice it in half?  Would it fly up over the car?  Would it destroy the car?  Would you get killed?

Solomon:  Hey mom, if this car had two more wheels and another antenna, it would be an insect.  It even has an exoskeleton!












Meredith:  Hey mom, I'm so thankful I have lips.  If I didn't have lips, the food would fall out of my mouth all the time.  Plus I couldn't smile.














Tinsaye is significantly less weird that the other three.  She mostly just rolls her eyes. 












It is the funny, sweet weirdness that makes all the chaos worth it.  They are just so fun.

Underpants Guy

Since I had a filthy van full of kids and 20 extra minutes (don't ask how, I really don't know that happened), I pulled into my favorite car wash with FREE VACUUMS and put everyone to work.  I keep packages of Windex wipes and Armor-all wipes under the seat for just such an occasion.  Thomas was vacuuming, the girls were cleaning windows/leather, and Solomon was digging out petrified Cheez-Its, old crayons, and random ponytail elastics from under the seats (it sucks to be the youngest). 

We were almost done when a teenaged boy in a Jeep pulled up to the vacuum in front of us and started cleaning out his car while (of course) talking on his cell phone.  Solomon looked up at him and yells over the vacuum, "MOM, LOOK AT THAT GUY!  HIS PANTS IS OFF HIS BUTT!"  and sure enough, this poor kid (who at some point in his adult life will bitterly regret the fashion choices of his youth) was wearing jeans that were sitting a good inch or two south of his butt.  I'm sure he thought they were sagging, but they were not even close to his butt.  In fact, they defied the laws of gravity.  So as I stared transfixed, Solomon grabbed his sisters to show them, and they screamed this conversation over the vacuum, "MOM, HIS UNDERPANTS HAVE PINK ELEPHANTS ON THEM!  NO, THEY'RE NOT ELEPHANTS, I THINK THEY'RE PIGS!  NO, THEY'RE ELEPHANTS!  WHY IS HE WEARING HIS PANTS OFF HIS BUTT?  DOES HE WANT US TO LOOK AT HIS UNDERPANTS! HOW DO HIS PANTS STAY UP?"

All this screaming finally caught Thomas's attention.  He looked even more closely at the kid and screamed, "THAT GUY HAS A GIRL IN HIS CAR!  WHAT KIND OF GIRL IS GOING TO GO OUT WITH A GUY WHO WEARS UNDERPANTS WITH PINK ELEPHANTS ON THEM AND SAGS HIS PANTS COMPLETELY OFF HIS BUTT?!?!"

Finally, I was able to form words and said, "You guys are all screaming and staring!  Let's get out of here before he notices us!" and we took off.  The underpants guy was completely oblivious, but I think his girlfriend caught us laughing as we drove past them, four faces pressed up against the freshly cleaned windows, cracking up.

Finding peace and love

Being away from the kids gave us time and space to get a little perspective on what we've been doing, what's working and not working, and where we'd like to be.  Our new motto is:

Peace and love are more important than clean and on time.

Sounds great, right?  Hard to remember when we should have left the house 10 minutes ago and Solomon can't find his coat and Meredith forgot to brush her hair and Tinsaye is crying because her favorite pants are dirty and I told her to go change and Thomas suddenly realized he forgot to do his math homework and is now having a panic attack.  It's also hard to remember when I walk into my formerly neat living room after having been outside for 15 minutes and find video game controllers, blankets, playing cards, yarn, Cheetos, action figures, markers, and random dirty socks everywhere, all the lights on, Justin Bieber blaring from the speakers, but no children because they've all run off to play somewhere else.  You would think it had been pillaged by a horde of 9-yr-old suburban Vikings. 

These are the moments when Brian and I are terrible parents.  We like to have the world perceive us as "having it all together" and when we (and by extension, our kids) are late, unprepared, and messy we get very stressed and react badly.  I yell ('are you KIDDING ME?????  how can you POSSIBLY make this much mess!  when are you EVER going to learn?'), we make sweeping threats, Brian often issues completely unrealistic edicts ('we must now all be in the car 15 minutes before we actually need to leave', 'no one may ever again use markers').  At these moments, we feel out of control and neither of us is comfortable with that.  Of course, it is absolutely ridiculous to think that we can expect the kids to get it right all the time, but we are also really concerned about setting expectations and standards for them.  We are unwilling to accept the living room of the Vikings and snarly haired kids with no homework.

But we have decided to try to break out of our frustration by changing our reaction to these situations.  This morning I told Meredith, "I am leaving for work in 5 minutes.  If you don't get your hair brushed I can't do it for you."  And she stood in front of the mirror with her hairbrush making faces and singing songs and didn't brush it.  So I left without screaming.  And she looked pretty crappy. But no one died, and any shame she felt was of her own making, not because I yelled at her and made her feel like a failure.  I am trying to de-escalate my response to the messes by letting it go until the kids are back around and then making them pick stuff up before they do anything fun or eat (whichever appears more motivating).  Last week, Solomon missed the bus and Brian did not yell or threaten or drive him to school while yelling and threatening, he just said, "You'd better run hard and try to catch it on the next street."  Sol was a bit shocked, but he took off running and he managed to catch it, much to the delight of his brother and sisters who found it hilarious to see him waving his arms and hollering "Wait Bus Driver!!!"

The trick is to CHOOSE a peaceful, loving response with natural consequences instead of allowing ourselves to be triggered into anger.  Not easy, but totally worth it for everyone's sake.   It has really made a difference for me and it seems to be getting easier to do.  But I have to actually say out loud to myself, "peace and love are more important than clean and on time" in order to do it.  As with most things in life, hard work pays off and I am feeling more loving toward my little Vikings and peaceful about our chronic chaos.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Several weeks ago, when Brian and I were on the brink of a murder-suicide attempt, we called his parents and begged them to stay with the kids for a few days so we could go away.  Anywhere.  Even the Econolodge on 8 Mile sounded great to us as long as we had some alone time.  Sensing our extreme desperation, they agreed.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love my in-laws?  That is another post entirely.  Anyway, we booked flights and 4 days at a resort in Ft. Lauderdale.  We are there right now and it is just perfect.  We aren't doing much, lots of eating, sleeping, and laying in the sun.  It might storm tomorrow which actually sounds just fine.  It is such a treat to just lay around and not have to do anything or be anywhere or be responsible for anything or anyone.  Plus, our room is loaded with my favorite things, which include:

-giant fluffy snow white towels that you can just throw on the floor and someone else washes
-a bed so huge you can't even tell there's another person in there with you
-400 thread count white cotton sheets
-orange scented hotel shampoo in cute little bottles
-endless hot water showers that don't get ruined when someone flushes the toilet
-TV that is not Nickeodeon or Disney Channel

Wow, did we need this break.  I am feeling human again, instead of a kid-taxi-driving mom-bot who constantly shrieks "pick up your stuff and put it away and keep your hands off your siblings".

That's enough blogging for now... I'm going to take another shower just because I can.

Perspective

Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent.  For the next 40 days I will be praying for God to give me clearer perspective on my life and my struggles.  I am very tired of feeling bogged down by the stuff I can't escape.  Like right now I have birthday parties to plan and rsvp to, soccer cleats to buy, prescriptions to refill, papers to file, lessons to plan, emails to return, checks to write, meals to prepare... the list is endless, insurmountable, and it will be there for the next decade.  I need to accept the fact that my desk will never be clear, my kitchen will always be a disaster, I will lose things and forget appointments and miss deadlines for the rest of my life as a mom.  And none of it matters in the long run. 

What does matter is that my family is a miracle, created by the grace of God and for His glory.  I get to live in the middle of it and witness four beautiful children grow up together.  I get a first row seat for hilarious scenes like last night's dinner when Thomas said, "Hey guys, look!  There's a cat!" and we saw a weird yellow cat limp up toward our deck.  Tinsaye yelled, "His leg is broken!"  Meredith yelled, "He's pregnant!" and Solomon yelled, "His name is Cindy!"  Then we cracked up for 10 minutes over the gimpy, pregnant, transgendered cat named Cindy until Brian yelled, "Hey, I hope he didn't go under the deck and die!" and then they all ran out to see if Cindy had expired (he/she appears to have limped off elsewhere to deliver and/or croak). 

What is important in the story of Cindy is that a) we laugh together a lot, b) no one has grief issues so severe that they don't want to go look for a dead cat, c) we often eat meals together and its all the same food and it's not avocados, and d) everyone speaks English.  These are big important things that I need to recognize and not just be grateful for, but truly see as miraculous gifts to be honored.  I need God's help to shift my perspective from the daily grind to His plan for all of us (which does not hinge on my remembering to reschedule my dentist appointment).

Whatever your Lenten observances are, consider praying along with me this psalm:

Hide Your face from my sin and cover my iniquities
Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me
Cast me not from Your presence, take not Your Spirit from me
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
Restore to me the wonders of Your love

A Recent Conversation

Meredith, Solomon, and I were in the van on the way to my rheumatologist's office.  We were on an unfamiliar road early in the morning and the kids were reading in the back seat.

Solomon:  Where are we, Mom?

Joan:  We're half way to Brighton to see my doctor.

Solomon:  This place looks like hell!

Joan [puzzled, it is rather bleak, but the scene of eternal damnation?]:  Umm... what do you mean, Solomon?

Solomon:  The road, it is going up and down verrrrrry big.

Joan:   Ahhh, there is a big HILL!

Solomon:  Yes, a hell.

Meredith [mortified]:  Solomon, you said a bad word!

Solomon [panicking]:  No I did not!

Meredith [condescending]: Yes, you did.  You said H-E-L-L and that is a swear word.  It is where the devil lives and it is very very bad to say.

Solomon [confused and defensive]:  No!!  I am not talking about the devil I am talking about up and down!!

Joan:  It's okay, Sol, you meant HILL which is when the ground goes up and down but it came out like HELL which is only a bad word, Meredith, when you say something like "what the h*** are you doing".  It's not a bad word if you are talking about where the devil lives.  But lets just not say it at all, okay guys?

Mere/Sol:  Okay.

[a few seconds of silence]

Meredith:  You'll get in big trouble if you say it on the school bus.

Joan:  Meredith, leave him alone.

[a few more seconds of silence]

Solomon [resigned]:  English is hard.

Let the good times roll

We spent Sunday through Tuesday noon at Kalahari Resort and Indoor Waterpark in Sandusky, Ohio with the kids.  Some neighborhood friends also joined us.  This was a new experience, but I kind of forgot that it would be.  The kids are so adaptable and seem so "American" now that it is really easy to forget that things are still new.  Tinsaye does NOT like to not know everything, so she's a master at acting very blase'.  As we were packing up, she said really quietly to me, "I've never been on a vacation." and  Solomon asked, "Will we have to sleep in the car?". 

I was very surprised that we did not get many strange looks at our unusual family.  Maybe they were looking at us when my back was turned.  I anticipated more staring.  I guess there are more interesting people to stare at at a midwestern waterpark (think: obesity and tatoos).  Tinsaye acts mortified at the teeny swimsuits and piercings on teenage girls.  I think she's trying to gauge my reaction.  I am, of course, appropriately disparaging, but I can see her storing it all away for future reference. 

The kids had a great time.  Loved the waterslides, the body surfing thing, the hotel room, and most of all the giant wave pool.  Solomon stayed in the wave pool for so long the waves made him kind of nauseous.  It was at the end of the night and he was exhausted and cold and when he gets tired his wandering eye gets much worse.  and remember how I said he and Mere both had Fifth's Disease?  Its like a rash and it can reappear for weeks, especially with temperature changes.  So we were looking at poor Solomon at the end of the night, standing at the edge of the pool, shivering, covered in rash, his eyes going two different directions, and looking like he might hurl, and we said to each other, "I think he's done having fun."

It was good for all of us to just get out of the house for a few days.  Now we're back to the grind, but I feel more optimistic about being able to hang on for the next few weeks. 

PS.  It would be cool if there was a photo of this trip to post on the blog, but alas, no photos exist.  I was too busy keeping my eyes on all four at once.  No time for pics.