The Hideous Whisper

Solomon needs glasses.  AGAIN.

That kid has broken, bent, lost, damaged, or outgrown countless glasses in the last three years.  Lenscrafters hates us because we cash in on their free repair/replacement policy about four times a year.  This time he needed a new prescription.  He was at the ophthalmologist a couple weeks ago and his glaucoma was under control but his nearsightedness had worsened by .75 in each eye.  We kind of guessed this was happening because we kept finding him sitting on a stool 16 inches in front of our 50" television and squinting while playing FIFA 14 Soccer on the PS3.

We've been too busy to get in to Lenscrafters so it comes down to Friday afternoon.  Brian is (of course) still working, Thomas is going to a haunted corn maze with a friend, Meredith is at the neighbors', Tinsaye found her own ride back and forth to soccer practice, and I yell outside, "Sol!  It's now or never!  Get in the van, we're going to get your glasses!"  Moaning, tears, agony...Mom just killed his epic game of football with Max on a beautiful October afternoon.

Like this is my idea of fun.  Spending my Friday night at the [grotequely consumerist monument to American excess] mall spending MORE money [that comes out of my persistently decreasing paycheck] on glasses that will [inevitably and prematurely] get destroyed [by a soccer ball, football, or brother].  Yeah, I know how to really rock a Friday night.

That is my normal rant, but the teeny, tiny, hideous whisper in the bottom of my brain that I try to ignore also adds "...for a kid that you CHOSE to adopt.  What else could you have done with your time and money if you didn't adopt him?"

This goes to the heart of every adoptive parent's greatest fear... regret.  A sickening form of 'buyer's remorse'.  Looking back at the series of well-intended choices you've made and thinking maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.  I believe it is the fear of encountering this regret that stops many people cold in their tracks as they consider adoption.  What if I never feel like this is "my" child?  What if I don't love him?  What if I change my mind?  Here's the really bad news:  even if you clear that hurdle and you do adopt and you do love him and his is your child and you don't change your mind, you will still occasionally hear that hideous whisper asking you "what if..."

I have found that the Hideous Whisper comes when I am tired in all the ways a person can be tired.  It comes when Brian and I are arguing about money.  It comes when I literally trip over all the bikes/shoes/balls in the garage or when I am running late because of too many kids too little time and I just can't get everyone where they need to be when they need to be there.  I'm at my limit and there is is:  "...what if...?"

Here's what I have learned though:  ignore it and wait.  

We get to the mall and walking in Solomon takes my hand.  He's my last hand-holding kid.  He's chattering away about something that happened at school, completely unaware of how much I love to hold that small brown hand and how precious it is to me and how deeply I am aware of the quickly approaching time when he would rather die than hold his mom's hand at the mall.  And then I feel the big, slow, heavy squeeze on my heart that puts a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

The Lenscrafter lady fits him for glasses and he asks nonstop questions:  where do they make the lenses?  where do they make the frames?  will they bend?  how does your computer measure my eyes?  and I watch him taking it all in and the Big Squeeze comes again and I wonder where all his questions will take him and I cannot wait to see what he does in this world.

Then we go to the food court and he is devouring a giant plate of Sesame Chicken.  Through a big grin with noodles hanging out of his mouth he says, "Hey mom, we're having a date!" and the Big Squeeze comes yet again.

Then he tries on his new glasses and with unbridled excitement he squeals, "that sign WAY OVER THERE says '50% off clearance frames'!!! I love these glasses!  Thank you Mom!" and I'm squeezed so hard I can hardly see through my tears to pay [with my Flex benefits card that was declined due to 'insufficient fund balance remaining']. 

When the Hideous Whisper of fear comes I ignore it and wait because I have learned that the Big Squeeze of love will always come and it will always be infinitely more powerful than the fear. 

Where the heck have you been?

So I love blogging and I used to have lots to say and post much more.... why have I come to a screeching halt?

My last post at the end of February was about managing my seasonal depression.  It got MUCH worse before it got better, I missed two weeks of work in March, but I survived until Spring Break.  I could write a whole post about depression, and maybe I will, but suffice it to say that I was just barely getting out of bed and managing to not cry.

We had a terrific cruise to the western Caribbean the first week of April and I felt like I could breathe again.

Then it was spring sports season:  Thomas played lacrosse, Tinsaye and Solomon played soccer.  No travel teams, nothing elaborate, but every single night was getting someone somewhere on time, with the right gear.  This also involved coordinating everyone's homework and projects so everything got done with whatever help was needed.  Plus dinner (must be healthy, inexpensive, reheatable and portable to accommodate whoever had to be somewhere or was coming home late).  All this after working all day.  And feeling crummy.
 
But more than anything else, my job completely sucked.  I'm not comfortable publishing too many details, but in a nutshell:  too many students, a few really awful parents, and a changing culture that has taken authority away from teachers and schools and expects no personal responsibility from or consequences for students.  Additionally, it appears that I have a complete inability to lower my standards and work less hard.  Top it off with the fact that I make less money every year and have no way to change that.  It was really, really bad.

However, I made it to June.  Somehow, we ALL made it to June.

You know what I've discovered in all this?  When our family was changing, when things were dramatic, I had a powerful sense that I was doing the right thing, that God was the driving force behind the miraculous stuff going on, that I could do it all with His help.  Brian and I were working together toward goals, seeing results, making things happen.  It was exciting!  When I was blown up or having a bad day, I still felt that push from God that He had a plan and I just had to rely on Him and I felt like I could do it.  This past year, nothing was new, changing, or dramatic.  It was just life.  Go to work/school, sports, homework, blah, blah, blah.  Kids need new shoes, buy a birthday present, we're out of bananas, reschedule the piano lesson, do a load of laundry.  "Pick up your coat, put that permission slip on the desk, no more cookies, clean out the litter box, and if I find toothpaste all over the bathroom again there are going to be some SERIOUS consequences!"  Nothing out of the ordinary was going on, I was just on the treadmill doing it all over and over every day.

I know this is where most people live most of their lives.  For me, this is WAY harder than living with some drama unfolding.  The monotony, the sameness, the static feeling makes me wonder why I'm doing it.  I very easily turn to self-pity and question the value of my days.  It feels like a spend all day at school saying the same things over and over to students who don't listen and then I go home and say the same things over and over to my kids who also don't listen.  Even worse, Brian feels the same way.  When we are being dragged down by the relentless kids-house-work-weekend grind we blame each other for our frustrations.  "If only you were more (fill in the blank), things would be better around here."  It's ridiculous, but we do it.

I want to rely on God more to show me the value and the joy in the boring stuff.  I need to pray more often for patience in the small and annoying things.  He has been so present, so powerful in all the big stuff, why do I think He's not around for the muddy shoes on the floor and the stupid snack I forgot to bring to soccer practice and the fourth reminder to practice your instrument?

This blog is called "Stepping Out Of The Boat", and we did a good job of that.  We stepped out, it turned out great, the end.  Only it's not the end:  the big drama is behind us and now we have to keep walking FOREVER with our eyes on the One who called us out and who is with us just as much now as He was then.  For some reason, I guess I forgot that when Peter got out of the boat he had to KEEP his eyes on Jesus to keep his head above water.  

I'm renaming this blog Stepping Out Of The Boat... and Then Continuing To Try To Not Fall Down And Drown While Walking For The Rest Of Your Life.  And now I'm going to try to do it. 

Winter Blues

January, February, and March are really terrible for me.  I struggle with seasonal depression and every year it gets a little worse.  January is usually pretty manageable because I get a decent momentum coming in from Christmas and I can generally count on a snow day or two.  March is usually super busy at school and that means more stress, but at least it goes by quickly, plus there's always at least a couple really sunny and warm days.  When Easter is early that helps too.  But there is just no getting around the fact that February is hideous.  It is cold, dark, gray, and ugly outside and somehow that just creeps inside me.  I always get sick in February and I don't get better for weeks.  My defective immune system is even more compromised when I am depressed.

This year has been the worst yet.  I wake up and sometimes lay there and cry because I can't face the day.   But I always manage to drag myself out of bed and put on my game face and use up every ounce of energy I have at school.  Then I come home and have nothing left emotionally for my family.  I am so tired I want to go directly to bed, but I manage to make dinner, get everyone where they need to be, pay the bills and answer the emails, then to to bed and start over the next day.  On the weekends, all I want to do is sleep.  I am in survival mode, and I am functioning so that everyone thinks it's all okay, but I am not enjoying anything and kind of avoid being with people.  Mostly I'd just rather sleep til spring.  Plus, we've had no snow days!  That's enough to make any teacher depressed!

Today is a good day.  I've upped my vitamin D and I'm forcing myself to exercise more.  I bought myself some new shoes this week which is really great because a) I actually wanted to go shopping and b) new shoes are a proven antidepressant (especially when you get them on clearance at DSW).  I spent and hour and half doing Tinsaye's hair this morning and I enjoyed my time alone with her and truly had fun.  When you are depressed, fun seems like something a million miles away.  I know I will feel down again, but today is good and I'm going to ride the wave.

I have so much to be grateful for that I feel bad about being depressed.  I don't talk about it with anyone except my sisters because there's nothing anyone can do and it somehow feels "weak".  Like if I could just pray harder or be more thankful I could just make it go away.  It's not completely debilitating because I manage to function, but the joy is missing.  Right now, I think it is just a chronic condition that I have to manage, like my arthritis.

The really good news is that in 35 days I will be laying on the deck of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship headed for Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, soaking up the sun and thinking about how I managed to make it through another winter. 

Why it's super cool to have ESL kids

I know that I'm supposed to be a loving mother and professional educator who respects the immense difficulty of children learning a new language.  But seriously, having English as a Second Language kids is really hilarious and very interesting to a word dork like myself. 

What is so funny is that they way they learned English is not the same way native speakers learned it.  They store words of similar sounds together in their brains, not necessarily having similar meanings.  For example, you probably have the words "lipstick" and "lip gloss" near each other in your brain.  Solomon has "lipstick" and "chopstick", "chapstick", and "ripstick" all stored in the same place (in case you don't have a boy in your house, a 'ripstick' is a cool new kind of skateboard with a pivoting center).  He often asks if he can eat his noodles with chapsticks or tells me that his lips are chapped and he needs lipstick or I kissed him and got chopstick all over his face.  He was mortified when we all laughed at him after we asked him what he wanted most for his birthday and he said, "A new lipstick!"  He is a really good sport about laughing at himself, and truly, his English is terrific.  He doesn't even qualify for English support anymore and hardly even has an accent.  But these odd little language quirks still happen and crack me up.

Tinsaye has had a harder time with English.  Her accent is still present and she still needs help in school.  Its unbelievable how much vocabulary we take for granted that kids know.  For example, she told me recently about a math test she took that one of the problems asked "Estimate the size of a blade of grass:  3 mm, 3cm, 3m or 3km".    She said, "I didn't know the word 'blade'.  I thought it meant like the big place of grass where you maybe play football or soccer...." I said, "You mean 'field'?"  She said, "Yes, 'field', but I didn't remember that word either, so I guessed 3km because that would be a really big grass place, but I was so scared that it was wrong so I asked my teacher what is 'blade' and he said it is the little stick of grass and then I was really happy I asked because I know it was NOT 3km for the small stick of grass it was 3cm and so I changed my answer and I got it right!"  She never used to want to ask for help, but fourth grade work is hard for her.  She has a lot of pride, but she has discovered that she'd rather feel dumb asking for help than feel dumb failing a quiz. 

Tinsaye's accent is still pretty heavy and somehow it gets more pronounced when she is angry.  We say she morphs from a nice American girl into The Angry Ethiopian.  She will come to me just howling with rage over something Thomas did to her (Thomas is always the instigator):  "Toe-mahs is making me so ingree!  He is always pooshing me and saying to me 'I get the rrrremote!" and I told him I vas vatching Vizzzzards of Vaverly Place and he said 'eees my turn, mom said' and I say 'noooo!' and he yinked the rrrrremote away and changed the channel to some stooopeeed  Deescohvery Channel show with bugs and when I got mad he is just LAUGHED at meeee!!"  It is very hard for me to not laugh too.  If I laugh, that is when The Angry Ethiopian morphs into The Sobbing Ethiopian.  That's not funny at all.   

MLK Day 2012

On Martin Luther King Day, 2010, we accepted the referral for Tinsaye and Solomon, forever changing all of our lives.  Here's the photo we had of them. 

All we knew was that they were brother and sister, mostly healthy, around 6 and 8 years old.  And that they needed a home.  Somehow, we said yes. 

On Martin Luther King Day, 2012, here is what they looked like:

 

 I often think "what if we had said 'no'?"  Where would they be today if our fear had been stronger than our faith?  If our worries had overcome our hope?  If the need for keeping things 'safe' and 'status quo' had been greater than our desire to do the right thing for people in need?   

More significantly, where would America be if Dr. King and all the civil rights activists had said 'no'?  If their fear and worry and safety had outweighed their faith and hope and action?  Personally, I know that we didn't act alone and I feel certain that they didn't either.  Their courageous choices changed the future. 

One of my favorite exhibits at The Henry Ford Museum is the Civil Rights exhibit.  When I see my four terrific kiddos hanging out of the window of the bus that Rosa Parks rode, I wish more than anything that I could go back in time to say thank you.  Her sacrifices made my family possible. 

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.