"Summer School" Needn't Be a Bad Word

A two-week hiatus from this blog can mean only one thing—summer has returned to the farm.

The cicadas have marched forth for their every thirteenth-year visit, filling our ears with a constant background hum.  Even from inside my house, it sounds like a slowly circling ceiling fan someone forgot to turn off somewhere deep in the forest. 

All flora that is going to wake up from its long winter’s nap has already done so with great flourish, highlighting how hard this past winter’s ice storm was on the land.  I cut these losses and bury more life within the warm earth, praying for the increase.

Then, there are the longer evenings when the coolness accompanying the descending sun re-energizes both old and young, calling us all to after supper tromps through the briar patch in search of luscious blackberries for cobbler and even later dips in the swimming pool. 

In the end, all this summer means the dinner table is oft left until long after we are mere shadows against the failing light and the mosquitoes come hunting, drawn to our sweat.

And in the midst of it all comes a transformation where oldest son’s days become mine again.  We become a round-the-clock family again—always in each other’s way, for better or worse. 

An empty calendar lays before me.  Two short months.  All in the time in the world is given to me as my children’s mother.  It is mine to use or to waste, to choose what has worth and what does not.  It is this choosing that has occupied my extra hours for well over a month now, determining what mommy’s summer school would look like.

However, it’s not so much a filling in of calendar blocks with activities that has consumed me, but slowly putting into place new habits for us to all begin practicing over the summer, habits that we won’t leave behind come August but that we will carry with us over the next year and into the years to come.

Earlier in 2014, our family instituted the evening thankful journal, teaching us all to change the way we look at life, to daily give gratitude to God and find the good even in the bad circumstances.  Those lists have slowly grown over the months so that even my youngest children have listed over 500 things they have been thankful for this year.  It has made a dramatic difference in our household.

This habit was quickly paired with a second one--family prayer time where no longer would the children simply listen to husband and me pray.  Instead, we began giving them a safe place to learn how to pray aloud every day, a place where it’s ok to whisper, “I don’t know what to pray for” and ok to forget somebody’s name and have to stop your prayer until mommy fills in the missing piece.   

Two weeks ago, our family began summer vacation early, adding a few more habits to our summer calendar.  The first involved memorizing Scripture, something I as a mother have always failed miserably at.  Upon looking into my boys’ RoyalAmbassadors troop activities, there was a goal of 75 verses a year.  Let's just say that number was more than a little intimidating for this mother of three young children.  But when I broke it down, I realized that would mean working with my children to memorize less than two Scripture verses a week.  Two.  Surely that was do-able? 

This week marks our third practicing of this new habit, and I’ve been surprised with my children’s youthful ability to memorize.  Starting Monday morning at the breakfast table, we begin practicing our two verses for our "test" each Friday.  I can see in my children's eyes that it means something that their mother is taking the plunge and learning alongside them.  I correct them when they miss a word and they correct me as well.  Together, we hide those words away in our hearts for the tough days this life will bring.

The second habit added to our summer calendar involves activities to help our children think beyond themselves and their immediate sphere of influence, to become more mission minded.  One way we are doing this is by learning and praying about the countries around the world, a different country each week.  Together, the children and I check out and read several books from our local library, cook at least one authentic recipe from There's a Missionary Loose in the Kitchen, and pray specifically for the country's needs as listed in Operation World.  Last week involved playing with a boomerang and watching The Rescuers Down Under as part of our study of Australia.  This week's Mexico theme found us making maracas and dressing up in a sombrero for a photo op.   

It's fun.  It's exciting.  The goal, though, is to develop little hearts that love the nations as Jesus does.

Add in a daily dose of math and English worksheets, VBS at Grandmama's, summer reading programs at the library, and a trip to see Aunt Liza at the beach, and summer will be here and gone before I know it.

In the past, I have struggled with the months of June and July.  Summer has always been about do, do, do...along with the accompanying guilt over "what I didn't get to do."  But this year, I am trying to change the purpose of these months.  It's no longer about squeezing in as much as possible as it is about using that more relaxed space of time to develop life-changing habits, habits that we can take forward as a family throughout the rest of the year.

Finding Grace In the Sorrow

Death is common to children raised on a farm.

Those tiny baby bird eggs that fell out of the nest in today's wind storm?  Yes, it's probably too late, but yes, it's also okay if Opa helps put them back in the nest "just in case."

The football sized bumblebee barely moving on the carport?  Yes, he's really dying, but yes, it's also okay if you make him a comfortable habitat in an empty milk carton until he dies. 

Those two baby chicks crumpled and still in the corner of their pen?  No, they're not sleeping.  They're already dead. That's why God hatches so many.

Although the lady in the feed store tried to shoo my kids to another aisle once she realized there were dead chicks in the pen, I have never shielded my children from death.  To them, death has been presented as simply a part of life, not at all how God intended life to be but just how it is as a consequence of Adam and Eve's choice to sin in the garden. 

When they were still toddlers, I began taking my three children to wakes and funerals with me, not because I couldn't find a babysitter but because I wanted them to encounter death before someone of monumental importance to them died.  I didn't hold them in the far back of the room either, away from the open casket.  Tiny hands gripped tightly in mine, I would march my brood forward, then give them time to look at the shell of the person I had loved and to ask me questions.  By age two, one of my children would explain to anyone who would listen that the person in the coffin wasn't "in there" anymore.  He had "hatched."

As a result of this matter of fact attitude, I routinely find my children having "funerals" in the backyard.  Heaven only knows how many dead beetles, caterpillars, and lizard heads they've buried with my garden trowel in too-shallow graves.

As much as they understand death, though, that doesn't mean we don't cry.  That doesn't mean we aren't sad and sometimes even angry.  That doesn't mean we don't wish death didn't exist.  It simply means we understand just how much different what should be and what is are.  And it makes us long even more for the day when Jesus returns and death is no more.

Today was one of those days when the sting of death hit our whole family hard.  And yet, even in an afternoon of soul-crushing little girl tears and big boy clingy-ness, the children and I were able to see God's mercy and grace.

That heavenly grace started flowing early in the morning when husband decided to go in late to work in order to mow the lawn before the rains hit, something he never does.

An hour later, my daughter and I found Anya, my oldest son's three year old cat.  Although there were no physical marks on her Russian blue fur, it was obvious she was in bad shape, the result of a brief attack by my in-law's dog.

As I sat on the floor and ran my hand down her back, I knew it was too late.  But because he was at home, husband was able to take her to the vet.  There, the doctors were flummoxed over how no external damage could had resulted in such internal damage. 

Two hours later, they took her back to surgery and discovered the reason--her intestines were eaten up with cancer. Just as happened almost four years ago with our first cat, she simply never woke up.

Even amidst an afternoon of tears and Wyatt's sorrowful questions about "who will sleep on my bed with me?," "who will wake me up every morning?," and "who will eat cheese with me?," I was able to communicate how God had allowed this horrible thing to happen in order to save Anya a lot of pain and suffering since we wouldn't have known about the disease until she had suffered greatly.

It is that knowledge of grace and mercy that makes it a little easier even for this mother when the back of the sofa is empty tonight.  In that knowledge was even thankfulness as Amelia gave thanks that we "found Anya" and that she didn't simply disappear without us ever knowing what happened.

When the lights go down for the evening, I snuggle with my big boy and pull the universe beneath our chins.  He speaks of Hannah waking him up this morning, of her already filling Anya's paws.  Right on cue, her hulking calico form leaps onto the bed and comes to sit Sphinx-style on his chest, begging for love and attention in exchange for her rumbling purr and affection.

In that moment, we both can't help but smile and share a giggle, that gaping hole in our hearts taking its first step towards healing.



Images: Anya looking at the window at the birds & happier days with a mound of freshly harvested catnip.

An Act of Faith

The children are all tucked away in bed when I finally reach into the mail slot by the back door where husband leaves the day's offerings.  

Usually, it's just bills, insurance confusion, and enough junk mail to make me feel guilty about how many forests have been killed on my account.  But today, there's a card addressed to my three children.

I check the return address and pause.  It takes a few seconds, but the synapses finally fire.  It's a card from Liza and Johnathan, my brother and sister in love.  "How sweet," I think, and put it to the side for the children to open tomorrow morning.

Half an hour later, I glance at the unopened envelope again, my brain jolting with the realization of why it took me so long to reconcile the address with my brother and his wife.  This isn't from Liza.  This isn't her large swirling font that always fills each line to capacity.  What's more, where the stamp should be, the word "FREE" is handwritten in purple, something my unconscious recognized as "wrong" enough to make me pause even though my conscious was kept in the dark. 

The tiny, cramped handwriting belongs to Johnathan, my brother tucked halfway around the world on the U.S.S. Bataan. 

I rip open the card, no matter that it's not really addressed to me.  I drink in every word, searching for something in the nothing he's written but still thankful for the words sent our way, only the second piece of mail from him thus far.

Since Johnathan deployed in February, our family has made more trips to the local post office than normal.  In fact, the last time I was on a first name basis with a postal worker was before Johnathan was married during a tour in Iraq.

Each week, the twins and I make the trek down to the beige building with the flag flapping in the breeze overhead.  We give of our time to send love his way, the only thing we can do other than pray, a second gift of love we offer as a family each night. 

In the envelopes, I include a handwritten letter, a story or drawing the children made, and whatever nonsense and goodies can fit to send across the ocean.

Patriotic twizzlers, 400 tootsie pops with Bible verses attached, jelly beans, and 1000 piece puzzles to help pass the time.  I hand it all across the counter, pay the postage, and trust that my package will reach him.

As Oliver O'Toole says in Hallmark's sappy new television show about the dead letter division of the U.S. Postal Service, "Putting a stamp on a letter and sending it out there into the world is an act of faith."

I'd never thought of it that way before, but the quotation has resonated with me ever since.

An act of faith.

It's not just snail mail, though.  My texts and emails require that faith, too, a faith that my words will reach their destination.  I send them out, assume the recipient has read my words, and move forward.

A week before Easter, though, that faith was being tested daily.  My brother hadn't received any of my packages.  It had been two months with my weekly sending of letters, and still, nothing.  That faith in the U.S. Postal service waned a good bit as the children and I (along with my mother and his mother-in-law) wondered where all our mail was going!?

On Good Friday, Johnathan walked into his cabin to find his bunk covered in boxes--all the missing packages we'd sent so far had all arrived at once.  The next day, all our letters arrived in bulk, too....just in time for Easter.

Talk about perfect timing.

It is an act of faith for me to send a letter forth into the world.  But it's not faith in the postal service.  It's faith in the sovereignty of God.

In God's sovereignty, He knew my brother would be most lonely at Easter, a time when we usually celebrate together as a family.  And so, God allowed the mail to be crazy delayed and all arrive at once, at the perfect time to surround my brother at Easter time with the love of His family.

There's another box on my table waiting for me to send it on its way, hopefully in time for my brother's birthday in June.  But if it doesn't reach him by then, that's ok, too.  My faith is in the One who determines when and if it arrives, not in the one who cancels the stamps on my package.

The Value of Ten Minutes

"Mommy, can you snuggle with me?" my oldest son asks. 

I instinctively glance towards the clock, its rigid hands like angry eyebrows ever chastising me for my tardiness.  No matter how diligently I try, most nights find us finishing bedtime routine a few minutes behind schedule.  This night is much the same, the great marker of time reminding me I'm already four minutes late in getting everyone in bed because prayer time and thankful journals ran long .

Time, though, is meaningless to the young.  Wyatt hops from one bare foot to the other, his expectant eyes searching my face as he waits impatiently for an answer.

I know those sparkling eyes, that smile I can chase away with a solitary cross word.

"Wyatt......." I begin.

What he doesn't realize is that while my body may still be sitting in repose on the sofa, my mind has already somersaulted far ahead to evening chores--to the day's dishes stacked and waiting to be put away in the kitchen; to the great scattering of books needing to be cleared from the living room floor; to the three classes of papers waiting to be downloaded and graded; to the private time with husband after listening ears are deafened by sleep's call; to the warm, uninterrupted soak to draw out the day's tensions...

So much going and doing almost swallows up this opportunity.  But then I glimpse those legs stretching tall and remember.  He's seven and a half.  There will be a day soon when he will no longer ask me this question.    There will all too soon come a time when I won't have a chance to say no or yes.

And so, I bite back the words already on my tongue and simply nod, agree to a few minutes.  I slowly pull myself to my feet, stretching spring's labor-stiffened muscles after him.  Wyatt skips ahead, light on joyful feet that eagerly join with mine beneath a blanket of brightly colored planets and a zillion points of light.

There with swirling galaxies drawn up to our chests, we curl together.  He talks.  I listen, only commenting every now and then or making small sounds to show I'm still listening even if my eyes are closed.  Mostly, though, I just listen.  Ten minutes go by, then fifteen as he leapfrogs from one subject to the next.

I stroke his forehead, run my hand through his hair, memorize the silhouette of his small nose and chin.  The whites of his eyes glow in the blue aura cast by the nightlight as he tells me imaginary stories or real events from his other life at school.  He asks questions about God, about people, about his future.  All the while, I drink in the smoothness of his still-little-boy skin, the sweet smell of freshly washed hair.

When the pauses between topics begin to grow, I kiss his forehead, whisper my love, and bid him sweet dreams.  Even in the darkness,  I can see his lips curve into a pleased smile as he whispers the same to me, tugs the universe up to his chin, and burrows down deeper into the heaviness of sleep.

The next night and the next night are much the same.  By night three of Wyatt's asking, the twins begin parroting his request for the same affection.

Snuggling with my youngest son is like trying to hug a small kitten, both of them too full of life to be still for long.  Emerson chatters just like Wyatt, only with more urgency, an endless stream of words needing to be heard.  They pour out in a lazy stream of consciousness style but with the force of an active five year old who lacks volume control.  His only pauses come when I brush his cheek, a genuine smile short-circuiting his thought processes, impeding his ability to speak for a few seconds.

My daughter, though, is silent.  When I leave behind the dark blue galaxies to wrap myself all in pink butterflies...when I bend my head to smell her hair, she draws closer than the boys, buries her head into my neck and sighs soft, simply needing a mother's close touch and not a mother's listening ear.  The only time she speaks is when the cat sneaks in the cracked door and meows to question why I'm here instead of downstairs.  Amelia giggles and runs her fingers through the short, gray fur walking across her tummy.

I kiss her sweaty forehead and slip away from the sparkles and pastels.  "Good night, mommy," she says, smiling that same contented smile that was on the boys' faces minutes before.

This night, the visits are shorter, but their length doesn't seem to matter.  It's just my presence that is needed, a few minutes of individual attention when I'm all theirs--for listening, for answering, for just a small bit of affection.

I don't know how long this phase will last when they ask for a few minutes extra with their mother at the end of the day.  What I do know is what my response will be.

"Yes.  I have a few minutes for you."

When Children are Reluctant to Grow Up

There's a pile of training wheels on my carport--six now useless plastic wheels cast off like prison chains, evidence that three bikes have been freed from their shackles and received their walking papers to fly.

To anyone else, the tangle of worn-down plastic and steel may look like worthless scrap metal destined for the garbage heap or the dark recesses of some shed where rust corrupts the unused parts of our lives.  But to a mother, it serves as another sweet memento of childhood's passing.

Last Thursday, this mother brought out her toolbox and forcefully removed these safety measures from the twins' bikes.   One wheel was quite determined to fight against its freedom, requiring a few kicks to the wrench (something I'm sure their daddy wouldn't do!)

Always riding big brother's coat tails, Emerson was ready.  Less than half a dozen motherly pushes, and he was down the quarter-mile drive to Opa's house with the smell of Oma's after-school brownies pushing him onward.

Amelia, though, wasn't so confident.  She is my seemingly fearless princess trying to keep up with the boys playing in the mud.  But, like her mother, she is my uncertain child who never quite trusts herself, who has to be convinced she can do whatever it is, especially if there is a good chance of getting hurt. In other words, she's the one I'm constantly having to shove out of the nest.

Over and over, she sees the possibility of danger out of the corner of her eye and stops peddling, causing crashes that could have easily have been avoided had she simply kept going.

That first night after doing little more than pedaling a few feet and then crashing because of her lack of confidence, she is inconsolable.  Evening prayers are followed by a sobbing little girl blubbering about how she is scared and doesn't want to ride again without her training wheels.

I shrug. Sure.  If she really doesn't want to learn to ride without them, I'll put them back on in the morning...if she's really sure.

The sobs subside a bit.  Apparently, this mama has given in too easily, unexpectedly.

"Are you sure," I ask, forcing her to meet my eyes to show her I'm serious.

Her eyes drop and her voice squeaks.  "Well, maybe....."

A weekend later, my frog princess smooths down her purple top and hitches up the pink butterfly skirt, all the while talking encouragement to herself as she's heard me do so often. Over and over, she yells in triumph as she makes it to the first curve in the drive...and then walks the bike back to me for help in starting again.

Learning to ride your bike is a rite of passage, much like learning to walk and learning to drive a car. 

This rite involves overcoming one's fear of falling, crashing, and just generally getting dinged and dented in the process.  It requires learning to trust the one holding you upright on those inaugural voyages and then learning to trust yourself and continue along the path when you realize that support has unknowingly set you free.

 Sounds a lot like life lessons in general to me.

In the end, my two little children are free.  Unshackled.  Faster than they ever believed possible when still chained down.  And so proud of themselves for succeeding when they weren't sure they could.

The One New Habit You Need in 2014

 

February 22, 2014.  A little over six weeks ago.  That was the first evening I gathered the entire family together after bath time to begin a new habit I hoped would transform my children (and me in the process).  There in the upstairs foyer, I sat on the sofa atop beige throw pillows while the children sprawled across the floor, composition notebooks opened and freshly sharpened pencils in each small hand. 

Husband had a hard time weaving his way through the lanky legs waving in the air, each child oblivious to how long his (and her) appendages had become.  Still, he managed the obstacle course to squeeze in beside me on the sofa.  I smiled, a bit sheepish, as I handed over his notebook…brown and blue paisley with a blue butterfly, the most manly cover I could find at our local store that seemed to carry only florals and puppies.

Days before, my oldest son had experienced another after-school meltdown of the Chicken Little variety.  “Nobody likes me.  Nothing good ever happens to me.  Why oh why do only bad things always happen to only me?”  Yeah--the kind of meltdown that makes mothers roll their eyes, especially when such drama comes on the tail end of fabulous hours, days, or even entire weeks.

Wyatt has always been a “what if” doomsday kind of child, the type who can let a solitary word or action ruin an entire day, spiral him downward into a funk that only a good night’s rest can break him free from.  This inability to see the forest for the trees—he gets it from me.  Sometimes, I, too, can’t see past the “have not’s” in my life.

And so for months, Wyatt and I had talked about how things really were versus how they felt to him.  Seated together on his bed, we would remember aloud happy memories.  It got to where we were praying every single day about his attitude.  I was diligently striving to teach him how to ask for God’s help in remembering the truth and the good things in life when all he could see was how bad everything “always” was.

One afternoon in a particularly teary encounter caused by someone saying something mean to him on the school bus, he confessed that he had been asking God to help his attitude.  He had prayed.  “I try! I really am!” he explained.  “But what if I just can’t remember?”

And that’s when the “Thankful Journal” was born.  The very next morning, the twins and I made a special trip to the store for no other reason than to pick up five notebooks.  That first night, I explained to Wyatt (and the rest of the family) that this would be a new family habit every night.

If I expected a sudden miracle, I would have been disappointed.  Two days later, Wyatt had another meltdown.  This time, I sent him to get his journal. 

“How is this going to help?” he scoffed, but he sat and read it anyway.  There was no sudden magic that day.  His mood continued, as usual, but it did fade by the time we gathered to write our thanks again. 

Since then, I have noticed a distinctive change in both my oldest son and in me.  No matter how hard a day we have had, forcing ourselves to write down a minimum of four things we are thankful for at the end of each day really does make a difference.

The past six weeks have been filled with one sickness after another—stomach flu, strep throat, pink eye, sinus infection, fever virus.  You name it.  All three children plus husband have had it.  And yet, sometimes it’s on those nights when we are all at our sickest that we are able to come up with the most things to be thankful for…in spite of the illness.

Each evening since February 22, we five move upstairs together, no matter how busy we are or what else is awaiting our attention.  Emails pause mid-creation, phone calls go to voicemail, and even books must wait for the last page.

There between the sofa and “naughty bench,” we think, write, and share.  Then, after everyone has read his or her list, we quiz each other to see if we can name one thing each person is thankful for.  This helps keep the seven and under crowd’s attention in a competitive sort of way, but I’m always astonished at the particular item they each remember, which reveals more about them than they realize.

 

After just six weeks, I feel closer to my children, knowing what they are thankful for.  In the beginning, they would write only tangible things like “popsicles” or “Hotwheels,” but now they give thanks for things like “hug from mommy when I got off the bus” or even things that made someone else happy like “Emerson learning to ride his bike with no training wheels.”  This branching out of gratitude for something that happened to someone else is what I love the most.

What’s more, I feel closer to my husband.  Unlike me, he’s not one to walk around giving words of affirmation for every little thing.  Now, though, I get to hear him give voice to what he’s thankful for each day, making me feel that he is more connected to our family and how much he does love us all.

The biggest change, though, has been in Wyatt.  In only six weeks, he’s closing in on 500 things he’s thankful for, his siblings not too far behind him.  The Chicken Little moods have stopped, and when he does have a bad day, it is no longer all consuming.

The sad thing is I had read Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts four years ago when it first came out.  I had applied to my own life its view of being thankful even in the small things, of looking for God in everything good and everything bad.  It changed me back then.  And yet, I had neither taken the time to actually write down my gratitude nor to include my husband and children in the habit.

The notorious “they” say you know it’s a habit when it feels weird to not do it.  The kids will tell you--we're there.   

This is one habit I hope to keep forever and one I'd love to see you share with your own family.  It has brought us closer as a family and helped us give thanks even when we thought we had none to give on a particular day.

Photos: (1) Our journals. (2) Some of Wyatt's thankful list--sometimes he writes, other times, he dictates.  (3) Emerson, age 5, adding another thing to his list. 

Running Away from Home

My bag is packed and waiting by the door.  Handwritten notes sit on the gathering table for every single person in our family (including one final "to do" checklist for myself).   All that remains is to wait the final few hours until I leave all three children at home with their daddy for two days....and then to stop myself from texting him every five minutes to make sure everything is ok during that time.

This is one of those occasions when I must demonstrate confidence and trust in my spouse by not micromanaging or second guessing his every choice...by simply letting him be a father to his children (and trusting that my heavenly Father will help this earthly father not let the house burn to the ground).

This "trusting" is hard. It's not that my husband is a bad father; he's actually quite wonderful, and the children are excited at just the thought of this special time with daddy.  

It's just that he's not a mother.

It's taken me years to realize that the skills needed to successfully mother a brood of children are inextricably wound into my female DNA.  What comes naturally to me is so foreign to him, no matter how many times I try to explain it and teach him the tricks of the trade to make parenting easier.

The when's and how's of showing mercy and dropping the axe elude him.  The carefully crafted "rules of the farm" that harmonize together into a beautiful symphony sometimes seem arbitrary to him...until he sees the train wreck resulting from the withdrawal of a single instrument.

He dresses our children every Saturday and yet still has no idea whose clothes are whose and which are for on-the-farm filthiness and which are for "town only."  Unlike a mother, he doesn't naturally think five steps ahead to know that the day after a rainstorm, you should never allow the children to wear light colors because of the mud that will somehow leap off the ground by itself (much like that golden calf that leapt out of the fire) and onto their clothes. 

Worse, husband doesn't have that mom radar to be able to tell when the kids are lying, doesn't know their hiding places when they're supposedly "out of earshot," and doesn't understand that an "I don't know" answer almost always means "I don't want to tell you" nor how to use the "mommy glare" to pull the real story from a five year old's mouth.  

And so, I write notes to my children, giving each of them specific responsibilities to remind daddy of X, Y, and Z over the next two days.  I then check and double check my list to husband in an attempt to write down everything I can possibly think of to ward off every probable disaster.

What to do if someone spikes a fever.  Who gets what medications and when.  When to ask the doctor for a shot and when to ask for horse pill (not the liquid!) antibiotics.  Who gets to stop eye drops for pink eye on Friday and who still has to take them no matter what they say. 

I breathe deep, remembering how I  wasn’t even out of the driveway last Saturday on my way to a luncheon ten minutes away and number one son was already “missing.”

But even though he doesn't know all the house rules by heart, even though my laundry pile will likely be more "interesting" than usual, and even though sugar/McDonald's will definitely be classified as a new food group, I relinquish the mom hat and put husband fully in charge, trusting the man I love to do his very best...and relying on God to take up the slack.