SERMONS ON ASCENDING

Don't Be a JIVETURKEY!

2010-11-24T17:51:00.000-08:00

I like to make lists. Not to-do lists, but to-done lists. As in ta-da! It makes me feel productive, as though I've accomplished something. One of my best friends recently told me her ex-boyfriend once asked her (about me), "But what does she do all day?"

Hmmm. Let's see:

Today I made breakfast for three, cleaned up afterward, then took the kids to Target for some last minute shopping which included locating a birthday gift for my father-in-law. Grabbed some Subway with the kids, let them take a lap around the toy store which meant I had to "look at this!" and "check this out!" and "can't I please?" times two, mind you. Then we hit Ten Thousand Villages where I picked out my own anniversary gift (ALPACA GLOVES hand-knit in the Andes!) before heading into the HELL we usually refer to as the grocery store. But this is the day before Thanksgiving and in that spirit people were mowing down their neighbors for parking spots and throwing elbows over canned pumpkin. Good times.

At home I guided four little hands in making two Orange-Scented Dark Chocolate Shortbreads, prepared cranberry sauce from scratch, and prepped for the garlic mashed potatoes I'll make in the morning. I cleaned a knee boo boo and made it all better. Not one of the kids' knees, but the Mr's. Darn those tricky razor scooters. After dinner, I gave the dog a bath, and packed my suitcase for our anniversary weekend at the cabin. I washed and dried mine and the Mr's down puffer coats. I finished as much laundry as necessary to pack the kids for their weekend away at the grandparents house. I scrubbed the bathtub, ran a hot bath, filled it with epsom salts and flung myself into it. Then I tucked my babies in bed (grumpy, and in tears because they were called down for acting a-fool!), wrapped both my mother-in-law's birthday gift and my father-in-law's gift and my husband's anniversary gift, too! Shhh. He gets mad when spend money on him. This time I practically didn't spend any thing, but still it's something. And I bought a card, too! And then I sat down to blog all about it to you, my six faithful readers.

Mr. Ex-boyfriend of my dear friend, I say to you...there is a reason you are single! Ha!

Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll. And remember, don't be a JIVETURKEY!

Tales of a Volunteer

2010-07-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

This morning I searched the arrest records as I do most every morning. I was so disappointed to see the mug shot of one of my birth mothers. I had been lobbying hard for her to get her kids back, coaching her on the phone for an upcoming job interview, etc. I requested an early court hearing so we could reunify her with the girls before the school year begins. This way the kids wouldn't have to switch schools in the middle of the school year. She had done so well! She had separated from the abuser, moved house, changed her phone number and mostly, she was the only birth mom that I have seen that had that "thing." You know, that thing a mom either has or doesn't have when it comes to her children. It either rocks your world when your children are taken from your care and you get your act together, or it doesn't. It rocked her world. She couldn't have faked that.

So this arrest was for larceny. Apparently it's shoplifting unless you are caught outside the store with it, then it's a misdemeanor. What's so disheartening about this is that I spent about a half hour on the phone with her a few weeks ago encouraging her to keep the kids away from her sister who had recently been arrested for discharging a firearm in the city, hit and run, damage to personal property, etc. I told her it was important that her sister not be there during her overnight visits with her kids. We talked about the importance of staying out of trouble. She called me a few weeks later and asked if I would run a background check on her like I did her sister. When I first confronted her about her sister's arrest, she initially thought I had just been "poking around in other people's business" but soon realized that I was trying to help her stay on track to get her kids back and looking out for their safety. She had a job interview the next day with a company that she said paid really well and she really wanted it. That job paid 13.00 per hour. How little must this single mother of two currently make if this paltry salary is substantially more? I explained to her that I didn't run any background checks on her sister, but that I check the arrest records every morning and I came across her sister's arrest there. I knew her sister's face because she always attends court hearings with the birth mom and they share the same last name. But you see, the birth mother herself had been arrested a few years back for a misdemeanor charge of assault because of a fight with an ex-girlfriend of her now ex-boyfriend/abuser. I coached her, I said to be honest if it comes up. I told her to be humble, but confident because everyone makes mistakes. Not all of us, however, get caught. She wanted this job so badly, but feared her record would cause them to turn her down. You see, she wanted to know if it showed up in a background check.

Reading through her DSS file, I saw where she told the social worker that she likes nice things for herself and her children and also where she said she doesn't care how her boyfriend (at the time) makes his money as long as he gives her money. For the record, he sells drugs and that was the point of their discussion. I thought about the pressure we all feel to have this or that, to look as though we live a certain way, to feel as if we live better than we do. Sometimes it does seem impossible that our situations will ever change. I've wanted things bad enough to steal them and steal them I did. That might be shocking to most of you, but more than one of you reading this right now did it right alongside me! But how old were we? Certainly not in our 20s! We weren't even poor or without hope! And for those that were caught, you were young enough that it doesn't affect your employment options today. I wasn't caught, but I was guilty. Thankfully, I have grown into a person that can't even lift an old magazine from a doctor's office.

I don't know what this means for her or for these kids. I'm just glad I'm not the judge. I do feel sad for her though. Even her mother (the children's grandmother!) seems to get arrested on a pretty regular basis. Both her babies fathers have spent time in prison for selling drugs. Is this type of crime something viewed as "normal" within the confines of a socio-economic group? It's a topic in which I am not even qualified to sound off. But I'm thinking about it. It's on my mind. My heart is open and I am hoping for the best for all of them.

Update: Upon doing a little research, I saw that the abuser (the father of the youngest) was arrested again the very next day on charges of marijuana possession.

HOPE

2010-05-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

Hope burns brightly in the face of fear. What else do we have to cling to when we are suffering, when we are terrified? Without hope, can a person rise to the occasion in the midst of a personal crisis? Without hope, wouldn't we just fold? Wouldn't we settle? Wouldn't we most likely take the path of least resistance, deeming every other path to be more work than its possible pay off? Without hope, would we have the courage to do the right thing when the right thing feels anything but right?

I know my answer to all the above. My hope comes from what I know about God. And just in case you didn't already know, I don't really fit into any kind of spiritual box and I don't think Jesus did during his time on earth either. I'm not interested in spiritual debates, not because I'm closed-minded, but because I know that no amount of persuading can equal the belief that comes when the voice of God finally reverberates in the hollowed out places of the soul.

My friend is hurting. She's in pain and I can't fix it. I can't fix the broken heart of her man that ultimately led to her currently broken life. I can be hopeful and I can remind her where her hope lies. I can listen, I can pray. I can make her laugh. What I can't seem to do is understand, no matter how undisturbed by passion the relationship, how a person can ruin the innocence of one's own young children and steal their childhood by walking away from their marriage right into the arms of another person and think that somehow the misplaced affection will fix all their broken places. Twenty, thirty years ago? Maybe we didn't know better. We didn't have enough distance yet to see the damage of this new way of thinking. But now we do. Can you move through this world without hearing about Hollywood's failed attempts at family? After all, celebrity divorces regularly make the CNN ticker these days. I fear judgment, I do. So, I'm not meaning to judge; I just don't understand. Maybe I should be jaded, after all, I have seen my fair share of failed marriages up close. But I'm not jaded. I have hope and I have it in spades. Easy for me to say though, seeing as how I'm not the one clinging to it for dear life.

High Fidelity is one of my most favorite movies, after all, it has the element of this subject AND the element of music. John Cusack's character finally figures out that the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence. There is no electrifying connection beyond the immediate thrill of newness. In the end he says, "I'm tired of the fantasy, because it doesn't really exist." I hope and pray my friend's husband comes to this conclusion, finds his source of hope and returns to his family. I hope my step dad gets there, too and maybe even decides there is room for me in his life again. I hope and pray my children grow up to know this innately and just never go there...never go there because fidelity and family is all they have ever known. I hope.

Loyal Geese & Yoga

2010-05-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Two geese were sitting right outside the door of the yoga studio tonight when I arrived. I thought it was odd and I commented to the attendant. She told me they had been there since about 5:00. I went on into class and when I came out an hour later, I saw that the wing of one goose just wasn't sitting at the right angle. Then it hit me, one goose was hurt and it's mate had been sitting vigil for nearly five hours. I went back in and told the yoga instructor what I suspected and asked if she would call the raptor center. She was eager to help and I felt sure she would follow through. If that goose can be rehabilitated, I hope they take the pair together. Would they think of that? Why can't I sleep for not knowing?

Securing Faith

2009-08-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Security is defined as freedom from danger or as a place of safety, as freedom from cares or the absence of anxiety and doubt. Security is sometimes seen as a well-founded confidence or as an object that secures. Some people relate the feeling of security to what they recall of their childhood. And then there are those of us who know it only as “a state of being” that has eluded us for a lifetime.

My mom says I came into this world rather reluctantly, and not just because I was born late either. She said to me, “there I was all excited to hold my baby girl... only to discover you had no interest in being held at all.” The only way I’d take my bottle is if she propped me up so I could feed it to myself... and according to family lore, I always kept people at arm’s length; especially the men in the family.

Mom loves to tell the story about the time when I was only the tiniest little 3 year-old girl and we had this huge German shepherd, named Sox. He was a massive dog and so regal looking. He had the typical coloring of his breed, but all four of his paws were white, and that’s how he got his name. My only sibling, my sister Angie, was six years older than me and so it was Sox that was my constant companion. I woke up early one morning, got out of bed, put Sox on his leash and went out the back door of our apartment. My parents woke up a while later and discovered that I was nowhere to be found. They ran outside, I would imagine, frantically, calling my name. They found me, more than few doors down, having breakfast on the back of porch of elderly male neighbor of whom they did not know, but with whom I had become friendly. Sox lay on the ground right there by my side. If I could remember this, it would be my favorite memory. I’m guessing that, in my smallness, I felt safe next to the intimidating size of my dog, even back then.

Not too long after that we moved to a house right on Lake Norman in a tiny town called Denver, North Carolina. We had what was, without a doubt, the ugliest looking house on the street. It was a boxy, brown, two-story house with a garage that had one of those decks on top that looked fine until you put some furniture on it. The walls were covered in both gold shag carpet and brown, floral, foiled wall-paper. The inside of the house was decorated with abstract art, heavy wooden furniture and thick upholstery, which seemed almost in direct opposition to the bright green pines, red clay mud and blue water of its landscape. At the entrance of our neighborhood there were open fields of tall, itchy grass that spread out for what seemed like forever. This provided plenty of burial ground for all the cats that the neighborhood dogs would kill and the neighborhood kids would haul up the hill to bury in shoe boxes. I remember one time when Sox came home with one of his ear's half torn off. He'd been in a dog fight, too, but unlike the cats, he'd won; or at least he’d survived. This was life before leash laws in Lincoln County. It was play outside at your own risk, and we did; but I had Sox.

I was five years-old and sitting alone at the breakfast bar eating Capt'n Crunch cereal and drinking OJ out of one of those Smurf cartoon glasses from Hardees. The cereal used to tear at the skin on the roof of my mouth and the OJ would sting the rawness as I drank it. I knew something wasn't right, mom had been sad, really sad and Angie had been angry, really angry. Dad came in and knelt down beside me. He told me he was going away for a while and that Sox was going with him, but I would see them both again real soon. “Like a vacation?” I asked. He said, yeah, sort of. I think he hugged me and I’m pretty sure he looked sad and that must have been what gave him away. I know I smiled, which would have spread the freckles wide across my face. Then he probably reached up and smoothed away the dirty blondish colored-hair that hung straight down on either side of my face just like a curtain; a curtain that would close whenever I looked downward. I must have understood the reaction he needed from me; a non-reaction. So, I waited and then I cried at the sight of his broad back. Another spoonful of cereal and another sip of OJ would bring the stinging comfort of what would soon become a familiar pain.

By the time I turned seventeen we had moved twelve times and I had never attended the same school more than two years in a row. I was perpetually the new girl in school yet it didn't occur to me then that was probably the reason I could never find a place to fit in. I thought it was me, that there was something wrong with me because I always ended up orbiting the outskirts of all these tightly wound circles of friends. I’d sit in class with my hands in my lap and repeatedly crack my knuckles hard, and then wring my hands until the skin there would dry out and crack and bleed. This secret self-inflicted pain gave me something else to feel, it was familiar and distracting. In every neighborhood we lived in, I would find some grandfatherly man, grandmotherly woman or elderly couple to befriend. I was always searching for some peace, some truth, some measure of comfort, and I thought it might be found somewhere in the warm wisdom of their aging eyes.

Years later, during yet another time of uncertainty and transition in our family, I was living out of a suitcase in my grown sister’s home. She, like many other twenty-something’s, spent most nights at her boyfriend’s house and I slept alone in her bed. When she did come home, and planned to be there for the night, there was one sign I always looked for; her ring. It would lay on the bathroom counter by the sink. It was unlike every dainty thing I’d ever owned. It had a rather masculine, wide gold band with three square emeralds down the middle and three horizontal rows of diamonds on either side. The ring itself seemed to possess strength; it had a real presence. It was substantial looking. I loved it when she was home. It was like a more slumber party, but it felt like home and to me, the ring became a bearer of good news. Nearly a decade later, after I’d become a working, married mother of two, with a home of my own, my sister and I stood in her closet attempting to accessorize my suit before an important meeting. We were looking through her jewelry when I saw the ring for the first time in years. I stared at it for a moment and just let that familiar feeling wash over me. I told her about the memories it brought back. She just smiled and nodded. When I turned thirty that summer she presented me with a small box and a card. The card read, Dear Shel, this ring never meant anything to me until it meant something to you. Wear it in good health. Love, Angela.

I was the kid with the woobie. It started out as a velvet pillow in a nappy pillow case and then later on, I adopted a white full-sized cotton blanket. It was my security blanket. I went on to be the college kid with the woobie. Even on my wedding day I packed the woobie in the suitcase, where later that night, stuffed down in the bottom of the bed it would en-circle the ankles of my new husband in a gesture of welcome. It had always given me a feeling of comforting familiarity, during times when things were far from comfortable or familiar. I continued to sleep with it and travel with it long after I remembered why I’d began doing it in the first place: On girls’ trips to the mountains, Christmases at my in-laws’s house, business trips to Manhattan, even while six months pregnant with my own child.

Surely, all those years I must have believed in God, because I whispered and sometimes even shouted my prayers. Yet, I held on tight to the leash, to the ring, to the woobie. I knelt and prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep” and yet, in childhood and in the decades to come, I continued to join my parents every time they boarded the roller coaster ride of alcoholism, extramarital affairs and multiple divorces. In the absence of their peace, I never experienced the feeling of being free from my cares, anxiety and doubts. Security never revealed itself in the wisdom of aging eyes, in the familiarity of my self-inflicted pain, in twisting the coolness of diamonds and emeralds between warm, anxious fingers. Every night for years, just hours after having folded them in prayer, my sleepless, searching hands would start to feel around for white cotton in the dark, still needing the reassurance that I was in a safe place.

Peace of mind wasn't found in my prayers, but in what it took me nearly 30 years to learn. That prayer has a counterpart and that counterpart is belief. I’d always prayed, but I didn’t believe my prayers would be answered; I prayed, but I never felt any relief. Those prayers were simply wasted words and wasted breath spiraling in a panic from my mouth to the sky and maybe hovering somewhere above the clouds. I finally grew weary under the burden of keeping people at arm’s length, pulling around intimidating dogs weighing close to my own body weight, repeatedly causing myself pain, lugging my lucky jewelry and my torn, tattered blanket with me everywhere I went. The God I prayed to all those years is the very same God that heard me when I finally threw both arms in the air, looked heavenward and cried, “I sure hope you’ve got all of this, because I’m letting go of it now.”

These days God is showing me that beauty can be wrenched from a painful journey…and it’s a beauty just hoping to be seen as such. My heart tells me that He was always there, protecting me, keeping me safe, waiting patiently for the all these years to pass, as they must, while I came to realize that He never gave me more than exactly what I needed in order to become ME. What was once letdown after letdown, and heartache after defeat, has become a hard-won inner strength and the well-founded confidence of something that secures……… and that feeling of security is no longer “a state of being” that eludes me.

Coffee Shop God

2009-08-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Shop-God-Therese-Bartholomew/dp/159494038X/ref=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Coffee Shop God is a straight-forward account of unfathomable loss where an honest soul is bared, a universal truth is wrenched from the gut of the author and the reader is left holding an unexpected gift.

Therese Bartholomew's book Coffee Shop God is an emotionally raw and surprisingly honest account of the days and weeks that follow the fatal shooting of her beloved younger brother. In this collection of essays, Bartholomew writes the things one might think, but would probably never speak aloud. "Dad knows, like all of us, that Joe is the son who should be dead.-the middle of the night phone call son." But she doesn't leave herself out of this because later as she looks around at her family, she writes, "I wonder, if they, like me, are running down a list of people they'd rather see dead. I blink slow and heavy and wonder if I'm on their lists."

The reader experiences the horrific late night phone-calls, the funeral arrangements, the police investigation, a courtroom encounter with the sister of her brother's killer and even scenes from the author's living-room; scenes we all have anxiety over but most of us have never experienced first-hand. Bartholomew speaks to us in heartache and humor revealing a refreshingly brave humanity. Her story is so redemptive, in the most unexpected way, that I had to turn right back to the first page and read it again. Then I mailed my copy to a friend and purchased another copy for myself the very next week. Heads up readers..this is at least a three-hanky read.

I'm Down

2009-07-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

A painfully honest account of a mixed up childhood in which the author was not black enough for her white father (there's a lot to laugh at here) or the ghetto where they lived and not white enough for the rich, high IQ school her mother insisted she attend. She envies her little sister who manages to be "down" enough to bum a cig off older school kids at only five years old while the author herself can't seem to fit in anywhere. In the end, Wolff makes some friends, takes a peek into their family lives and discovers what my beloved pastor recently pointed out to his church, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but there's poop in every yard." The only minor disappointment for me was the ending lacked closure, but that's probably good news for the author; if she writes a sequel I will surely run right out to buy it. ~Shel

A Steel Magnolia's Nights with Nana

2008-11-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

I spent three nights alone with a demented and dying woman, listening to her give voice to a mountain of regrets. This combined with too much time inside my head own head, making life and death decisions and having no sleep has set me up for a major fall. Sun downer's syndrome is a freaky thing to witness, but then the good doctor threw in a nice evening hallucinogenic for good measure.

My husband said to me, "It's funny how you are the most fragile of us all and yet, when these things happen, you are the only one of us that can face it head on." His comment made me think of a story my mom told me about when I was five and her and dad were separating. She had made him dinner for his birthday one night and he said he didn't care for the meal. I said to her,"I don't know why you bother, he doesn't care about you either." I was a five year-old dealing with the sudden absence of my dad and the fact that our beloved German Shepherd, Sox, went with him. Yet, I was compartmentalizing my emotions for their sake, even back then.

So my nights with Nana are filled with cries for my grandfather, her adoptive father with whom she was very close and for her adoptive mother that resented her for it. In her head she is a baby, then she is my baby, and then a bird. She wails and begs me to hold her hand when it's been tearing at her diaper and doing things down there that I won't mention here. She takes off her hospital gown repeatedly, exposing what I never wanted to see. Every time I close my eyes and think sleep might come, some event takes place that is even more nerve-wracking than the last. She finally ripped out one of the IVs in her hand, the one I spent days hovering over and trying to keep in tact. And, of course, it happened when I wasn't there.

Nana's moaning, "I don't want to die," trying to get out of bed and all the while begging me to help her get up and get going. There's a dying man down the hall yelling, WATER, WATER, WATER over and over again, unless he is already yelling, HELP ME, HELP ME, HELP ME. The hospital at night is a ghost town and something like the Twilight Zone. Somebody has to be here, right? Dad was at the hospital during the days, but I knew he couldn't be here for nights with Nana and it's a good thing he wasn't. The things I've seen are permanently scorched upon my retinas. He thinks I volunteered because I like to help people in need. But, what he doesn't know is that I am terrified of hospitals, nursing homes and most of all; old, sick, dying people. It was Mark Twain that said, "Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain."

The first time I was alone with her in the hospital was just hours after her admission. I had to lay across her body to keep her from ripping out her IV, her telemetry and her catheter. I took a chance and got up long enough to dash to the hallway and flag down the first person I saw; totally the wrong dude. "Can you please help me? My grandmother hasn't had her sedative and she is tearing at everything attached to her and trying to get out of the bed. She's agitated and she's going to hurt herself." He pushed a button to silence the IV (one of the few things I could have done myself) and coldly replied, "It is incumbent upon you to see to it that she doesn't." My mumbled reply, "Dude, I'd look both ways, TWICE on your way home today, if I were you."

About that time my mom strolled in and Nana was totally distracted. "Wanna go dancing now, Mom," she smiled with a hug for me and nod toward Nana.

Despite a 60 year nicotine habit and a massive heart attack, three days later she is miraculously back at the nursing home with only a few extra pills being the only addition to her care.

I hope I can shake this out-of-body, totally drained feeling soon because, although they deny it, I feel I have taken a nose dive from grace in the eyes of some people I really care about. It's those people that I feel closest to that have taken the brunt of this with brute force. (I have a habit of not asking for what I need and being disappointed when I don't get it) Call me, stay with me, make things matter; do something to prove that I exist. It is amazing how dark things seem when one is sleep deprived. I should have known, it happened both times I brought home a new born baby.

Mom says she has absolved me of not having helped her with her parents when they were dying. But still, the worries remain; Does she know I'm here at the hospital again? Should I feel guilty about it? I did arrange the music with my husband and our friend, spent hours writing the entire memorial service for her father and then spoke it through tears in front of everyone. I don't think I'll have to do that for Nana, I don't think there will be anyone other than us there. Besides, I really don't know enough about her anyway. I was so uncomfortable around Mom's parents, and I think for the most part she was, too. Although absolved, I still feel so guilty about that. I never felt close to Nana either, but because of the dementia, I re-introduce myself to her every morning so we get a clean slate everyday.

At home, I am overwhelmed and I don't even know how to begin to catch up. My house is a wreck, my son has a cold that I don't think I'm treating well enough, their homework hasn't been done, I don't have any clean underwear and my hair hasn't been washed in five days. My daughter could only fall asleep once Daddy sprayed my Chanel #5 on her pillow or if she was wearing the t-shirt I wore the day before. Thank God for my husband. Okay, so I'm the fragile flower that stands up straight and tall ready to meet the winds of the storm that blow; but my petals eventually wilt. I crash and burn, crumble into a million pieces and fall backward toward him. I don't even have to look because he's always right there when I need him....with his wits about him and his big, strong arms open wide. He knows it's coming and he's got the watering can in hand. He stands in the background, preferring to be the hero without the glory. This is his comfort zone, given his social anxiety. The one major difference between us is the very life raft I cling to during times like these. Oh, the irony of that.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone

2008-11-18T18:17:00.001-08:00

I was five years old when my parents divorced and two years later I moved from North Carolina to Kentucky with my older sister, my mom and my mom’s boyfriend. I didn’t see my dad that much but he did write me letters regularly for the first few years. My sister and I usually visited him and our step-mom during the summers and over spring breaks. My mom married the boyfriend when I was still pretty young and he took on the responsibilities of being our dad. Despite a theme of repetitive infidelities and unrelenting alcoholism, he was always there and loved us the best he could, given the experiences of his own horrific childhood. I was focused on who was not there; my dad. My mom and step-dad got their fair share of childhood rebellion and teenage angst, but I eventually decided to quit putting my Dad on a pedestal. I gave up my old standbys, “I hate you; I’m going to live with my dad.” I realized he was absent by choice and that going to live with him probably wasn’t even an option. When I was in my last year of high school I wrote my dad a poem. Before you get the warm fuzzies, you should hear a line or two; “You have been gone for so long, you say it’s not in this family that you belong…where were you when we had the mumps, strep throat, and the chicken pox? Or when I got the part in the kindergarten play, you were nowhere to be found on opening day…Maybe when you are old and all alone, you will realize you were never far from a phone….” And on it went, in the same sentiment, verse after painfully bad verse. For the record, we never had the mumps, but I was a teenager so I thought the disease was fittingly dramatic.

Now that I’m all grown up and married with two children of my own, I often reflect on the choices my parents made when they were raising us. My reflections are more thoughtful and less selfish these days. I am now walking a few miles in their shoes, although not necessarily following in their footsteps. Maybe I would have though, if I didn’t have the benefit of having learned from their mistakes. Having had a mostly adversarial marriage, my mom and step-dad divorced right as I turned twenty, although things had been pretty bad between them for years.

I went to buy my dad a birthday card the year he turned 59. Nothing I found expressed what I wanted to say to him so I sat down to write him a card myself. That’s when I remembered the last thing I had written him, that poem. My mom, who had always encouraged my sister and I to have a relationship with our dad, suggested I mail him a copy. I dropped my pen and cried. I cried for all the years that I let my feelings about his absence eclipse whatever may have been going on in his life. I cried because I had since found out that he had his own secret pain; His mom had temporarily abandoned him to an orphanage when he was just a little kid. I cried for the all the feelings of self-worth I lost, staying in unhealthy relationships, trying to get affection and acceptance from a less-than-deserving guy. I cried for all the time I had wasted wondering why I wasn’t funny enough, pretty enough or smart enough to keep my dad around. But, mostly I cried for how it must have made him feel to get that poem from me, when so many years had already passed and there was nothing he could do but feel remorse and regret. I wanted to him to know the positive contributions he made in my life. I wanted to give him something to be proud of, so I sat down to write a very different sentiment to my father.

What I learned from my dad:

1. You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need. (Ok, so The Rolling Stones made it famous, but Dad made sure I understood what it meant)
2. If you want something, you are going to have to work hard to get it. (Even though he could just give it to me, he wasn’t going to)
3. Dog really is man’s best friend.
4. The three keys to a successful relationship; the ability to communicate, the courage to be honest and most importantly, acceptance.
5. There is something to be admired in everyone.
6. Being tough is good but being real is better.
7. A drive in the car IS good therapy.
8. How to handle a gun with an equal measure of comfort and fear.
9. To admit my mistakes, say “I’m sorry” and then MOVE ON.
10. Not to bother trying to act like someone I’m not. The person I am really is always good enough.

When I gave that poem to my dad all those years ago, although I may not remember his words, he made it clear that he admired the courage it took for me to send it to him. While I was at my lowest, grasping for straws and looking for someone to blame, he found something admirable in me. I came off hurt and bitter in that poem, not tough and resilient. But by his reaction to it, and by his example, I learned that being “real” takes courage and that being “myself” feels pretty good.

I invited him and my step-mom over to my house to celebrate his birthday and hang out with my husband and our kids. I gave him the list of what I had learned from him in lieu of a card. He told me that it was his favorite present. My feet didn’t touch the ground that day. I didn’t realize it was a load I still carried. I’m prepared to make some mistakes raising my children, I just hope there will come a day when they will recognize my humanity and take into account the positive contributions I made to their lives, despite my inevitable mistakes.

While I was typing this essay, our son made his third appearance in my makeshift office in the kitchen. “I’m done playing with my guitar, Mom,” he announced. “Can you please get my fire truck down from the attic?” I had just gotten him the guitar after having met a previous request to search for a misplaced toy car. “I’ll get it for you when I am finished working,” I replied. “But Mommy, I want it now,” he pleaded. I didn’t feel guilty about not getting up and getting that fire truck for him. I just couldn’t help myself, I replied, “I’m sorry Brady, ‘you can’t always get what you want.’” I smiled, feeling confident, because I know that he will always get what he needs. My dad taught me that.

A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!

2008-01-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

When our first child was born, I read the old stand-by, What to Expect When You're Expecting, but then that was it for me. We danced to the beat of our own drum and we lived our lives by the rhythm of our own hearts. We didn't know anything about sleep-training and schedules and quite frankly, if we had, we'd have said that just wasn't our style at all. My sister was due to have her first baby at any moment when we found out we were expecting our second one. Maya was 2 years-old and still waking up in the middle of the night, crying out to us when she couldn't find her "pappy" in the dark. And no, I didn't know she was too old to have a pacifier. We know now that "they" say you should take it away by age three months, before it becomes a habit. We knew we couldn't have our two year-old tagging our newborn for the middle of the night antics. I told my sister our concern and she shared a book that she had been reading, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Well, it was business time and we were in the business of getting this toddler on a sleep schedule and on her way to sleeping through the night.

First order of business was explaining that the "pappy fairy" was coming to take Maya's pappy to its happy place. I know, I know, but I just couldn't see trying to explain to Freudian theories and the possibilities of buck teeth to a toddler. Anyway, she was a very strong-willed child even back then so we had a pretty rough couple of nights. I was leaving to go out of town on business when she was on her fourth night without the pacifier. Apparently, daddy had a rough time with her, so he went and dug a forgotten pappy out of the kitchen drawer and popped it in her mouth the very first night I was gone. Toddler 1, Parents 0.

I came home, the pappy fairy made a second pick-up run and tensions had calmed down a bit. We decided to get on board with the whole scheduled nap thingy. The book said she should be getting more sleep than she was and we thought it was a good idea to set up a schedule for the toddler and the new baby to nap at the same time every day. If that were to happen, each day could hold the promise of a shower! I had to make a business call and was forced out onto the back porch by Maya's screams of protest about the nap. A few minutes into my conference call with New York, Jason comes flying out the back door with Maya in his arms. She had thrown herself over the crib and onto the hardwood floor. We didn't see it, but Jason heard it and he was distraught just by the sound of it. You caught that right? She threw herself from the top of the crib railing...onto the floor in protest! This is when we discovered the iron will of our firstborn. This is the iron will with which we are still contending today.

Jamie* and Maya met when they attended the "never reprimand your child, never demand anything from your child, negotiate everything with your child, your child must always have choices" preschool. Her mom and I had become friends and we came to know each other's parenting style was totally different. I knew she was a, "Do you want to pick up the goldfish (you just threw on the floor in a temper tantrum) or do you want Mommy to pick up the goldfish?" kind of mommy. She knew I was a "I'm going to ask you nicely to do this and then if you stomp your foot at me, yell 'no,' and cause a scene, I'm gonna spank your bottom, right here, right now, in front of God and everybody" kind of mommy. We were respectful of one another and got along just fine. In fact, I liked her a lot.

One day we were playing at her house after school and Maya had mistakenly thought we were staying for dinner. We were about an hour into the playdate when she inquired about it and I broke the bad news that we were having dinner at big-fat-boring-home. Well, she pitched a fit (that's southern for 'she threw a temper tantrum') and that ole iron will reared its ugly head. She was just was out of control.

I knew she was tired because playdates after school are nearly impossible when they are in Kindergarten and first grade. The day is loooooong. I was feeling fairly reasonable, so I was pretty calm and held my own for a good long while. I explained, repeatedly, that we had not been invited to stay for dinner that Jamie's parents were "lucky dogs" who had a sitter coming for their "date" night. I assured her we would try to arrange it real soon and I warned her that if she didn't calm down and enjoy the rest of the playdate, we were going to have to leave early. She didn't cool it, so I called it a day.

She had an off-the-charts freak-out on me and was just a basket case. We said our goodbyes and managed to get to the car. I strapped her in and continued to explained to her why we had to end the playdate early (hello? anybody home? How 'bout that 20 minute snot, tears and drama fest?). Then she starts yelling at me even more loudly, "Stop rubbing it in! Stop rubbing it in!" I popped her on her leg, reprimanded her for yelling at me and turned to shut the car door when I saw a very stunned Jamie standing there. She saw the whole thing and being that she is far from ever having been spanked, she looked at me like I was a three-headed monster. She backed away from me (too scared to turn her back to me, perhaps?) and from the looks of it, ran straight over to her mommy and told her I'd just beaten up Maya. GRRREAT!

Sidenote: Jamie is a very sweet girl, but one night when her daddy came to our house to drop Maya off, she was being held in daddy's arms and she kept smacking him in the head the whole time he stood on the porch talking to me and continued to smack him all the way to the car. He used his daddy voice but she just kept on smacking his head and laughing at him.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that her mommy never called us again. Even after I called and left her mom a voicemail saying how sorry I was about the whole thing, how stressed out I'd been with Jason working all the time. I tried to appeal to her better nature. I called three times for various different reasons and never received a return call. Or an email. We saw no invitation to the birthday party we had attended three years in a row.

What gets me is during that very same playdate, her two year old raised his hand to hit her every time she told him it was time to get out of the hammock. He didn't obey her once and bullied her the whole time we were there. He then went on to spray me with the water hose THREE TIMES before she decide it was time to take it away from him. No, he clearly didn't understand it when mommy said, "that was not a good choice."

She had told me that day that she was going back to work in the fall. Her and her little boy were not faring well together and she was taking him back to the "we'll help you create a child-centered home where you are not the boss and the children are so desperate to have some boundaries they'll continually test your limits 'til you set some" preschool. In her words, she"hoped the school's director would get through to him."

It's too bad she doesn't want to be friends. I have to explain to my kids why we don't see them anymore. I think we really could have learned something from each other. But that's okay, my daughter and I learned something from it. That fateful day when we were driving home from the aborted playdate, I had told Maya I was so embarrassed, because quite frankly I was embarrassed by Maya's behavior and my own. But that night when tucked her in, I told her I didn't care what anyone thought and that I wasn't embarrassed anymore. I told her that I only cared about her and about us. We forgave each other and have since moved on to face other challenges.

Although we only spanked for serious or dangerous offenses, there comes an age when they outgrow spankings. Like a very timely gift from heaven, this year Maya started getting phone calls from her little girlfriends from school. You know which carrot I'm dangling these days, don't ya? The Holy Grail of privileges, the life-line of any tween, the coveted "phone privilege." Hey, a Mom's gotta do what a Mom's gotta do.

*Name has been changed.

Bulls on Fire!!!!!!!

2008-01-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

My 8 year-old daughter and 6 year-old son have officially named their future band, Bulls on Fire. Just as it was my parental duty to take the 'naked as a jaybird' toddler shots of them to chuckle over with their future spouses, I am careful to record this, too.. They have informed me that they are working on a song entitled, American Devil. "What is the song about, Maya?" She gamely replies, "It's about how we all have this thing inside us that wants to say and do bad things and hurt people. It's called the "American Devil. The song is about how to keep from doing the bad things and keep doing the right thing." Oh ok, I get it.

Like Bob said...

2008-01-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan

I gave Tofurkey (tofu turkey) a test run last night and put it in my marinara sauce for dinner. My seven-year old daughter takes one bite and says, "Mom, this tastes like Muskrat. How could you.... (long dramatic silence)....make us eat MUSKRAT?" She was joking this time and we all got a good laugh but she's very passionate and gets all fired up about things. Sometimes it leads to a full-on dramatic episode which she seems to be having regularly these days. Most of the time she saves them for emotionally "heavy" talks with Daddy when he comes to tuck her in. I guess you could call it a bedtime breakdown. Seriously though, we shell out the extra bucks for the organic, hormone-free dairy products and the free-range chicken yet, my wee little one is on an emotional roller coaster ride at the tender young age of seven.

Later that night, we asked her to clean up the mess in her room that her five year-old brother helped her make. She became very upset and was insistent that she should not have to clean up the mess that Brady made in her room! It was unfair! We explained to her that they were each responsible for cleaning up their own spaces. Maya was still bent on the fact that,"Brady was GUILTY of making the mess," and that "it was an INJUSTICE that she had to clean it up!"

I just sat there with my head cocked to the side like a confused puppy. When she was a baby, I usually knew what to do if there was a problem. A dirty diaper? That was easy, I'd change it. If she was crying, I'd just determine whether it was the hungry cry, the tired cry or the cry that wails, "I don't feel good!" But now, she was in front of me looking like a miniature sized Judge Judy spouting off legal terminology and she had a darn good argument. She was no longer an unreasonable toddler whining unintelligible babble at us. I couldn't simply shush her and besides, we had to deal with this; she was really upset and outright challenging us.

Having been her mom for a while now, I sensed something bigger coming as she stomped around her room mumbling something (calling me names, perhaps?) under her breath. She finished her task, being sure to show her displeasure while doing so, and then disappeared into the kitchen.

If there is one thing our children know how to do its how to express themselves. Out come the paper and pen and the next thing we know, Maya has created signs of protest. In her angry, second grade scribble, she has written one sign that reads, "BOYCOTT THE FAMILY! BOYCOTT MOM AND DAD!" and another saying, "JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS NOW! EQUALITY RIGHTS NOW!"

She marches purposefully into Brady's room with a sign in each hand, both held high in the air. My husband was amused and tried to look serious while I hid my face so she wouldn't see that I was about to pee myself laughing. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. She was protesting us and I was in awe of her! The anti-establishment me wanted to stand up and salute her while the parent me shuddered to think of what is yet to come. If this was seven years-old, what in the heck would seventeen be like?

I've expressed the humorous side of these antics because I believe if I loose my sense of humor I will certainly loose my mind. These dramatic outbursts are fierce and I have to really be on top of my game to keep up. They are sometimes funny (usually in retrospect) but also very stressful because I have to keep in mind that these really are her feelings. She really does feel as though we wronged her and I have to validate her feelings (and she has lots of them!) so I don't inadvertently squash her spirit. That's child psychologist lingo and its confusing, dang it, because everyone single of 'em seems to have a different opinion.

It feels like only yesterday when their whole world revolved around me and when there was a problem, for the most part, I had the power to kiss it and make it all better. I was in on every little detail of their day; who they talked to, what they ate, whether or not they pottied! I knew what they did, how they were feeling and why they were feeling that way. Are they crying about every little thing? That was easy, they were just over-tired. A mother even has a keen sense that tells them their kid is about to puke. Now their feelings and emotions are a tangled mess I have to delicately unravel. I'm in foreign territory and I've got no map!

They go to school all day now and have experiences I don't even know about. Thankfully, my kids feel like they need to tell me about the big stuff. Last week Zeke, a fellow classmate, sat around the lunch table telling Maya and her little friend about X-rated movies. Grrreat! I also found out that my son has a girlfriend. That's right. He met her in his Kindergarten class. Her name is Abby and from what I heard, second-hand of course, was that Brady went right up to her and said, "You are the prettiest girl I've ever seen. You're going to be my girlfriend." Then there was the day that Brady's teacher sent a note home to me regarding some uncooperative behavior. He came home and stuck his school folder in his train table drawer. He knew enough to try and hide it from me! This is only his first year of school!

My question is, "Where do they learn this stuff?" Protesting and picketing the parental units, X-rated movie discussions in second grade, asking chicks out in kindergarten. I want to grab some markers and poster board and make myself a sign that screams, "SLOW DOWN!" and another onethat cries,"I'M NOT READY!" I want to march through the halls of my house waving my signs in the air. But there's really no time for that, remember? I have to be on top of my game and ready to lend my hand. Dylan's old tune still rings true, "The Times They Are A-Changin." I feel ya Bob, I feel ya.

Wonderful Tonight

2008-01-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

I whiled away the past two days reading Wonderful Tonight, the new book written by 60's icon Pattie Boyd. The story is hauntingly familiar to me, enough so to rouse the long-slumbering demons I still work hard to keep at rest. I'm anxious to find out how other people respond to the book.

Pattie, with the help of Penny Junor, chronicles the events of her life from her very lonely, very painful childhood to her high-profile rock n' roll marriages and divorces to first, George Harrison and then, Eric Clapton. Both men were dangerously creative and highly talented but also men with serious problems. Up until now, its been common knowledge that George had his issues and that Eric founded Crossroads, the rehabilitation destination in Antigua, but in this book, we are treated to the sordid details. There are also lots of intriguing antidotes told throughout this book. For example, did you know that it was Bob Dylan who turned The Beatles onto Marijuana?

Things just altogether don't start out well for Patricia Anne Boyd and that theme runs throughout her tale. I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting, albeit heartbreaking and devoid of love, her own story was. By her own story, I mean she had lots to tell about her life before becoming a rock-n-roll wife.

Most of us know at least a little about the story of Pattie leaving George Harrison for Eric Clapton. However, while reading her very frank, very well-written account of it, I could actually feel her pain. Her love and desire for both of these men was palpable. Her inner struggle to sort out her place in their lives was written in such a way it caused me to completely lose my ability to look at her situation objectively. Even reading Pattie's account of Cynthia Lennon's experience with John and Yoko led me into familiar territory. She was described by Pattie as having acted more like a mother to John than a wife. Women in this situation typically try to beat 'em or join 'em and sometimes they try both, alternating between the two. Most of the time, something deep inside us says the drugs and the promiscuous lifestyle is wrong, yet, when you are raised around it, what is right and what is wrong becomes harder to determine. I have experienced plenty of this lifestyle yet, the lines between the experiences that were my own and those of my mother's are somewhat blurred. Infidelity and emotionally unavailable men have been a common thread that has run throughout the whole fabric of both our lives. Not only did my complete absorption into this story cause me to forget my own wisdom and strength in such matters, no one could have clawed that book from the death grip I had on it. I just couldn't put it down.

For some, the story will be a unique one, for me it was like a trip down very bad memory lane, yet I kept reading, desperately seeking a fairytale ending. I think Pattie was probably pretty forthcoming about her mistakes and her shortcomings, but I had the same feeling I had reading her book as I did when I read Goldie Hawn's, A Lotus Grows in The Mud. I sensed there was this element of naivete that both women felt was somehow responsible for allowing certain things to happen to them. It was almost as if they were incapable of recognizing the detriment of the lifestyle in the new culture in which they were living.

Pattie Boyd admits she didn't realize she could stand up for herself, try to save her marriage and rail against what she felt in her heart was wrong. The events of her childhood had not equipped her with the ability to value her own happiness, to support her own opinions and feelings. The era of drugs and free love was so new, no one really knew what the consequences of such a lifestyle. This was a new and unfamiliar culture making it tough to determine what was right and wrong. And by the way, where was Daddy? Goldie Hawn's dad was always working as a musician and she seemed to say that although he was very loving and very supportive, he was never really around. Pattie Boyd's dad? Well, I won't spoil it. Read the book, I highly recommend it. Pattie's willingness to share her experiences has helped me to understand all that my mother has been through and how far she's come from the cold, harsh childhood she still fights to leave behind.

Psychologists have long been interested in the effects of paternal involvement on the development young girls. The consensus is that women are deeply affected by a lack of involvement with their fathers. (1.) Existing research mainly involves absent or abusive fathers and their daughter’s problems with developing and maintaining intimate relationships later in life (Perkins, 2001). These studies suggest that fathers may have a considerable impact on their daughters’ self-esteem and greatly influence her choice of romantic partners (Scheffler and Naus, 1999).

Lacking this paternal relationship and guidance seems to inhibit the development of self-esteem. This lack of self-confidence combined with growing up in a home devoid of a good example of a husband often leads to failed intimate relationships. My mom and Pattie Boyd both awoke one day, to the painful realization that they had nurtured nothing for themselves and had nothing left to define them. Fortunately, both women discovered their true selves and are now sure of what they want in their lives and what they don't. What I admire most is that in each case, both women remained friends with the men they had once been married to and eventually forgave their fathers, initiating a relationship with them.

The hardest pill for me to swallow is the selfishness of these men, two of my rock heroes, no less. I don't like them any less, in fact, I probably like them more for having overcome such huge problems and making major changes in their lives. But certainly there must have been a part of them that was aware of the trail of casualties they were leaving in their wake. Did they really not have control of their actions? When both men carried on their repeated affairs, one-night stands and sated their every drug and alcohol-related desire, at anyone's cost, was there no part of them that recognized their behavior as selfish and sick? Addiction is a sickness.

My own childhood was fraught with this theme and irreparably damaged. Although I don't harp on this, and it no longer defines me, the fact remains that it changed the person I turned out to be. Not that I am disappointed with the person I am, I'm not. I just think silence is sometimes akin to permissiveness. I have an urge to say, unequivocally, that failure to recognize one's addictions as having lasting negative impact on one's loved ones is to live in complete ignorance of oneself.

This book has the potential to haunt me, causing my old anxieties to linger too close to the surface. Being married to a musician for almost a decade adds more layers to the effect this story has on me. That all-too-familiar sense of urgency to create something for myself in preparation for the dropping of the shoe. There's a voice that I used to hear in my head that said, "Don't live your life for him and the children and their dreams, you'll end up empty-handed while his life will be full and prosperous. Your life will be wasted." That's not my voice though, that one belongs to someone else and those fears don't rule me now. The voice I listen to now is the voice of experience, it relays to me what I know about God and it says, "Don't ever give it up on this thing!" Finally, I see that is possible to both live for them and create something for myself.

What does Pattie Boyd admit as her one regret? Leaving George, being seduced away by Eric during an admittedly trying time in their marriage. Its been said that what a person leaves unresolved in their first marriage, they take into their subsequent marriages. Addiction and infidelity and the emotional abuse that come with it seldom make for a fulfilling life for either party. But it isn't like a cold, it doesn't go away on its own. Like Eric Clapton discovered, professional help is crucial to long-term change and successful rehabilitation. Sometimes a person cares more about how their addictions harm the ones they love than how they harm themselves. In that case, maybe breaking the silence about these matters can be the catalyst for change.

1. Missouriwestern Edu.

Who is Piggy McSurly?

2007-12-28T12:22:00.000-08:00

A sausage link consists of fatty, grisly meat squashed into a bulging casing and tied off at each end. Today I feel like the human form of a stuffed sausage. Could someone pleeeease remove my casing? The neighbor's Christmas fudge has not helped my clothing crisis at all and now I'm sleep deprived and puffy 'cause I tried to party like a rockstar last night. Today I am feeling less than puny and more than plump in my elasticized lounge pants.

Sadly, I didn't even drink too much, lose my inhibitions on the dance floor and toss my cookies all over my girlfriend's shoes. I simply scarfed chili and fried onion rings with my husband at dinner and stayed out til 2:00am. I'm old. And if you are reading this and you are older than me....don't say, "boohoo you're not old." I am old.... and YOU are ANCIENT! (...ugh, sorry 'bout that)

As if last night and the past two weeks worth of holiday fare wasn't enough to sabotage the relationship between me and my jeans, Piggy McSurly (PMS) has come to town, temporarily possessing my body and devouring ALL the nice neighbor's fudge. She is also impressively persistant at trying to trick my poor husband into admitting my thighs and booty are fat.

The only way to end this madness is to exorcize the demon. I'll gulp massive amounts of green tea and water while I wait for annoying "Aunt Rita" to leave town. At least I'll get some exercise while my bladder drags my butt to the potty a bazillion times. My relationships are important to me so as a precaution, I think I should hide out at home to avoid extended contact with the people I care about. I'll be all sunshine and smiles in a non-expanding waistband in 5-7 days!

Today I am a Virgin Blogger

2007-12-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

Today I am the virgin blogger attempting to recount the events of this Christmas season. It is exactly two days past Christmas and my two precious babes are at their grandparents house while I try to recover my sanity. Every year I try, in vain, to simplify the holidays. Even if I manage to purchase a lot of the gifts ahead of time, the season remains hectic. Although I only have one sibling, I have a very big family. Let me explain. My mom and dad divorced when I was about five. Mom re-married later and so did dad. Dad, by some act of God, stayed married and by the hand of the same God, mom's second marriage ended in divorce. Well, my step-dad lived with us while we were growing up and played a major role in raising us so we stayed pretty close to him. Then he married again and as the years went by we got pretty close with her. My children call her Grandma D. Then lo and behold this marriage dissolved and here we are with a very busy, albeit joy-filled Christmas season.

My dad (PawPaw) and my stepmom (Bebop) have an annual Christmas brunch that always goes off beautifully, without a hitch, a week or two before Christmas. Then we have our annual Chinese Christmas, which is not at all politically correct in its name but forgive us, we are just well-meaning southerners having a blast with that Chinese Christmas gift-giving game. We have all the cousins over to my sister's house with their children and spouses and an aunt or two. This year my mom (Grammy) suggested we invite my stepdad (aka:Grandpa) who is no longer my stepdad, but he keeps the title). They get along great like all the rest of them and think it is pretty cool to grandparent together. So we continue to amaze people by the fact that my mom really genuinely cares about both our dad's wife and our stepdad's ex-wife and the dads and their respective others genuinely care for her. In fact, they all care about one another and are each silently praying for a reconciliation for stepdad and recent ex, also known as Grandma D. Are you following me?

So the next evening we have our first annual cookie making party where we bake and decorate cookies for santa (also at my very gracious sister's and brother-in-law's house) and celebrate Christmas with Grandma D, who is very fond of mom also and asks her to join us. This ends up being the beginning of a much anticipated Christmas family tradition.

The following night is Christmas Eve and we have dinner once again, at my gracious sister and very tolerant brother-in-law's house. This time its just Mom, my sis, my brother-in-law and their kids, my husband and our kids. Dinner is lovely, my husband has to split for a gig and mom has offered to come over to my house after I get the kids to bed so I can go see my husband play on Christmas Eve for a little while. Right before time to leave my sister's house, my little boy comes down with an earache from sniffing up the snot all night rather than blowing it out as he has been told to do. Repeatedly. My daughter claims a sore throat once she sees that her brother's earache garners him a little attention. Although, I do believe her because she too seems to have an aversion to blowing her nose as well and chooses to sniff it up with such vigor I worry it may go to her brain. My plans for the night are off and I am on my way home to take off my "band-wife" ensemble, put on my flannel jammies and wade through snotty tissues and tired tears.

Its now Christmas morning, I'm in bed, legs crossed, having to pee so badly but knowing that if I get up to do so, the toilet flushing and perhaps just the footsteps alone will wake my daughter and this glorious quiet time will be all too short and then the kids will not be well-rested for the big day. Finally, I realize I have to go too badly to go back to sleep anyway so off the potty I go. Pee, sigh, flush and sure enough, she's up and at em! Whose kid is this anyway? My husband, myself and our son all sleep long and hard like Rip Van Winkle. We wake up daddy, then Brady and we head off to the living room of our spacious 1080sq.ft abode and see what Santa left for us. Christmas is sweet and warm and I just hope we remember it well 'cause mommy forgot to get batteries for the camera. Ok, unwrap, acknowledge gifts, do poptarts, shower, dress, grab kids overnight bags (while simultaneously arguing over who gets to take what new toys in the car with us) and head over to breakfast at Grammy's.

My sister, her husband and their three kids show up at Grammy's house at the same time as us which is althogether funny because we are all exactly thirty minutes late. We hug, we cook, we serve, we eat a yummy breakfast, we laugh, we open presents, we chastise hyper, over-stimulated children (as we are totally tweaked by now) and then we hug again, offer thank yous and depart for the one and one half hour journey to the in-laws (KK and Papa's) house for another cozy Christmas celebration. My husband and I thank the Lord above, not only for His son and for the Christmas blessing and the generosity our family has shown us again this year, but also for the simple fact that this is the last day that the radio station will be playing Christmas music. Our children are so addicted to it that we've heard them both sing the station jingle in their sleep, "Chrisssstmaaaasss kaaaaay one oh four point seveeeen." We are so over it.

We get to KK and Papa's house, hug, eat, play, catch up with all my brother-in-laws, sister-in-law, aunts, uncles, and nephews, and then the children open more presents. A few hours later, I realize we have pulled off yet another Christmas with our big happy family without slighting, unintentionally wounding, or otherwise accidentally offending a single one of them. In fact, I dare to say we made each and every one of them feel as special to us and as appreciated by us as they really, really are. It is truly a Christmas miracle!