Katie S. 28

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    • Archive for May, 2009

    On the Way to Friday

    Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

    We had a full schedule for the weekend.  There were graduations and parties to attend, shifts in the church nursery and the restaurant to work and home improvement projects to tackle.  So when Chris called me from work on Thursday afternoon with his big idea, my first impulse was to say no.  But over the next hour or so as I went about the routine tasks at hand, I couldn’t seem to get his suggestion out of my head.  I kept thinking about the graduation we were supposed to go to on Sunday.

    Esteban was four years old when he and his mother joined our family.  He was a skinny little thing who refused to eat anything but chicken and rice and who had every movie he had ever seen memorized.  He loved to perform extended scenes from Batman for us, always wearing a cape and acting out every single part.  And now that same funny little boy is graduating from high school and preparing to attend NYU in the fall where he will continue to pursue his lifelong passion for acting.  He has turned into this incredible young man who loves and respects his family and desires to honor God with the gifts that he has been given.  If you ask his mother how they got to this point she will tell you, it has all gone by in the blink of an eye.

    After mulling all of this over in my mind I called Chris back and told him I thought we should do it.  So we made a couple phone calls, loaded our kids into the car and drove down to the beach for the long weekend.  It was the first time that we have taken a family vacation just the four of us and it was magical.  We strolled on the beach as Bennett rode on his daddy’s shoulders giggling at how much taller he was than everyone and Corbin collected every sea shell he could find.  We went out to dinner and didn’t stress when Corbin sang too loud and Bennett used the table cloth to play peek-a-boo.  We went to bed early and we drank our morning coffee on the balcony overlooking the ocean.  And although we were sorry for the events that we missed at home, the only real regret we had as we drove back yesterday was that we couldn’t stay longer.  Because the thing is, this time is going to pass so quickly.  There is a time coming when the boys will have their own schedules to keep.  Plans with friends, summer practices and camps will determine whether or not we can just pick up and go.  And there is a time coming after that when they won’t really want to go on vacation with us any more.  When sitting with their parents on the beach and watching the sunset will lose its appeal.  So for this weekend we tried to just take in the here and now.  Our children are still small.  They still think that their mother is the source of all comfort and their daddy is the funniest person in the world.   They still love to make each other laugh and even a trip to the grocery store to buy swimming diapers is an adventure.  This trip wasn’t planned out or budgeted for, but looking back over the last few days I am certain that we will always be glad we took it.  I think Corbin summed it up best on Saturday as he and I took a walk on the beach while Bennett and Daddy had an afternoon nap.  As we stood with our feet in the water, holding hands and standing perfectly still I asked him what we were doing.  “We’re just chillin,” he said happily.

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    Posted in Travel | 5 Comments »

    How I Hope to Avoid How To’s When it Comes to Mothering

    Monday, May 18th, 2009

    I tend to beat myself up a lot when it comes to my shortcomings as a mother.  I attribute every issue that arises in my children’s lives to my own failings and I balk at the ways in which they take after me.  I also have a bad habit of measuring myself and my children against standards that were set by man rather than by the one who created man.  According to several of the older and wiser mothers with whom I am blessed to be in relationship, this is a crippling (though pretty common) line of thinking.  I have written a few pointers/reminders for myself to try to counter some of the worldly parenting tips that can sometimes dominate my thinking.

    1) Try to acknowledge that every child is different and that they are as God made them.  We don’t presume to know exactly what a person should be doing at 27 or 58 years old, so why is it that we assume its OK to lump all babies or toddlers into one category?  I understand that there are certain medically determined mile markers that we should be looking for, but we need to draw the line at comparing our children to others or allowing self proclaimed experts who have never met our children tell us what they should be doing and when.  I think that when parents fall victim to this trap it results in one of two scenario’s:  either it provides a false sense of value and accomplishment for parents who crave the validation of others, thus sending the message to the child that their value is also tied up in what they are or are not able to do; or it leaves parents who are already prone to self doubt and insecurity feeling defeated and ill equipped to parent their own children.

    2)  Rather than spending the time you have with your children worrying about how you are supposed to be speaking to them, disciplining them and teaching them, try to focus on ENJOYING them.

    3) Stop worrying about how things look from the outside.  I have an aunt whose children are several years older that I am and she recently told me that she had one main regret in the way that she raised her children.  She told me that if she had it to do over again she would spend more time just playing with her kids instead of being so  ‘house proud’ (which is northern English for ‘neat freak’).  This got me thinking, I bet that quite a few mothers share this regret but  few, if any, mothers look back and say, “I wish I had spent less time hanging out with my kids and more time ironing clothes, mopping the floors and scrubbing the baseboards.”

    4) Accidents will happen.  Do your best to avoid the ones that you can, but try not to beat yourself up over the ones that you can’t.  Being cautious can be a good thing, but approaching your children from a posture of fear will only tear you down and potentially pass on a very negative world view to your kids.  Trust that the God who made them is also the God who sustains them.

    5) When you are trying to own more than you are meant to or feeling crippled by your own limitations as a mother: PRAY!!  Ask God to remind you daily that His grace is not only sufficient for children, but for mothers as well.

    Posted in Things I'm Learning | 3 Comments »

    Shouting at the Rain

    Friday, May 15th, 2009

    Although it is the very thing that daily brings me to the absolute end of myself, I just can’t help but love Corbin’s fighting spirit.  This morning at the park he took on a group of older boys who called him a poopy head.  He didn’t cower or run away with hurt feelings, in fact after indignantly informing me of what had been said he ran right back into the fray, hands on hips and a stern look on his face, ready to tell those big boys a thing or two.  And at this moment he is in his room yelling at the thunder storm that is going on outside.  He has tried everything from threatening time-out to making up a song about how impolite it is to wake people up from their naps.   One way or another he is determined to subdue the weather into submission.  The craziest thing is that at no point in his ranting has he shown even an inkling of the fear that one would expect out of a toddler in a thunder storm. I honestly don’t know where he gets his courage.  While Chris and I certainly don’t cower at the prospect of confrontation now, neither one of us were particularly fond of entering into an argument where we were clearly outmatched as children.  He must have learned it from the dog.  That little Yorkie has tried to take on German Shepherds and Great Danes who could gobble him up in two bites!

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    Posted in Speaking of My Children... | 2 Comments »

    I Miss Reading Poetry That Doesn’t Contain the Words Potty or Hippo

    Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

    I first read this poem during my Sophomore year of college.  It has been one of my favorites ever since and for some reason its been in my head for the last few days.

    To Have Without Holding
    Marge Piercy

    Learning to love differently is hard,
    love with the hands wide open, love
    with the doors banging on their hinges,
    the cupboard unlocked, the wind
    roaring and whimpering in the rooms
    rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
    that thwack like rubber bands
    in an open palm.

    It hurts to love wide open
    stretching the muscles that feel
    as if they are made of wet plaster,
    then of blunt knives, then
    of sharp knives.

    It hurts to thwart the reflexes
    of grab, of clutch; to love and let
    go again and again. It pesters to remember
    the lover who is not in the bed,
    to hold back what is owed to the work
    that gutters like a candle in a cave
    without air, to love consciously,
    conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

    I can’t do it, you say it’s killing
    me, but you thrive, you glow
    on the street like a neon raspberry,
    You float and sail, a helium balloon
    bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing
    on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
    as we make and unmake in passionate
    diastole and systole the rhythm
    of our unbound bonding, to have
    and not to hold, to love
    with minimized malice, hunger
    and anger moment by moment balanced.

    Posted in Babble On | 2 Comments »