Just Between Friends

I watched with great pride tonight as one of my former college friends/co-teachers at preschool made her debut on Donnie Deutch "The Big Idea". Shannon Wilburn and her friend Davin Tackett started a consignment sale 11 years ago called Just Between Friends--my youngest is now presently wearing a couple of items I bought at that sale! (Needless to say, I don't consign--I either wear it out or need it for the next kid!) It was such a neat feeling to see such faithful women experience such a blessing and notice for their work. They have been able to franchise their concept and now run quite a nice little company. Congrats, girls!!! See www.jbfsale.com for more info...

My Own Juan Valdez

Every now and then I have a Mommy Idea, a thought that is so revolutionary to the way we live our family lifestyle that I stun myself with my own brilliance--followed by being stunned that it has taken me so long to figure out this new innovation. I offer Exhibit A:

I am an avid coffee swiller--I drink coffee constantly, frequently, passionately. As I do not experience adequate REM sleep in any way, shape or form, caffeine stands as the elixir that allows somewhat functional mommy-hood to exist in this household. Since M generally leaves very, very early in the morning in his quest to provide for this family, he often does not have the chance to put on a pot of jolt before he leaves. For several years we had a Braun coffee maker that had a timer installed and I would set up my fix the night before so that I awakened the next morning to fresh hot addiction. Then we 'upgraded' to a Krups machine that offered us the ability to froth our milk but removed our timer widget. With M's crazy schedule and no timer on board, the Krups must be coaxed each morning into providing cocoa goodness with me at the wheel.

Until today.

3 of 8 holds the title of 'Oldest of the XY Children' and also is still recovering from his brief but defining role from '96-98 as the only boy and youngest child in the family. He traffics in the half-world of being in the older population of children but reveling in being both pestering little brother and wrestling older brother. He straddles the sibling world. We have frequent heart-to-hearts about the role of oldest brother and the responsibilities that come with the wearing of that sash. Frequent conversations...

To that end, I am always pleased when 3 of 8 finds a role and responsibility he aspires to hold--and to that end, I offer this moment of mommy brilliance. He has observed my early morning stumbles to the coffee pot and my fumbling countenance as I dig for the filters. He has experienced first-hand my limited conversation ability until the ingestion of ground bean product. And a couple of days ago, he asked a magic question: "Mom, could you teach me how to make the coffee in the mornings?"

Could I? Could I?! Why haven't I, to this point? Of course, this is perfect! It involves machines, including one that takes the bean-shaped integrity of the cocoa and pulverizes it into grits of goodness. It involves water play, changing clear fluid into steaming blackness. It's mechanical, slightly destructive, and serves the greater good. And it was before me all the while.

We completed training in a couple of days and this morning he was allowed to undertake his maiden voyage. With gratitude and pride I watched 3 of 8 fulfill a holy calling; he made his first pot of coffee. And can I just tell you, with great mommy pride, it was a fine, fine brew. 3 of 8, Household Barrista.

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A Time To Rant....

1 of 8 is an individual who provides us with numerous laughs and guffaws and has right from the start. She defies the 'oldest child' stereotype; she is responsible and does have a sense of leadership for the crew, but does not suffer from the angst, over-achievement and control issues that some associate with being the oldest child. Of course, I'm the oldest child in my family of origin and believe that I have also defied the stereotypes-- except for the angst, over-achievement and control issues.

1 of 8 is a poet adventurer at heart, loving travel to new locales and journaling about it all the while. She traveled to New York this past summer by herself, taking the train from Long Island into the city and met up with her daddy who was there on a business meeting. She is traveling to California in a few weeks. She has criss-crossed the country, meeting fascinating people and gathering up interesting experiences. She reads and appreciates Henry James, has an endless fascination with Hitchcock and thinks classy doesn't get any better than Audrey Hepburn. The kid is no slouch when it comes to taste and culture.

1 of 8 is also willing to take a risk--reaching out to the kid who doesn't seem to have any friends, confronting situations where someone is being mistreated and wearing striped galoshes with checkered leggings to dressy events. She is outrageous in an innocuous, fun way and has inherited her daddy's ability to make even a trip through the drive-thru a hilarious experience. You just gotta love this kid.

1 of 8 has the most glorious mane of hair ever. Thick, dark, a true chestnut brown, rigged with lots of natural curl, right out of Little Women. So, of course, she is always in the process of trying to alter it. She alternately grows it out to her waist in full Renaissance glory, only to have me wack it off to chin-length, much to the groans of her hair-envy sisters. And the new dos always look adorable on her. Her hair always grows out so quickly, it makes her fearless in her choice of styles, knowing that within a week and a half, all those follicles will have morphed into a different look yet again.

1 of 8 is in a '50's retro phase right now and it suits her well. She decided yesterday to take the look all the way and chop off her hair, pixie-like, a'la Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina. Off came layers of hair, revealing a face and attitude ready for the black and white screen. Adorable, capital A. Different, capital D. Brave, capital B. She headed off for youth group, sassy and excited.

Fast forward three hours. 1 of 8 comes through the door, subdued. This is rarely an adjective assigned to this person.

Seems that someone she has considered a friend at youth group took one look at the new style and labeled it a 'faux mullet' and that it was a good thing that the cold weather would allow 1 of 8 to wear a hat. This was all said under the moniker that 'friendship equals complete honesty'. It apparently also includes rudeness, public humiliation and making a friend the spectacle of your public stand-up routine.

I realize that political correctness has been taken too far in our culture. Touchy, touchy touchy we are, wandering around metaphors and analogies like the raw skin under a deflated blister. "Be honest," we tell the kids, "Own your opinions and don't be ashamed of them," we preach. And yet, I'm reminded that in our quest to become culturally more sensitive, and then in the quest that follows to rebalance an overzealousness in that sensitivity, we tend to hide basic lack of compassion behind 'honesty.' "I'm just being honest" becomes a self-righteous free pass to wander carelessly into the hearts of our friends and acquaintances and rearrange precious items to suit our liking. Since when did preference and opinion become 'truth'? We have allowed the definition of truth to become sloppy, a label for anything that zips through our heads and really seems to be the way we 'feel'. This sloppiness can slosh out onto the heirloom linen of another's soul, staining another's expression of individuality with the mark of our opinion. And we call it 'truth'.

It seems to me that 'truth' is a precious commodity, only to be applied to a handful of important items and concepts. Truth is exclusive, reserved in the vault for a collection of precepts that contain the blueprint of the hammocked web of words that hold our existence. God says, "I AM"--no adjectives, no adverbs. That is truth in its simplest form, its most elegant. It is holy ground, this naming of things as 'truth'. I am reminded to be fearfully frugal in what I label as such.

1 of 8 has already rallied. She has declared that she will 'rock' this look and is thankful to know that perhaps this 'truthful' friend has a different measure of what friendship looks like. It has made me grateful for the varied and amazing people in 1 of 8's life who have seen her through multiple moves, hairstyles and phases. It has made me grateful for 1 of 8's posse who find her droll humor hysterical. And it has also helped me add an item on my Friend Application: If you don't like my hair, don't tell me.

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Distraction Parenting

Pediatrician Dr. William Sears created something of a parenting firestorm when he introduced his concepts of 'Attachment Parenting' based on psychologist Eric Erickson's observations on the infant development of relationship to parent or primary caregiver. He called for parents to consider 8 stages of attachment needs and to respond accordingly. Some have seen his work as revolutionary, some think it has spawned an era of child-centered parenting, others have never heard of him. Attachment Parenting does have its zealots and critics. But a largely overlooked parenting theory is now being offered from my personal experiments and observations...behold, Distraction Parenting.

Perhaps I am raising a household of Jean Eugene Robert-Houdins (that's Houdini for those of you who think Wikipedia is an island off of Hawaii) but my children seem to have organized some sort of union and are mastering the arts of illusion with great aplomb. It's the old gag of waving the left hand in the face of the observer while the right hand slips in the right card or unlatches the key or stuffs the scarf in the sleeve. My children are developing an act all their own, usually centered around chore time or school. While one flashes bright sparklers in my face ("Mom, is 'my' spelled 'm apostrophe i'?"), one of the other children is four shelves up in the pantry, orangutan-like, toes clutching the edges of the board, raiding the chocolate stash. Child A can feign complete innocence ("But Mom, I was sitting with you the whole time at the table doing school--I don't know how those chocolate wrappers got in my bed...) while Child B can give me the "well, what do expect when you ignore me to do school with Child A" look, leaving me in a tailspin of mommy guilt and confusion ("Is Child B jealous of the time it is taking me to teach Child A how to spell "my"? Am I restricting sweets too much that it is causing a willingness to resort to subterfuge and deceit for sugar acquisition? Do I need to have my roots touched up? Did I ever put the wash in the dryer.....wait, what was I thinking about a couple of thoughts ago?")

In those moments when the curtain blows back and I can see Oz orchestrating these little moments of chimera, I feel a theory developing--Distraction Parenting. This theory is developed out of the idea that when children have certain desires or needs that they know may not find agreement in their primary caregiver's agenda, they can leverage the fact that the primary caregiver is sleep-deprived and hopped up on too much caffeine. Said caregiver is also easily distracted by bright, shiny objects and has a tendency toward hyperlexia, all of which can be powerful tools in the hands of a seasoned Child Illusionist. The latest generation which has come into evidence in our lab (i.e. kitchen table where we do school). Due to the generosity of an unnamed benefactor, I have recently come into possession of MY VERY OWN computer, not to be confused with the other hard drive electronics currently under the control of various family members. I am endlessly delighted to have computer territory completely under my purview, with icons set where I like them, settings set where I like them, access whenever I like....well, the list just goes on and on. But, because I do like bright, shiny objects and the Child Illusionists in my life know this, I will have to maintain ultimate vigilance to not enter a mirage of productivity on the computer, all to discover that toy cabinets have been pillaged and puzzle sets have been set on a course of separation that will render them incomplete and frustrated forever, known in the Latin as jigsaw interruptus. I submit notes from yesterday's field observations as evidence:

Me: "Please do that page of math facts."

Child A: "Okay"--see, it's already starting, lulling me into an apparition of obedience. This is a central technique to the illusion. The illusion would be spoiled if the child said, "No, I don't wanna do math..." I know this is technical, but try to stay with me....

Me: "Child B, please study that page of spelling words while I become completely distracted and lose all sense of time looking up ways on Google that I can become more organized and effective. Given a couple of minutes, I will become engrossed in said Google search and you can begin the illusion."

Child B: "Yes, dear mother."

Child A and Child B begin the stage craft of involved study and then through some secret handshake, eye roll, throat-clearing signal, the trick of light begins....

Child A: "Mom, can you help me with, um, this very confusing equation, 1 + 1?"
(Child B silently strolls in the general direction of the bathroom...)

Me: "You need help with 1 + 1? I have given my youth so that you are not sure about the sum of 1 + 1???"

Child A: "What does 'sum' mean?"

Me: "You will look up 'sum' in the glossary of your pre-algebra book and you will figure it out and I don't want to hear another word until you have come up with the answer because I am busy doing very important research on Google..."

Now they have me exactly where they want me--Child B is already away from the table, my reticulator devices already assuming that child is in the bathroom and Child A has been instructed to not bother me. Yes, they are this skilled. It has nothing to do with my level of self-discipline.

Time passes. I find the real name for Houdini. I check on some important email. I check on the temperature in London. And then it hits me--it's very quiet and still. Too quiet and still. Where are the kitchen table scholars? Where are the young minds thirsting for knowledge and the definition of 'sum'? How much time has passed since I've been in the MY VERY OWN computer wardrobe?

At this point, I begin the search party and find said scholars on the Wii upstairs, happily perfecting their virtual bowling games. They greet me warmly and act as if I said at some point that they should ditch math and spelling and play video games as a part of their curriculum. I actually have a moment where I am struggling to remember if I in fact did send them up to play video games. But because I am becoming more seasoned in recognizing their techniques, it only takes me a couple of minutes to determine with a certainty factor of 87% that I most likely did not send them up to play video games and that we were working on some definitions or math or something and that they should return to the table immediately. We shuffle downstairs to begin the knowledge acquisition process again. Things go smoothly, with Child A looking up the word 'sum' and Child B is in the bathroom....did you know that 'chimera' means 'dream'--I looked it up on thesarus.com.......

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"I'm in a Place Called Vertigo"

It's been four decades since the proof of my parents' young love made presence on the planet--and that proof would be me. It gets a girl to thinking, this whole 40 candles on the cake thing. I've been blessed to have walked many years with a Savior who faithfully extends me unending grace. I've spent my youth in maternity clothes and nursing bras with a few intermissions in running shoes and jeans that have zippers instead of elastic tummy panels. I've gone from the radio booth to the front of the camera to behind the microphone. I've lived on all three coasts of the contiguous U.S. of A. with some stops in between. I've been in school, out of school and now home school. And for the last two decades I've been madly in love with the same man who still lights up my world with a simple smile and has been willing to try harder than anyone to figure me out and make me feel loved. 4-0. Wow.

All my girlfriends talk about how gravity begins to work against them after a particular birthday. Things may tend toward chaos, but first they slide down your chest. And I have to admit, I am noticing that downward trend. But there's another element of gravity that I'm actually noticing more as I evaluate the meaning of a marquis birth celebration. It's not one you hear talked about much--but I suppose that it's because there are only so many of us who were raised by literal rocket scientists--and that alone makes a girl have a few unusual twists and turns in the ol' cerebral tissue.

You see, time is not a constant across this little universe of ours. Time is determined by gravitational pull. That's the reason behind the Trivial Pursuit questions on how long a day on Venus is or how long a Jupiter year is in comparison to Earth. It's why we struggle with how to get astronauts to the far outreaches of space but at the same time run the numbers that show they would have only aged a few days in comparison to the generations that would have already passed here.

Gravity is a tricky little thing. We take for granted that our next step will stick like a gentle magnet on solid ground. We know that the sippy cup dropped from a little hand will hit the tile and we expect the pull of the backyard swing to give a thrilling sense of flight before bringing us sensibly back to the scuffed sand of the play yard. We don't really notice gravity, don't contemplate its absolute dictatorship over the march of our days. And yet a dictator it is, dictating Earth's postition in relation to the Sun, thereby dictating how quickly we spin around our central star and thereby setting the cadence for our twenty-four hour days, our three hundred sixty-five day years, our ten year decades, our ten decade centuries, all brought to you by that invisible sponsor, gravity, under the purview of an amazing Creator.

One of my brothers suffers occasion bouts of vertigo, usually at convenient times like holidays. I've asked him what these sessions feel like and he has said that the best way he knows to describe it is that it seems all the sudden he has come in to full realization of the spin of the Earth. As humans, we don't recognize the constant movement of the Earth, to the point that for many eons we actually thought the Sun rose and set around us, moving like a giant spot light upon our earthen stage. It took some brave souls like Copernicus and Galileo to make us face the fact that we were the revolvers, not the revolvee. But our senses still block this out. We don't feel the constant spin of a revolving planet. We feel steady. But my brother's vertigo seems to overcome his ability to ignore the spin. While we decorate the Christmas tree, deck the halls and trim any other available surface, he lies dizzy, acutely aware of the turn of the terrain--at least, that is the reason he's given for getting out of some holiday chores.

And so I find myself in a place of birthday vertigo: all of the sudden, I am acutely aware of the passing of time, of the unfolding of one season into the next. I can almost see individual moments spreading wings and taking flight, catching them out of the corner of my mind's eye, slipping silently into a vast sky of memory. I notice my movements around the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher; cup in the cupboard, five seconds gone. Dish in the sink, two seconds gone. Broom on the tile, dust in the pan, seconds swept from pages of life, flittering, fluttering, taking wing. Mind you, it's not a bad thing, not a depressing thing, this extra-sensory perception of time passage. It's just as if I've felt the larger pull of gravity, not just the smaller pull that is gently yanking my physical attributes into new attitudes like a playground bully tugging on my pigtails. It's when you suddenly notice not just the new month on the calendar, but the seconds that comprised the minutes that comprised the hours that comprised the days that comprised the month, the individual pixels in an enlarged photograph. And what a beautiful thing they are, these small cells of time, the by-product of a powerful gravity, that give substance and musical beat to a mysterious existence orchestrated by a mysterious God. Blessed vertigo.

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