First Day of School--A Journey for This Mom

I stare out the window with tears rolling down my cheeks. Reaching up to touch my mouth there is a stream of saliva that comes with my hand and snot is beginning to run out my nose. I am silently sobbing in the public library and wiping away the tears as I read the article, “No One Ever Taught Me How to Raise a Man” by Tracey Huguley. Tears stop dribbling down for a moment when I look through the window. I notice a street sign; Kirkwood. It is still the popular vein pumping money into the local economy and sending students back onto campus fed and dressed well. I look at the street; 11 years after I was a college student. I see with different eyes and a memory is coming back to me. For a moment and I reach far back into the past. That street pole with the wire and dangling street lamp...I’ve stood there before. Yes, I was in a mob of people that overtook the street. And a young man climbed that very pole. He shimmied right up it while everyone around cheered and whooped and hollered. It was a scene of pure adrenaline after watching our basketball team take a major win. We college kids poured out of houses, dorms, the entire campus and flooded that street when that winning shot was made. I am sitting here, so close to a place where I was a still a child and now I am a parent. I have no idea how to raise a man. I am not even sure how to be a mom of a kindergartner and today, I will become one.

A real sense of fear is reaching into my well-being. Is this normal? Is this every first-time kindergarten mom’s experience? This feeling, that every step has to be chosen wisely...it’s exhausting. If I praise him for knowing something at school, will his intrinsic joy for learning be compromised? If I don’t pack his lunch everyday will his precious gut be forever damaged? Will his teacher snuff out his strong curious nature? Will he become zombified? Brain liquified? Wanting only to read books because he earns points from taking lame computer reading tests in the school library? What if I don’t stop in the right place for the school-drop off? Am I limiting his sense of freedom and choice if I insist on driving him to school instead of getting on the deadly bus that will crash leaving him critically injured because there were no seatbelts, right after some 5th grader shouts profanities at him and makes him feel horrifically inadequate for his choice of backpack?

So I question myself. What IS this all about?

It’s about fear. And control. And the awareness that I really haven’t had much control since he was born, but jeez you don’t have to rub my face in it...Kindie-Kindergarten. Children are going to say they won’t play with him. They’re going to tell him they don’t like his shirt or his backpack or the way he colors or his cookie-cutter peanut butter and jelly sandwiches shaped like the great state of Texas where he was born. And then what? I don’t know what I’ll do when he comes home crying because he is scared to read aloud in front of the class or when his best friend decides he doesn’t want to be friends anymore. What do you do? Hell, I cried on and off  for weeks when a friend recently decided she didn’t want to speak to me anymore. How do you heal the ultimate rejection, the rejection of you? Why would I even dream of sending him out there like a loose arrow? My mind circles back to that time before he was born. When we waited, prepared for him, anticipated meeting him, feared for him, and began to realize what an incredible journey we were going to take. How giving birth would teach us things, scary things. One of those things we learned was that each day we have to let go a little more. That first week after he was born I held him bundled in a blanket up to my mom as she stood in my kitchen and I beamed proudly asking, “Can you believe he is mine?” “No. He is not yours.” She said plainly. My face changed immediately and she continued “He doesn’t belong to you.” How did she come to this conclusion? “What do you mean?” Deep inside of me there was a pain. Heat wrapped around my neck and my cheeks flushed. There was some truth she spoke. Damn. She recalled a few words from the poet Khalil Gibran and I brushed them away. I never found the poem. It has crept into my conciousness,  this real knowing. I sit with shoulders rocking trying not to draw attention to myself and curve my back over and hunch and write and cry. I remember the poet. And I am in awe of his words.

Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, 'Speak to us of Children.'

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Khalil Gibran

I will not be able to protect my child’s soul because it is his and only he can feel it. I will not be able to choose his tough decisions because they are his. I will not be able to keep him from seeing, experiencing, or causing hurt because he is not simply an extension of me. (That is a concept I so easily forget.) But, my heart is full of gladness because he is here. And I love him tremendously.

With gladness and love I will embrace this task of being a parent. I will always forget and hopefully I can remember again the words from this wise man. I will also be driving him to school. At least for the first week.

Kidlets and Mananging the Home

Maintaining a home is no easy task. It sometimes leaves me with the feeling I am living Bill Murray’s life in the movie, “Groundhog Day.” So, how does it all get done? I am of the current belief that a system must be put in place. Perhaps it is part of my German heritage, but I love organization, rules, and systems. Although, you probably wouldn’t know that if you came to my home. One example of this was a time we had a trespasser on our property. It was late one night and my husband Ryan and I were in bed watching a movie on our computer. I just happened to glance at the French doors to my right, and noticed a man’s hand in the window. I saw his wristwatch and my eye followed to a phone in his hand. In an instant I saw a little pop of bright light and realized he had taken a photo.  Then his hand and the phone disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. I wondered if I had imagined it or if I was seeing a reflection of the movie in the glass of the window. My husband and I spent several minutes trying to recreate the scene by positioning the computer as we rewound the movie and watched it from different locations. Nothing we saw in the movie was similar to what I saw in the window. I knew that we had to do something, so we contacted the police and they arranged for an officer to come out to the house. After he looked around the property with his flashlight, he began to ask us several questions. He motioned to the back porch, where the French doors lead, and waved his flashlight around asking, “Did it look like this before he got here?” I was somewhat mortified that my back porch looked as if it had been burglarized. “Well…We have a nearly two year old, boy.” I replied. There was an upturned baby pool, several items scattered in the grass and an explosion of sidewalk chalk and toys. He reported to us there was no evidence of anyone having been there. And, whoever was there was on foot, a scary thought considering we live out in the middle of nowhere. So, we were burglar free, and had an official police report to document the untidiness.

Well, it has been almost a year since that happened and I now have two boys. One who is nearly three (Barrett) and the other will turn one (Emerson) next week. Above is a picture of Barrett painting on the outside of the French door at his 2^nd birthday party.

 I am just beginning to feel competent when it comes to maintaining a home. I think there may be a chance for me. My first attempt at this in an idea I heard on a radio program about a French woman whose home was always immaculate. Knowing that this would be a far reality for me I was skeptical. My fingers retracted back to the steering wheel and I continued to listen, curious. She wrote down a task on index cards and referred to them daily. Her cards contained chores like, “Wash baseboards, dust moldings, dust chandeliers, etc.” I chuckled to myself about the chandelier part, too. But, there has got to be something here for me I thought! One chore a day. I can do that. No decisions about what must get done each day, just complete the daily chore and move it to the back of the stack.

I couldn’t find our index cards. So maybe I still need some organizational help. But, I found some pieces of paper and began to write the days of the week at the top of each. Then, each night before I went to bed I wrote down one necessary chore for that day. It might have been one that I completed, but mostly it was one that I wished I could have gotten to. After I had written one chore on each card, like Wash Towels and Sheets, Wash off sinks and clean toilets, etc.  I began to look at the daily card. So, if it was Monday morning, I turned to “Monday” and read my chore. Throughout the entire day, I would think about it, but at the end of the day that chore remained undone. This went on for about three weeks. I would move the little papers around each day. Faithfully, I looked at my daily chore, yet I did not do what was on the card. I allowed myself the permission not to complete it if it was too hard. I didn’t beat myself up about it. Then, the chores seemed doable after about 3 weeks of looking at them. On Monday night when I was supposed to clean the toilets, I actually did it! While Ryan was brushing teeth with the kids and getting them ready for bed, I took about 5 minutes and cleaned the toilet in the boys bathroom and cleaned the sink. I didn’t get to my own bathroom, but I have hope that eventually it will be doable.

I’d love to hear your comments about any aspect of home management you have found helpful, funny, or even disastrous. 

66 Hours

My family has been inside the home for 66 straight ours now, with the exception of my husband going out to chop some wood yesterday. He was only outside for about twenty minutes, but the extreme windchill still had no mercy on him. With three pairs of pants, including long johns and three shirts, a coat, hat, and gloves, he was still really glad to get right back inside!

The Weather Channel issued a warning yesterday letting North Texans know that if they should venture out, they should wear a hat and gloves. My husband and I found this recommendation rather amusing, having both spent several of our formative years living in Indiana.

Heaven help us if we run out of butter. With the prospect of schools being closed again tomorrow, that may mean we don't get to go out until Saturday or later. We have been cooking and baking around here and will surely have some good winter coats (I mean weight) to show for it.

I have to continually remind my husband that he cannot leave to go to the store. We just watched our neighbors unsuccessfully try to drive up the road. They practically had to slide back down to their driveway in reverse. We're all beginning to feel a little edgy. A periodic dance break really helps. What do you do to keep things light and fun when you're all so full of energy and need to get it out?

It was in the name of BBQ

We caved. Not leaving the house was never an option after my husband mentioned getting BBQ at our favorite little shack. After a phone call to a neighbor (one with four-wheel drive) we determined the roads were safe enough for our entire family to risk our lives to get those soft warm rolls and dip them in the beautiful red Hutchins BBQ sauce. Oh, and then there's the hotlinks, brisket, chopped beef, and fried okra. You've never seen a baby eat BBQ until you've eaten with us. Our nearly eleven  month old ate it up, making enthusiastic baby sounds the whole time. I know I promised at least one person we would reamin inside the safety of our home and not leave. So I probably should refrain from mentioning that on the way back home we stopped to get beer. If there is any chance you will be snowed in, make sure to have enough beer, wine, or some other libations. Also, you must have butter.