Too Much

Bennett and I were chatting the other day about sports.  He was telling me that almost all the boys in his grade were playing baseball right now.  And that before that, they were all playing basketball. And before that, they were all playing football.  He wondered out loud, "When do they rest?"

Good point, my son.

I asked him if he felt left out because he wasn't playing baseball.  He replied, "No!  I want to play one thing and get really good at it.  That's why I chose basketball.  I'd like to play baseball, but with Daddy.  I don't want to play on a team and have to have lots of practices again.  Then I wouldn't have time to just play or be with you guys.  It's all too much, Mom!"

Why can a kid see this and adults can't?

He went on to tell me about his friend.  "Mom, my friend doesn't have any toys in his room.  And his Dad isn't nice to him, neither is his brother.  So he either has video games or sports.  I can understand why he plays sports all the time.  But then when he grows up, he'll think playing sports all the time is normal..." and I finished his sentence with,  "...and spending time with your family is not."

I actually find this current social fascination of putting your child in some extra curricular activity each season a negative.  I personally see it as activity suggesting a life full of meaning.  We justify these activities with statements such as, "I want my child to experience all different types of things" all the while thinking, what am I going to do with them during the summer, I can't have them hanging around the house for goodness sakes.    So we over-schedule them.   We put them in every camp imaginable because it will be "fun".  We sign them up for every sport during the proper season because we want to give our kid the opportunities we didn't get as kids or think they somehow deserve.

What they "deserve" is time with their parents.

But we're really doing them a disservice in the long run.  By schelling out money left and right for this activity and that activity we're only encouraging our children's natural bent toward egocentrism.  Kids naturally think the world revolves around them.  It is our job as the parents to teach them it doesn't.  However, when we sign them up for every activity under the sun and spend all our extra money on them, and sacrifice all our extra time carting them to and from each event/activity, we're only feeding and reinforcing that egocentrism.  We are proving with our actions that they are more important than our family unit as a whole.

I'm not against extra curricular activities.  I think kids can learn valuable lessons through these endeavors.  But they need to be balanced with family time.  Moms and Dads need to impart their life and time into their kids.  And you can't do that when the kids are never home.  You can't do that when you are just the driver getting them to and from their activities.  You can't do that if you never eat dinner together or play together.  And we wonder why our children don't share our sense of values or want to spend time with us as they get older.  

Children need time! Lots of it...to play, to process what they're learning in the world.  Play is learning.  Play is super important.  Too much structured time and too little play leads to very frustrated kids.  Kids who are always catered to, being allowed to take part in any and everything they fancy, never learn to appreciate anything.  

Less is  more!

Speech Therapy

You would never know that Chloe ever had a speech impediment.  I personally thought it was adorable how her 'r' sound still came out as 'ur' sounding.  But it doesn't feel adorable when you're being made fun of.  Chloe was lucky to have the most wonderful speech therapist in school this year.  Chloe was determined to say her letters and words correctly.  She began speaking even more properly and articulately than ever before.

That's why my heart smiled super big this morning as I dropped her off at school.  She excitedly told me, "Mommy, I'm going to try to do a flip on the trap-uh-zee bars today!"  I knew immediately that she was talking about the 'trapeze bar' but I didn't correct her.  I love it.  I love that she's still young enough to pronounce words wrong even though she can still speak so proper.  It reminds me of those days that seemed to fly by way too fast where each of my sweet little people had unique pronunciations for all sorts of words.  I actually miss not having to translate for them or spend countless hours trying to interpret what they could possibly be saying in their limited english vocabulary.

DUFDN Returns

It's been way too long since we celebrated this fun, family tradition.  It's funny how time gets away from you.  But have no fear, Dress Up For Dinner Night is here!  We voted on the theme and "Jobs" ended up winning.  So, without further ado, here we are dressed up in our "Jobs" costumes ready to eat a yummy dinner:

Don't you wish you were sitting at the table eating with thee freaks.

Introducing:  Herb Smiley, the used car salesman.  What makes Herb's outfit special is the fact that he used all his own clothes from his everyday wardrobe.  That takes a special skill to take any thing you own, and put it together in such a way to make you look like an idiot.  Way to go Herb!

I am Edwin the English Detective from 1940's England.  I am sporting my son's blazer and dress shirt, my husband's hat and tie, any thankfully, my own pants.  Chloe let me borrow her notepad with the crayola marker so I could look official writing down my detective findings.  I feel I came across looking a little more like Hiter than Edwin, but oh well....gotta just go with it sometimes.

Gavin asks me, "Mom, can it be a job I read about in a book?"  Naively, I answer, "Sure".  I should have known something was up.  No other job on our planet would suit him.  So he decided to dress up as a Ranger Apprentice.  Apparently this is a viable occupation in some other worlds.

Chloe was all too excited to be Louise the Maid.  She asked me earlier on in the day if maids wore make-up.  I assured her they do.  That's all she needed...she would now be a maid, even though she hates to clean.  But she did inform me that she LOVES to clean rich people's houses because they have cool stuff to look at.

No guessing needed here.  Bennett proudly portrays his alter ego, Bob the Plumber.  Let's just say he has lots of experience in the plumbing department.  No, he didn't grow a beer belly over night.  That is just all the underwear he owns stuffed inside his shirt.  His goal, apparently, is to use underwear in each of the costumes he tries to assemble.  He hasn't failed yet.  At least they weren't on his head this time.

Rude Awakening

I was so looking forward to sleeping in this Saturday morning.  We had no where we had to be.  Instead, at precisely 7:19 a.m. we heard the distinct sound of something crawling around in our attic.  Not. Good.  It was loud enough to wake both Chuck & I up from a dead sleep.  You know when you hear foot steps.  You tend to take that kind of thing seriously.

So what did we do?  Well, first we jumped out of bed and stood there looking up at the ceiling.  That's the level of brain competence we're dealing with first thing in the morning.  Then Chuck asks me if it's raining.  Since I'm the one closest to the window, I peer out and assess the situation.  No rain.  Even if, I've never heard rain that sounds like footsteps in my attic, but whatever, it was early and we were just so rudely awakened by this mystery sound, we can't expect to be thinking clearly now, can we.

Now that heavy rain has been checked off the list, we start letting our imaginations run wild.  Maybe a badger is trapped in our attic.  It's too loud to be mice.  Maybe it could be a raccoon.  Or three.  It was loud!  And it kept running back and forth.  Whatever it was sounded nervous.  That was making us nervous.

I'm sure we were talking between ourselves but I can't remember a word of it.  All I know is that after about 3 minutes of standing in our room looking at the ceiling, suddenly we're both taking off for the front door....in our jammies.  I follow Chuck out to the driveway.  We now have two kids in tow.  All 4 of us are standing in our driveway, with bed head, sleep still in our eyes, and jammies all caddy-wampus from just rolling out of bed, staring at our roof.

And guess what we found:

 
Yep.  These Mallards decided that our roof made a nice perch midway on their journey to find the next nearest lake.  Apparently they (there were 3 of them) were running back and forth.  We were elated.  The alternative would have been horrible.  If something was actually in our attic that would mean there was a hole in our roof or the side of our house somewhere.  And it's pitch black up there.  I would hate to see Chuck have to pull down the attic stairs and start wrestling with some unknown creature in the dark after he just woke up.

After our little discovery session we decided to go back to bed.  Since we didn't have to actually deal with any furry creatures with teeth and rabies, we were relieved enough to resume our original positions.

Spring Flowers

The saddest things about pictures are that you can't smell them.  If you could, the intoxicating fragrance of this picture would make you keep your nose stuck to the computer screen all day.   These lilacs almost knock me over every day with their fragrant blooms.  I had no idea the power behind these tiniest of flowers.  You put a million of them together and their fragrance makes you walk around with a silly smile on your face the rest of the day because you're awed by their beauty and refreshing smell.  Joy is in the simple, little  things, isn't it?  I love sitting on my front porch, in my rocking chair and reading by the light of the sun and the fragrance of my lilacs.  This is going to be a good day.... I can just smell it!

Bite Me

So...remember that little epiphany I had?  Live fully in the moment, don't worry about the past or future, don't covet time,  yadayadayada.  Well...I knew that would come back to bite me.  I just knew I'd get the opportunity to 'exercise' this little lesson, I just didn't know when.

Turns out yesterday was 'training day' for me.  Okay Cori, let's see how deep this new beautiful truth is in you, shall we?  Let's throw a curve ball at you today and see what happens.  Oh goodie.

It helps to have a little background information first.  You see, I used to be a huge stickler for a schedule.  If anything got off MY schedule by a fraction of a minute, I was so irritated (to put it lightly).  I lived and breathed by my own self inflicted schedule.  I did not live a free life.  I put all kinds of walls and boundaries up to protect myself.  Those little walls I liked to call "my schedule".  If you wanted to enjoy me, you had to also like my schedule because it controlled me.

I thank God everyday for teaching me a better way to live because living like that is miserable for you and everyone else around you.  But when you feel you have no control over your own life, setting up pseudo-control in the form of a very strict schedule has a way of giving you a false sense of security that you cling to desperately.  A whole day could easily be ruined because something in our day happened out of order or our time frame got messed up somehow.

Looking back, I can't even begin to imagine living like that.  Who was that person?  She must not have been very happy.  Having three kids and homeschooling abruptly threw that philosophy of living right out the window.  I either had to become Nazi-Mom or learn to go with the flow.  I now LOVE the freedom of seeing where the day takes me; staying flexible and open to adventures or emergencies or whatever else might come up.  I'd say God transformed me completely and I hardly remember that old, suffocating way of life I used to live bound up with my rigid schedule.

But yesterday it all came flooding back in full force.  Of course it did.

We had planned to go see Daddy's softball games after school.  He works almost an hour away, so logistically, it's very hard for us to make it up there and back before bedtime on a school night.  Most of his games are late at night but these were at 6 and 7pm.  Perfect.  I could just pick up the kids and get up to his work 45 minutes later.  We would have time to eat and get to the ball fields with time to spare.  It was a brilliant plan.  And to top things off, this was like the only game of his season we were going to be able to come to because of kids' extra curricular actives.

Que rain.  Bummer.

Que cold, cloudy day.  Double Bummer!

This is not turning into the picture I had in my head of a beautiful, sunny, 70 degree, spring day.

But that's okay, they probably wouldn't call the game because it wasn't  supposed to rain during game time.  They'd just have to deal with the puddles all over the field.  Not my problem.  I'm going with the flow just fine.

Then comes the final blow.  Apparently my internal stress-o-meter was already set at pretty high because of the previous, unplanned weather circumstances.  Then Chuck calls like 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave.  "Uh, I have some interesting news for you."

"What could you possibly tell me that is interesting 5 minutes before I have to leave?"

"Well...turns out we don't have a 6 o'clock game.  Only a 7 o'clock game."

You would have thought he told me he hated me and never wanted to see me again.  I was so ticked off by that change of plans.  See, I had planned to hang around with the kids for the 6 o'clock game and leave by 7 so I could get home by 8 to put everyone to bed.  Perfect plan, right?  Apparently, no one else got my memo.

"ARGHHHH!!!!  So, do you not want us to come now?"  What I was really saying here was, I guess that means we don't get to have Smashburger for dinner now and have to eat leftovers that I DON'T WANT and we won't get to see you until like 9 o'clock tonight.  And I have to unpack the car with all the stuff I just finished putting in there to bring to your game.

"Sure, you can still come if you want.  We'll just have a longer wait till the game."

"...........", that's me fuming and thinking.  Suddenly, old Cori rears her ugly, control head and every and anything I've learned over the last 10 years disappears.  I let this new change of plans ruin my ever lovin joy.

Then, to make matters worse Chuck's like, "Remember that living in the moment thing?  Let's just enjoy whatever time we get whether you go to the game or not, at least we'll get to eat together and hang out for a while."

"Ok.  Fine.  See you soon."  Inside, I know this whole thing is so petty.  But I can stop the volcano of emotions erupting just beneath the surface.  It just plain feels good to be mad.

So, I go pick up the kids from school.  They can instantly sense I'm not "happy mommy" at the moment.  They start peppering me with questions about whether or not I'm tired or if I have a headache.  I decide to just confess and tell them, "Mommy is fine, just a little irritated is all.  Things aren't working out the way we thought they would for tonight and I'm just trying to not let it bother me.  But until I've reached that zen state, I will probably look a little perturbed and sound a little frustrated."

Bennett is all over that.  He knows the cure for a bad mood.  He jumps in with excitement in the Trying-To-Help-Mom-Not-Be-Mad-Anymore Cure.  To make matters worse, I'm the one who taught him the cure.  "So, Mom, Whatcha' thankful for today?"

His timing is impeccable.  He knew if I would chose to be thankful, I couldn't be upset anymore.  I'm sure I mumbled something pathetic like, "I'm glad you're finally home from school."  Not like my conscience wasn't doing an adequate enough job of reminding me to just let it go, now I had Chuck reminding me of my epiphany and Bennett reminding me to be thankful.   Man, what does a girl have to do stay in a mad mood around here?!

Oh, I know... how about, get stuck in traffic.  Let's sit right in the middle of a construction zone and try to merge 3 lanes into 1 in the course of one block.  That will help eat up time and mental energy.

What seemed like ions later, we finally made it up to Chuck's work and over to Smashburger.  I silently pray the world's best prayer, "Help God!  Help, please!".  It worked.  For me, that was my surrender.  That was me admitting my way sucked and I would prefer to live thankful and in the moment and chose His way, not my pathetic, self-serving way.

We ended up laughing so hard at dinner.  And yes, it rained but who cares.  Chuck was the one who had to play in that weather.  The kids didn't once complain about the long drive or the fact that we didn't get to go to Daddy's game (I should have been relieved actually knowing my luck with softballs).

And just to make sure I wasn't 'faking' my new found joy, I got lost on the way home and still didn't blow up.  Okay, maybe once I screamed in frustration over the phone when I was calling Chuck for the 3rd time in angst over not being able to find my way back to the highway and driving aimlessly for 20 minutes.  But we did get to see the most beautiful rainbow on the way home...so it all worked out in the end.

It's so strange how old habits can rear their ugly head.  Just goes to show how my best effort is never good enough.  I need to chose Jesus every minute of every day.  And having people who love me around me to remind me of that fact is an extra bonus when I'm too dense to remember.

What is important to you is important to me

This past weekend, Bennett and I experienced what was probably the best day of his life - ever.  The University of Minnesota has a Raptor Center where they rehabilitate injured raptors.  Once a year they have a ceremony where they release these raptors back into the wild.  Bennett & I just happened to make that our date day.  It couldn't have been more awesome!

Bennett's obsession and love affair with birds of all varieties is widely known.  But to have someone else take as deep an interest in what you love and share the joy of that with you....well, that's priceless.  He loved that we got to do this together and that I thought the whole thing was as awesome has he did.

They had several areas sectioned off that allowed us to get some pretty amazing and up close and personal views of these spectacular birds of prey.  Bennett peppered the lady in the enclosed area with the birds with a million and one questions.  And then he proceeded to tell me every minute detail about each of the birds in the enclosure.  It was such a delight.

He told me more than once, "Mom, I think this is the best day of my life so far."

Here's his version in his own words.

My Epiphany

It came to me in the oddest of places.  I was scrunched over a dandelion weed and I think I just about solved all the world's problems.  Okay, maybe not the whole world's, but mine.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.  I actually wanted to pull weeds.  We were all outside doing our part to help make our outdoor space more inviting.

As I was maneuvering the trowel, I was thinking.  I was thinking about what I had to do next.  I was thinking about what I'd already done.  Then it hit me, why aren't I thinking about what I'm doing exactly this minute?  Why am I spending so much energy on the future and the past.  Why can't I enjoy this exact moment?

Then it struck me....I'm coveting time.  I believe coveting is the root of all problems.  We want what we don't have right now.  Isn't that the cause of discontentment?  If I was fully living in the moment, unconcerned about what I had to do 5 minutes from now, wouldn't I be enjoying and seeing so much more life around me?  Wouldn't I be living abundantly?  Why is there that concern about what I have to do next?  Why am I allowing that to steal the time I have at this exact moment?

What can I learn from the right now?  Was I employing all my senses while pulling the weeds?  Did I really smell the beauty of the rich, dark dirt beneath my fingers?  Did a smile cross my face when I heard the sounds of children playing, laughing and talking in the background?  Did I hear the intricate sound of birds chirping and leaves blowing in the breeze?  Did I feel every ounce of warmth on my skin?  Did my eyes behold the beauty of the earth?   Did I take the time to thank God for each of these gifts?  Did I take the time to listen to that 'still small voice' speak into my soul and fill me up?

As you can see, I think in questions.

I want to be ever aware of no longer coveting that which I don't have.  Not only the things I'd like to own one day.  But the time laid out before me.  I'm not promised tomorrow.  I'm only given the gift of today.  I can't be disappointed in what doesn't happen in the future if I didn't covet that time today.  I would be too busy living my life fully today to let worry or covetousness subtly steal the time away I have right now.

I hate to think of how many precious moments with loved ones I allowed to be ruined because I was too concerned about what I needed to do next.  I might have missed a nuance in their actions, a look in their eyes or the tone of their voice because my mind wasn't focused only on them in that one and only beautiful moment.

I think I now truly understand Jim Eliot's quote:

Whatever you do, be all there.

I Am

Gavin was assigned an "I Am" poem to write in school as part of a collage project.  He is to write a poem and then surround it with pictures that visually show who he is and what he likes.  He came home and immediately got to work.  The words seemed to flow like water out of him.  I love any glimpse I get of his brain.  But this poem blew me away since the only poem style I have mastered is of the Dr. Seuss variety.  Thankfully, he has given me permission to share it:

I am intuitive and innovative

I wonder where my life will lead me

I hear distant echos of the past

I see cloudy images of the future

I want to carry out the task I was made for

I am intuitive and innovative

I pretend that life is like a whirlpool

I feel the force of the water, pushing me at all sides 

I touch the twirling current, spinning me around

I worry that I may soon be spun out of control

I cry when the whirlpool sucks someone down forever

I am intuitive and innovative

I understand that all things come to an end

I say to enjoy it while you can

I dream that I would someday follow my own advice

I try to relish every moment, as if it were the last

I hope that somethings never do come to pass

I am intuitive and innovative.

How To Handle Grief

I actually have no idea how.  I've never lost anyone close to me.  However, I did lose a favorite dog once and that about sent me over the edge.  I'm a novice when it comes to this.  I have no pat answers.  I sure could have used some yesterday.

Last night, in a panic, Bennett starts yelling for us to run upstairs to his room.  So we run.  He's hysterical over his bird, Max.  Max is acting very atypical for a parakeet.  Bennett just knows something is wrong.  We start calling the pet stores.  We get advice.  We look up emergency vet clinics that take birds (none did).  We run to CVS to get a dropper (so Bennett can hand feed Max water).  We attach a heat lamp to the cage.  All in an attempt to show Bennett that what breaks his heart, breaks ours.

So we sit.  And we wait.  Together.

We are optimistic that maybe he'll make it til morning when we can rush to the vet as soon as it opens.  Bennett plans on doing an all night vigil with Max; holding him close to his heart and feeding him one drop at a time.  We desperately don't want to see a repeat of Azul.

But then the tide changes and Max takes a turn for the worse.  He's been stumbling all over the bottom of the cage, tripping and falling with every step.  Now he's just sitting in one spot, eyes closed and leaning over as if he's trying to lay his head down.  That's when we lost all hope.  Bennett is holding Max's head up, willing to keep him alive.

It didn't work.

Max put up a good fight.  It was too sad to watch, so we went in cuddled in my room instead.  Bennett was full of questions.  "I prayed.  I asked God to heal Max.  Why didn't He?  He could if He wanted to."

So true my friend.  I have no answers for you.  This is a hard place to be in.  It's okay to be angry.  It's okay to be sad.  Please try not to make this God's fault though.  Sometimes there are no answers.  It is what it is.  It's okay not to understand the 'whys'.  Words seem empty though in the midst of the pain.  So I stop talking and we just hold each other and I let him cry.

I let him stay home from school today to grieve.  Bennett is very free with his emotions and likes to talk about how he feels a lot.  We had many wonderful conversations, remembering Max.  He talked about what it felt like to lose a second beloved bird.  He said how bad he felt for Angel (his lone remaining bird).  And surprisingly, he thanked us.

He thanked me all day long for comforting him, for giving him the freedom and the time to grieve, for helping to cheer him up, for running out to get the dropper for Max (Daddy) and for cleaning up the cage and putting Max in a keeping place until his burial this evening (Daddy).  My son was full of thankfulness in the midst of his grief.  Amazing.

Two things of huge importance we talked about:

1.) When bad things happen that don't make sense and we know God can stop it, why doesn't he? As we were discussing this today he told me, "Mom, I'm still wrestling God about this, but I know He still loves me."  I told him how happy I was to hear that he chose to wrestle about an important issue to him and told him if he feels that God gives him an answer to please pass it on to me!  And I thanked him for his honesty.

2.) Try not to put up a wall to protect your sensitive little heart from hurt again.  It's a natural and understandable reaction.  It's the sensitivity that makes you love and care for all the animals so well.  It's part of who you are.  You start desensitizing yourself so that pain doesn't hurt so bad and you miss out on the beauty of life.  To quote Dumas,  "Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss."

Goodbye Max.

 Angel & Max

Here's Bennett's story in his own words.

Ingenuity

I couldn't be prouder of the two Chloes.  They put their collective heads together and came up with an awesome idea that just made outside play time infinitely more fun.  Introducing:  The Car Seat Swing

All these handy items were conveniently located in our garage.  Don't worry, it's not a permanent fixture.  You can assemble this little contraption in no time in any tree.  That's the beauty of it.

Convenient Friends

I'm about to get on a soap box.  I just wanted to warn you.

Friends can be a beautiful gift or a painful reminder of deep hurt.  Friends can help carry you through or abandon you when you need them the most.  A friend is someone who laughs with you, not at you; who cries with you, not because of you.  A friend sacrifices for you.  A true friend will be "there" through the ups and downs of life, the good and the bad.

"There" is the optimal word.  It doesn't have to be physically.  But "there" counts.  It's critical actually, because it's that one word that proves the friendship.  If someone really knows you, they know how to read between the lines of what you say versus what you mean. They can see the light go in or out of your eyes.  They can hear the life and joy (or lack of it) in your voice.  They can understand the subtle nuances of your behavior and actions.

This type of friendship can only come from time spent together.  Quality time, not necessarily quantity.  It is not always comfortable or convenient.  You can't hurry this type of friendship.  It often goes places you'd rather not, uncomfortable places of arguments, miscommunication, misunderstandings and unmet expectations.  If you love someone enough, you go through those places with them.  You fight for what's important.  You love someone enough to wrestle through the hard times.  If you don't, you never valued the other enough to call them friend.

Unfortunately, now-a-days, our social media has watered down the definition of friendship to "who you know".  That's really all it takes.  They say it makes friendship easier.  Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.  I don't want to share my life with my "friend" in small snip-its in some vast chat room.  I want them to really, honestly care.  I know that it is inconvenient to truly care in today's society.  Because caring takes time and who has that anymore?  We're too harried and over scheduled to develop lasting friendships.

Social media allows you to turn your friends on and off when its convenient for you.  That's not what true friendship is about.  An honest to goodness friend should care less about whether or not time with you is convenient to their schedule.  A true friend would rather incur an inconvenience on your behalf and never even mention it to you because your friendship is that important.

I pray my children will learn the "old fashion" meaning of friendship.  I wanted to write it down here so they would have a point of reference as they grow older and wiser.  I fear for the state of friendship in the world my children inherit.  I pray they be the kind of friend they wish to have.  I hope they see social media friends as 'acquaintances' or 'people I used to know' or 'friends of convenience' rather than that true heart to heart friend.  I pray they don't substitute connecting on social media with a 'friend' as time spent investing in that friend.  I pray they take time for the people in their lives that are important to them. I hope they learn how to be the friend the wish to have.

(photo credit: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-social-media-is-ruining-relationships#1)