are we there yet?

for some reason, and i don't know from where i got my information, but for some reason, i thought once upon a time that parenting was hardest in the beginning climbed to its height of difficulty when the child was around 5 and then became remarkably and uneventfully well, easy. i've only been at it for 15 years, but based on my personal experience and that of my friends with older kids, it.only.gets.more.challenging. 

yesterday we were trying to finish up supper for a family walk. as we tidied the dishes and swept the floor, one of our boys argued. not over the task of sweeping, but over a dispute that he and i had had hours prior over, well, i honestly cannot remember what. but he was what we in the south like to term "stewing" and what i mean by this is this boy who i adore cannot stand being w-r-o-n-g. and he cannot stand being called out. and when i do call him out, it turns into a back and forth like something from a courtroom. "what is your evidence?" "how can you prove probable cause?" "did you see the defendant lay down that towel and then leave the scene?" 

y'all. it's akin to that darling stage in a child's development when everything is "why?" only this go around the kid has a larger vocabulary, an arsenal of excuses and doesn't require snacks or naps to refuel their energies. 

i've been thinking a lot about how we never really leave a stage of parenthood, it just sort of changes. parenting to me feels like i'm that little kid starting out on a road trip with my parents. my small legs dangling over the seat. i can't see past the front seat, and i keep asking, "are we there yet?" o, sure. i should be all "enjoy the ride, look out the window. enjoy the adventure." but, really. all i want to know is "when are we freakin' going to get 'there' cause i'm feeling carsick? " wherever there is.  

i have decided to keep a tally of how often i get interrupted whilst using the loo. every.single.time. i go to the bathroom, i hear, "hhheeeeeeyyyyy, mom?" and guess what? my kids are too old for this. the youngest is 8 for crying out loud. it got me to wondering how much of life repeats itself.

for instance, the other day i was standing in the kitchen. the 13 year old walked over to me and hugged me. hard. and you know what? it was the best thing i have ever felt in my life. in fact i told him that his affection is the only gift he ever has to give me. for the rest of his life. he rolled his eyes as he shot a glance in his father's direction. "riiiiight." but i meant it. wholeheartedly. a hug from your toddler is precious. an unsolicited hug from your teenager is epic. a choice action. a reminder that in all of this screwed up parenting game, you still are in the game. at least. 

sleepless nights still come though you are no longer up feeding a wailing infant. you are feeding your fears of whether or not this whole thing will work out. 

fighting over independence? yup. only the littles who want to "do it by myself" are now 15 year olds who think they no longer need you for, well, anything. 

getting them to eat well, stay safe. none of that changes as your children get older. it just gets bigger. as does your love. they can do more so you expect more. and sometimes that leads to more frustration when they don't do the things you know they can do (and have told them to do like a million times). and then you remember they are just a kid after all. and you remember that handy and effective tool called grace. the grace that is extended to you over and over. and with all your might, you wrench that out to use on your kid. and boy, is that the best thing.

i remember gazing at my newborn with a love that felt otherworldly. yesterday as my 13 year old walked out the door, i felt that love. a hundred times stronger. only instead of it being one sided, it came back when he said, "i need you to be my mom." 

and when i am invited into the 15 year old's inner circle, a circle of one, i am grateful. he shows me what he's working on, thinking about and i cautiously tread because i never know when he's going to become incensed with me. and showing him any kind of affection is akin to court room, "permission to approach the bench" kind of exchange. never one to show his anger. i read an excerpt from a paper he once wrote, "i rarely become anger". what? is this kid really mine?

o, but he is. and so are his 3 little wild ass brothers. we have a somewhat long history with one another. a tiring history. and speaking of tiring. parenting older kids, with all the running around, staying up late helping them understand a math concept, shuttling around to this place and that-is just exhausting. so take cheer, dear young parents. you have time. so rest now.

xo,

gf

tri hard: this is sparta!

several years ago, the Mister and i watched the movie 300. and even though the boys never saw it, they picked up the theme very quickly. even the littlest began shouting: this.is.sparta!

the movie kinda changed my life in terms of how i saw my four sons. i sat aghast watching the spartan culture unfold in the life of a boy who very quickly began training as a man. it shocked me. it shook me up. and then i wondered why it was so upsetting. i think it's because the brutality was so so so savage. it was so foreign because fighting in our american culture is seen one way: unnecessarily bad. we forget that boys need to wrestle literally and figuratively to gain the momentum that launches them into adulthood. and often the wrestling is not with another person, but with themselves.

a few weeks ago i was cheering on the sidelines. coach asked, "are your boys nervous?" i honestly replied, "i have no idea. i never asked them." i wouldn't assume they were feeling nervous and wouldn't want to plant that idea in their mind if they're weren't. instead i asked them the day of the race, "how are you feeling?" and they all answered, "excited." one wondered if he would get kicked in the head during the swimming.

like most things in my life, when i chose to sign my four very inexperienced boys up for their first triathlon, i did so on a complete whim. no consulting. no planning. no research. no talking about it. i took a word from nike. and just.did.it.
we moved back to Nashville late May. the following week, they were training.

we showed up for the first practice, me giddy and very, very curious. them along for the ride{let's humor mummy} which has been the general posture for these many years. the trajectory of our family is: mum has a fun idea. boys play along. sometimes it goes well. this was such the case with their first go with triathlons.

one of the coaches came over to meet me after the first practice. "i have to tell you charlie paid us the best compliment of our careers. he said, 'i am so satisfied with the variety of exercises you chose to teach us. it's challenging, but so worth it'." i had never heard my 12 year old use the word satisfy in my life. and that would be the theme of their 3 month stint as triathletes. very, very satisfying. 

a few weeks back, these 4 boys o'mine participated in their first triathlon. and all managed to bring home the first place trophy in their age division for first timers. all were completely satisfied. and after it was all said and done, i told their valiant coaches that we would sign up for wheel barrel racing if we knew they were coaching. you see i saw my boys change. for the better. and the coaches were the ones who ignited that change.

with some really great coaching, an open mind and a mother who cheered{and kept all her anxiety to herself}, these boys have started what i hope is a lifelong love with this sport. 

i guess my point in all of this is as parents we must let our children experience their own fears and victories without us, their guides, telling them what to fear {i mean this in the sense of emotional fear rather than imparting wisdom}. and that's the hard part. figuring out how to impart wisdom without imparting fear, our fear based on our experiences. 

i have to bite my tongue and jump up and down with my hand over my mouth somedays just to keep my mouth shut whenever i see my boys scale a wall or climb a tree or run in a field out in country on a scorching day. to see them take on challenges that i would never want for myself, but that are deeply satisfying-for them. because they are their own people and isn't that the goal of parenting? to guide them as they become their own independent people?

i have to remind myself of that when i watch my two oldest walk out the door to school everyday. they are forging a new life for themselves with experiences that are so rich-and uncommon to me and separate from me. they are lone reeds in many ways. but boy are they gaining strength in ways i could never have hoped for or imagined. and that strength is what gets them through a grueling cross country practice. it's what helps them negotiate with difficult classmates. and it's that strength that will carry them into their burgeoning manhood. 

i always told people, "my boys are more athenian than spartan" a reference to ancient history. athenians being more epicurean than the fierce spartans. i clearly was wrong. all of my boys, as it turns out, are spartans. and as the 7 year old likes to shout: "this.is.sparta!"

xo,

gf 

silent spring

When I was a freshman in college I read Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. What I am about to tell you has nothing to do with her book.


Loyalty and justice walk hand in hand in my small mind's eye. I think of them as best friends who coexist happily sharing their shovel and pail in the sandbox of life. A life that is never clouded and always perfect. That life does not exist outside my fairy tale. I tell myself this. I speak it to my children. So why am I surprised when there is a splinter in my fantasy?


In the real world people are not always loyal and decisions are not always just. No one feels this more than a parent. The depravity of man is cradled in the nursery, my friend. And he grows into a man who will say and speak and act in ways that are vicious and furious. I speak in metaphors, but I dare say I know a few literal examples. 


Yesterday was not a good day. It was a day wrought with sin and bad decision making and ill tempers and too many Izze sodas. It went something like this:


I rose at 4.30. By the time the first child woke at 7 am I had worked out, been to the supermarket, washed two loads of laundry, cleaned two vacuum cleaners and NOT sat to pray, think, breath or read. By 1:00 I was passed out on the sofa-literally. The oldest had to check his own math whilst the 10 year old made himself and his brothers lunch. Then there was guitar lessons, a quick trip to Costco and soccer practice. 


By the time we arrived home at 8 pm, it felt as if we had walked into a den of demons. The 8 year old was inconsolable because two of the older neighborhood boys had taken his Nerf gun, teasing him and had returned his newly self-purchased treasure minus two darts. His older brother incited a riot when he said, "I am still their friends." The oldest boy left the laundry detergent open on a vibrating washing machine where the full bottle of liquid gyrated off the machine and spilled {for the 3rd time} leaving a sticky film on the floor that nearly cost me my sure footing. The youngest decided to forgo his shower for an extra play time in the caverns of the basement which did not end well for him. 


If I have said it once in my almost 13 years of parenting, I have said it 2.1 billion times, "If you do not listen to me, things will not go well with you!!!" Sometimes I mean it spiritually. Sometimes I mean it physically as in "You will physically feel the consequences of your disobedience". And guess what? They do not always listen. And things don't go well. Little boys get disciplined. Big boys get lectured on soap caps. Middle boys get a tongue.wagging. on loyalty to brothers FIRST. "You are your brother's keeper." If I have said it once, I have "mentioned" it 3.1 billion times. 


If I have a proverbial line in the sand, it is disloyalty. I can take a lot of things, but come hell or HELL I will not allow for disloyalty in my household. It comes from my childhood and has no place in my adulthood. It is my trigger. It is my gun. Sometimes I miss the proverbial forest for the trees when I get on my hurtful soap box and demand my children sojourn down my painful past to reckon with their juvenile presents. 


But isn't that what parenting is? Not wishing for your children to know the pain you have experienced-only to inflict something as painful? O, the irony is staggering even as I write. I hate that which I love. My fury for injustice often comes out as just plain fury. Deafening and defeating. They can't hear the message because the messenger is a raving lunatic. Then they miss the forest for the tree, their crazy mother who is standing on a chair waving her arms furiously because she is so furious that one of them forgot to be kind? Perhaps this is what soothsayer meant when he warned Caesar, "beware the ides of march". And perhaps I should consider the insidious nature of my own environmental pesticides and the ramifications they take on my own landscape and that of the gardens that I tend. 

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Would you believe me if I told you I never cursed until I had children? It's true. Anytime I used profanity before the birth of my first child, it sounded contrived-kind of like that cigarette in the mouth of a 7th grader. Not natural. 

Then something happened around the time my first child was almost 2 and his baby brother was born. Balance-I lost it. It fell from my hands like a fragile piece of crystal. It shattered. And with it the ability to control my tongue. I lost my equilibrium and with it the capacity to speak eloquently. At first I thought it was fatigue. Then I began to think maybe I have been this cursing sailor all along only masked with pearls and a monogrammed shift dress that literally restrained the truck driver in me. Ultimately, I discovered as in the revealing words of Andrée Seu, "part of what I thought was my personality is really just my sin."

My 12 year old relishes to remind me, "We learn all our curse words from you." And he is right. My dear boys are homeschooled-taught by this filthy speaking pirate who is their mother.  I cannot blame the carpool, the lunch lady or the shifty-eyed janitor. I am all those people at the school where my boys attend. But the next time the 8 year old says, "What the hell?" I will pull out the vinegar spray. I will swallow that bitter juice and try hard not to say it again. 

The Ruffians and their fearless leader

Enjoy

When I was pregnant with my first child a friend told me something that changed my life. She said, "Growing up, I always knew my mother enjoyed me." I have savored that word enjoy for going on 13 years now. I have rolled it around in my mouth like a delicious piece of chocolate. At times I have ignored it. On occasion (more times than I wish to admit) I have considered the word with contempt. But for the most part it has become the trajectory of the way I live as a mother.

Deciding to forgo a career away from home in order to raise my children was one that came to me almost like deciding to drive to a familiar place not knowing how I got there. It just happened. The road to motherhood has been full of many twists and turns, peaks and valleys, moments of euphoric delight and instances of fury that rival Joan Crawford and those infamous wire hangers.

I cannot imagine my life without these souls who are my children. Our relationship is tender, but complicated. They were made to be relentless in their needs. I was made to be selfish in mine. And here we are put together to spend our hours, all 24 of them, til they find a path that takes them out my front door, down the lane and into a world that does not include me. So for today, I will muster all my motherly might to Enjoy my beloved boys who I desperately love, but who make me desperately aware of my own depravity.