Sunday School and November Book Club

29
Oct

High Bank, Denby. Derelict Methodist Sunday School Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of my life has been punctuated by Sunday School.

There were the many years when I participated in it.

There were the years when I was the teacher.

Now there are these years when my children go each week.

And it never really occurred to me to ask “why” about Sunday School until recently.

My dad, a retired ordained minister in the Covenant church, made the comment recently that Sunday School is a modern creation born of a desire to provide a place for children to learn to read since they were working every other day of the week. (Here’s a link to get the short version of Sunday School’s development: http://bit.ly/17uv3sB)

As someone who has grown up in the church, worked in various youth programs, and been responsible to create curriculum for those programs, I know that the regular idea is to make lessons that show God’s acitivity in the world, and use the scriptures to teach character lessons.

I wonder if I was coming at it all wrong.

In my conversation with my dad, it came up that you really don’t want to use a lot of “Bible Heroes” as such because they were a mess. Lessons ought to focus on how many mistakes these people made and yet God was able to accomplish great things through them, because He is great.

Instead, we usually focus (for example) on how David was “a man after God’s own heart” and gloss over his adultery and scheming, including arranging to have his competition sent to the front lines in order to get him killed.

Dude was sketchy at best.

Here’s another example. At our church a few months ago they wanted to teach about friendship so for some reason they chose the story of Job. If you’re familiar with the story, Job goes through some really hard trials. His friends hang with him for a while, but then they basically tell him to throw in the towel.

The lesson taught only focused on the first part of the story, and happily the teacher chose not to include the detail that God allowed Satan access to Job. My first and third graders were not ready to deal with that information. It was a poorly planned lesson that pick and chose details for their illustration of the point the creators were going for, regardless of whether that was the point of the actual Bible story.

All of this is to say that there might be a better way to go about teaching our kids about the Bible.

In the month of November I’m going to participate in an online book club. The book we’re going to read is Peter Enn’s Telling God’s Story (http://bit.ly/1coKmHn). I haven’t read any his books before, but it sounds like this book has a different take on teaching the Bible to kids.

The premise of Telling God’s Story is that for 1-4^th graders the focus should be on learning all about Jesus, then 5-8^th graders focus on the overall narrative of Israel, and high schoolers focus on the Bible’s historical context. I’m really interested in exploring a new approach to valuing the Bible and teaching it in a way that honors it.

I’ll be blogging about book club, and the fabulous woman hosting it is Abi. She’s a riot and is on a really interesting journey that I resonate with in many ways. If you’re interested in reading along with us via her blog, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/1aQVwOB It would be fun to do this together!

What are your memories of Sunday School? Was there a point when you started having friends there, rather than just merely sitting next to other kids? What’s your view of Sunday School now?

Sunday School, Chicago, IL, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five Minute Friday: She

20
Sep

Photo from Morguefiles

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

She’d only been home five minutes before the inner tension was too much and she had to talk to Mom about it.

“What do you want to do?” Mom asked.

“Everything,” she answered. “I want to leave, I want to stay, I want to scream, cry, break stuff and roll into a ball.”

“Which of those sound best right now?”

“Break stuff,” she grinned through her tears. “I won’t though. I have too much self-restraint.”

“Yes, that’s what you’re known for, self-restraint,” Mom said.

“Actually, the only thing that sounds good right now is something to eat. Do you have anything?”

Mom scoffed. “Do I have anything? Baby, sit down. I’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks.”

She pulled out a stool and sat while Mom rummaged through the fridge, proclaiming all her finds as she pulled them out.

She felt her eyes well up with tears, and she tried to sniff them back.

“Mom,” she began.

Mom kept her head in the fridge but said, “Hmm?”

“How can I feel strong and weak, confident and scared, bitter and generous all at the same time? I think I might be losing it.”

Mom emerged with a container of Cool-Whip in one hand and a container of strawberries in the other.

“No honey, you’re just being you. We’re all that way.”

****

This is my attempt at a fiction version of Five Minute Friday, though I definitely didn’t get many words down in that amount of time. *sigh* That’s okay. For those who don’t know, Five Minute Friday is a linkup with Lisa-jo Baker and it is lots of fun. Check out all the details on her site: http://lisa-jobaker.com I’d love to find your contribution (if you’re here with FMF), so please leave a link in the comment section below! And as always, thank you sincerely for visiting today.

Lost Things Found

18
Sep

My husband grew up spending much of the summer at the family’s cabin. It was always part of the rhythm of his family. His dad worked in the public schools and his mom worked at a college so they had the majority of their summers off from work. This allowed them to spend weeks, sometimes a whole month, up north.

He was one of those golden boys of summer, the ones who were athletic, outdoorsy, as comfortable on water skis or a sailboat as they were on land. One of those who caused an ache in my chest as I watched from the shoreline. He still is that golden boy, just more grown up.

He’s always helped his dad with various chores around the cabin, the biggest project being management of the wooden dock. I had no idea of the magnitude of dock management because I didn’t grow up going to a cabin. In the spring the water tends to be high, meaning that the dock needs to be almost at the tippytop of the posts. As summer goes on and water levels go down, the dock need to be lowered so it isn’t two feet above the top of the water. Then there’s the huge task of getting the dock into the water in the first place, and the job of taking it out of the water at the end of the season.

It was during the annual dock removal a few years ago that my husband lost his wallet. It fell out of his pocket and out of the waders he wore to make the water temperature more comfortable (or at least allowing him to still feel his extremities).

He didn’t know it was lost until a few hours later. When he realized it, he was already on the drive back home, which at the time was more than four hours from the cabin. He got by for a week until he could drive all the way back up north, pull on the clumsy waders and search the lake bottom for the wallet. He knew where he’d been working, so he thought it would be easy to find.

It wasn’t.

He eventually gave up, left it for the fish, drove back home and replaced the wallet and its contents.

That’s No Sunny

Fast forward five years.

The lost wallet is forgotten.

The IDs, credit card, business cards and miscellaneous wallet-y items have been replaced.

We are up at the cabin at the end of a dry summer. The dock has been lowered twice as the water receaded, and my husband and my father-in-law are working to move out the boat lift. The motor on the boat drags against sandy lake bottom even when partially raised and the boat lift needs to be deeper. Refreshing coolness in the heat of summer, their wrenches work against screws, twisting them to comply, make-shift levers and cinder blocks, the scent of metal, gasoline, pine trees and lake water. Cabin.

My husband’s high arch brushes up against something in the sand, something not a pumpkin seed sunfish. Waist deep, six foot pole in hand, his curiosity fishes out the item.

His lost wallet.

Five years later, he finds it. Wallet

My Own Lost Wallet

There are times when I feel like writing is my lost wallet.

The business of having a child every two years (they’re now 5, 7 and 9) took all my attention. I was all in, being either pregnant or nursing for the majority of seven+ years straight. Getting dishes into the dishwasher, making sure kids got enough iron and calcium and tummy-time and large muscle development took up all my brain space. My husband and friends helped me through my moments of feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, sure I was ruining the kids, one minute protecting them too much, the next minute letting them do to much, wanting them to know it was okay to fail at things.

There were things in the wallet we had forgotten about. An old picture, a business card from someone met in an airport, a list of old passwords. Much of the information was outdated, addresses had changed, personal information had changed, our family had expanded. Finding the wallet was finding something that had once been valuable, that had once been necessary and held important weight in my husband’s back pocket. Had he functioned without it? Yes. He was able to order a new driver’s license, replacement insurance cards. It would have been easier had it not dropped out of his waders and into the lake, but it didn’t stop his life from moving forward.

That’s much like writing has been for me.

I’ve been writing my whole life in one way or another. Even when I was pursuing a career outside the home unrelated to writing, the words were still there, still a part of everything I did, even if that was a peripheral responsibility. My life moved forward with no consideration of writing or how that fit into things.

The past four years have been a process of rediscovery.

I don’t know why it happened when it did.

I don’t know where it will lead, if it even leads anywhere external.

It doesn’t have to.

My journey of going by feel, digging around in the sand with my feet, bumping into something unexpected, grasping and unearthing something definite has brought me great joy and creative expression. It has allowed me to organize my thoughts, to speak aloud my observations and questions, to “verbalize” my journey and encourage others on their journey.

Sometimes when you find something you lost, you remember how valuable it once was. And in the intermediate time, it can become even more valuable, like a well-aged wine or lost coin. So even though it might be a little waterlogged, I’m drying out this writing wallet and reclaiming something that has always held value,

It just got lost for a while.

Do you have any passions that you had to lay aside for a season? What were those passions, and do you see yourself rediscovering them in the future? In what way do you express yourself creatively?

Should I Lie to My Daughter About Kindergarten Shots?

7
Aug

Today my daughter has a well-child doctor appointment. She’s healthy, growing well. She finally eats more nutritious things so I think I can say with confidence we’re out of the phase when the only fruit or veggie she’d eat was applesauce and the occasional banana. I have no doubt that she’ll get a glowing report of her progress since her last well-child check up.

The problem is kindergarten.

Princess Teacup starts kindergarten next month.

Unless you’re a conscientious objector and fill out the correct forms, all kids must have their immunizations up to date in order to start kindergarten.

Immunizations mean shots.

There’s no “maybe” about it. I know for a fact that she’s due for them and that she’ll get the shots (probably four) today at the appointment.

When I mentioned it to her in passing two weeks ago — you know, just let her know the possibility of shots was out there for her as part of the milestone of starting kindergarten — she turned red and tears filled her eyes. She promptly ran to her room, hid under her covers and shouted, “I just want to be alone right now!”

You can see why I haven’t brought it up again.

This has made me weigh different options in my mind. Princess Teacup has two older brothers, and in the past I’ve tried to keep them informed of what to expect, how to handle getting a shot, etc. with a lot of lead time so they could get used to the idea and we could talk about how to get through it.

That didn’t work so well.

The oldest specifically said he wished he hadn’t know about the shots until they were about to do them. This comes from a kid who tends to worry, so by the time the shots came, he had built up the event until it was a scheduled amputation rather than a round of immunizations.

I think I’ve tried to block it from my memory but if I try hard I can remember a couple nurses holding him down during that appointment.

Things with the second are a little foggy, but I’m pretty sure I told him about his appointment a few days before. I remember saying I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but shots were a possibility. I felt a little more comfortable with some fuzziness around the edges of truth on that one (I knew full well he was going to need shots) but not all the way willing to tell him he wasn’t going to get shots.

Princess Teacup is our last person to enter kindergarten. Will I lie and assure her she will not need shots as we enter the clinic? Will I soothe her with falsehood as we sit in the waiting room and watch the fish tank? Will I look her in the eye and feign shock when, during the appointment, the nurse or doctor informs us immunizations are necessary?

It’s a strong possibility.

One thing I’m totally sure of: there will be huge amounts of ice cream afterwards. I’ll bring her favorite stuffed animal to the doctor’s office so she’ll have it if she wants it. I’ll have suckers in my purse and she can play games on my phone all she wants.

Bribery? Guilt offering? Soothing my guilty conscience?

Maybe.

But I’m okay with that…for today.

Do you have any vivid memories of getting shots as a kid? If you have kids, how do they handle difficult doctor’s appointments? Concerning stressful events, do you think it is better for kids to have a lot of information ahead of time or not much, and why?

Does Your Fear of Missing Out Keep You Plugged In?

4
Aug

Things have been quiet around here. My family and I were away for a few days, enjoying some serious summer appreciation and a change of scenery together. I thought about telling you all the specifics beforehand, secretly because I hoped you’d be concerned about my quietness, but I decided against it, just in case a couple of you would try to come by and take our chickens while I wasn’t looking. Just kidding — I know none of you would do that, and plus, if you needed a chicken bad enough to drive out here to take one, I’d like to think I would have offered it had you asked.

While I was gone I discovered that I missed checking in with my online peeps. This is weird to me, because I hadn’t thought I had much in the way of online friendships (I’m pretty sure it’s a one-way street and I’d be flabbergasted to discover that my absence was noticed). On the one hand there was a sense that I was missing my daily newspaper. But on the other, I had a sense that I sit one table over from the cool kids and get to listen to their conversation without actually being a part of it.

There’s another aspect of consistently checking the twitter feed or other favorite internet sites.

It’s pragmatism.

In this culture of instant reaction and the unpredictable nature of what will go viral, to be unplugged is to potentially miss an opportunity. Make the right comment on an article or write the right reaction piece and you can ride the wave of interest. In the quest to be distinguished from the masses, it seems the expectation is to have your finger on the pulse of trends and conversations and be one step ahead of others. You can try to arrive fashionably late but you’ll be out of luck because they lock the doors promptly. They’re persnickety about these things.

The problem is that in an attempt to scan the headlines and popular posts, we can neglect to pay attention to our non-online lives — our real lives.

When our online life trumps our real life, we have a real problem.

Opportunities are important. Yes. We want to be prepared to see opportunity when it comes and aligns with our goals.

Ultimately, though, relationships are the thing life is all about. The ability to have relationships in person is what feeds us in vital ways. Amongst innumerable other things, when you have great moments in your work life, they are made more meaningful when you have real life people who can celebrate with you.

Being constantly online is like being that friend who says ‘maybe’ to everything, and can’t commit to a specific event/party/plan because she doesn’t want to miss something better that might come along.

There are (many) times when relationships are happening face to face, in real time, in real life, and those are the people who need our attention. When we disengage from a conversation in order to respond to those frequent audible alerts to online activity, or when I can’t get my nose out of the MacBook, as it were, I devalue the interaction happening around me.

Do I think everybody should be restricted from checking their smartyphones during any possible interaction while they’re out and about?

No.

Do I think it is healthy to create boundaries around when we choose to be online even though we have the electronic capacity to be online all the time?

Yes.

When you forget to engage the real world, you miss out on possible inspiration for new perspectives and insights.

Our health will suffer.

Our relationships with nearby humans will suffer.

Our pets will suffer. Think of the pets, people. 😉

Sincerely, though, allowing yourself to turn off the glowing blue screen can free you from the pressure to be omnipresent, alert to all possible next-big-things and current whiz-bangs of the virtual world.

Internet notoriety has a short lifespan so let’s not sweat it. If we miss this “big thing”, there will be another big controversy or new angle for us to react to in a few days. Until then, let’s unplug every once in a while and enjoy doing summer with those we love.

Do you find it hard to unplug? How does it feel when you are unplugged on purpose versus against your will? How do you think it could benefit you to decrease the amount of time you spend online?

Five Minute Friday: Story

2
Aug

You might have noticed that on Fridays I have started to link up with Lisa-jo Baker (lisajobaker.com) pretty consistently. She hosts a Five Minute Friday blog prompt and it has been a great way to connect with others (online) around the country. It is easy to feel like you’re operating in a vacuum when your little blog gets few comments, and when blogging is something you quietly plug away at with the hopes it will matter someday. Five Minute Friday is one way I’ve found to connect with others who are also exploring this blogging thing in various ways, and if you are at all interested in finding encouragement and really great people, I suggest you check it out.

Here’s how it works. Check her site for the word prompt. Start your timer. Write for five minutes and five minutes only. Don’t worry about it all making sense or being perfect. This is an exercise whose goal is to release you from all that doubt. Write for the fun of it. Now link it up so we can all benefit from your unedited brilliance.

Today’s prompt: Story.

Ready.

Set.

Go.

***

I can’t think of this word without Donald Miller’s book jumping into my head. Love him or hate him (or somewhere in between) he wrote a compelling book about story, and about changing your life’s story, Million Miles in A Thousand Years.

It informs the way I talk about family with my children.

See, as a kid it never dawned on me that I had a contribution to make to the ethos of my family. All my parent’s lines of “He’s your brother so he’s your best friend” fell on mostly deaf ears. I focused only on myself and on how I could relate to people outside my household, and didn’t pay much attention to how I related to my younger siblings (I’m oldest of four kids). Mostly they annoyed me and I tolerated them with the aggrieved air of my teenaged angst.

When my husband and I talk about family with our three kids today, we talk about creating the kind of family you want. We talk about their role as co-creators. We talk about all members having an important role to play. We talk about how one person doesn’t get to decide for the whole family what that family is going to be like.

They have a voice.

And because they have a voice, that gives them some power. Their input is valued.

Is this family a democracy?

Heck no.

It’s a dictatorship, with my husband and I as benevolent tyrants.

But we listen.

And we explain.

And we encourage.

And we try again.

Our family is not a set in stone family, one that has rules and traditions that must.not.be.broken. We try stuff, we let it go, we forget, we pick it up again if it worked, if it didn’t, we cast it aside and let it roll under the couch along with the other rogue Legos, single socks and tumbleweeds. But we all have a role to play. The story that is our family will be shared by my husband and I as well as Rex, Bobo and Princess Teacup. Maybe not equally shared yet, but shared and co-created alongside our Creator.

***

STOP.

What was your role in your family growing up? What kind of story you are creating with your life every day? What is one way today you could create the life-story you desire?

Secret Indredient Soup, Part 2: What’s Your Missing Ingredient?

25
Jul

My mom is a great cook. No, I mean it. When my mom gets going she lays out a spread of dishes that, when taken together, represent the depth of her care for the people she’s entertaining. (She’s also wickedly funny, but that’s for another day.) She has a gift for cooking intuitively, and she sticks only to the bare essentials of a recipe. After she’s got those taken care of she wings it, adding a little of this, a dash of that, so she couldn’t tell you exactly how to replicate the recipe she served. Even soup becomes multi-faceted with complex flavor profiles (thank you, Top Chef, for altering my terminology so I could say something more than, “This tastes yummy.”). You could try to follow her recipe, but it will never end up tasting as good as what she made.

Contrast that with my dear friend who we’ll call Velveeta, who is also a good cook but cooking without a recipe would drive her bonkers. When the two of us were out of town together and wanted to make a raspberry brie appetizer, it seemed pretty straightforward – you spread raspberries and rosemary on top of a wheel of Brie and wrap it all in pastry dough. It was Velveeta who felt compelled to phone her husband and ask him to find the recipe in her cookbook. She thoroughly relied on it. And because of that she has consistently solid results and you can be sure that her recipe card will include all the ingredients.

Let’s go back to Kung Fu Panda.

When Po, the panda who has been chosen as the Dragon Warrior, worked at his father’s noodle shop, he was never given the recipe for his father’s signature Secret Ingredient Soup. Oh, and Po’s dad is a duck.

Does your life ever seem like you’ve been given a recipe that’s missing an important ingredient?

When Po thinks he can’t handle being the Dragon Warrior and the whole valley has to evacuate, Po talks to his dad about his sense failure. He even admits to his dad that sometimes he wonders if he’s even his son.

His dad takes the opportunity to tell Po something he should have told him long ago…the secret to his Secret Ingredient Soup.

Dad: The secret ingredient is…nothing. There is no secret ingredient.

Po: Wait – what? It’s just plain old noodle soup? Doesn’t it have some kind of special sauce or something?

Dad: To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.

Po: There is no secret ingredient…

Is that a cheap parlor trick or is it more true than we like to admit?

If there’s no secret ingredient, that means that I can take responsibility for my own path.

If there’s no special sauce, I can’t claim that I don’t have the right background or upbringing to achieve my dream.

If there’s no special ingredient, then (gulp) I’m all my kids’ve got.

Sometimes it is easier to throw up our hands and complain about the cards we were dealt. But if we were all dealt the same hand, then the thing that matters is what we do with it..with that hand…

I mean, that deck of cards…

Wait…

Ugh, you know what I mean.

It is easy to find reasons why things don’t go well, if that’s what you’re looking for. In this scenario reasons = excuses. There’s usually somebody to blame, even if it’s a stretch to make the blame fit. It is a huge departure when we believe that we have what it takes to get it done, to achieve it, to create it, to find that solution.

Truthfully, it is a bit terrifying.

Po from Kung Fu Panda (Photo credit: Antony Pranata)

If I start thinking I have what it takes, who will I blame if things go wrong?

If I start taking responsibility for the course of my life, what will I do if it doesn’t go my way?

Don’t worry about that just yet. Let’s review the beauty of the Kung Fu Panda lesson.

“To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.”

I’m gonna get all up and personal in here for a second.

Scoot your chair in closer.

“YOU are special.”

Yes, I’m talking to YOU.

I know. You’re going to tell me all the reasons you’re not. All the reasons I’m wrong. All the things that prove that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Shhh….

You’re not listening.

To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.

You may not think you have what it takes. But you do. You may have to dig deep into your personal reserves. You may have to let go of some other things that have been getting in your way (ie. excuses, self-protection, sleep) but you can do it.

Remember, there is no secret ingredient.

As you read the stories of people who have achieved their dreams, sure there are sometimes when they happened to be in the right place at the right time. But frequently that was able to happen because they got out of bed and made themselves available many times prior to that occasion.

What about the moms out there who are not convinced that they can do this mom thing?

You aren’t missing a crucial “mom-gene” that other people received when all those hormones washed over them during pregnancy. You can do this mom thing. You have what your kids need. If you feel that you are lacking, welcome to the sisterhood my friend, because most of us feel we are lacking in at least one area of our parenting. Be the best you that you can be, work on those areas you know are weak, don’t allow your issues to become your child’s issues, and when you screw up (which you will, we all do) admit it and try again.

Maybe a more accurate kung fu statement is that YOU are the secret ingredient. Not your neighbor, not your partner, not your cubicle-mate, not your mammy, not your granny.

You are the secret ingredient.

So put yourself into the recipe of your life like broccoli in the LeAnn Chin Broccoli Beef (’cause we all know there’s hardly any beef to be found in there). Don’t hold back. Trust yourself. Learn. Listen. Try.

You got this.

What is the secret ingredient you feel you’ve been lacking? What goals do you have that seem out of reach? What would be impacted if you changed your mindset and started to believe that there was no secret ingredient?

“Tonkotsu + shoyu” not only did the perky staff create a friendly eating atmosphere but they also flavored my soup with a secret ingredient while carrying my food to the table (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five Minute Friday: Belong

19
Jul

Source: Instagram: writermama1999

My baby girl starts kindergarten this fall.

It’s crazy, loco, kookoo, , nuts-o, cray-cray.

She is totally ready and excited about it. She’s going to be in the new elementary building, which is a big deal around here.

She will have two big brothers to look out for her when she rides the bus…

or will she?

My husband and I have always told the kids we’re a team, that each person in our family is important, and that we need to look out for each other.

Will any of that come into play when they’re out on their own?

Will they create a bond, independent of us?

Will her big brothers include her, and not begrudgingly?

I want her to have a sense of belonging, of being a valued part of something important.

I want her to be comfortable in herself.

I know this is a big year for her, and I want her to have the security of belonging, but without compromising or changing herself to make it happen.

And it is even more important to me that she feels that she belongs in our family. We should be that safe place, that welcoming, warm, guard-down kind of place where she can be grumpy, scared, sad or goofy without fear of mocking or rejection.

Our home is supposed to be an accepting place for others — we’ve talked about how to be a good host.

My hope is that we’ve translated that into being accepting of our own family as well.

crafts (Photo credit: Margarida Sardo)

???? What kind of atmosphere are you cultivating in your home? What made you feel like you belonged when you were a child? ????

****

This Five Minute Friday thing has become a habit around here. It’s a lot of fun and you can be a part of it too. Check out all the details at http://lisajobaker.com . If you’re visiting because of FMF(or if you just happened to show up and it’s Friday), hello and thanks for coming by today!

Five Minute Friday: In-Between

29
Jun

Today’s post is part of a larger link up with Lisa-Jo Baker. She organizes Five Minute Friday. Anyone can participate, and you can find more details here: http://lisajobaker.com The idea is to write without censoring ourselves, nitpicking details or worrying about every little nuance. Turn off the perfectionism and release yourself to write for the pure pleasure of it using the word prompt she supplies each week. I personally invite you to give it a try — it’s a great way to find other interesting blogs and it is amazing how many different angles there can be from one word.

Word Prompt: In-Between

Ready. Set. GO.

I hate being in-between. I’ve felt in-between so many times in so many situations over the years that I’ve come to dread it.

In-between jobs, in-between life stages, in transition, inconvenient, insecure.

As a kid, I was in-between a lot. My dad was a pastor and I often felt stretched thin. There was the desire to shrug off the expectations of my family and of my faith, and just do what everyone else was doing. But when I tried that route, I didn’t fit where I thought others did, feeling instead guilt and self-consciousness at my discomfort in situations I knew were dicey. I couldn’t just shut down my conscience and roll with it.

Now that I’m adult, I feel in-between again. My husband and I chose to have me stay at home with the kids while they were little. I was 100% onboard. Now my youngest is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall, and this opens up possibilities…

…or uncertainty.

You know, whichever you prefer.

The part of me that decided to stay home wants that availability for my children, wants the convenience of doing errands while the rest of the world is hard at work, wants to be the volunteer at the field trip, program or other kid activity.

The part of me that desires to do something other than take care of the kids, husband and home, that part of me is conflicted because, having been home for more than eight years, I feel like I’m back at the beginning again. Starting over. Any experience or education I had seems antiquated and obsolete. How does one start up an engine that has been sitting in the back 40 collecting rust?

artist in turkey (Photo credit: Maria & Michal P.)

There are gazillions of women like me, I don’t think for one second I’m alone in this, but it is hard to know where to begin again. The in-between feels so much like being set back, like restarting the life I had previously, before children, instead of being a new adventure.

I think that if I can tutor myself, tell myself those things I would tell my kids about attitude, new beginnings and taking chances, this in-between might be more comfortable, more positive, a year full of possibilities and rediscovering passions. And maybe in the midst of starting a new stage of our lives together as a family, we will all come to appreciate each other and who we all are as developing individuals, even their mom.

STOP

What do you think about your life station? What are you in-between right now? How do you deal stay positive during life transitions?

Back From Camp and Back To Reality

25
Jun

Coming home from camp is hard.

There you are. For a few glorious days you wear what you want, make personal choices without intervention from a bossy adult, and are provided constant stimulation specifically designed for you.

Courtesy of morgueFiles http://mrg.bz/8UGtzl

It’s a little taste of kid heaven.

And then you return to the reality of parents who make you change your underpants, brush your teeth, use bug spray, and expect appreciation for food they prepare for you that you don’t even like.

It’s an unreasonable expectation.

Poor kids. They’ve got it rough.

From a kid’s perspective though, it is hard to go from camp’s activity and freedom back to the confines of his former life. It’s a little bit like trying to get your arms through a shirt that’s a size too small. With some contortions, you can do it, but it’s gonna feel squeezy.

As a parent, it is important for me to remember what it felt like to return to reality. When I came home after a camp experience, I felt confined, as if I had regressed and had my liberties taken away prematurely. Everything bugged me, my siblings and parents most of all. There were memories and inside jokes that no one else understood. And most of all, home was B*O*R*I*N*G. Where was the zip line and canoe trips up Hidden River? How could I be expected to keep up a positive attitude under such conditions?

Part of what makes camp so amazing is being a part of experiences that are both unique and shared. If you did that zip line all by yourself, it isn’t quite the same as doing it with a friend, the freaking out and communal terrification ahead of time (I made up that word – feel free to use it amongst yourselves) and the jumping jubilation on wobbly legs afterwards. Sharing the experience is part of what makes it so meaningful. And if the people you shared with are no longer accessible, there is a definite feeling of homesickness for them, homesickness for someplace other than home.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our schedule happened to work out with the kids doing a three hour sport activity every morning this week, immediately following their time at camp. It’s too early to say if this is a good or bad thing. (Let’s just say that Bobo decided he wouldn’t go today, so maybe that’s an indicator? He assures me that he’ll participate tomorrow. We’ll see…) It is either a stroke of accidental brilliance, or extreme stupidity.

No matter what, I need to keep in mind that they will need some extra space and patience from me this week as they readjust. And maybe I can venture to give them a degree of greater independence since they’ve crossed the bridge of being away from home and family for a few nights. I’m not giving any guarantees, but I can try.

Do you have any suggestions on how to help kids who might be missing camp? How do you handle the return to routine when you’ve been somewhere special?