Just Cuz I Like to Look at Her

Groaning Sighing Bleaching

Three words: a black Sharpie.

The Things that Make Us Laugh

From Brewster Rockit:

It's Mothers' Day Across The Galaxy

ET's Mom: You never phone home anymore.

Darth Vader's Mom: I find your lack of visits disturbing.

Jabba the Hutt's Mom, entering a buffet: Whatever happened to that Princess Leia you said you were dating?

A Klingon Mom, reading a mothers' day card: "May you die well." How sweet!

On Grace, On ADHD, On Dross

I've been reading about ADHD recently, specifically about adult ADHD. I am the daughter of a man alternately known as Rapid Regan or Gotta Go (Read all about him here). ADHD is clearly in the gene pool, and I have no doubt I've inherited my fair share. You know how I freely share about my great love affair with coffee --  Kelly's brand of Ritalin in a steaming mug.

One article I read suggested occupational choices for people with ADHD. Interestingly enough, being a stay-at-home mother didn't make the list. The lack of structure, the article shared, can make being at home a challenge for the ADHD individual. How true that can be!

The demands around here swing from over-the-top busy (that would be two weeks ago) to fairly quiet (that would now). For the moment, we're enjoying the calm before the storm that is the last week of school. I have a window of opportunity to finish a lingering paint job, to complete a decluttering plan in progress.

Instead I accomplish ... precisely nothing. Nothing!

I keep taking care of the basics, of course. Everyone still needs uniforms and meals. The dishes get done; the trash goes out. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Many of the projects I want to do, but don't absolutely have to do, don't apparently squeak.

When I am barely surviving those mad, mad, mad days I too often write about -- when I am moving minute to minute with one nostril barely above water -- oh, how I want a quiet day to just get it all together! On the first quiet day that comes my way, I am a woman on a mission. But by day two or three, I morph into fairly slovenly patterns and simply don't get done what I could (and should) get done.

When I have extra time on my hands (Did I really type that phrase? Clearly, I'm delusional. Someone pinch me, please!), I find myself with undisciplined thought patterns to go along with my undisciplined work habits.

I fritter away both time and mental energy. What a waste, I think to myself.

And then I read this:

She wills herself to breathe so that she can mother her five dear children with all her heart and all her might. She breathes gentleness and joy into their every minute, knowing that every minute matters. She worries about how to allocate breath so that she can accomplish the most important things ... We hold our breath, waiting to know what comes next. What will I do with my every breath today?

And then I pop by school to talk with Tim's principal and see an incredibly fit and active father of five in agony because of compressed disks, a condition that will not change easily or soon.

And then I think of my mother whose bone degeneration makes walking across the room a Herculean effort.

And then I sit in the bleachers at a baseball game making small talk with a fairly young man with advanced Alzheimer's.

And suddenly I am so much more aware of this gift of time, this gift of good health, this gift of a sound mind. And I know there's a source of grace, grace that will help me use and appreciate these gifts, grace that works better than coffee or Ritalin because it alters not just my body chemistry, but my heart and my soul.

And I pray:

Jesus, bring me to my knees, and give me the words to ask for your grace. Shed light on the dark places of my soul, and burn away the dross. Infuse me with your goodness; help me to grow in virtue.                                                         (excerpted from Small Steps for Catholic Moms)

Dross - waste or impure matter.

I take another small step to grow in virtue, to grow in goodness, to put aside the dross.

A Tattoo on Your Face

Over the past eighteen months or so, a number of alarming headlines have bounced around the blogosphere linking children and unhappiness. Childless couples report more contentment, these articles seem to conclude.

I’ve read a few and, frankly, I’m a bit skeptical. I wonder what exact questions were posed. I wonder where in the parenting spectrum these parents were exactly. I wonder if the writers queried empty-nesters or parents in the big, thick middle of it. I wonder what had transpired in the fifteen minutes prior to the interview.

I didn’t care for the popular book, Eat, Love, Pray. Short on commitment and long on navel-gazing, I found it to be one long essay on selfishness. The author did, however, offer a memorable and fitting metaphor for parenthood: Having a baby, she says, is like getting a tattoo on your face.

I’ve written before that parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No question about it. But what worthwhile endeavors don’t require hardship, perseverance, even suffering?

Medical school, law school, business school? Hard, hard, hard. Planning a wedding, remodeling a house? Hard and hard. Running a marathon, opening a business? Hard and harder. Finishing a PhD, writing a book? Both hard.

Is it surprising, then,  that raising an eternal soul to adulthood is trying at times? Does a mother admitting her struggles means she wishes she’d done things differently, that she would reverse course if she could?

 I think not.

While we were dealing with the emotional and physical upheaval of sub-fertility, I found myself growing distant and angry with God. I sat in a confessional with a very young priest and poured out my soul. After going through all my anguish over our repeat miscarriages, I went on to confess my perpetual sin -- the struggles I have with my kids. At this point, I began to lose Father.

“You’re upset about your miscarriages,” he began.

“Yes.”

“But you’re frustrated with the children you have,” he continued.

“Yes.”

“But you wanted to be pregnant …?” he went on, brows knit, clearly puzzled.

“Yes.”

Confusion began to morph into bewilderment. As I said, this was a very young priest. Fresh faced, he even had braces on his teeth. If it wouldn’t have been horribly patronizing, I would have patted him on the back and said, “Trust me, Father. You’re going to hear a lot of this.”

Mothers, of course, totally get this. Completely frustrated with you children? Check. Desperately hoping for another one? Check. No contradiction whatsoever. Friends of mine have laughed out loud when I’ve shared this little exchange with the priest. No mystery there.

So when I read that parents report unhappiness, I wonder if that is the whole picture.

We have had an exhausting year, a year that’s left me convinced I need to lighten the load so that next year isn’t déjà vu all over again. I’ll have to jettison activities I value. I don’t, however, plan to jettison the children. I don’t even plan to jettison the idea of another child.

Parenting demands heroic fortitude. Yesterday – on Mothers’ Day, no less! – a nameless member of my family decided to irritate his brother by yelling, “You’re mustard! “You’re mustard!” over and over and over again.

I mean, where do they get their material?

For my part, on a day that I’m supposed to be celebrating motherhood, I found myself saying, “Stop saying bad words!”

Yes, mustard is now a bad word. This, sadly, is the comical state to which we are sometimes reduced – censuring our children for calling each other the names of condiments.

Yesterday John – who may or may not be the very same child calling his brother mustard – shot a rocket into his cheek and then spray painted his forehead forest green. All this in the span of thirty minutes. While I was home. And supposedly supervising him.

While dealing with John’s mishaps, I was also simultaneously supervising the construction of a diorama (hence the spray paint) and helping a neighbor’s child with a research paper. In the midst of it all, I spotted Ainsley dashing down the hall carrying the keyboard. Finishing a research paper without a keyboard? That would make the hard list as well.

Only God could have anticipated these mind-numbing antics. Only God could have sweetened the whole deal with joys innumerable, joys as unexpected as spray paint on a toddler, joys more profound than any I’ve taken away from other human endeavors.

Jennifer Fulwiller writes that "Life doesn't have to be easy to be joyful." So true, so very true.

I just finished the morning shuffle. I close the van door and carry baby Ainsley into the house nuzzling her cheek and hugging her cuddly self clad in a flannel blanket sleeper that makes her even more irresistible than usual. I hear John's sweet laughter as he sits engrossed in The Brave Little Toaster.

These children of mine have, indeed, tattooed my face and my heart and my memory.

Right Back At Ya

Me: I love you!

Ainsley: Toooo!