Labyrinth

Labyrinth: a complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze.

This is one of "big works" happening in Edwards home school this week.

It couldn't be more accurate.

What had started as a fellow parent (hi Emily!) inspired race track on the floor has turned into a three day and counting tape experiment.,

We're going to need another roll.

But here's the thing about kids, they are ok with all their mazes not having endings.

Mostly.

They've jumped into this new era willingly. It's probably 99.9% on account of us not being a screen/laptop family, but there's digital learning going on, community meetings with each of their classroom environments, even freaking read aloud times in very precious ways.

I'd invite you to tiny 3-5 year olds singing in circle time via Google Hangouts, but your heart would explode.

But I'd also invite you to put yourself into the labryinth this has created for people everywhere.

Children are genetically resilient.

Their parents not so much.

Today, we had four simultaneous web meetings to hold at 10am: Two for the kids, two for the adults, trying to pay the bills.

We started them the best we could. I took my call in the stairwell.

This is a time we all need to offer grace as we navigate this complicated irregular network of passages.

Our village has showed up. And we are doing out best to show up for our village.

We can do this.

Stitched on the Heart

Several years ago, I wrote a blog that I can't find to dig up about a conversation I had with a Mom (hi Marta!) about the biggest gift I could give my children. 

At that time it was probably only one kid and I was thinking about worrying about sleep or potty training, or waking the baby or not waking the baby or feeding vegetables every three days before fruit every three days and about that rash...

... but I believe then what I will blog preach now-- and the gift is that of resilience.

++++++

So here we are.

That's basically the statement that we all are thinking daily.

And, frankly, pre-crisis, thought daily.

Here we are and were.  

Life right now is so very difficult to unpack because we are in a VERY CORONAVIRUS crisis, without the crisis bearing down on us in tangible ways... yet.

Friends: you and I have lived and functioned through the snipers in DC, where we didn't know if we were most vulnerable at a gas station or in a Home Depot parking lot.  

We (or me), also were in DC on September 11th, very raw, living three blocks from the Capitol, watching the sky, and listening to the quiet, and wondering what was coming at us next.

We lived through burnt mail on the Hill, and holiday cards that arrived three months later when anthrax showed up.

Hell, we had a house fire, and lived in a hotel for a few months, while we are talking about resilience.

We worked to feed and support our neighbors when the government shut longer than our safety net could handle without community support.

Those memories are the things that those of us in DC have seared in our memory and on our hearts. And those are the BIG things.  The ones that made the news. The ones that our big adult brains could at least try to rationalize through. 

The things that may not have made the news are the food insecurities when the housing market dipped, when Medicaid funding didn't make it through to the states in time, when the rules changes on indigent care... when we (hold your breath, because this word makes everyone uncomfortable... when our privilege and life circumstances covered our gaps...)

And you guys, we were adults through all this. With big adult brains.

And here we are with lives that we are in charge of molding.

No pressure, ya'll.

But THESE TODAY DAYS are the days that could be stitched on the hearts of our kids, and I am so unready for it.

I tell to others the stories of my personal resilience... that came at the intersection of having moved a lot in my childhood and having to blaze through and show up in new situations, along with having the gift of parents who gave me a good core foundation of confidence.  It could have been the "Free To Be You And Me" minivan tapes (we were so hip), but it was also being parented by resilient parents who always showed up when it was hard and when it was easy.  They gave me a good model of what it means to be in a community.

We've been honest with our kids about what the next couple weeks to months might entail.

We went to a National Park today that was completely empty, and we likely were the adults overcorrecting our kids to ensure they were six feet away... social distance.

They know what a social quarantine now means.  And the different between social quarantine and social distancing.

They have their personal favorite verses to sing for 20 seconds when they wash their hands.

But they also saw me, and heard me, asking and pleading them to back up, stay away, elbow their coughs.

Their hands are bleeding from the washing.

We are on the precipice of stitched on the heart moments as parents, and I'm not sure I'm ready to rise to the occasion.  

We've had a family meeting about what social distancing means: 

1. What we all need to do to stick together. How we need to be a team
2. How teams don't race to finish first, how real teams finish together.

But best laid plans led to lots of time outs at the national park today.

We've worked together to create a "morning work period" so our Montessori kids can feel comfortable, and hopefully, Mom and Dad can telework as required.  

We've had to shift around financial resources to find the space to buy a Chromebook for the kids, something we've previously resisted.  

These moments are going to be stitched on their hearts. 

I'm not confident I'm the seamstress for it.

See me in a few weeks, and until then, we are each other's virtual village.

My friends at Webster think stitch is also a verb: "to make, mend, or join (something) with stitches.

Let's stitch together and be models of resilience for our kids.

Real team.don't race to finish first. We finish together.

About That Decade

Hi there.  Ten years later, the decade where things got real.

Like real real.

On Facebook I see all of you posting your then and nows, your best ofs, your photos and moments and highs and lows and the how fars you have come.

And I think of ye olde 2009...  the year end post of how much money I saved on store loyalty cards and coupons (It was $1568.84 for those of us counting and looking back in our Facebook on this days).

That decade it saw things.  I think they all will.

We were on New Years Eve a decade ago less than a month ago from a house fire that kicked us out of our home for two months, but at the time was the BIGGEST THING THAT HAPPENED.

And then Snowmaggedon. The one where we lived in a freaking Residence Inn with one working stove burner and approximately four outfits each including no winter gear.

And then OMG WE ARE SO UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR HOUSE.

And let's sprinkle some, (sorry for the overshare, but OMG if we can't get pregnant during a snowmaggedon or the year preceding and following it, we are so infertile, and let's talk about that cost too).

The time we drove back from a South Carolina Thanksgiving on our first fertility round because we didn't get that you had to get stimulating sometimes and after calling all pharmacies in a three hour drive no one had the fertility meds available.

And that was just in the first year of the decade.

You guys, we have ridden the coaster-- not just Shawn and I, but all of us.

We've seen job losses and gains.

We've had unemployment and joyful employment.

We've had haunted houses and upside down and then rightside houses that we sold to others.

We've welcomed one, and then another, and (OMG THOSE FIRST TWO WERE SO MEDICALLY EXPENSIVE), a surprise another.

We've mourned a parent and the end of a marriage of another set.

We've seen first steps and first words and the first thousand diapers.

We've seen their strengths, and we've seen how they amplify our weaknesses.

We've battled.  OH MY HAVE WE BATTLED.

We've fought over forks, spoons, balls, helmets, hoodies, shower temperatures, remote control power, buckling seatbelts, cold vs. toasted toast, wearing shoes, not wearing shoes, throwing mulch, only liking melted cheese and not real cheese, why is my water not cold enough, I don't want to go, why is it my turn, why isn't it my turn, it's my ball not yours, melting down, forgiveness, packing the wrong shoes, pants, shirts, books.  And did I mention the remote control?

OMG with the fighting.

But you know what?

I don't think I'll ever stop thinking we are screwing it up every day.

Wondering if this is the interaction our kid will remember when they go to therapy in their 20s.

Wishing and hoping I had done better on my end.  I'm the adult, you know, I should do better.

I'd do it all over again and I'll continually resolve to do it better.

To control myself and how they react.

To try my best to find the magic (except that Santa lie, #santatruther)

But mostly, we need to keep plowing this beautiful messy field of lives we are planting.   What a privilege.   What a challenge.

So while we are all eating our greens and blackeyed peas and pork and tamales and cornbread and all the things, here's to the 20s.

But oif.  The teen years in the next decade.  Send help.

It Started with the Sausage

You know those moments?

The ones where you are like holy-shit-this-is-my-life-right-now?

Let's be honest, I have them on the regular.

But yesterdays, it started with a spatula.

I knew it was going to be one of those days because it is always one of those days.  The ones where the orchestra has to play together because otherwise it's all going to go to hell.  And to be honest, we're having more of those days lately than not.

And I was going to make breakfast because I was going to make breakfast because the plan was to make breakfast, and where was my damn favorite spatula.

As I posted on Facebook, it made me realize that I was "I have a favorite spatula years old."

I did a tick tock on a day in the life of the family a few years ago, and I always laughed when my colleagues with older kids said YOU HAVE NO IDEA.  But you guys, you have no idea.

Things get complicated and busier, and you just have to get better at what's going on.  Or choose not to and go with the flow.

You guys, I need a little more flow go.

In the span of eight hours, I found the damn spatula, cranked out a real breakfast, dropped the rest of the family at church, realized I still haven't delivered the promised breakfast to the new member small group, rejoiced at 20 found minutes and got gas at Costco, realized that I was in charge of soccer snack and ran into Costco for said snack with R with a goal of making it in and out in 13 minutes (we did), stopped and got some ibprofun at another place because his back was sore from 15 other hours of soccer that week, hit the portapotty, watched the rec baseball game for ten minutes because we were early (we always are), schlepped the team bench a quarter of a mile because I've got this and this is where we parked, called to get the girl a carpool to Scouts, checked in the team, sat in my blue chair for 55 minutes watching but not watching, ,kept some disgruntled soccer fans in check and raged at the bad sportsmanship of our opponents, took the kid to Chilis to introduce him to queso, left him asleep in the car when I dropped by the Girl Scouts meeting I was supposed to co-lead until I had to go back out to the car because I had a kid asleep in it, failed to deliver the news that I wasn't attending the camping trip this week, came home, declare it fishsticks and roasted broccoli night the kids are all getting over their Halloween hangover...

Thank goodness it wasn't a work day.  Don't get me started on travel soccer logistics.

And then Shawn, our designated slowdowner, slowed it down.

There wasn't laundry to fold (that'll be tonight and tomorrow).

There was Crazy Eights and War to be had, and I just couldn't click into it.

I sat with them, but on the sidelines.  We didn't set back the clocks and went with the fact it was almost 8pm and OMG you guys are so late for your bedtime. (ps, it was 645).

And here I was.  Between the spatula and the logistics, and sidelined for the joy.

I've admitted before I'm not the magical parent.  I'm never going to be.  I just don't have that gene.

I saw a Dad at ice skating last week kneel to his kid and look him in the eyes and he really connected.  He looked like he did.  And I was hustling to return the skates to get to a birthday party on time.

Am I losing the joy in the logistics and the finding of the damn spatula and what can I do about it?

For tonight, I rest in R thinking "Chilis is the best restaurant we have ever been to and can we do it again soon please?"

Knowing I've launched Annie into wanting to go on the camping trip alone next weekend to scrap at independence, and checking my guilt about not being there.

Watching James practice him capoeria moves and destroy his siblings in cards war?

Looking at this guy, watching that ten minutes of baseball and saying six hours later "Mama, did you see how the black team crushed that other team that inning, wasn't it awesome?"

My magic is logistics, and it was still awesome, dude.

That one when you are going to write a post

That one where you are going to post a lengthy diatribe, but too lengthy for Facebook, and there aren't enough threads for twitter, and you don't want to just airdrop it so you post a couple photos of your kids to get yourself off the dime.

Also, you now have seen the pirate costume ride for six out of eight years of parenting.  Not bad for $11.99.