Dragons and Motherhood

I am so tired tonight. 

Do you ever look at your mothering and feel like gagging? Because you think you are doing a darned crappy job? I do. How could I possibly be given the honor of raising these three little beings down the hall from me, softly snoring through closed eyelids dreaming of smiling kitty cats and ice cream Sundays? Kids who want only seamless shirts, waffles and whipped cream to make them happy. Their innocence scares me sometimes, and I wonder if I’m strong enough and good enough to lead them to adulthood.

The amount that my precious three rely on my health and stability is daunting on nights like tonight. I feel unorganized, exhausted and selfish. Things have been hard at my house… Job stress, school stress, home stress, money stress. I mean, I just want to go eat some cookies, stay up late working on my novel, and then fall asleep in my clothes. I want to sleep in, eventually wake in the morning when I feel hungry, roll out of bed, have a cup of tea alone, and be a selfish brat. But I have the honor of being a mom and a wife...being something better than my very worst self, and so there is no room for lazy brattiness. Plus a great thing happened to me this morning which has caused me to stay up later than I should, so that I can share it with you...

Last night I slept on the couch with my husband because my oldest son fell asleep in our giant king-sized bed. Right in the middle. We didn’t have the heart to move him, since generally he has sleep trouble, so we retreated to the sectional next to the dwindling fire downstairs. A substitute bed. Kind of romantic, but really just the result of pure exhaustion. It was OK. We got to be together, quietly for a little while.

So this morning I woke halfway, wondering where I was, and in the darkness I heard whispers of tiny voices followed by a pitter-patter of feet coming down the stairs. “Why are they here? What are they doing?” tinkled the tiny voice of my 6-year-old girl.

“I don’t know. Maybe they were just tired. Should we wake them up?" my 8-year-old replied. At least, that is what I remember him saying, since my eyes were still sealed shut, under a large fluffy blanket. I was half-fantasizing that they would return to their beds and go back to sleep.

And then I felt it. I felt my daughter’s thin pencil arms embracing me. They could only reach halfway around my top half. I thought about how she had enough goodness in her to want to quietly hug a smelly mom sleeping on a couch, and part of me felt completely confused about how it could be true. Could a tired lump like me deserve such grace? Her gentle breathing in my hair felt perfect enough to last a lifetime. The heaviness in my head, and the weight of all my limbs departed. The problems of the days, weeks, and months flew up the chimney, disappearing into the night sky. An unsolicited morning hug from my little girl had started my day and ignited my hope for all of the possibilities that lay ahead. Maybe I could be a good mom, after all. Her soft voice in my ear whispered something about breakfast and a special fort that I must see at 6:00AM. I asked her if we could just hang out for a bit and chat.

We lay there and talked about whether dragons really can fly and if I’ve actually seen a real dragon. Was it striped or polka dot? Did it have wings? Did I ride on it, or is riding on dragons just a made-up idea?

That was it. So simple, but really, really big. Big as a dragon. I was a tired mom with little motivation to care, to do anything very good. But my child lifted me up. She showed me the enormous opportunity I have to connect with her and my boys in ways richer and more beautiful than any parenting book could ever illustrate. I just listened, I felt, and the blessing of motherhood took over.

You Are Not My God

And I’m no Supermom. 

Not sitting here dressed up in a shiny tight pants suit with wings on it, hair curled and blowing behind my sparkling youthful, faithful complexion. No one is featuring me in the "Motherhood Times" today. But this morning I am refreshingly aware that although I fall short as a mom (I’m 5’4” so I’m not THAT short, but still…) Well really, although I am small, I’m still padding along on my little fat feet, doing my best and admitting that I could do better. And today, thankfully, I’m leaning into the real woman, the mom, the wife, the artist who God made me to be. She is OK. But yesterday I hated her.

I'm sharing this ugly truth because I’m gonna bet that you also feel critical of yourself or your “momhood” at times. Or perhaps you think you don’t feel critical of yourself, but you spend a lot of time criticizing other women or moms you know (that is called deflection.) You may talk about their faults, how you feel sorry for them, how you can clearly see what they need to change...Or maybe you’re completely at peace with yourself and others all the time, in which case you can stop reading now (you liar.)

So back to my point-- over the holiday I felt pretty bad about who I am. Critical. It was like I had lost my ability to see that my image isn’t created for the other mom, relative or random person who is judging me. At times, I will give almost anyone the pass to my “OK-ness”. The right to tell me if I’m good enough.  Even when I know perfectly well that the path around this kind of self-mutilating thinking and behavior, for me, is simple: I have nothing to prove.  You are not my God. (BTW my God gets really jealous and angry when I worship you instead of Him.)

BUT too often my faith is weak, and I return to giving you, the relative, other mom, or friend or reader…I give you the keys to my worthiness. (I must insert here that my God tells me that I'm living in a very messed up world where I am judged and rated according to severely backassed values. Well, he didn't use exactly those words...) I mean, if you don't "like" me after reading this, should I even keep on writing?? 

Here is how my imagination works…There is this other mom, this relative (or two), this lady at church, this (old) pastor, old friend, old coworker. All of the people who have told me or showed me, sometimes indirectly, how much I stink. (Do you know anyone like that?) Well, the whole group of them hang out in my back pocket, have linked chains, and are great friends. Traveling with me everywhere, they seep toxic crappy chatter into my soul, making me feel deeply inadequate. They all carry scoreboards with questions like this about my motherhood: 1) Is she too uptight and controlling and opinionated? 2) Is she fake or instead too raw and unfiltered? 3) Does she feed her children too much health food? 4) Is she lazy? Or perhaps too active? 5) Does she try to do too much?  6) Does she fail to do enough cleaning or is she too tidy? 7) Too outspoken?   8) Does she spend too much time looking in the mirror? 9) Is she arrogant? 10) Does she spend (or have) too much money? 11) Is she a helicopter parent? 12) Does she try to be perfect?  13) Are her expectations too high?

The answer to every single question is of course YES! Sometimes. Sometimes I am all of these awful things. I try too hard, or not hard enough, or not the right way, and so I fail.

So now that I have smeared my round freckled nose around in it... I wonder if some of the moms out there like me (and that old pastor too who is the loudest yeller of all in my head)…If we could start trying harder to LIFT each other (and ourselves) up. Up up up. Let's float around in our strengths. Let’s honestly admit to our own weaknesses so we don’t keep pointing fingers at each other and then lets have an old-fashioned bonfire and burn the checklists, the gossip, and the high-and-mighty thoughts that are all weighing us down. Maybe when we release their heavy weight, we will get a little lighter, a little closer to heaven here on this very rocky, cold earth.

I dare you to start randomly finding strengths in that mom who bugs the heck out of you. (I’m doing it right now.) Say them out loud. Could we forget the glaring inadequacies we see in ourselves, that we then pin on other moms, other people? May we squint at the light that is present and unique and REAL in every person we come into contact with, and revel at how the flaws fall away, becoming only fleeting imagery when our gazes fix on the light. God created you and her and her and her and me. We are gifts to one another. 

Moms, we have a pretty hard job. Really. I think it will get a little easier if we link arms and carry one another along. 

Now off I go to burn that list…

May We Remember One Another

“It was a hard day for me, wasn’t it Mom?” asked my 9-year-old as I lay in the dark next to him in his narrow bed, the red glow of his gecko cage illuminating his raised thoughtful eyebrows and silky pale skin.

My mind snapped to the image of him grabbing his brother’s brand new neon green remote controlled SUV and running out the door...I recalled the salty tears staining the wood floor and the low hanging bushy brown head of his 8-year-old brother who once again was unable to embrace a moment of joy with a shiny new toy without interruption.  I remembered the chase and then the 9-year-old throwing the remote and kicking the car after being cornered by me with it in his arms…I recalled his pointy fingers later poking his sister’s toes until she yelped with frustration making him jump (sensitive to sound) and whack her across the thighs. More screams radiated through my holiday memory.  I then pictured the football catapulting through the family room, the empty bag of marshmallows that he just consumed, the sound of his screeching as he maniacally ran around the house, away from my husband who was trying to wrestle away one more gift that did not belong to this boy.

“It did seem to be a hard day for you” I agreed. “Do you know why?” I pictured all of the reasons the day had dipped into mania. I could see the things I had NOT done to avoid his over-excitement. I had forgotten to structure the day, forgotten to limit the activity, I had missed my cues. I was tired.

“I have no idea, mom. But I want to thank you for all of the nice gifts you got me that you wanted me to think were from Santa, but were of course not.”

I giggled.

“Don’t laugh at me Momma! I HATE it when you laugh at me.”

“I am not laughing at you, I’m just happy because you sounded so sweet just then. Like you were thinking about me.”

“What? What do you mean, Momma?” He said so softly. Maybe a little horrified.

“Well,” I replied carefully, “You are usually too busy and a little distracted to remember me. It feels good to know that you are thinking of me and the effort I made today to make Christmas nice.”

I worried that I was telling him too much. Maybe making him feel guilty. But he had tossed me a nugget, and I needed to thank him for it. The compliment (he was thinking of ME!) felt heavier than gold. I wanted to tell him the truth.

“I don’t remember to think of you?” He sounded truly horrified. “Really?” Pause… Pause…Silence… I could almost hear the ticking neurons in his little brain…how many years he had worked to get here…to feel empathy. Then, “I can see what you mean. I’m really sorry Mom that I forget to think about you.”

It was my Christmas gift. However tiny, it was the slice of connection I needed on this day full of expectations. A star telling me I am walking in the right direction. A light allowing my child to see me as I am, even if only for a moment. And I could see him, too. We accepted each other completely. We remembered to think of each other.

For me, Christmas this year brings with it a tiny, but enormous and ridiculous hope. (Hope directly from a newborn King, born in a stable, to a poor teenager. What if everyone had been too busy to notice Him?) First, may we simply slow down enough to remember one another. A thought, a gesture, a message, a moment in time where we go beyond our busy lives. Perhaps every day, even more than once, we can see the opportunity to carry light into a dim world. What if we think of our moms, our husbands, the checkout lady, the boy who is making the annoying sound, the mom whose mouth is turned downward, the friend on Facebook posting sad feelings, the dad looking for someone to talk to. What if we stop for a moment like my 9-year-old did? Second, I hope that we will all live together this way, somewhere, someday for more than a moment— I pray for an eternity of this kind of living. United. Loved. Accepted.

Merry Christmas!

Be Merry Because of The Small Stuff

The season crashes into my kitchen like a thunderbolt. I pretend I can’t hear, didn’t notice that giant flash, but then I force a glance at the tattered family calendar on the counter next the granola box, and I see that there are just over two weeks left before winter break is here. THAT must be why I’m seeing so many Facebook posts of cute families toting around tall evergreens. I better get moving! Two weeks to finish draping the garlands, lighting everything alive down the driveway. Two weeks to finish scribbling the list of gift ideas twirling around in my head. Snap cool photos of the kids, make a better card than last year, create address lists and mail cards before Valentines Day. Craft thoughtful handmade gifts, mail cards (didn’t I just say that?) Wrap presents. Or should I let Amazon do it all? Two weeks to demonstrate my gratitude to the One who created me and saved me from my own very frantic self while I hum a jolly tune, bake gingerbread men, mop up spilled egg nog, and prance around looking as good as possible in my newest red or silver sweater and snowflake earrings that I just bought... Wait, where did I put them again? Two weeks (plus the week of Christmas) to lose a few pounds before I’m on the warm sand in Florida, sipping a lemonade in my hot pink bathing suit… Me merry? Crap!

And then down the stairs pops my eight-year-old. “Mom! Guess what? Only two days before we go get our Christmas tree!”  I watch him patter down the hallway in his soft cotton socks, brown clumps of hair sticking in all different directions. “Oh YES, I love this thing! Can I hang the next ornament?” he asks as he peeks into the 4^thtiny pocket of the advent tree my sister made us a few years ago. His fingers pull out a miniature word ornament pronouncing “Noel.” The three dimensional word is trimmed in gold with a shiny safety pin on the end of a thin shimmery thread. Lost in my chaotic, frantic thoughts, and the smell of burning toast, I would normally miss this little moment all together. But my eight-year-old gently shows me a different world. He carefully rises onto his toes, pinning the word “Noel” to the cloth tree. Even though it is a fairly plain ornament, it shines when I peer at it through his eyes. Gently he steps back and the curve his lips create is like a giant upside down rainbow. He is very, very merry.  

As I write this I am learning that there are magical lessons to be learned from our children during the holidays.  The word “Noel” is speculated to have been derived from the French word “nouvelles” or the Latin word “natalis” meaning birth.  My eight-year-old showed me this morning that the light of birth, newness, youth, magic, unexplainable joy….this light shines in to even the most chaotic, old, distracted minds like my own. If we let it.

This holiday season I pray that we find a way to allow the Noel, like the young mind of a child, to shine its light into the madness of our days. May we stretch our minds to pierce the distracting and disappointing bubbles of busyness we live in, and to embrace, on the other side, a joyful, magical world. May we be merry because of the small stuff.

   

Listen. If you haven’t already, sit down for a minute like I just did, and take a tally of the magic you have already missed today. Maybe just a word, a smile, a song, a drawing, or a quiet question.  And then give thanks.

You will be merry-- I promise! 

Sensitive Boy, My Gift

What does it feel like to be inside of your body, my little 9-year-old man? Have these last three thousand and sum days of your life smothered your brightness already, making you older than you ought to be? Another morning is here where I try to help you rise, but you are heavy as a great cracked turtle, head aching, pulling inward and away from the pancakes and plans for the day where your sister dances with joy.

This morning I can see the chaos and confusion under your soft brow, scrunched up and tight. Offended by people moving this way and that, too fast, out of sync, making demands. Bright light everywhere, invading, complicated sounds, places to be. Fingers pointing. Hook faced frowns. Hurry up. Wait. Stop. Say your sorry. Get yourself together now. Get dressed. You feel it all, your little body overflows. Kaleidoscopes of sounds are screaming in your head, while most of us hear nothing but our own dull voices. Birds singing, brother and sister chattering downstairs, Daddy booming words, dogs barking in the echoing field, cars rumbling by, my distant voice. So often you live in the unseen and unheard, but are misunderstood as stealing the present. Sometimes they say your are distracting, annoying, inconvenient.

The cold air and open space outside of your nest of down are your enemies this morning.  But you are pulled up and out anyway, up to a life that blinds you, to face another day. You stumble across the icy surface of the floor, feet stinging from the touch of a hardness not made for your gentle body. Stiff bristles of the toothbrush invade your mouth. You turn away. No more Mama. I don't want to GO.  The icy tile surface under your heels sends steel through your veins. You stiffen. Squeal. Jump around waiting for someone to say, “Calm down!” so you can go back and hide.

I feel your body, doubling over, sagging to get back to safety. Under warmth and darkness you creep. But there is another pull. Someone (is that me?) is begging you to get dressed now, eat, gather backpack, coat, get outside, go to a place where hundreds of children cross paths, balls bounce, papers shuffle, faces make little sense, words hurt. I am here with you now, and I feel it all-- I understand.

My sensitive boy, come inside my arms for this moment to a calmer place. You are good as you are. My embrace will shield you from the thunder. Names will bounce from my hardened chest-- ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Aspergers, Challenging Child, Distraction, Anxious, Annoying. They are flying like birds into the morning sky, raining back down to feed us with forgiveness. Your light is reflecting a rainbow of a gorgeous child, in everything around you. You are my Gift, My Treat, My Lesson of Life, My Love. I feel the world so much more truly, Little Boy, because of you. 

Daddies Who Climb Mountains

The damned ding ding dingaling on my phone is waking me again. Shit, not another crisis beaming here like Count Tinkerbell all the way from the office, chomping down her frigging gold-knifed teeth through the ceiling to devour my morning. I grasp the phone and press its glow to my face. Panic over. That noise was just that God damn phone alarm. She orders me around, telling me to get my aching ass out of bed, beating my stiff swollen knees with her reminders and calendar events.  I keep setting her annoying beeping voice earlier. Early enough to get on my superpower bike with a screen that tricks my 45-year-old achy bod into believing it’s in the French Countryside spinning free. Maybe I’ll stop at a vineyard before breakfast. Get in a glass of vino before all hell breaks loose.

I ought to be a bear. They get to sleep all winter, don’t they? Or a frog.  My kids would like that better. They could carry me around and pat my lumpy slimy back, and they’d still think I’m cute. But I’m just a grown-up, bald 45-year-old boy called Husband, Daddy, Director. Sounds important, but it’s never enough.

At work, I’ve got a cascade of jobs the size of Everest to climb, and its blinding edges block my way with silvery jagged problems. Feels like I’m always reaching for the next crevice to clutch. I’m panting, and my sweaty Brooks Brothers shirt is flapping in the wind as my shiny black Farragamo leather shoes slip. And then, the laces get caught on the details and I look down. Careful, those distractions below can cause you vertigo…the egos, red tape, senseless errors, antiquated systems… if you stare at them too long, you forget where you’re going, and the mountain just gets higher. Sometimes I dangle there from my bitten, bleeding nails wondering if someone could just hand me a promotion, a beer, and retirement package all on the same day. I’ll open an organic dairy farm and sell milk. Or maybe become a college professor who spends all day talking about ideas over his reading glasses, in an old colonial schoolroom while sipping a hot latte.

Can’t be with the kids enough. They say, “Daddy where ARE you? Daddy you missed my parade, missed my story last night, missed cuddles.”  They have no idea how much I miss THEM. Knowing everything about them. But I've been out climbing mountains that nobody sees. I've got no pictures to show or breathtaking stories to tell, no harrowing adventures to brag about. My dream of home cooked, nightly meals by a crackling red brick hearth, listening to stories from the kids’ days as my wife rubs my shoulders…Hah. Young fellas, don’t even bother with that figment. I’m lucky if I get home for dinner twice a week, after it’s already been served. And if I do get there, my kids are so strung out and surprised to see me that they act like fang-toothed nymphs that you see in old story books. You know, banging the table with their forks, shrieking over each other, demanding to sit by me or refusing to look at me. Their emotions have run amuck. I can’t hear my thoughts, much less make a sound to share them. Sometimes I yell just to be heard, and then I realize that they hear so little from me… Let it not be my angry loud bellow their little heads hear when they think, “Daddy.”   

After they have pounded my wife and me to pieces with their zesty energy, for a short time, I get to feel what has been missing. Feel what keeps me climbing upward. They wrestle with me, lead me by the hand to their quiet bedrooms where they sound out stories from their favorite books or listen to mine. I lay back and work to keep my tired eyeballs open and focused, sinking into their joy, their magic, their being in the world. We are finally in a place free of all the beeps, buzzes, calls, trades, lists, charts, dollars, demands. They chatter on about a world of other things-- friends, disappointments, dreams, mistakes. They have no sense of time. Finally I am home. Home for my family. Home for love. 

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I’ve been writing fiction lately, sharing new perspectives on some of the challenges I observe facing so many families, including mine. I hope this narrative does at least a bit of justice to the struggle fathers experience as they are pulled, like moms, in far too many directions.  The love of my life has taught me that being a wonderful dad is possible, but it is painful, and it is hard work.

I Was Born Sick

I was born sick. My mom didn't know just how sick. I heard her voice for all those months talking talking talking, thinking she could control me before I entered the other side where people suck in air. Sometimes she would sing to me, trying to practice her lullabies, not knowing that she could make up any sounds and I would feel her intentions, her longing to fill me with something good, not sick like I feel.

I grow, and she does too. She sighs at pictures of me in sterile hospital offices as the gooey pushy stick rubs and squishes my warm home. I wish they would stop that. She needs to feel hope, to know who I am. She thinks I'm OK because everyone tells her so, but I'm sick. She sings again on the way home, something about "hushabye, don't you cry," and I wonder if she knows how much crying is coming.

A rounded lump of warm flesh pushes my elbow. I feel a jolt. She wants something from me. To believe I'm beautiful and whole like the pictures of all the others who have come before me. To know that the signs of trouble she saw four months ago were insignificant. To believe that I'll eat, sleep, smile, breath, crawl, walk on time. To know that my miniscule heart won't require the silicone covered hand of a giant to hold it and change its entire design while the rest of me lies in the frigid silver room, just above the cold temperature of death.

When I arrive, will she pour out loving, nourishing motherhood that supports the beautiful, ugly, smelly, soft, pain, and pleasure of who I am? When my screams penetrate her head, and I can't stop them, will she cover the sound with her own needs, running back to her dream, or will she embrace my heart with her warmth, make me know I'm not alone. Sickness hurts.  When I grow and show her the truth about me, that my design is not like her dream, will she still have that touch, that voice that rains enough love to make me want to swim in this womb forever?

She wants to see beauty everywhere, even in the broken places where most of us are afraid to ever look. Soon she will see me. She'll find out that I'm sick. I'll break her heart, and then she will heal along side of me. We will be together in this journey-- she will never look away.

This entry a fictional perspective from a child, like my child, who was born with a congenital heart defect and then went on to discover, as he grew, that he is "different" in many more ways... He blesses me every day with lessons about honoring and loving the individual. I am so thankful for him.