From the bathroom stall where Timmy is taking care of business: “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

___________

Last night, Eric walked into the house and suddenly stopped, bent at the waist and examined the wall. “Um…who drew a smiley face on the wall?” Three chorused with “Not me, I didn’t.” And one younger daughter looked guiltily at her daddy with a half-grin on her face. (She had to clean the wall off.)

__________

Later, I glance at my feet in the girls’ room to see an orange X on the carpet. “Um, who did this?” Older daughter looks guiltily at me.

“Really? Ladies, when you were little itty bitty, we had this conversation. Perhaps you remember it? Where are you allowed to draw?”

“On paper.”

“Where?”

“On paper.”

“So not walls? How about carpets? What about on Timmy? No? Okay, then please keep the drawings off of my house and non-paper things. Okay?”

__________

Alex: In my folder, there is a permission slip for doing wrestling.

Me: Yes?

Alex: I’m not going to do wrestling.

Me: (grinning to myself) That’s fine.

__________

This morning, breakfast has been eaten. Timmy asked for a second bowl of Lucky Charms. I pour him one. When I come back, he is finishing said bowl and Megan is sitting in front of a foot-wide pile of Lucky Charms…which is mysteriously lacking marshmallows. I think she thought I wouldn’t notice.

Megan hung her head. Her face was sad. She spoke very quietly, “I had a big oops today.”

For context, a few weeks ago we started asking our kids three questions, usually at dinner.

How were you brave today? How were you kind today? How did you fail today?

They have become regular conversation for us. At least once a day, I hear, “Mommy, I have my kind thing!” or “Mommy, I was brave today!” It’s pretty cool, and it has opened up much better conversations about their days than just “How was school?” ever did. (And I cannot take credit for this. It came from this article.)

So we’ve been asking these things for awhile. And to be honest, the third question has been the hardest. They didn’t get the concept of “fail” very well. I explained it as an “oops.” Anything you say or do or think that afterwards you think, “Oops, I shouldn’t have done that.” Or “Oops, I should have done that differently.” So we have “oops” moments. And it works. But mostly our “oops” things are breaking a pencil or falling down or dropping something. And I’ve wondered if they were really getting the concept. Until Wednesday. That’s when Megan spoke up.

She hung her head. She dropped her voice. She looked very sad. She said, “I made a big oops today.”

“What happened?” I asked, seeing the seriousness of this answer.

“I was very not kind. I said something I shouldn’t have.” Turns out she’d had a fight with a little boy on the playground. And she’d told him she would never, ever be his friend again. It wasn’t earth-shattering. But she’d been unkind, and she knew it. And the whole thing had settled uncomfortably in her heart. She hurt over her mistake.

“I see,” I said. “Well, I’m glad you told me. And I’m glad you see how that wasn’t kind.” We talked about how God nudges our hearts when we fail, especially when we hurt someone else. “What do you think you need to do?”

“Say I’m sorry,” she said.

“I think you’re right. And that’s the neat thing about seeing an oops. We can ask God to forgive us. We can ask the other person to forgive us, and then we can let it go. It doesn’t mess us up forever.”

She nodded, and we went on with dinner. And then last night at dinner, she said in between bites of bread and chicken, “I told Gage that I was sorry today and I would be his friend. And he said he was sorry and he’d be my friend, too.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that!” I said. “And I’m so proud of you for doing the hard thing and saying you’re sorry. It was very brave of you.” She grinned at me, clearly settled again.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen, especially in this volatile election season, if we grown-ups had the same sense as our littles. To see how we’ve hurt others when we accuse and call names and refuse to “be friends” with each other in all our grown-up ways. And having seen our “oops,” simply to apologize and to accept another’s apology, too. We don’t have to agree. But we can be kind. And when we fail and hurt another person, we can apologize.

Just like Meg. She really does get what it means to “fail.” And she faced it, owned it, made it right as best she could. It’s not easy to do what she did. That’s why, this week, she’s totally my hero. I want to learn to be just like her.

Much has been said recently on the abuse of power involved in situations of sexual assault. How someone (usually male, but not always) thinks, “I am ________ (rich, powerful, important, me); therefore, your body belongs to me if I want it.” It’s offensive. Horrific. Untenable. It is wrong.

But there has been, in all of this discussion, a real silence that concerns me. The focus has been on one man, but as I’ve pondered the whole thing, I’m beginning to wonder about that fact.

Because the abuse of power is not limited to sexual arenas.

• It’s the pastor who uses charisma and the Bible to bully and control his congregation.
• It’s politicians who believe that a position of leadership guarantees them the right to do or say whatever they want…or to force whatever legislation fits their purposes. On either side of an aisle.
• It’s the woman who controls the PTO/PTA and uses it to manage other parents and the school’s culture or even to skim money off the books (in extreme cases).
• It’s the newspaper editor or reporter who uses stories or the timing of released videos (our recent example) to affect the outcome that he or she most wants to see.

The truth is, we are all tempted by the lure of power. Every.last.one.of.us. No one, on either side of the aisle, has a soapbox to stand on. No one, in any denomination, can point a finger. No politician, stay-at-home mom, pastor, accountant, or farmer has any leg to stand on when it comes to pointing fingers about the abuse of power. We ALL do it.

I bully my kids to get my way (“Because I said so,” right?). The girls in junior high bullied me (and others) so they could prove their control of the group. My brother used “Mom left me in charge” to get us to do all the chores. I’ve known of (and worked under) more than one supervisor who bullied and tore down and micromanaged. Principals control their schools. Pastors manipulate their people. Men and women at all levels coerce another person into sexual acts they either do not want or go along with because they really don’t feel like they can refuse.

When we have power, we hold favors, belonging, acceptance, jobs, promotions, money (and on and on) over other people. And it is all abuse of power. All of it.

That doesn’t make it right. Of course it doesn’t. But, taking our recent example, if someone really cared about the abuse of sexual power in Washington, then they should be calling for a capital-wide cleansing of every Senator, Congressman, Judge or chief of staff who has ever behaved this way, too. And we need to apply this rule to governors, attorneys general, and cabinet members at every level. If the abuse of power is wrong, then let’s go after it.

But instead, the entire conversation was a weapon. An abuse of power, itself. Against one man. Whom (you will remember) I may or may not vote for, so please don’t hear this as an endorsement either way.

What it is…is a cry of frustration. The abuse of power is ALWAYS wrong. There is not ONE of us who can honestly say we’ve never abused our power in some arena. NONE of the political candidates, in particular, is free of guilt in this area.

And we must, we MUST, do better. All of us. In the halls of Washington. In issues of social justice. At the New York Times and CNN and Fox News. In the boardrooms and cubicles. At the gyms and bars and grocery stores and PTOs and car dealerships. Everywhere! We all have power over someone. Over something.

And we also have a choice. As we have seen illustrated over and over, we can abuse that power. OR we can use that power to protect. The opposite of to abuse is to PROTECT.

I cannot do much about the house of horrors that this year’s election has become. But I can choose differently, myself. So can you. So can “they.” Today, let us ALL look for ways we can PROTECT each other, lift each other up, stand in the gap for someone else. Just because I “can” do something, never means I should. Let’s remember that. ALL of us.

This week…

I’ve learned how to hook up the battery charger on my van’s battery.

I’ve learned what an ocular migraine is.

I’ve learned that when I’m in a tizzy, I send my kids into a tizzy.

I’ve learned that I still have high cholesterol.

I’ve learned that sometimes God drops opportunities in our laps, but we have to take them on.

I’ve learned that it’s possible to blog anonymously.

I’ve learned that there is no storage space in the Cambridge FedEx location.

I’ve learned that Alex is not squeamish about pulling out his own teeth.

I’ve learned that my worry is a form of pride.

I’ve learned that Eric’s drive to work and back is really pretty in the fall.

I’ve learned (again) that God always meets us where we are. And He really, really does answer prayer.

She is 6 now. Erin made sure we knew exactly when she was born, and she was not permitted to say she was six until after lunch on Friday. But she made it. She is 6.

And she is so spectacular. She is power and push and idea and follow-through. She is all at once and everywhere. She is adventure and bravery and excitement and try-it-all. She is spunky. She is Meg.

But she is also growing up. This year, she’s so much deeper than she’s been. She was the first to climb the doorways until her head bumped the top. But she would not, would not, set foot inside the lighthouse that the other 3 climbed with Daddy on vacation this year. She knew that wasn’t her thing. She knew it. She owned it. And she waved from the ground…no regrets!

She started Kindergarten this fall. She was very nervous and ready and excited and scared. She can already read, but she’s learning so much about other, much more valuable things, like how to appreciate her Autistic classmate and how to be a friend and how to be brave and kind and fail, all in one day, and still start each new day with God at her side.

I find this little version of me both challenging and reassuring. Her natural bent is to go forward. Have the idea…DO the idea. She doesn’t always PLAN the idea, but she takes it on in huge bites anyway. She is hard-headed, but soft-hearted. She is easily hurt, if we’re not careful. But she can’t not go forward anyway.

And I hope, with all my heart, that I can guard that part of her. Whatever God’s plan for Megan entails, I want her to push forward, all the way to the heart of it. All the way to His heart. I don’t want to squash her bravery or make her afraid to risk. Be wise, yes. But lose the power of her personality, no.

Dearest Megan, Mommy loves you more than I can say. You are life and color and flame and laughter. You have the power to change the world, and I will always be here for you, cheering you on. You have made such a difference in my life, and I cannot wait to see what the world will become because you are in it.

So, the short version is that when I was a little kid, I was really sensitive. Empathetic. Really, I was.

But along the way, I got hurt. A lot hurt. In big ways by friends and strangers. In the normal everyday little ways of family and life. So I put it all away. I determined to do whatever I could to avoid getting hurt. To stay out of reach of the people who had hurt me. And I was good at it. For many years now, my walls have been high and my personal space miles wide. Except for a few, I wouldn’t be touched.

But.

I’ve been changing. I’ve been reading. I’ve been learning. I’ve been dipping my tiptoes into the water of being all-me again, or maybe for the very first time. There have been lots of pieces all converging. But at the center is me. Just me. Wondering if I want to spend the rest of my life the way I’ve spent the first (almost) 40 years.

And I don’t think I do. Not anymore. I have too much to offer to hide anymore. So I’m trying. I’m letting down the guard, just a bit. I’ve opened up to the possibility that all the hurt wasn’t so much about me, about my broken-ness, and was more about someone else’s issues. Maybe I’m not the only broken one.

Of course, it’s really hard. And freak-me-out terrifying. And I totally suck at it. Changing and feeling and being seen and letting myself fail. But I think, I really do think, that it’s worth it. So I’m learning

• To feel my way through instead of shutting down emotionally.
• To risk that someone will actually accept me instead of isolate me and laugh at me.
• To chance empathy and see if maybe, just maybe, holding someone’s pain won’t sink me in my own. And if it does, maybe we can stand back up together.

And then yesterday, Alex came back into the house shrieking. I was in the basement, and I fully expected to see blood everywhere. Thankfully, it wasn’t blood. But it was wasp stings, two of them – on the hand and on the leg. And he was sobbing. The tears were literally dripping off his face. Snotty and upset and trying to hold it together and act okay, but just falling apart all the same. I quickly put together vinegar/baking soda paste to help the pain, and then I sat with him while he cried.

And y’all, it broke my very heart. I was deeply hurt for my little boy. And when the truth of that response hit me, I actually felt a strange joy. After all these years, it’s happening. I could see his pain and feel it with him. It was hard and good all at the same time.

But most of all, it was encouraging. There might be hope for me after all. Maybe I really can FEEL my way through this life after all. And even survive.

There is nothing as good as laughter at bringing people together.

Last night, three ladies joined me for Bible Study, but even as we talked real life and what parts of the homework we didn’t get done and where God was speaking to us, we laughed. We laughed at ourselves, mostly. And our stories. Laughter brings us together.

Yesterday afternoon, we stood around the kitchen table in Eric’s grandparents’ house. It’s been over 2 years since his grandpa passed away, almost 18 months since his grandma died. But the house is still full of treasure and trash. So we went through things. We tested the depression glass (it is real uranium glass, by the way). We looked at pictures. We read journals. We found neat things, and we laughed. At old photos. At strange “finds.” At good memories.

On Saturday, we went to the benefit for the Amish schools, otherwise known as the Amish Barbecue. The food is always phenomenal. But what is really fun is how you always see someone you know. We found family and friends. We joked and chatted at multiple tables. We oohed over my friend’s daughter’s just-lost tooth. We giggled over her toddler’s description of a camel spitting. The laughter reminds of us of connections. And fun. And it is as fulfilling as the food.

We rode home from church yesterday, and Eric teased the kids. He makes me laugh. Even after 12+ years of marriage. And the laughter connects us. He surprises me. I respond to him. We are better when we laugh together.

And I wish there was a way that more of the world could laugh together. Not at each other. Not in satire or full-blown sarcasm. But the true kind of connection that comes when we laugh together. It brings joy. It reminds us that there’s still hope. It satisfies us like good food. It’s so easy to get serious and focused. I do it too often. But I want to remember to laugh. I want to relax and find community and create community … through laughter.

I finally figured out a way around the horrible gripe-fest that happens every time I utter the phrase “clean your room.” I took the “begin with the end in mind” view, and we sat down and imagined our rooms totally clean. Then we wrote down, in checklist form – my kids are BIG on checklists – all the things that needed to happen for their rooms to end up clean. And oh.my.word. It worked! They cleaned. I didn’t have to yell, order, or deal with bellyaching. And they happily checked off their little lists which are now hung in their closets for all future cleaning sessions. Wahoo!

Got to go to the Amish Barbecue today. It’s just plain YUMMY. And I almost never get to go in October, so it was a special treat. And we saw family and friends there. Good times.

Took the kiddos for haircuts. And they got donuts while we were there (there were free leftovers, so we got a treat).

Hung with the family. Picked green beans with Eric. Erin and Megan helped for a while. We found 2 toads hiding in the beans. I still cannot believe that Erin is totally into toads and slugs and things. She is much less prissy than her girly-ness might make you think. 🙂

Made a light supper and then made banana bread. Earlier, I had found the applesauce-in-the-shape-of-an-apple rottenness that the fruit flies have been swarming around. It fell and splatted on my back porch, but that is better than my kitchen floor. Unfortunately, the flies immediately flew to the four bananas sitting next to the apples that remained (that we also threw away), so I had no choice but to make banana bread.

Well, and even the fruit-fly defeating banana bread took a back seat to the poop fest that Timmy had managed at some point while the beans were being picked. Had to stop and clean the toilet that had poop ALL over it. Just gross. And attracting flies there, too.

But I got it clean. And made banana bread. And now we’ll have to suffer through eating it, too. Rough life, I lead. For sure. 😉

Alex lost a tooth this morning. Pulled it out himself. He put it under his pillow with a note asking why the tooth fairy took a couple of days to get his last one. Um…how do you write a note that explains that “mommy just forgot.” I did get a note done, though. And it is near his pillow along with today’s tooth money. No forgetting today!

And then there were baths and bedtime prayers and cartwheels and headstands done in super-clean bedrooms, and now all 4 crazies are sleeping. And I’m about ready to join them.

It was a good day, today.

I was picking beans yesterday by myself. It was a gorgeous morning, chilly at first and then the sun got hot. It was a second picking of our second planting of beans, and I had two large bowls I could fill. I got to work.

The funny thing about picking beans is that, when you first move the leaves, you don’t see any beans. They blend in. Under the leafy roof is a house of stems, branches and vegetables that mimic each other, hide each other. At first glance there are no beans at all.

And then, something shifts. The light maybe. An adjustment of the eyes. And there they are. They stand out. They appear. As you move more leaves, more stems, they show up. A handful, a dozen beans that had been there the whole time. You just couldn’t see them.

I filled both bowls to overflowing. Had to go back with a third bowl, actually. There were a lot of beans. And bean picking is hard work. You lean over, kneel down. Your back hurts. It pulls at your leg muscles. And it takes a while to do. Two rows took me most of two hours.

So while I picked, I thought. About beans. And about people.

See, when my back hurt, I stood up and stretched. If I’d wanted to give up and leave the rest of the beans to rot in the garden, I could have (I didn’t, thus the third bowl). The point is, it was basically up to me.

But I know, in my head, that someone on this planet, today, was doing something, serving someone, picking something because they HAD to. And they couldn’t stretch when their muscles ached and rebelled. They couldn’t stop. There was a quota to meet–of produce picked or jeans sewn or men served. And if they didn’t do enough, they were yelled at. If they couldn’t get enough done, they might be beaten.

So I wondered, as I picked, what that would feel like. So I tried it. When my back hurt, I picked another plant, a few more beans, just to see what it felt like. It wasn’t even remotely slavery. It wasn’t unjust or even a semblance of the pain that men or women or children endured, just today. But I thought of them. And that is new to me.

I wonder if seeing people is very much like seeing green beans. At first, it can be easy to miss them. They hide in the everyday open all around me. I’m busy. I have a job to finish. Their problems don’t impact my life. My own back hurts, so I overlook them. And then, by some act of grace, something changes. The light shifts. The leaves move. And I notice.

And I cannot un-notice people. I want to, to be totally honest. But I can’t. There they are. Maybe a handful. Maybe a dozen. Maybe only one. But like the green beans, they are real, and they were always there. I just didn’t have the eyes to see them.

I’m way behind in the journey towards really seeing people. I know that. My sad little excuse for a social experiment in the bean patch won’t feed a starving child or free someone from their slavery. But it’s a start.

And wonder if the first step toward the doing someTHING is really about seeing someONE for the very first time. And then choosing to keep on seeing them and choosing not to turn away.

So we actually took a vacation this year. We went to Harbor Island, SC and stayed with my in-laws in a house on the beach. Like ON the beach. The water came up to the retaining walls at high tide. Super cool. And not only was the location awesome…we drove to the beach with four kids, aged 7, 7, 5 & 3. So…in honor of surviving our first real family vacation, here are some of my random thoughts on the week.

1. Car trips with small children.

This went SO much better than I’d imagined it would go. I pushed down vague images of meltdowns and tried to prepare. I took lots of little things which came out along the way and not all at once. We bought new movies to watch. LOTS of library books. I found a lego idea that worked really well, and I used dry-erase sleeves to create reusable packets of mazes, hidden pictures and games (like tic-tac-toe). There was boredom, but they handled the 12-hour drive like champs. Okay, at one point, I did order Timmy to nap, but even he rode pretty easily. I was very, very impressed. And grateful.

2. Beach Stuff

It was fun to hear people’s reactions/advice to the news that we were going to the beach. “Are you driving?” Yep. “You’re driving at night, right?” Nope. “Make sure you have your camera for the first time they see the ocean.” Check.

When we did finally arrive (the in-laws were already there and checked in), we wen’t pretty much straight to the ocean. Timmy ran through the whole house, down the path, and to the water, repeating, “This is the best day of my life!” It was pretty awesome. We did get wet in our clothes. Timmy was not at all sure about the water creeping up on his feet at first. Megan went it immediately. And we did get pictures.

There were morning walks to look for shells almost every day, and evening beach walks, too. Crabs, washed-up jellyfish, and miscellaneous slimy things were revolting and attracting all at once. The dolphins swam offshore every day, pods of 4-6 of them, following the shrimping boats. They were so cool to watch.

We swam in the ocean most mornings as the tide came in, lunched and rested, and then swam in the community pool in the late afternoons. Timmy finally got the nerve to actually jump into the water, and he could keep his head above the 3 ft. depth, so he jumped over and over and over. At one point, I saw, out of the corner or my eye, a child flip into the pool, splashing back-first. I spun to Eric, “Please tell me that was NOT one of ours.” Oh yeah. It was Megan. Of course it was. She was forbidden to do that again. 🙂

Thankfully, Timmy potty-trained this summer so he could swim in the big pool. All babies with swim diapers had to stay in the wading pool, which would NOT have been fun. I was glad to be done with such things. And the big kids went with their dad and grandma into the deeper water and gained a TON of confidence. He showed them how to let themselves get to the bottom and push themselves back up. They all swam from deeper water to me and back and forth across the deeper water. They even got in the deepest waters and found they could handle themselves (with daddy’s supervision). It was fun.

We went to Hunting Island one day, a fun state park with a neat old lighthouse. The beach there had pretty big waves, so we didn’t swim. Megan was smart enough to know she couldn’t handle the climb to the lighthouse. I thought maybe I could. Um…not so much. Didn’t even make the second landing. Oh well. The other 3 went with Daddy and Grandpa to the top (181 steps) in about 4 minutes and ran straight to the rail and looked down. I just pretended I was okay with that.

We found keychains at the shop there, one for each kid. With their name on it. Eric said we won the Name-Your-Child award for that one. 🙂 And we watched South Carolina cardinals fight over crumbs. They looked scruffy, dull-colored, and small compared to our Ohio corn-fed cardinals. But it was cool to watch anyway.

We also went to a kazoo factory. Everyone took bets that I’d break first and order all the buzzing to stop. But I didn’t! Timmy did. He was not a fan of the carful of kazoos on the way home. But if you are ever in Beaufort, SC, the kazoo tour was absolutely worth the $5 a person to go. Fun and educational. And we each made our own kazoo. Very cool!

Other highlights. I read two books in two days, or so. I found a 550-piece puzzle on clearance and took it along to do while we were there. And it worked really well. Small enough to not take the whole time; big enough to be a challenge. There was a bunk bed in   the kids room. Erin made sure there was a plan and schedule as to who would sleep where on which nights. It was a big deal to be on the top bunk!

We came home on Thursday. It took 13 hours to get home, but we took longer meal times, actually stopping to eat. And we knew where we were going, so getting home after dark wasn’t such a big deal. But it was our first real vacation…and I think it was a surprising success.

Guess I should start planning the next one… 😉