Fighting

Patrick notices me grumbling as I pick up in the kitchen, slamming a cabinet as I put away a sippy cup. “What’s wrong, Mama?””I’m having an argument with one of my friends on the phone, Patrick. It’s nothing that serious, but you kids keep interrupting my train of thought.”

10 minutes later, I’m sitting at the table, phone off, thinking.

Patrick comes over. “Are you done arguing with your friend, Mama?”

“Yes, we’re finished talking right now.”

He pauses, tilts his head. “You were fighting with them?”

“Yes, Patrick.”

“Did you win, Mommy?”

“Nobody wins in an argument, Patrick. Neither of us won.”

Quality Time

My two boys are at the Wild Kratts show in Spartanburg.  It was a surprise for Patrick and Trey came home early to pick him up!

The PBS show was the theme of Patrick’s 5th birthday. I stayed up til 2am the night before making homemade costumes for every kid.

   
 
  

Meanwhile, Melanie and I ate lasagna and watched Disney’s animated Cinderella for (her) first time (my fave Disney classic). After the stepsisters tore up her first dress, Mel was in my lap, all tense. She starts muttering, “dress a mess, a mess,” and she was visibly upset. I said, “Don’t worry, she’ll get a new one!”

  
She lights up: “New dress? New dress!!!” And each spell the fairy godmother makes, she keeps saying, “New dress NOW?” And when the puffy, glittery blue dress appears, she sighs with wonder.  

  
And I held her in my lap and wept with wonder too at sharing it with her. I can admit it, I’m a sap.  I have dreamt of this moment. 👸🏼👡✨❤️

Sent from my iPhone

Patrick’s Musings: Infinity and Kudzu

“If you counted your whole life, would you get to infinity? Is grass infinite? Are pieces of dirt infinite? How about stars? I bet there are hundreds and hundreds of stars in the sky. Oh, trillions? Universe? Goes on forever? Forever.”
[probably inspired by the song Infinity, They Might Be Giants, Here Come the 1-2-3’s, though it wasn’t playing at the time.]

“You know what else there’s a lot of along this road? Kudzu. It takes over. It could take over a building that no one used. It would grow all the way inside and take over. It grows over treetops like blanket. It can reach up to power and telephone lines and grow up them! The only thing it can’t tangle up in is the sky.”

Patrick’s Musings

September 4, 2015, Friday

“It was a good day. I wish it wasn’t time to leave school!!! My favorite part of the day was…everything! And also rest time. I went down the slide like ten times. That’s enough times for me. I’ll probably never go down again. I made some new friends. A isn’t so nice to me but L is. I don’t like J, he called me a “pee-pee head.” Or maybe it was “poo-poo head.” I don’t remember. Anyway, I didn’t say anything back, I told the teacher and he got in trouble. I made you art today. There’s a rocket ship here. This one is our house, on wheels, rolling down a mountain. I used some tape in art. I cut myself in the metal thing that cuts the tape. It bled some. No, not enough to go to the nurse. They had a boo boo kit. I got this band-aid for it. Really, that’s happened to you before? Did it bleed too? Did you cry? I didn’t cry long.
I really like the music teacher and the art teacher. I like special classes. I made letters in salt. I read the note you put in my lunchbox!
There are other classrooms on our hall. I learned the names of some of the other teachers. Today Mrs. G didn’t go to recess with us. She had a doctors appointment. I hope she feels better soon.”

This makes me giggle

Irreverent, ridiculous, but fits in with my blog somehow…

Patrick’s Musings

August 31, 2015, Monday

“I don’t play with my belly button at school.  I’m a big boy now.  I only need to play with my belly button at home, before bed.  No, no one’s teased me about it.  It’s just something I made my mind up on.  I have a new name of a friend for you!  It’s M—-.  He’s a boy.  I forgot to tell you; I went down the twirly slide on the playground for the first time!  It felt like a wave.  I liked it; it’s not scary anymore.  We sang some songs today.  No, not for ‘brain break.’  The songs for ‘brain break’ are different, and longer.

(Tune of London Bridge)

Buddy my beagle likes to bark,

likes to bark, likes to bark,

Buddy my beagle likes to bark,

When I throw a ball.

---

 Teddy likes to twirl on her toes

twirl on her toes, twirl on her toes,

Teddy likes to twirl on her toes,

Then she takes a bow.

---

(Tune of Where is Thumbkin)

I make muffins, I make muffins,

With my mom, with my mom.

It is my pleasure, when you help me measure,

What a meal, what a meal.

I like Mrs. G [the teaching assistant].  She helps me feel safe and sits next to me at lunch.”

It takes a village (or group text) to raise children…

I would not survive without my different communities. God uses them to supply different needs to me. These are the ones I can be honest and irreverent with. These are the ones that understand that ‘Mommy humor’ is sometimes all you have to survive. We’re on a group text pretty much daily, sharing our thoughts and grievances that others may not understand. And it is a precious thing to me. I want to share a small bit of such correspondence from my village, which shall remain nameless here. You know I love y’all to bits, and think of you and pray for you daily. ****************************************************** SJ: Anyone doing anything this afternoon to get out of the house? Mom: We are still sick. Mama: No, my kids have been too awful. The behavior coming out of them is outrageous. Mommy: No, we’re still in quarantine too from the stomach bug. SJ: I am so angry with my children. I have done everything after school to make it a special afternoon of activities and they both ended up in time out in their rooms. Patrick kicked me in the face. The two of them GOT INTO A FIGHT over who was going to throw the soggy diaper in the kitchen trash. I need anger management. I’ve had a head cold so I’m behind on housework anyway. They destroyed my den by building a fort with every blanket, quilt, throw, afghan, and pillow they could get their hands on. My floor is full of watercolor paint, crackers, goldfish, gummies, empty snack wrappers, and little tiny pieces of some toy I may have gotten rid of 3 months ago! Now, for dinner, I am expected to yet again nourish these awful creatures. I’m not sure where the strength for that will come from. They are outside right now. They have both stripped down to underwear/diaper and they’re throwing sand at each other. I don’t feel much inclined to mediate, even though Patrick is screaming my name. Mommy: I understand you only too well, SJ. SJ: Seriously, who puts up with these kind of working conditions? It’s inhumane! Mama: Last night one kid told me he wanted a new mommy and would never again give me hugs or kisses. The other then said he was going to pee on me because I took away his Legos. He also said he hates me. I ate my feelings last night. SJ: See, this is the affirmation I need. I’m so sorry, Mama, but I laughed at that because I understand it so well! For lunch, I made a pizza with extra cheese but it got burned because I thought I could take a 13 minute shower before the timer went off. While Mel was strapped in the high chair, watching Frozen. Her fifth viewing in the last three days, because I’m a weak and terrible person. All day long, it’s ‘I want Elsa. I want Anna. I want Olaf.’ Mom: Yes, here it’s Beauty and the Beast this week. I think your kids need an early bedtime. SJ: I agree, but I’ve got to summon the courage to feed them first… Mommy: I feel like I am on house arrest with tiny terrorists. ************************************************** 7:59pm SJ: Praise the 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus, they were both in bed by 7:30. And there’s something about laying down with Patrick and talking to him and praying with him before bed that makes me love and like him again. He even said he was excited about school tomorrow, which is great since he still cries at every drop off. And Jewel’s Lullaby CD was on, so that’s a great tranquilizer too. High five, ladies. Another day is done. Mommy: I bought ice cream and salted caramel sauce yesterday. I must have known today would be *@#$. SJ: Yes. I am going to watch adult TV. After I take off my bra. Mama: SJ, have you been drinking? 😉 What verse in the Bible reveals the baby Jesus’s birth weight? SJ: That’s Ricky Bobby, darlin. Talladega Nights. Nope, no drinking. 🙂  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A0-u85aAYg Mom: BAHAHAHAHAHA. Also, I want ice cream.

Loving What Is

Sunday morning, 11:06 am:
The pastor was talking about trust. Of course I trust God, I thought. How elemental, I mused with some sarcasm. I was listening, but floating in between his sermon words. It was a cynical morning inside my head. I was mad at the church. I was mad at how fallen the people inside were. I began to mentally list the grievances I had against others. Satan was surely smiling. Ugh, how I went on. How people had disappointed me, hurt my feelings, passed over my advice. Horrible human beings, they were.

God redirected me.

“Do you love me, Sara Jane?” Of course, Lord. Here I am, in this place that drives me so crazy. It’s easy to worship when the songs fill my head and my heart and my ears. But when I have to LOOK at the people in the congregation? Love them? That’s when it gets sticky, Jesus. It’s hard to forgive and forget. You understand that, right?

“Do you love me?”

Of course, Lord.

Suddenly, I remembered a book I used during my chaplaincy internship. The book, Loving What Is, had you take your strongest emotions and redirect them. “Turn them around,” the author Byron Katie said. I picked up a pen, and began to write and redirect. All the things I was feeling towards others became my own faults. It’s a simple idea, right? But oh, how it it can hurt the pride.

I don’t trust. In You or in others. I am conditional in all my feelings, Lord. I am petty, and I exclude people. I am apathetic and picky. I declare some undeserving. I am a hypocrite. I swear. I rail against the teachings of patience. I don’t believe in second, third, fourth (seventy times seven) chances. I hold grudges. I withold love and acceptance. I focus on all the wrong issues. I am false. I am too silent. I am too loud and wordy. I am judgemental and dismissive. I lack persistence. I am too much of a rebel. I am not rebellious enough. I cry over things I cannot change. My anxiety over the new causes me to be paralyzed. I hate change. I am set in my ways. I am hard to communicate with. I lie, to others and myself. I play games. I forget my own wrongs. I am a doubter. I am a selective legalist. I am a Pharisee. I am self-centered. I am insecure. I am unreliable. I am self-righteous. I avoid people I don’t understand. I label. I am irrational. I act like a victim.  I make the same mistakes over and over again. I am guilty and I feed my own guilt. I’m unfair and disrespectful. I resent authority. I’m too caught up in rules. I am a wasteful consumer.

After writing all this in feminine pink ballpoint ink, I felt yucky. God surely didn’t bring me here to make me feel awful about myself, right?

“Do you love me?”

Yes, Lord, for the third time, I love you and I want to trust you. In everything.

The pastor was talking about how simple and yet how difficult it was to trust God in every area of our lives. I heard him, and I agreed.

I wrote:

I am forgiven. I am loved. Be my unconditional, Jesus.  Lord, help me to trust.

16 I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit – not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength – 17 that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, 18 you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! 19 Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. 20 God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. 21 Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Ephesians 3:16-21, The Message

Year 12

To keep one sacred flame
Thorough life, unchilled, unmoved,
To love in wintry age the same
As first in youth we loved,
To feel that we adore
Even to fond excess,
That though the heart would break with more
It could not live with less.

–Thomas Moore

Resolutions

I went to the lake with my favorite friends for four days.  There was no cell reception.  It was quite lovely and made me want to make some resolutions a la Madeleine L’Engle.  I was (re-) reading her book Two Part Invention and was struck by her lifestyle of simplicity.  Long walks with dogs, no matter the setting, country or city.  Listening to music.  Hours of piano playing a day.  And the reading references and quotes ooze out the margins.  Humility, philosophy.  And always writing.  Always.

I deleted Pinterest off my phone.  I love it for its organization and infinity, but in the end, will it help someone compose a eulogy for me?  Not that a eulogy is a true measure of life, but do you get what I’m going for?  Will it help me reason out my thoughts, memories, and faith, in order to share selectively with others?

I need to return to some simple disciplines.  Ones that grow my heart.  And writing is one.  I need it.  I shall make time for it.  It’s that simple, amidst my complex life and excuses and distractions. 

And now I sleep, perchance to dream.  Dreams which I used to record regularly, by writing…