The God of housewivery and school districts.

The first day at our new school has finally arrived.


Our new district had an extra long spring break, and with Mike being around most of last week, and taking the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, and visiting family and spending a day with friends at the lake, and sleeping in and playing Wii...well, it just felt like we would never go back to school ever again, instead opting to live out our days casually and without math homework.  Spring break was the PERFECT buffer between old and new, and in all his wisdom of the world, God knew that.  Does it blow your mind that he knows the ridiculous details of housewivery, and the things like nervousness over new schools that keep us up at night?  I mean, there are people fighting wars and children starving in places all over the globe, and he is still intimately involved in how I'm gonna assimilate into my nice, new midwestern suburb.


About the time that I would have started to get nervous for my kids, I became distracted with cleaning out their back packs and shaking out all the sand that had collected at the bottom (no really, WHERE does sand come from in a grade school without a sandbox???).   G picked out a new dress, and I made sure we had four sets of clean socks. I stocked their pencil cases and attempted to send them all to school with a full set of markers, because I felt like I needed to set the tone for our first day, and attempt to portray myself as someone that has GOT THIS (if only for the first week).  We were ready.


We got to our new school early, because I'm not used to having a 2 minute commute; but it was a beautiful morning and we got to sit outside and be with our kids for a few minutes.  They were calm, really.  Not noticeably nervous at all, which is a big sign of maturity and confidence for Big J, who struggles with change. We found our classrooms, and our teachers, and our classmates who have been WAITING for the Denckhoffs to arrive.  L was greeted with pictures and a hand-picked bouquet of flowers; Big J was surrounded by new friends.  It became apparent that switching their schools with nine weeks left in the year was the GREATEST decision we could have ever made, because the kids in their classes have been waiting for them for weeks.  They are so wanting to be helpful to my kids.  They are so excited to share what they know.


Mike and I didn't hang around for very long, because we didn't want them to remember that this is a big change and suddenly...freak the hell out.  I'll never forget leaving G on the first day at Bristol, and how hard she had to fight to hold it together; and that feeling, for her, is ONLY worse with us there.  The anticipation of it all is ALWAYS worse than the change itself, and the sooner we leave, the sooner our kids get on with it.  This morning, they just happened to get on with it in 10 seconds flat.


At pick-up, I waited with my best friend, who now lives three blocks away--which is so ODD for me, because I've never gone into a school knowing someone well.  I'm used to painting large spirit week banners or planning whole-school art events in order to get people to NOTICE ME.  Just kidding, my biggest fear in the world is that people will NOTICE ME.  But you know what I mean--making the effort to be on a social radar.  I'm not saying that in any sort of negative or snotty way, but with the understanding that there are a MILLION different things we do and hear and see in a day, and sometimes making new friends in a new place means joining a committee, or leading one, or just showing up to something.  You know, making it EASY for others to get to know you and form some kind of connection.  But here, I have great friends on day #1, and it all feels so familiar, even if I would have trouble locating a single bathroom in the entire school.


The kids had a GREAT day.  The twins were spoiled by their classmates, Little J made a new friend, and G knows some girls from her swim team last summer.  One of my friends checked in on them when she dropped her kids off, and two others (and their kids) gifted them with notes and pencils in their classrooms today, which upped their reputation to rock star status, of course.  G is farther along in math, which gives her (and me) some academic confidence--because I'm sure it's hard to be the kid that comes in new and struggles to keep up.  We didn't have to bring in a single school supply, and it looks like this transition is really going to be just that easy.


And also, I found 98% of my kids socks under their beds at my in-laws.  Which will make finding four pairs of socks for tomorrow that much easier.  Day #2, I got this.

My kids are now old enough to ice skate and effectively communicate their discomfort.

Two?  Three?  Five?  Months ago, I bought a Groupon for ice skating; at the time, I had NO WAY of knowing that I would be living one, small, suburban block away from an ice rink--which is ironic, because I had to travel thirty minutes to this one.  But it was CHEAP and it included the skate rental, so who cares if it cost $17 in gas, or that the only convenient public skate times were on Sunday afternoons?


FYI, I have learned that Sunday afternoons are not a convenient time for ANYTHING. 


So, we went through an entire faux-winter, and never cashed in our Groupon.  We had grand plans to do it yesterday, but then we had friends over for lunch, which turned into having friends over all day, which turned into watching a friend's son attempt to ride our electric scooter (for the first time) across a street and down a hill (this was half horror, half comedy), which eventually led to us walking to another neighborhood gathering, which turned into a three hour dinner and a bottle of wine.  This left me with TODAY to redeem my Groupon, or forfeit my $15--and the guilt over the tunic top that money could buy me at Target would have killed me dead, so I pulled myself out of bed this morning, made the kids breakfast and literally set about the 2 HOURS necessary to prepare for the 11 a.m. skating session.  This is mostly because our winter clothing is scattered amongst countless boxes and multiple homes.


Did I mention that I was doing this BY MYSELF?  It was almost as hard as birthing all four children, but NOT AS HARD as that time we took them on an hour-and-a-half-long-boat-ride-from-hell in Hilton Head, five years ago, during which time Mike and I had to entertain all children and prevent their drowning while asphyxiating on gas fumes and fighting sea sickness.  Story for another time. 


I mean, it's no freaking deal.  My kids have been on ice skates before (once) and I think they were toddlers, and I remember going by myself to kill time after preschool one day. Mothers of older kids--do you remember the days of having to occupy hours and hours of time in your day?  Ha!  It appears that learning to read sucks every minute out of your life, because now, we barely have time to get our shit together to go ice skating during spring break.  Much less the actual ice skating itself.  And if there was a hospital visit involved, we would have been S-C-R-E-W-E-D, and the kids would probably never understand multiplication because ALL OF OUR TIME now relates to some sort of universal equation about how smart and freaking amazing they'll be one day.  And when it doesn't, we are playing Wii.  Mothers of older kids--do you remember when you thought watching television and playing video games was going to rot your kid's brain?  And now, life is so crazy busy, and there is so much homework, and so many sports practices/games that you're pretty sure you're kid's head will explode if they don't just chill out with Phineas and Ferb for an hour (or two).


Now, I didn't really panic today, until I realized I forgot MY jacket.  In the house that's 20 seconds away from a skating rink, but not THIS skating rink.  Coincidentally, the jacket was *forgotten* upon the passenger-side seat of my mini-van (the one I was driving to the ice rink that wasn't 20 seconds out my front door), as I realized when we went to dinner tonight.  Look it up in the dictionary, this is the definition of loooooosing it.  And then when I saw other parents of OLDER kids walking in to the rink with bike helmets, I kind of felt like a douche.  I mean, I had the kids, I had their ski pants and THEIR jackets; I had four pairs of socks, two hats and two complete sets of gloves, one borrowed set of gloves, and one set that I MacGyvered out of a girl right/ boy left-handed glove.  I was prepared to prevent frostbite on their hands, but NOT a major head injury because I totally forgot that everything fun can kill you these days.


Well, I thought--SCREW IT.   We've traveled 25 minutes to the Valley, we are gonna ice skate if it kills us (literally).  I was TOTALLY pumped up on adrenaline and probably numb because I was without the jacket I forgot (on my front seat), but unfortunately, there weren't enough endorphines available to carry me through the 35 minute ordeal that is PROPERLY SIZING AND LACING FOUR SETS OF KIDS ICE SKATES.  There really are not enough cuss words in the entire English language for that experience, and what it feels like to hunch your back and expose your butt crack for the better part of an hour.


Also, at some point I realized that this rink doesn't believe in giving kids ice walkers or paint buckets to use for balance.  SUPER!  We were just gonna have to wing it with four children, my two hands, the mercy of GOD and NO HELMETS.  


I soon learned, however, that unlike my last experiment in strapping knives to my children's feet--this time around, they did not look to be in danger of killing themselves by simply walking from the bench to the ice.  Improvement!  G, L, and Little J hit the rink, and off they went!  Big J, however, was a hot mess on blades--or at least until I realized that his dependence upon the rink wall was causing his feet to flail at awkward and (almost impossible) angles.  Once we pried him off of it, things went much, MUCH smoother.  Big J has real issues with not being good at something, and this is probably a subject for a whole 'notha post--but this competitiveness + his desire to QUIT when he's not the best + some of his (mild) gross motor issues is a real conundrum, when you have four kids.   


What didn't go so smoothly?  Those damn skates.  It seems that after every lap, I was retying them, or loosening them, or tightening them, or telling some kid that EVERYONES ANKLES HURT, that's just how it goes.  One time, Little J exited the ice 87% skate-less on his right foot (?).  I don't remember that from our last go at this, but maybe they were too young to talk back then?  I don't know, but it was BRUTAL.  Figure skates suck, and I *might* prefer a head injury over the mental anguish of having to adjust them every 42 seconds.  I mean, son-of-a-gun, I kind of understand what Tonya Harding was bawling her eyes out about at the judges table during the Olympics; so essentially, I paid $15 to have REAL empathy for someone involved with the clubbing of Nancy Kerrigan.


When it was all said and done, I would say the kids skated for 40 minutes total; shorter than our combined driving time.  We managed to push through the initial ankle discomfort, but stopped short of demanding that they freaking-enjoy-every-minute-of-the-two-hour-skate-that-I-purchased-off-the-discount-website.  This is generally in line with my parenting mentality, so I felt good about it.


And then we went to Chic-Fil-A, where two of my four children licked their containers of Chic-Fil-A sauce clean--which is also very much in line with my use of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup.  I am nothing if not consistent, blog world.

Taking all of the health benefits out of a Dorito taco.

Heard tonight, in the Taco Bell drive thru:

"Before you order, we need to tell you that we don't have any lettuce."

Unhealthy eaters across America collectively applauded, I'm sure.

It did not, however, deter my husband from ordering 12 Doritos tacos.  And THIS is how you make Taco Bell even more unhealthy than their nutritional information claims.


We had friends over after church today, and that was a party that ended at 5:30 this evening--at which time we spontaneously headed three blocks north to the home of our best friends.  Four hours, three glasses of wine and 12 Doritos tacos later, we are home, seven pounds heavier.  


Welcome to the new week, friends.  Go try a Dorito taco.  Because it's a TACO.  In a DORITO.  Lettuce optional (or in our case, impossible).

Combining society's love of buffet dinners and small animals in teacups.

I've hit a new low.  And it is defensively stalking the buffet at Cici's Pizza for those fat, sausage pizza squares with the white sauce.  I mean, you've got to be f-ing serious if you're going there on a Friday night.  I mean, the place is LITERALLY, no FIGURATIVELY, clubbing baby seals.  And by baby seals, I mean overweight Americans.

In my carefully informed opinion, this is because:  1.)  it's cheap, 2.) it has an arcade, 3.) it's immediate, and 4.) you can have as much of it as you want.  I would like to try this same strategy and apply it to a cupcake and dessert bar, but I have a feeling that doing so would make "exploding" a medical epidemic.  

Also, today a friend sent me a picture of a baby hedgehog!  Me likey...until me researched hedgehogs on the Internet, and decided hell no.  Apparently, it's back-full-of-spikes is REALLY sharp.  This might be fairly obvious, except that it's the newest, smallest pet you can fit in a tea cup, and so people are bleeding while trying to dress their hedgies in small, hooded sweatshirts.  I mean, if this isn't an argument against evolution, I don't know what is.  However, when asked whether he would like a french bulldog puppy or a hedgehog, Mike definitively answered "Hedgehog", proving Darwin could never-in-a-million-years account for (or explain) mankind's fascination with professionally photographing small animals in fancy and unlikely settings.

Which begs the question:  What would happen to civilized society if you created a $20  all-you-can-carry small animal bar (with an arcade)?  For the purposes of owning many small pets, not eating them (gross).

I hypothesize a zombie apocolypse.  Boom.

My dissertation on gagging, part deux

From the day we brought her home from the hospital, Mike and I were solely in charge of L's nutritional intake.  We managed how much formula she received, how much we gave her throughout the day, how much we pumped into her at night--and trust me when I say this was a constant math and science experiment.   She (obviously) needed to eat, but she also needed her stomach to stretch so that she could take bigger feedings as she grew; we needed to feed her, but we also needed to push her boundaries.  If she got a 2 ounce feeding through her G-tube, and threw up a good amount an hour later (as was common), there was always the concern she wasn't getting enough food--and it DOESN'T help that L takes after her Asian roots, because she was always on the small side of the growth chart.  Having the G-tube surgically removed when she was four was actually quite stressful, because it was our GUARANTEE that we could get something into her, if she just refused to eat one day.  And if there is EVER a fear that parents of tube-fed kids have, it's that one day they'll revert.  

{Side note to parents of picky eaters:  You could always threaten to have a port surgically installed on your child's tummy, for the purpose of forced feedings.  Such a thing does, in fact, exist.}

It feels like L threw up for four years straight.  It was one of the most consistent things about our life, I suppose.  Every year we would take her in for an upper G.I.--at which time radiologists would inject L's feeding tube with nuclear material (or whatever it is that makes your intestines glow), and we would watch as they pushed half an ounce, and then an ounce, and then 1.5 ounces directly into her stomach--until she inevitably vomited somewhere around the 2 ounce mark.  She was two years old and had the capacity to hold TWO OUNCES of formula in her stomach at any given time before she began to throw up.  Think about that for a minute, and how challenging it was to feed her, which we were doing constantly, just to be able to give her enough calories to survive.


I feel like maybe L was born with a million gags in her.  And everyday we were working that number down.  It wasn't like it got gradually better; in fact, it always seemed to be the same amount of frustrating, until it wasn't.  Until she took a bite, and then another without wretching.  Three bites went to an entire Nutrigrain bar pretty quickly, and from there, it all just happened.


I'll be damned, I taught that kid to eat.  And she is far and away our BEST and most adventurous eater. A lot of it is her personality, but no doubt, a good part of it was just working through it and getting over it.  Because we were always told she could; even after years of therapy, when she would still gag on a single pea.  


You see, I have NEVER seen the gag as dangerous or abusive--because in my world it's always been life-sustaining, really.   I also get that not many of you have the privilege of raising a preemie, and that even if you have, we may not see things the same way; however, a great majority of Big J & L's infancy was spent doing horribly evasive and painful things to them, in order to save their lives.  It is by the grace of God that I didn't spend my days in constant fear of the what-if's, because there were thousands of things that could have gone really wrong on a daily basis--keep in mind that they came home on oxygen tanks and feeding tubes AND heart monitors.  Sometimes when they slept, they just forgot to breathe (seriously).  You may not equate taking medical action to save a life with the ongoing act of parenting--and we will differ there to, because I am an absolute believer that I am saving my kids a lot of struggle (not ALL, I'm not that freaking good), in the way I raise them.  At some point their free will and opinions factor in, and this is true for us right now, depending on the issue--but if they could have talked when they were born, I guarantee that both twins would have told us to remove their ventilator tubes because they were horribly painful.  Except that it just wasn't an option for us.  I make those kinds of choices everyday on behalf of my kids, and none of them are the difference between life and death, but I certainly believe they make an important statement about the kind of people I am raising.  You'll need to keep reading this blog for another 10-15 years to see if my theory holds true, but why the hell do any of us do anything on behalf of our kids, if we don't think it impacts them in the long run?


But honestly, if any of you saw Big J's video and thought that he would choke via gagging, then you are GREATLY mistaken.  Gagging is actually the body's way of guaranteeing just the opposite, actually.  Trust me, I pretend to be a doctor in a small, midwestern suburb.  


Which is why I'm going to post another video that we took, when Big J & L were about a year old.  If you don't like gagging, DON'T WATCH IT.   What you will see is L getting a piece of a biter biscuit in her mouth.  A SMALL piece that remained in her mouth for a few minutes (we edited on time).  We actually filmed it, because it was a small miracle that she got it into her mouth, on her own--that took a solid 4 months of therapy alone.  You're also going to need to trust that Mike and I KNEW what we were watching because it happened anytime we put anything in her mouth.  But this is a true gag, people--over a tiny, bit of biscuit turned to mush.  She is not choking on a hard, solid object, as many of you will THINK she is; contrary to what you think you know, this is what gagging looks like when a kid doesn't know how to swallow, and her body literally thinks it might kill her.  There's NO control here, and she turns red, and she looks bad to the untrained eye--and it is what we did every day for four years.  Every. Single. Day.  And it's why she is able to eat today.  


I'm not posting it to entertain you, let's be CLEAR.  In fact, I'm incredibly nervous that this will offend some of you.  I'm sure it will, actually.  But this is a pretty darn accurate picture of what my life looked like--and I'm NOT ashamed of it.  I'm incredibly proud, actually.  Incredibly proud of how I have raised these babies without paralyzing fear, because this was my entire life and if a big gag was paralyzing for me, then I might as well have called it a day and spent my days as a hermit in a dark cave.  It is OKAY to make hard decisions on behalf of your kids, and not be ashamed of it--and I say that to all of us who are feeding babies with g-tubes, or putting babies on a schedule, or raising kids with disabilities, or teaching kids to eat vegetables, or putting a stop to whining, or whatever it is that is SO HARD to watch your kid struggle through, for the sake of raising them to be kind and responsible and brave.

Teaching a kid with a feeding tube to eat is, to this day, the reason why I know that I don't need to rescue my kids from every struggle.  It was an important lesson for L, but it was as important for me.  Why I know they need to struggle sometimes, and that it won't kill them.   In this 1.5 minutes of video, it looks like she is fighting to SURVIVE, and I could easily talk myself into believing that.  Anyone call fill in the blanks that this was too far.  It wasn't.  It was EVERYDAY, and it is the reason why she can eat today.  When Big J struggled to eat his spaghetti squash, it was a thousand times more controlled than this, where L looks like she is literally struggling to breathe over a bite of soggy, biter biscuit.  Was it worth it, for a bite of a biscuit?  ABSOLUTELY, because it's not about the single bite; it's about what comes next, and what follows that, and every step that led to her eating an entire meal, and then another.  Teaching a tube-fed kid to eat is a metaphor for LIFE, friends.  Once her gag was triggered (which was every time she put something in her mouth, for years), it looked like this.  THIS was normal.  THIS is also what it looked like when she would happen to reflux spontaneously on her formula feedings, and proceed to throw up all over our carpet, or her crib, or her car seat, or her high chair.  


THIS was simply L.  


But not forever, because she got it.  SHE GOT IT!!!  She got past years of struggle and forced feedings that she still isn't old enough to wrap her mind around, and she came through it a spunky and independent and happy little girl.  We didn't scar her, we taught her to EAT--through years of feedings that her body thought would kill her.   We actually knew better.  


We also know that Big J is bigger than gagging through a meal of spaghetti squash, that it won't kill him, that he won't carry residual issues over it.  If he does, well then, I have done something else terribly wrong in the way he perceives the world--and well, that's just the risk we take as parents, because there are no guarantees.


HOWEVER you choose to parent your kids--I am praying that you will know yourselves, and your instincts and everything that you believe BETTER than the biggest gag reflex or tantrum they will ever throw.   We all raise kids differently, blog world--and we will produce different kinds of adults that fill the world and make it go round and round.   We need architects and teachers and dentists and artists--as much as we need a world full of people that are ambitious, and creative and compassionate and independent.  At the end of it all, we get to be incredibly proud of our kids, for very different reasons, with the hope that one day, we get to see how all this work pays off.  


But for now, I'll take the small victory of L conquering the gag and learning to eat solid food.

My dissertation on gagging, part 1

So I keep forgetting to tell you about the gagging--and apparently I have a lot to say, because I had to split it into a two part series.  I'm so sorry blog world, it's just that I have been out of town for a few days, and also consumed with unpacking crazy by the box-full.  I am constantly distracted (and disturbed by) the crap I'm finding, because it's like that time I found the old ponytail in my desk, but 27 million times worse, because as it turns out, I saved 14 shot glasses as a souvenir of my 21st birthday (true story).


But back to the gagging.  Which really means giving you a medical history that eventually leads to gagging.  But it's the story of Big J and L and their horrendously premature birth--and it's pretty fascinating to tell, so bear with me.  I promise it will read like a Lifetime movie.


It's always amazing to me, how few of you know us in person--or knew us when we were surviving the the twins and their prematurity.  I say that, because there was a time that EVERYONE knew us by our tragedy; but now it's a story that we tell that only lasts a few minutes.  We used to be handled so gently and carefully--people were always concerned that we would break at the sight of a healthy baby, or weep if they mentioned our "twins" instead of our "triplets".  We never did, though--and I have to say, that when you watch doctors, nurses  and respitory therapists rush to your children's bedside, often many times in a single day, to save their lives--well, it sort of takes any sort of sting out of someone's casual word choice.  It helps that we are really not offendable people, but I get that you just never know when someone's healthy kids or *seemingly* easy lifestyle might awaken "the rage" or it's awkward cousin, "the sorrow".  The truth of it is that Mike was diagnosed with cancer when he was 26, while I was pregnant with G; we weren't sure if we could have more kids, so we tried invitro and conceived the triplets; my water broke with Caleb and I was put on bedrest for 13 weeks, until I went into labor at 25 weeks on the dot (I know, because I practically know the hour that my babies were conceived in a petri dish); we lost a son and picked out a casket and had a funeral and still had twins fighting for life by the hour; there were six months of life in the NICU and many, many surgeries; L had herself two moderate strokes; and at the end of it all, the babies premature birth almost certainly guaranteed that they would live with noticeable disabilities.  If I was offended by a simple question, or a statement, or someone's ability to carry a baby full-term, or to get pregnant without taking shots in the ass for MONTHS--well, there's just really no telling where the end of offensiveness lies, you know?  And really, that's just NO WAY to live.  I'm telling you right now--you can ALWAYS find something to be pissed about, but WHY???


So, if you've never had a REALLY premature kid, then you probably don't know that feeding them is a HUGE battle.  By some MIRACLE, our twins survived, despite their crappy lungs, and they got stronger.  And they started to take an ENTIRE half an ounce of formula every few hours!  And while they were having it injected straight into their stomach's by a pump, we would watch them stopping breathing every once in a while--because the sphincter at the opening to the stomach didn't work properly, and they were REFLUXING up the few drops of milk that were in their bellies, and they just didn't know how to swallow it and breathe on a ventilator at the same time.  This happened for weeks, and then months, as reflux was the bain of my existence with the preemies.  Big J even came PERILOUSLY close to death one time, because he was refluxing milk, and aspirating it into his fragile, crappy lungs--and it really just looked like the pulmonary complications of being born so early, until one of our beloved neonatologists figured it out.


Reflux = silent killer.


To survive the trauma of being a preemie, the twins were put on a crap ton of tranquilizers and pain meds; and eventually, the doctors decide to start weening them off.  This goes VERY slowly, because disturbing their systems can lead to big problems, but eventually, when their levels came down, we thought L was having some pretty severe withdrawl.  Turns out, it was really that rat-bastard, REFLUX.  It made her miserable, which is saying something, because if you know L, she is NEVER miserable.  And this was the general theme of her entire infancy/toddlerhood:  we would feed her, and she would constantly and *invisibly* vomit it up her throat.  Eventually, as we upped the size of her feedings, she began to projectile vomit; but this wasn't until she was at least 5 months old, and AFTER we went ahead with surgery to try and restrict the stomach's opening to the esophogas.   Both twins had that surgery, because neither were able to eat and breathe effectively at the same time (sort of an important life skill)--for Big J surgery was the answer to everything, but for L (who had the surgery TWICE), it was a sign that she had a big, uphill battle to climb.


When babies reflux SO severely for such a long and consistent amount of time--well, their brain begins to believe they just can't do it.  The sensation of milk going down the esophagus is associated with death (i.e., the reflux that made it impossible to breathe), and they develop a GAG to keep food out.  L's body had LITERALLY trained her mind to believe that if she ate or drank anything, she would surely die; she didn't know how to coordinate swallowing more than her spit and breathing at the same time, and thus began our four year battle to retrain her.


You know how you do that?


You fight her gag reflex EVERYDAY for years, and you WIN.  Or, you be okay with feeding your kid pediasure through a tube in her stomach every two hours, and all night with a feeding pump--and aside from the obvious handicap of never eating proper food, we would guarantee that she would have speech and language and intestinal issues for life.  There was still a chance she would never eat by mouth, and there are families that battle that EVERY DAY; but we were also told there was a great chance she would eventually get it, if we kept after it.  It was COMPLETELY my choice--just like CHOOSING whether to fight Big J on eating squash.  In in either case, I don't believe giving up was going to help my kids.


Now.  In this scenario, we actually had it pretty easy, because for all of her medical issues, L was a DREAM.  She never fought us when we put a bite of pudding, or peanut butter, or yogurt, or a nutrigrain bar, or cheese, or a bit of brownie, or ice cream, or rice cereal, or egg, or braunsweiger or applesauce in her mouth.   For a period of time we thought maybe she had that weird thing where she didn't have pain receptors, because the girl rarely cried, and she gagged horrendously at every attempt to feed her--and yet she kept letting us do it, and SMILING through all of it.  We would always pry her jaw open and angle the tiny bite of food onto the side of her tongue, and she would grimace and try to swallow, and then GAG, and sometimes throw up the fourth-of-an-ounce of residual formula that was still left in her stomach from her feeding two hours earlier.  We had occupational and speech therapists, as well as a nutritionist who came to our house to help feed her about twice a week, and we were responsible for trying it on our own once (and eventually twice, and three times) everyday.  Every feeding was long, and frustrating, and involved constant gagging and usually some vomit for almost FOUR YEARS.   She would start to get it, slooooowly, and then I would give her that last, tiny bite of a canned peach slice and she would gag and vomit--and it was emotionally devastating to me.  


And tomorrow, I'm going to show you EXACTLY what that looked like--to struggle through something, and HOPE that your child will get it one day.  I have a video from the archives--and if there's one thing we have come to learn, there's nothing like a good video to stir up some seething hatred.   Wait for it, and come back, because I am going to show you one of the hardest parts of my entire parenting experience, that literally consumed me for four years.  It has shaped everything about who I am, and what I am capable of, and what I believe my kids to be capable of.   Except that now, we are all able to examine it through the lens of time and perspective.  


And some of you will HATE it, but it was literally, MY LIFE.  So be sure to come on back tomorrow to pass judgement.   I won't take it personally, because I win this one in the end.

Simply moving forward.

So, Friday was officially our last day at Bristol Elementary.



The kids were fine.  GREAT, even.  And that's mostly because they are kids, and they don't put any kind of long term or serious weight on this.  They know they still WANT to go to Bristol, and they are nervous to start over...but their little hearts just aren't so set on clinging to school as their greatest sort of comfort.  It's the same reason that moving out of our house wasn't THAT big of a deal for them--they haven't attached 36-years worth of expectation and security to it.   Lucky bastards.  Also, we are on Spring Break now, and waiting 10 days to start at a new school seems like eternity, so really we aren't struggling with anxiety...yet.


It was, however, heartbreaking for ME.  The hardest part of all this change, really.  It hasn't been selling the house, or living with my in-laws--it's been leaving the school I was mostly neutral about when we started the year.  Oh, what a difference seven months makes.  In September, I really knew NO ONE up there, and I wasn't really in a place where I thought I would put any effort into it; I had sort of resigned myself to being invisible.  Remember, I thought we were going to SELL our house, and the plan was ALWAYS to move into a new school district.


And then, summer came and went--and the house was STILL on the market.  And our hand was just sort of forced (by a crappy real estate market) into keeping everyone at Bristol.  I didn't have any beef with Bristol, but I didn't KNOW anyone there, and it wasn't what I would have chosen, or carefully planned for.  But it quickly became clear that moving G to Bristol was probably the best decision we ever made--because from the start, I KNEW I needed to help my daughter make friends.  I needed to invite the girls in her class over to our basement, and not wait for them to make the first move.  I could write an entire post about the ways that changing G's schools was so empowering, but watching her come out of her comfort zone is by FAR, the best part of it.  G is slow to change when she is comfortable; she is a safe girl, and she will never risk what she knows for what could be.  But when she HAD to make new friends--she did.  GREAT friends.  A sweet best friend that is the exact girl that I hoped G would find.  Turns out my first born makes excellent choices.


Getting to know the girls, meant meeting their moms.  Becoming friends on facebook.  Showing up at school social events (remember THIS?) and suffering through the awkward parts of not knowing anybody--for the sake of GETTING to know other families.  TOTALLY worth it.  You know, making friends is about putting yourself out there a little bit, and it's scary for women, because we fear rejection like we fear bats infected with rabies.  Writing this blog helped too, because it's trained me to put myself out there on a daily basis, in written form, and it ALWAYS opens the door to conversations about how hard 1st grade math is, or how driving to school braless BACKFIRES when your kid forgets their lunch in the car--all the "real" stuff that doesn't flow off the tongue when new friends stand around at afternoon pick up.  We all make it look SO easy, until we admit the pressure to maintain a kindergarten reading log is brutal.


Until this year, G went to a Christian school--and I leaned on the comfort that the families there shared a similar faith.  Starting there when G was in kindergarten always seemed a little less daunting, because we had a common ground with every family there.  But the truth is that if you're LOOKING FOR IT, we all have something in common.  We are raising little people, and surviving sports practices and picky eating and unrealistic expectations.  Everyone has freaked out over a milk spill.  We choose our battles and our strategies differently, but the story is mostly the same.  It's an amazing thing really--to enter the world outside of your comfort zones, and STILL be able to find what is familiar, and comforting.


Maybe that's why this is so hard.  I really had NO expectations about this school--and it has been incredible.   It had everything to do with our big season of change, and being open to (craving, really) something new, but I have LOVED every minute of it.  


I LOVE this school.  I LOVE what it's taught me.  I LOVE the women there, particularly the handful that I've gotten to know pretty well.  They are good friends, that I never expected to find in less than a school year.  I'm sad to leave teachers that really knew my kids--all of them were incredible fits for my children.  Particularly Big J's teacher, who really played a big part in getting him diagnosed with ADHD, and not letting him struggle throughout the year.  I'm certain I'm not romanticising this, because I REALLY didn't go into this year excited; I came in somewhat heavy and frustrated, and I'm leaving completely amazed at what the Lord can do with my attitude and expectations, if I am willing to see him in everything I can't control (and all the stuff I *think* I can).


And yet there is the part of me that still believes it can't get any better.  That this is the last, best thing.  And yet I KNOW that he has made me comfortable and safe...and full of joy at every stage of this journey, and I trust that is what's in store for us at our new school.  I'm choosing to believe what we tell our kids--that friendships aren't defined by WHERE we go to school, but by the amount we work to keep them.  When we left G's school at the end of last year, we had a pretty good idea that we wouldn't be back, and yet it wasn't anywhere near as hard or painful to walk away from it (and we LOVED that school too).  But there is TRULY something to be said about THIS year and what having our kids in ONE PLACE has done for us, how they have all done so well there, how it has breathed new life and confidence into all of us.  All of this, in the place we LEAST expected it.  And to think, we would have missed it, if we had just held tight to our comfortable routines and resisted change.  


So now.  We have moved into the suburb we had always planned on--and I know it wasn't an *accident*, because we are firmly convinced it was always the Lord's plan--but in seven months, we had redefined what was comfortable and safe.  We fought HARD to stay at Bristol, but it just didn't come together like we hoped it would, despite all efforts to make it work.  As it turns out, the lesson wasn't in letting go of our house, but in learning to hold everything that we cling to as safe and secure, a little looser--and I KNOW I will fight this battle my entire life.  If it's not a house, it's a school, or a city, or a job, or a college, or the things we believe can never get any better than they are right now.  


I'm sure we will settle in to our new school.  We'll make new routines, and define comfort in new ways.  And we'll keep our Bristol friends, while making new ones.  As it was always designed, I'm sure; not to sacrifice friendships or happiness, but to abundantly grow our blessings. 


I'm (cautiously) looking forward to it--and by that I mean trying not to think too hard about everything that's changing, for fear that it will send me into a tailspin.   We'll survive this the same way we handled testicular cancer and two pregnancies on bed rest and premature triplets. 


By simply moving forward.

Proving we are nowhere near fancy enough for fabrics depicting 19th century farm scenes.

Oh, this photo.  What a classic example of American consumerism and philanthropy gone...WRONG.


Many years ago, Mike and I attended an auction for G's school.  It had been a while since we had a family photo taken professionally, and listed among the silent auction items was a portrait session and credit for a pretty well-known local studio.  Some of you will know the company, just by seeing the picture, because their work always looks EXACTLY like this, although sometimes there is more gold and diamonds.  They are VERY well known in St. Louis, but their *portraits* are generally displayed among homes that also feature priceless ceramic dogs and numerous things covered in toile.


I suppose that four years ago, I fancied myself as someone who might entertain the idea of adorning a dining room with wallpaper that contained palm trees and small (subtle) monkeys.  But now I know--that's just not me.  I am fabric buntings and wall-art created with mod-podge and tissue paper flowers hung from the ceiling, and they DO NOT go well with antique furniture and jewels from the Titanic.  


You see, this is EXACTLY like getting married, because back in 2000, there were 5,064 choices in white (or ecru) invitations, and if you wanted to mix it up, you added a platinum border.  No one wore RED heels under their white wedding gowns, and J. Crew wasn't making bridesmaid's dresses in bold color palettes.  Periwinkle was da bomb (though I chose it's hideous cousin, MAUVE).  I did it traditional, because it was before the age when the Internet was TRULY helpful as a creative tool, and that's what EVERYONE did.  I was 22, and it was ALL beautiful to me.  Until the day I saw pictures of a friend's wedding reception,, which was held in a barn, with guests that wore jeans--it was STUNNING, and I literally wept with jealousy.  We are more fun and casual, and I know that now that I'm not pretending to be fancy.


In any case, when that summer rolled around, we decided it was time to cash in on our photo session, and so I set about the business of tracking down Nantucket-red chino shorts for the boys, to match the red thread in the embroidered seersucker dresses that had already been chosen for the girls.  It was all carefully pressed and layed out, and then Big J went ahead and vomited the night before the big shoot, and I thought this dream of grandeur might never happen--except that the photographer told me to carry on, and that we could photoshop any residual green-ness out of his skin.  Good enough for me, which is probably the first indication that I had no business hanging subtle monkey wallpaper, or any sort of oil-based picture of a mallard duck perched amongst a bed of roses.


We had the photo shoot and it was generally uneventful--except that this is where we learned that because of L's half-blindness, she has a tendency to ALWAYS angle her face to the left when told to look at the camera.  This is because she can only really see out of the left side of both eyes, so it is LEGIT, and not just annoying, but it certainly cuts down on the number of decent shots we were able to get.  We are photographically impaired, friends--and I might make t-shirts to educate you on this disability.


A few weeks later, we saw the photos--and we picked the best one, but this also included a plan for head-swapping in Photoshop.  Except that none of Big J's pictures were *great*, so the photographer pulled him outside for a few more pictures, and ended up using THAT head, with the body that was caught on film two weeks earlier.  As previously stated, this was also good enough for me; I mean, we didn't actually have to be *perfect*, we just had to have enough randomly shot pictures to piece it together that way.


At this point, we had a $150 gift certificate, which purchased us a wallet-sized picture; but the photographer insisted on coming out to our house to be able to measure our walls and suggest the right size of photo to order.  I totally get this, because you really don't want it to clash with the Oriental rug, or remotely distract from your 17th century collection of porcelain bunnies--and so he came out a few days later, with what can only be described as an adjustable laser light show, and suggested we go with a 40 x 26 inch photo canvas.

Two things you should know here:  1.) I assumed that one day I would be the kind of gal that had a 40 x 26 inch, FORMAL family portrait above her mantle, and that it would be retaken every five years, and 2.)  I CANNOT SAY NO to anything, which is also, coincidentally, how Mike and I now find ourselves in possession of TWO wedding albums (one for color photos, the other for black & whites).


Lifestyle family photography?  You could have changed my life if you had exploded in popularity in 2006.


A couple of months later, our MASSIVE photo canvas was ready--and waiting for us to come to the studio to select a frame.  At this point, we were going to need to refinance our house to afford what this was costing, so we politely declined, and I might have implied that we were having it sent to a diamond mine for framing.


But you all know what REALLY happened, don't you?


We took that photo, the equivalent of thousands of dollars in cash, and stored it in our basement.  For FOUR YEARS.  Until yesterday, when it made it's UNFRAMED debut over our new mantle.  The irony is so freaking amazing, I can't even stand it.


And the kicker is that I don't even recognize us!  Little J was still very much a toddler who still had tonsils (officially the roughest 3 years of my life), Big J's head was superimposed upon his body, everyone is wearing a belt and my hair is really short.  Well, L still has her trademark side-eyes and is still the SAME SIZE, but other than that, EVERYTHING is different.  We even sold the house where the photographer did his laser light show to predict the PROPER size for the photo that is now literally leaning against the fireplace wall.


We are the epitome of class and subtle monkey motifs.

Technical Difficulties

Blog World! It rained and the Internet went out--which is funny, because I may have referenced how the world wide web is responsible for the zombie apocalypse. Coincidence? I. Think. Not.

I feel like I've missed some posts, and there is a great deal of internal guilt over this, and so I am here to tell you that it isn't intentional, but just a poorly times series of events. Or a zombie apocalypse, you pick.

I love you all (or most of you), but I'm gonna take this opportunity to watch Downton Abbey and see if Thomas is going to turn into a vampire. Or maybe he's just severely anemic. Or simply British. Or both. But somethin' ain't right with homeboy's coloring. PLEASE head back tomorrow, and I will post as soon as I am up and running, which means you'll get TWO posts out of me.

Including the story of how we paid thousands of dollars for a formal family portrait that has never been hung on our walls. Sounds exactly like something I would do.

xoxo.

Where I tell you that I OWN my daughter's homework.

If we are friends of facebook, then you are aware that I have been soliciting for child-sized, Franklin Delano Roosevelt costumes.  Apparently, they don't exist--which is SHOCKING, because apparently old presidents are the LAST remaining group of people who have not be slutted up by the Halloween industry.


Dressing up, as part of a school project about a President, is tricky business.  To explain this, I have taken it upon myself to study up, and to report that the leaders of our great nation can be broken down into three different eras:  white wigs, beards and bowties, and the modern power suit.   FDR falls into the category of the power suit, and it is near impossible to make a nine-year-old girl look like a 60-year-old democrat, particularly when the only suit jackets we own belong to my 6'2" husband, which means we are already looking RIDICULOUS in the rough sketch I have compiled in my mind.  Fortunately, President Roosevelt had polio, which means we were given the advantage of a wheelchair as a prop--except that G is at the tender age of peer pressure and coolness, and she would prefer not to dress as the subject of her presentation, but rather, as Miley Cyrus in an old brown dress, because this is what she recognizes as the fashion trend of the 30's and 40's.  She is not yet to the phase of childhood when a wheelchair, and it's corresponding feats of balance and trickery, is considered a marketable social skill.


You see now, why this is an IMPOSSIBLE project.  Third grade girls, and their recognition of peer pressure and their lack of perspective and their incredibly immature understanding of social norms and expectations means we are likely to appear as FDR's singing cat.  Or something else that's *just* on the VERGE of reality.

In her interpretation of Little Orphan Annie,
G will be allowed to retain her eyeballs.

Which is precisely how we settled upon dressing up as the little orphan Annie.


Say what?


In hashing this out with some friends (as all third grade research projects are), it was brought to my attention that during the movie, "Annie" visited FDR in the White House.  Apparently, they sing "Tomorrow" together--and, you know, it's kind of this statement about Annie finding her real parents, and also, the country getting through the Great Depression.  I mean, it's so OBVIOUS, that the story of "Annie" is really a symbol for the FDR-era and I'm just really not sure how my six-year-old self didn't GET the political implications.  It's like that time I figured out that "Grease" was all about S-E-X.


But really, I'm just happy I don't have to lug a wheelchair up two flights of stairs at G's school, or that I don't have to verbally spar with my daughter over dressing like a man, or that we aren't resorting to a costume of  some sort of make-believe/animated character.


What's that you say?  Annie was originally a cartoon?  Crap.


We're going with the argument that "Annie" was really every man or woman who was hit hard by the Great Depression and searching for something...better.  Also, I am teaching G one of the most important lessons:  that when choosing a book, research paper or project, make sure there is a MOVIE to reference.  The *trick* here is going to be explaining how the cartoon character, Annie, is a symbol of a very trying time for the country.   This is going to be like teaching the concept of art imitating life, to a child who is JUST beginning to understand that chipmunks don't actually sing pop songs.


Knowing G would NEVER go for the red-afro wig that Annie sports, today I told her that I would be setting her hair in rollers, so that it is at least semi-accurate by being curly.  



{Pause}


If you're wondering why I'm SO crazy over G's costume, then I will tell you that it's because I figured something out--I believe the dress-up portion of these projects is designed to get PARENTS involved, because no nine-year-old can pull off dressing like a president (or rainbow lorikeet, last year's project) without help.  Friends, this realization opens SO MANY doors, because now I don't need to gather costume elements and *kind of* fudge the details to look like a 3rd grader came up with it on her own.  No!  I can OWN this and teach G the choreography to "It's a Hard Knock Life" for extra-freaking-credit.  Might I remind you--G's research and observation skills lead her to believe that brown clothing is an accurate depiction of FDR's presidency, so she NEEDS me.  I can hear some of you claiming abuse, because I am "controlling" my daughter's involvement in a school project, and to that I will respond that I am simply teaching her to put her (my) best effort into her (my) work.  And by "best effort", I mean a musical number--because "Glee" has proven that musical numbers are where it's at.


Anyway.


I informed G that I would be curling her hair, and she sort of whined about it, and I told her to QUIT IT, because without SOME KIND of curly hair, we might as well be the Swedish chef from the muppets, because it won't make sense.  I mean, there is a point at which you can exercise free will--and then there is attempting to be accurate as a fictional character personifying a history project.  We are walking a FINE LINE here, and I am convinced our fate rides upon my ability to transform G's hair into ringlets.  


By some miracle, I have resisted the urge to sew the famous red dress.  This is almost giving me a nervous twitch, except that a friend has let us borrow a basic red dress, and so I am now free to obsess over how to make a white sash for the waist, and what kind of white collar will look best underneath it.  You know, the stuff that's IMPORTANT to understanding Franklin Roosevelt.  Yes, I am being incredibly sarcastic, and also incredibly REAL, because I guarantee collar selection will take at least 1.5 hours of my time tomorrow.


When Annie talked about having a hard knock life, I'm pretty sure she was referring to being a mother of a third grader with dress-up component to a research project.  Her message is universal, really.

What I learned about myself and society during our move.

Apparently, I fancy myself a baker.  And I say this, because I have consolidated no less than a large cardboard box worth of sprinkles/icing tubes/cupcake liners/candy melts/various shades of food coloring.  They are currently taking up an entire shelf in my new kitchen, because as we all know--I CANNOT THROW ANYTHING AWAY.  And they are too pretty to be banished the the basement, because that's where we hide the un-sexy appliances, like the bread maker.


This is also particularly humorous, because I bake once, maybe TWICE a year.   Sometimes, I involve the children, and this ends up with me trying to CONTROL their sprinkle usage and patterning--and THIS friends, is the kind of thing that is likely to make them curl into the fetal position when preparing birthday cakes in their adulthood.  Or possibly, they are going to become the most famous freaking petit four makers in the entire universe, and then I will have proof that FORCING my kids to do something ridiculous pays off.


Do you see that, I'm using humor again.  I have my SARCASM back (insert eye roll), and if you don't like it you can suck it.


Also, having this many baking supplies and accessories is particularly interesting, when you consider that I regularly fail my housewivery exam--otherwise known as CAKE POPS.  My cake pop disaster(s) are the equivalent of failing to tease my stick-straight bangs, 8-inches vertically back in 1988, though I will say that one time, it took my friend Amy and I FIVE hours to fashion FOUR angry birds out of cake pops.  They were so awesome (visually), except that we got the ratio of frosting-to-cake wrong, and they ended up sliding down their lollipop sticks, like little, animated, exotic dancers--with none of the ability or talent to shimmy themselves back up their poles.  So. Sad.  I don't know who has the time to spend 47-hours making 25 cake pops, but I have a theory that it was those of you who used perm solution and a crimper on a regular basis to fry the crap out of your hair in the 80's.


Hope you all had an awesome weekend.  

Where I prove that we can be serious about squash eating, but still manage to dress ourselves in shrunken wool.

"At some point, your children will decide when to use their free will.  Hopefully you will not take it personally, because it is just part of the growing up/life process."  

***********

The first thing that I do when I wake-up every morning is pull my ipad onto the bed and check the comments on my blog.  This has become a lot less vomit-inducing in the past 3-4 days, and I have to say that those of you who have hung around are keeping it classy, San Diego (who knows the movie, as I'm not ACTUALLY in San Diego?).  If we aren't friends in real life, then I wish I could know you all personally--because THIS kind of relationship, this level of honesty, where we can talk about being mothers, and not feel the need to agree with everything or risk feeling ostracized--it only happens pseudo-anonymously on the Internet.  I have some really GREAT friends, and our relationships are SO valuable to me, because we can agree-to-disagree without any kind of insecurity, or negativity--but mostly, I have a lot of relationships that exist on a level where we agree that monograms are the shit and elementary math homework is really hard--and we keep it light because there is a fear that anything more will rock the boat.  Even I fear that, and on any given day, I vomit emotionally all over the Internet.


This morning, I woke to a comment from one of my favorite Internet friends, Ramona.  I sort of hate the Blogger platform, because it doesn't allow me to respond to comments that I get--but if  it did, I would have told her many times that her words and encouragement are worth entire wine cellars of chardonnay.  I was half asleep when I read her words this morning, but she absolutely nailed my BIGGEST parenting fear.


It isn't failing to teaching my kids to sleep, or to follow me in obedience.  It isn't denying my daughter sleepovers, or teaching a boy with ADHD to read.  It isn't instilling healthy eating habits, or choosing the right sports to involve my kids in, or deciding whether to get the flu vaccine.  My biggest fear is not taking their missteps and failures PERSONALLY.  I can do what I believe to be right by my children, I can give them every skill I think they'll need to be successful, I can work to break the parts of them that will hold them back or cause them pain--but it is SO incredibly hard not to make this job about ME.  The truth of it is that we can parent "right", and they will still choose badly and fail, sometimes.  

Hands down, THAT is my biggest insecurity. What I will do, what motherhood will look like when we come to the end of the lesson on obedience, and they do life as they see fit?  I'm not talking about when they turn 18 and they head off to the freedom of college--but every small slip along the way.  My reaction, says a lot.  It's the difference between yelling at Big J to eat his squash, and encouraging him to get through it.  Contrary to what you might think teaching obedience looks like, I believe that if it's done *right*, it gives kids more and more freedom as they mature--because the consequences become more natural (versus being parent-enforced), and they UNDERSTAND how they are ultimately responsible for them.   Obedience, for us, has always been about setting expectations for our kids, based on who we KNOW they are, and teaching them to be responsible, and independent and successful in that context.  But not losing my shit when they make ridiculous choices, when they know better--that is the kicker for me.  

I can't tell you how much I have appreciated the chance to explain myself.  I am amazed that there are any of you out there who even care about what I have to say--and that is an incredible privilege.  My initial reaction, with all of the criticism was to feel attacked and to be defensive; however, the WORST thing I could ever do for my kids is to parent them out of spite for what was said, without taking the time to THINK about it.  So I guess what I'm saying is...THANKS for that.  And there's still more to it, because I haven't gotten to the part where I tell you why gagging doesn't phase me--I have A LOT of experience in it, actually, but I kind of feel like we need a few stories about how Mike wore a navel-bearing sweater to work today, and why he thinks that's my fault.  Two things here:  When you put a sweater in the regular laundry, eventually it will get washed (and dried); and when you get dressed in said sweater, and your lower back is completely exposed, you probably should TAKE IT OFF.  Just sayin.

Also, if you are counting the number of holes in the sweater as a fun game with your co-workers, you should probably toss it.  Or let me cut it up for some kind of garland.

Surrender.

In your opinion, what is the EARLIEST age that a baby can be "taught" something?


Beginning a few days after we came home from the hospital, Mike and I set about the task of "teaching" our baby, G, to keep a schedule.  There were three components:  eating, awake time and sleeping, which sounds so simple except that it felt like deciphering the DaVinci Code.  That was really the hormones talking, but I can't tell you the number of times I referenced our "Baby Wise" book to remind me of how this all went, exactly?


Right.  Eat, awake, sleep.


G was NOT a hard baby; it just felt that way because motherhood was (surprisingly) a hell of a lot more difficult that hanging out at a bar on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.  I had to plan my entire day in two-and-a-half hour increments, which is a lot like doing math ALL THE TIME, and it was maddening.  I was so tired and I should have been sleeping when she did, except the post-postpartum depression kept me awake with the FEAR that she was going to wake up.  There is common sense, and then there is it's evil twin-- life in the first eight weeks following childbirth.   


It felt out of control, until it didn't.  My nipples stopped bleeding, and her feedings took less time, and then one day I didn't require a wet wash cloth to keep her awake for 15 minutes after she slept.  Against the advice of the hormones, I learned to WAKE HER UP during the day, if she slept longer than three hours--and this was critical to getting her to sleep at night.  We went through a painful week, where I was trying to keep her up TOO LONG--contrary to my thoughts that this would "tire" her out, overstimulation actually serves as a portal for demons to enter your baby.  


But at eight weeks, we KNEW each other and it didn't seem like such a goat rodeo.  I put her to bed at 7:00, woke her for a feeding at 10:30--and she slept, peacefully and without crying until 7:30 the next morning.    Aside from being sick or constipated (something we battled), she has never turned back.  Neither have any of my kids.  I know that sounds as easy as eating, awake time and sleeping--but I can assure you it is not, because of ALL the emotional baggage that comes with it.  There is fear and doubt and frustration and feelings of failure, right from the moment that blessed epidural wears off.


I'm not telling you our sleep history to brag about it--but to prove a point that children, and their parents, LEARN things from a very young age.  After G was born, when friends of ours were preparing to have babies and asking about our experience with sleep schedules, we would always tell them what we BELIEVED in our heart:  that you do what you are comfortable with.  We were not ever going to be able to exist with a baby sleeping in our bed (we tried a bassinet in our room, it lasted 4 days).  I can't imagine that I would have been able to exist rationally by sleeping in two hour increments for a year.   However, we always believed it was important for new parents to know that co-sleeping or demand feeding was not a WRONG choice--you just have to be able to handle it, because you will train your child accordingly.  And breaking habits is a million times more excruciating that creating them to begin with.  Mike and I had a goal (sleep), we did our research, and we stuck to the plan we came up with.  Well, Mike stuck to it; I initially cried and pouted and feared for the emotional well-being of our baby.  


Side note/ soap box:  Men are given voices for a reason.  And in my case, with parenthood, Mike was the voice of non-hormonal sanity.  I often received his opinions as one might react to hearing Hilter's plans for Nazi Germany, but that is because I was so completely overwhelmed and intertwined with this seven pound baby that was CRYING for me.  Fathers have instincts too, and contrary to what you see on television, they're generally not going to lose a baby in a mall, or feed it chili, or take it deep sea diving.  But if we tell them they are insensitive a-holes who have no-idea-what-it's-like-to-really-love-a-baby-with-every-ounce-of-their-being, enough times...well, they'll stop offering their advice.  Which is too bad, because often times it's what I NEED to hear.


For a long time, our focus was on sleeping.  And then it became about keeping our hands down while being spoon fed, and not touching electrical outlets.  When she began to walk, it became about obeying my command to STOP--and this was a big one for me, one that we have probably been the MOST strict about, because if my kid was near a road, or the edge of a pool, or teetering on the edge of a countertop with a knife, I had to know with certainty that she would stop what she was doing, simply because she would fear my consequences.  It holds true today--if I firmly tell any of my kids to STOP doing something, their instinct is to listen.  Initially, all of our lessons in obedience were about safety and the logistics of making life run smoothly, but they have evolved to become more about the heart of my children.  We train our children to OBEY us for their well-being and at the same time, we train ourselves as parents to do what it takes to raise them well.  I don't believe that doing a good job at parenting comes naturally or that it can be reactionary in nature; you have to think about what you want for your kids and figure out how to get them there (long before they test you), and stick to it when they cry like you are shattering their spirit.  And you have to teach them to TRUST that you are loving them, despite the part of it that feels like it's about punishment.


That's where obedience fills the gap.


I expect my kids to obey me, and I have trained them to do so.  I focus on the things that I believe will help them grow into strong and amazing people--and for us, eating spaghetti squash is as important to sustaining their character, as NOT running into the street is to saving their lives.  When I pick a battle, I do it because it means something deeper about who they were created to be.  They do what I say because that's the way it works, and one day, they will have the context of their ENTIRE lives to understand it by.  They will never GET IT, when they take our small battles out of the bigger context--but I raise them to follow me, because I know what's best, and one day we will be able to have a conversation where I explain it.  Or, they will simply understand it, because they are proud of who they have become.


If you aren't a believer in Jesus, this fixation on obedience probably sounds CRA-ZY.  Because people generally HATE the word "obedience", and we fight the idea of having to answer to anybody.  Shoot, I know PLENTY of Christians who hate the idea of answering to anyone, even their proclaimed Savior.  We want that word taken out of our wedding vows, because it's commonly believed that the character of others will fail us at some point, and we believe we are ultimately the only ones who know what's best for us.  Which I believe to be crap, because the most damaging decisions I have ever made have come of my own free will.  Obedience is really what this all boils down to--well for me, it's what EVERYTHING boils down to.  In his infinite grace and wisdom, God gave us the free will to choose our paths for ourselves, but the truth of the matter is, every decision I make outside of what he desires for me is a mess.   I have done such an excellent job of (repeatedly) screwing things up, that at the age of 35, I have finally learned to desire simple obedience.  To trust in the character of God--because he is always GOOD.


So, yeah.  My kids will NEVER know the kind, generous and amazing heart of God if they don't know how to obey him.  Without obedience, they will fight him for independence their entire lives, and they will miss out on his blessings, grace, forgiveness...everything important.  But they will hold fast and stubbornly to their ability to choose how to pursue their own happiness, and it will always end in disappointment.  I really don't want them to ever believe that this is about *fighting* for their own happiness, their own way, doing life on their own terms--but instead, that they would trust in the one who promises great things for those who follow (obey) him in faith.   The truth of the matter is, I don't see the entire story yet either; but I have learned to trust in the heart of God, and to know that one day it will all be revealed.


If I could boil my entire parenting philosophy down to one thought, it would be that there is SO MUCH goodness in surrender.   

Over-thinking a squash.

Ahhh, it's amazing what a little sleep can do.  And a 70 degree day--that doesn't hurt either.


My original thought was to take you back to G's infancy and tell you how I became the mom that I am, but I think it makes more sense to start at the heart of the controversy, the spaghetti squash debacle.  I DID NOT decide how to handle that in the moment that it was served (and subsequently, gagged upon).  No, no--Mike and I had decided exactly how that scenario would play itself out years and years ago, and we have seen all of our children through it, at various times and stages.  I am not kidding when I say that this had absolutely NOTHING to do with eating spaghetti squash; but handling episodes like this are like second nature, when you have four kids and 506 various activities that they don't want to do on any given day.  That doesn't mean that we NEVER bend the rules, but it is rare--and this is mostly because the STANDARD that we choose to set is that the kids live by our rules, PERIOD.  We believe our rules to be good for them and obedience is a big deal in our house for this reason--but Lord knows this is the THIRD most controversial topic of parenting (behind sleep schedules and food, apparently), and I will devote an entire post to it later this week.  But for now, you need to know that we don't require obedience just because we are the boss, and that's what easiest (quite the contrary, it is freaking hard to be consistent)--but because we actually BELIEVE that what we are doing is good for our kids.  


We are not new to this rodeo.  In fact, we have played this exact spaghetti squash scenario out in relation to:  touching electrical outlets, eating chicken, brushing teeth, hitting others, potty training, getting out of bed, switching schools, cleaning up rooms, getting dressed.  Maybe there wasn't gagging, but it was CLOSE.  


A couple of years ago, I signed Big J up for a soccer team; and on the day of our first practice, he cried.  Sobbed relentlessly, actually.  Bawled his eyes out and refused to join the team for at least 30 minutes.  To many of you, it would look like torture--and for what?  To get him to play SOCCER???   He would take 3 steps, turn around, and cry about how he didn't want to play soccer.  It looked EXACTLY like the squash video, only he was younger--and you can make an argument that he lacked two years of maturity and understanding that would have helped to make it not so heart-breaking.  He did not WANT to do it, in fact, he hated it as much as the spaghetti squash; the only difference is that we didn't actually feed him a soccer ball, and therefore, there was no gagging.  If you're issue in all of this is the gagging, then you'll have to wait a day for me to give you my opinion there--but for now I am going to address the fact that some kids DON'T want to try anything new, and their fear of the unknown is so great, that playing kindergarten soccer will feel like medieval torture.  


Big J is not, by appearances, an athletic kid.  Because of his prematurity, he has always had some high muscle tone, and it hampers his coordination.  You know how you work through that?  You do some physical therapy, or as we now say--YOU PLAY SPORTS.  Over my dead body would I have let him quit that soccer team, because he didn't want to play; instead, we tried to stop him from fixating on his fear, by telling him he could pick dinner for the night, and he (eventually) whimpered his way out there onto the soccer field.  WE BROKE HIS WILL, and I am so proud of that--because the parts of us (even as adults) that cling to fear, or false security, or pride NEED to be broken, PERIOD.  They are NOT good for us.  He was so incredibly awkward on the soccer field, he ran on his toes, he had a really hard time getting his brain and his feet to work together.  It was A LOT more work for him that most of the boys.  But on Week #1, he realized that soccer wasn't going to kill him.  And on Week #2, he was hesitant, but comfortable, as long as we were always in sight.  By Week #3, it didn't matter if we were around the corner at the playground.  And somewhere around Week #6, he had the ball in front of the goal during a game, and he scored.  We called him the Forrest Gump of the soccer team, because dude, if you told this kid to do something, he DID IT.  This was a fine line, because if you told him he was a defender, and he needed to defend the goal with Timmy--well, he was gonna stand RIGHT NEXT to Timmy.  But if you reminded him a few hundred times WHICH goal was his, and you told him to chase the ball toward it, he was not going to let it out of his sight.  At the end of the season, he got a trophy for playing--and to this day, years later, it is one of his most prized possessions.  On our first night in our new house, he found it among our boxes and proceeded to roam the house looking for the PERFECT place to display it.   If you ask him, he will tell you he is good at soccer--not because he is especially adept at handling the ball, but because he is fast, and that is the TRUTH.  The kid follows directions, and he has speed, and now, he KNOWS THAT.


Not every kid is like Big J; I have two others, in fact, who don't fear uncertainty or struggle with confidence so much.  But Big J is, and has ALWAYS been wired that way.  I would have played the spaghetti squash debacle out like that with ALL of my kids--and on the night the video was taken, I did, because EVERY child aside from L (who loved it) threw a fit over it.  But it is ESPECIALLY important for Big J--because there is a very BIG part of him that believes he can't do these things, that they will somehow break him.  He hates anything that is hard for him, anything that takes him longer than his siblings, anything that he doesn't win.  You had better believe that he needs to be broken over that--or the world will be a terrible place for him.  My boy is CERTAINLY stronger than a spaghetti squash.  He is capable of eating it, he is capable of playing soccer, he is absolutely strong enough to switch schools and make new friends.  Some of you don't see your role as mothers in the same way, and I get it--you see yourselves as protectors, in a big scary world.  There's nothing wrong with that, but my philosophy on parenting is almost completely different--yeah, the world sucks, but my kids CAN HANDLE IT.  IF I teach them that they are strong enough.  


Whoa, whoa, whoa--I can literally hear some of you FREAKING out over the Internet.  I know you think you're teaching your kid that too!  You're teaching your kids that they are capable and strong, right?  I don't mean any offense here, but if you think making your kid eat spaghetti squash is considered "abuse" and that it is going to cause lasting and permanent damage, then you are most likely NOT teaching your kid these things.  You are teaching them other important and valuable lessons about love and comfort, I'm sure (and I'm NOT saying this sarcastically...I do actually believe that all of us are TRYING to do right by our kids), but this is not your fight.  There are ABSOLUTELY battles that I pick and areas that I would back down from with Big J, as they relate to the bigger picture in how I parent him--but make NO MISTAKE about it, spaghetti squash is NOT one of them.  My kid is absolutely capable of eating it--he doesn't have to like it, he doesn't have to EVER choose to eat it again as an adult.  I WILL serve it to him again, because I understand how Big J works, and giving up on it is NOT an option.  


Most nights, reading homework for Big J is as big of an ordeal as eating spaghetti squash.  Sometimes, it goes really well; but often, Big J will sail along until he hits a word that he misidentifies, and the shit hits the fan.  He doesn't like to be corrected, he doesn't like to have to figure it out.  It is HARD for him, I get that--but I am never going to be okay with letting him confuse "what" and "that".  I really don't see the benefit in letting him believe he has it right, when he doesn't.   There are nights when I have to sit and wait for 10 minutes, before he stops throwing himself a sobbing, pity party.  I get that this is a struggle, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES will we stop.  He needs to learn to read, and he needs to practice it.  But mostly, he needs to get over believing that he CAN'T do it.  Because he always can.  He always figures it out, when he isn't wallowing.  


Now.  Unlike the spaghetti squash, I DO CARE if Big J learns to read.  But mostly, I care that he doesn't wallow his way through life, thinking that anything outside of his very tight comfort zones will kill him.  My kid can be a nuclear engineer, or a doctor, or an artist or a janitor or a librarian or an air traffic controller--so long as he doesn't harbor an attitude of how hard and terrible and mean and unfair the world is.  I am sorry, but he was NOT spared from the brink of death (literally), just to grow up believing he is less than capable of eating a spaghetti squash.  There are things our kids will struggle with and agonize over--and then there is this stupid argument, and me teaching him to get through it and MOVE ON.  There are, and will be plenty of times where he needs my help from something that is consuming him--spaghetti squash is NOT, and will never be one of them.  


As I mentioned, all three of his siblings successfully ate the spaghetti squash, and there were mild theatrics.  Not to the extent of Big J, but that's pretty par for the parenting course here in our house.  My kids are often required to do things that they don't want to do, or don't think they can do--things that feel downright uncomfortable to them--and they don't have a choice.  Obedience is a big part of our household, it is the VERY first lesson we teach our kids, and it is a consistent and running theme in our home.  This has evolved as our kids have gotten older, and they understand our boundaries, and they operate with freedom within them--but make no mistake, when we enter new phases and begin to test us in ways that are so incredibly unhealthy for them, we tighten up on our rules and their enforcement.  Letting Big J out of eating the squash certainly wasn't fair to the other kids who choked it down (although, the concept of "fairness" is impossible)--but on a larger scale, doing so would tell him that he couldn't handle something the others could.  That he was too fragile (he's not).  Sure, one instance of pardoning him from vegetables isn't enough to have that kind of lasting, negative impact--but over time, it certainly will.  It's vegetables today, it's less reading time tomorrow, it's the soccer team next year--and at some point, we have a REAL problem.  


One of you commented that this was about CONTROL.  I'm not really sure how to respond to that, because it absolutely is.  Mike and I do control this household, and how we raise our kids, and we believe he have a lot of say in who they become and how they process and respond to the world.  But I know this was said in a spirit of negativity, so I will try hard not to take that as a compliment.  There are PLENTY of Sundays when I work myself into a tissy trying to find matching monogrammed outfits for the girls, and denying them their free will to wear a Sponge Bob t-shirt--now THAT is pointless, and I certainly make many parenting decisions that are just as stupid.  I get that you see this as another ridiculous and meaningless lesson, but I've just written a dissertation telling you why I believe that isn't true; and even if you don't agree with me, at least you'll know it is something we have thought about as part of our ENTIRE philosophy, and not just a fight we picked because we could.


I will leave you with the flip side of the coin.  I am an only child, I was a people pleaser, and a pretty easy kid.  My parents worked full time, and I was shy--both factors combined means that there wasn't a lot of time for extracurricular activities, and I probably wouldn't have chosen them anyway.  I am fearful; I covet comfort zones, I hoard things that make me happy.  My confidence for trying new things is pretty low (apart from peer pressure, which can always convince me to do things like eat cigarettes).  I am NOT COMPETITIVE, because I assume everyone can do it better.  My husband, however, was the baby of his family; he's athletic, he's outgoing, he rarely struggles with fear.    We could not be more different, and this is why we work well--He CHALLENGES ME, because he knows I can do it, and that if I will just get over my insecurities, I will LOVE most things.  Aside from roller coasters, he's right.  I love to ski,  I can cook, I have run four half marathons, I am strong enough to survive losing a child (all things I would never have believed possible).  The thing that's interesting, as it relates to parenting, is that my parents will sometimes comment about how different I am, and how they can't believe the things that I've done (and liked).  Mike gets a lot of credit for that, and there is always a part of me that is frustrated that THEY don't think I was capable of it apart from him.  That on my own, I am not strong, or adventurous or bold enough.   Now, I KNOW they don't actually believe that--but inadvertently, this is what they taught me.  You can carefully guard your kids, and keep them comfortable and happy, and they will STILL think you got it a *little* wrong, somehow.  And you can harbor trust issues, or vow that you will be better, or that you will get it right--but you won't.  There will always be other issues, other scars, other things we didn't know were a big deal, but in retrospect were.  I know my parents loved me--and that, at the end of the day I need to GET OVER whatever injustice I can self-righteously cling to.


You don't HAVE to agree with me--that's not what this is about.  We all focus on different things, we work our kids through different issues, we come at parenting with different experiences and styles.   Just because I chose to make my kid eat his vegetables, doesn't mean I am abusive, or that I don't pick my battles wisely.  It means I am DIFFERENT from you., and if there is one thing I am PASSIONATE about, it's that women stop interpreting differences as FLAWS.  


But if you REALLY want me to piss you off, tune in tomorrow for my views on OBEDIENCE.