Month: September 2009

Struggle makes us stronger, but no one likes to struggle. We also do not like to see those we love struggle. This is true whether the struggle is physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. One of my hardest tasks as a parent is to stand aside while a child struggles with a problem that I could solve easily. But if I do the math assignment, the child will not learn Geometry. If I tie the shoes, then the child will not acquire necessary deftness in his fingers. If I buy the toy, the child will never have the chance to work hard and earn it. It is so hard, particularly when the child is in tears and truly miserable. The thing I have to remind myself is that if I remove the struggles, I also deprive my children of the opportunity for triumph. No prize is greater than the one you worked really hard to earn.

This same principle applies to conflict. To live is to have disagreements with other people. I don’t like that. I don’t much like conflict. Slowly though, I have learned that some conflicts are necessary. Shying away from the conflict does not create true peace. It just sends both participants around in circles until they come back to the same place. Sometimes the only way out is through. Often I discover that the passage through is far shorter and less miserable than I expected it to be. Of course the way you choose to navigate that passage through conflict can be the difference between a polite negotiation and all out warfare.

To put the two thoughts together: I spend a significant portion of time refereeing conflicts between my kids. The conflicts rarely come at convenient times and so I am greatly tempted to just end the conflict by decree. Often this is necessary because I have to end the conflict quickly to attend to other things. But sometimes I need to take time to guide my kids through a conflict resolution process. They don’t like it when I force them to explain themselves to each other, but they come away with a better understanding of conflict resolution. Hardest of all for me are the times when I need to step out completely and let the kids resolve conflict without interference. If I am present, I intervene. But there have been times when the older kids were babysitting the younger ones and conflict erupted. I come home to discover that the storm is over and that in the process of resolving the conflict without my help, the kids are closer than they were before.

Too much struggle can be destructive, but too little can stunt growth.

The hike to the top of Mount Timpanogos is 8.5 miles long. Then you have to hike back down. This is a non-trivial hiking distance, particularly when you remember that over the distance you gain around 5000 feet of elevation. The round trip averages 8 – 10 hours depending upon your rate of travel. Link’s scout troop intended to split the hike into two days. They planned to hike, camp, then hike the summit. I knew that the trip would be hard for Link. He has had some hiking experience, but day hikes only. We packed him as lightly as we could, but the pack still threatened to tip him over backwards. However, I trust his leaders. They are all good men and I knew they would take care of my boy. I was right. When the wind, rain, and thunder combined to push Link into a nearly panicked state, one of those leaders turned around with him and walked him back down the mountain. Then drove him back home.

Link was so glad to be home. He was glad to dump his huge pack and change out of his wet clothes. He was glad to be safe inside a house with the storm outside. But when I asked, he also admitted that he felt sad that the storm had driven him away from the hike. He felt bad about being the only boy in the troop who gave up. I knew that there were some people planning to make a day trip up the mountain. I asked Link if he wanted to try joining one of these groups. He said that he did. So I got on the phone. In the end, the same wonderful leader who had walked Link down the mountain volunteered to take him back up.

At 5:30 this morning we packed Link off again. This time he did not have to tote a sleeping bag or tent. He only carried water and food. I know he was nervous about going, but he wanted to succeed. The leader and Link did not reach the summit. They chose to turn around at Emerald Lake, which is 3 miles and 1000 feet shy of the summit. This is fine. I’d actually told Link that not reaching the summit is fine and that Emerald Lake might be a good goal. The important thing is that he put on his pack and hiked again after his fearful return. He picked a hard goal and then he reached it even though it was uncomfortable, hard, and occasionally scary.

He arrived home dirty, with aching feet, and triumphant. We let him have a bath and he watched movies for the rest of the afternoon. But my favorite part was when he sat down to tell me about the things he saw while hiking. He told me about the herds of mountain goats, rocks that twisted his ankles, the island in the middle of Emerald Lake, seeing the other groups of hikers as they went past, how one teenage boy carried his pack for awhile, the big grasshoppers which clicked as they flew, and that he was glad he went. I am glad he went too. He had an adventure and he will always remember it.

I really need to make cookies for Link’s scout leader. Reading between the lines of Link’s account, I’m sure the leader earned cookies. It is a start on paying off the debt of gratitude I feel. It takes a very good man to let a boy try again.

I am once again watching a storm roll over the mountain where my son is camping. Seems like we did this at the other end of the summer as well. Only this time we have the added excitement of lightning. They’ll be fine. It looks like the storm is going to blow through pretty quickly. It just seems that the surest way to summon weather is to plan a camping trip with my kids involved. Kiki’s girl’s camp was rained on too.

In the mean time, I spent an hour skating around the local rink. Gleek, Patch, and their young cousin all accompanied me. The rink was nicely empty, but we all wore out by the end of the hour.

…and Link just arrived back home. The big hike to the top of the mountain was already anxiety inducing, but then to be sleeted on, soaking wet, and out in the open with thunder booming all around was too much for him to handle. One of the leaders brought him home. There is a group leaving in the morning to try to catch up with those camping on the mountain. We plan to send Link along with that group. Hopefully he’ll still be able to get to the top of the mountain, only with a much smaller pack and in sunny weather instead of storms.

I’ve been in a holding pattern on a couple of things. This would not be a problem if I had carefully reasoned out a course of action and decided that it was time to wait. That is not the case. I just defaulted into the pattern because it was easier than putting for emotional effort and time. But I’m not sure the holding pattern is actually saving me anything and it is definitely contributing to a feeling of futility. Time to kick these things into the middle of my brain and really look at them so that I can stop stalling.

The Diswhasher:
Ours failed fairly catastrophically a couple of weeks ago. We mopped up the mess and called a repairman to come look at it. His verdict was that the appliance was unrepairable due to the hole melted by the shorted out heating element. In the normal course of events, we would stomp our feet a little and then go buy a new one. But our finances are tight and so I paused before dashing out. In fact I have yet to even look at new dishwashers. Even when a flood of useful comments and information responded to my post, I still did nothing except continue washing the dishes by hand. I am the only one doing the washing. I haven’t even set up the rotating dishwasher schedule that requires the kids to help. I was presented with a problem, but instead of setting out to solve it, I have been waiting. This makes no sense. Washing dishes by hand does not make me noble. It does not make me eligible for an “excellent housekeeping” prize. It isn’t even more environmentally sound. If we are suddenly ambushed by busy, I will still have no dishwasher and I will also not have the time to hand wash. I can’t ignore the problem out of existence and so I am going to have to solve it. Tomorrow morning I’ll be headed out to look at dishwashers.

Writing:
I expected to do a flood of writing this Fall. I expected to send the kids off to school and be filled with a driving need to compose words that I could submit for publication. Instead I was buried in school-adjustment neediness. But that has subsided, and I still haven’t been doing any writing other than blog entries. I thought about writing. I organized my notes into neat folders. I figured out which projects still felt alive and which I wanted to archive. But any time I pondered actually writing anything, none of it felt compelling. I did not feel a driving need to get any of it done, so I wandered off and filled my time with other things. Some of those other things were important, but many of them were less emotionally important than writing. Yesterday I read Dan Wells’ post entitled “No one will knock on your door and ask you to write a book.” The whole post is good, but what hit me hard was the title, because that is what I have been doing. I haven’t actually been waiting for a person to show up and ask me to write, but I have been waiting for something internal to stand up and demand that the writing be done now. I could wait a long time for that Writer voice to be louder than the Entertain Me voice. I could wait for months or even years. I have the space in my schedule. I just have to declare some of that space as writing time. Then I have to sit down and do writer things during that time. I have to write words even if I feel like they suck. I have to put in the effort and trust that the drive and inspiration will arrive. This is not a ground shaking realization. Any pro writer will tell you this is necessary. I even knew it logically, but I was still stalling instead of writing. Yesterday I worked on some fiction. Today I revised an essay. It is a start.

I read aloud to my kids at bedtime. I read during snack because having the food there helps them to sit still and listen. The experience varies from wonderful to frustrating, but we all enjoy it enough to keep coming back. I can tell when the kids are really wrapped up in a story because their eyes are fixed on me and their bodies still. I love those moments when we’re all wrapped up in words together. Finding the right book to read can be tricky. Kiki doesn’t stay for the reading. She is too busy doing teenage things. Link has started drifting away too. But if I find the right book, one that moves fast and amuses, then Link will sit right along with the younger two. Gleek would like more books with magic and kittens. Patch would like more adventures and machines. But with the right story I can catch them all. And I did.

Last night we finished reading Larger Than Life Lara. None of the kids were thrilled when I picked this book for bedtime reading. It had no chases or explosions. No one learned magic. It was about a 10 year old girl and her class play. That did not sound exciting to them. I wasn’t sure that the book would hold their interest, but I knew that the book contained a beautiful story and so I started reading despite the doubts. The narrator of the story, Laney, captured their interest by the end of the first page. She sounded so much like a kid and she wove the story she was telling with explanations of the elements of a good story.

By the end of chapter four Laney had also captured their hearts. The kids sat eagerly to hear the next section and often protested when I stopped reading. Link stayed for the reading. Even better, Kiki started wandering in to listen. Last night the story reached its climax and we read straight through the last four chapters to the end. We were all wrapped in the words and all of my kids were touched by the story. Kiki was inspired to write a poem about helping others. Gleek spent the rest of the time before bed composing nice things to say to everyone else. Link got out of bed to come help me with the dishes. In the book Lara comes to the school and changes those around her into better people. This book did exactly that. It came into our house and when the book was done we were all filled with the desire to spread kindness. You can’t ask for better than that.

The best part is that the book is not preachy nor does it hit you over the head with moral lessons. The lessons are there, but it is up to the reader to find and interpret them. It is also educational. Each chapter is named for a story element and that chapter helps clarify that element by forwarding the story. Several times during the reading I heard my kids mention one of the story elements in a way that demonstrated a new understanding of how it worked. Anyone who is trying to teach writing to kids should take a look at this book. In fact, any writer may be interested in it even though it is aimed at 4th graders. But the strongest part of the whole book is Laney. Just reading the book is an amazing examination of character voice. Laney starts off by saying that the book isn’t about her, but really it is. I do not know how this book missed winning awards.

The last straw was that today was Grandparent’s day at the elementary school. It was the thing that tipped Gleek over into a little ball of sadness, but it was not the true source. Her inability to cope was more caused by her lingering head cold and the ear we did not realize was infected when we sent her off to school this morning. She was so glad to go. She’d missed two days already and she did not want to miss out on her after school art class. That art class was a tipping point too. It was the reason she was so determined to be well and why she did not realize that her general overwhelmed state was due to illness. She was trying to manage, but then the Grandparents arrived. Or rather, other kid’s grandparents arrived. Gleek’s grandparents, whom she loves dearly, live two states away. They can’t make a trip to be in her class for a day. Gleek’s teacher called me. I got a doctor’s appointment and came to get her.

The classroom was full of grandparents with groups of kids clustered around them. There were more kids without grandparents than with them, but this did not comfort Gleek much. She was sitting, eyes red, arms wrapped around her jacket as if it would save her from drowning. She was glad to see me and even gladder that we would go to the doctor to check on the ear that had been bothering her for the last two days. (The home remedies we’d been applying did not work.) We made a quick stop at home to pick up something more snuggly than a jacket and we were off to the doctor.

Gleek has always been fascinated by the doctor’s office. When she was younger this interest manifested as her climbing on things, jumping off of things, and collecting small piles of tongue depressors or rubber gloves. These days she is far more interested in reading the posters on the walls, asking questions about them, and learning about how the various equipment works. I’m not sure that the nurse practitioner expected to be grilled on biology while examining ears, but she was. Before we left the office Gleek learned about larynxes, uvulas, infections of the uvula, ear infections, how ear drums work, why the stethoscope works like an ear drum, how to use a stethoscope, what a reflex mallet is for, the difference between reflexes and other actions, why doctors look for reflexes, that lack of a kick reflex can mean spinal problems, that an over active reflex can indicate other problems, that babies have reflexes kids don’t, that neurologists sometimes tickle the feet of diabetics, and that doctors are often like detectives looking for clues about what is wrong. By the time we were done it felt like we’d had an educational field trip rather than a mere doctor’s appointment. Oh, and we diagnosed her ear and got a prescription.

After the appointment I let Gleek choose whether to go back to school. She decided to stay home, which I feel was a wise choice. It takes time for medicine to work, so all the pain that overwhelmed her before was still present. She did get to go to the art lesson, but I can tell that her concentration there was not the best either. By morning things will be better and she will be back to school. As for me, I didn’t get anything done other than tending to Gleek. It’s actually a pretty good way to spend a day. I like my Gleek.

As the Fall progresses I can feel myself becoming transparent. My life is filling up with invisible tasks. These are the seemingly small tasks that no one notices if someone else is doing them, but everyone notices if they are left undone. During the past six months the tasks either went undone or one of the household adults very visibly prodded one of the kids into doing it. We leaned on the kids for chores because the other option was to go without cleanliness. My schedule opened up and I have found myself sliding in to doing all of those tasks. I have become like the water in which everything else floats. I organize and clean and plan so that life runs smoothly for the other folks in the house. I am the facilitator, the enabler.

This sounds like a horrible recipe for ingratitude and resentment, but I don’t believe that will happen. This is right for this season of our lives. The kids have needed me to carry them a little as we weather the rough transition into this school year. Howard has need our home to be stable and routine so that he can develop a work rhythm which will allow him to get rolling on the next book. This is my season for filling my life with small services that make things smoother for everyone else. This is my season for organizing and clearing out. More insanely busy times will come to us. That is the nature of our work. We will again need to lean on the kids to help keep the house clean. But we have been granted a season of relative peace. A time when my emotional and creative energies are expended first upon home and family. I need to use it well.

Several weeks ago my kids expressed an interest in watching Field of Dreams. I was surprised at their interest. So I asked what they knew about the film. Link said
“It’s about baseball and there is this field and zombies come out to play.”
When I was done snickering, I clarified that the baseball players were more like ghosts than they were zombies, but that “ghost” wasn’t quite the right descriptor either. They remained interested, so I put the movie in our Netflix queue.

Once it arrived, we sat down to watch it together. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the film. I was not sure that it would engage the interest of all the kids. I knew Kiki and Link would get it, but I expected Gleek and Patch to get bored. The opposite was true. In fact when we had to pause for a snack, it was Patch who was hollering for everyone to hurry up so we could watch the movie. The kids loved it. They laughed in the funny spots and were happy with the story.

As I watched I found myself in tears. Partly the tears were because it is that kind of a movie, but they were also caused by the dawning realization that Howard and I have lived this movie. Oh, not the part about baseball and cornfields. The part about having an inspiration, knowing it was right, and following through on it even though it looked a bit crazy. We’ve spent time following instructions that confused us, taking actions that seemed nonsensical, and trusting that it was right. And then we’ve had the part where everything comes together in ways we did not expect to fill our lives with blessings we could not previously have imagined. That is our story, and it continues to be our story. At the moment we aren’t taking any life-shifting steps, but in small ways, on small inspirations we continue to do this. It is frightening and joyful and humbling. And like Ray in the movie, I am moved to look around me and consider that if Heaven is a place where dreams come true, that this might be Heaven.

We weren’t exactly poor when I bought these shoes. We lived in a nice house filled with nice things. We were paying our bills and buying food without scrounging. But Howard had just quit his job at Novell to become a cartoonist. Our income was minimal and our savings were dwindling. Gleek really wanted/needed flip flops for the summer. They were on sale, but it was very hard to part with $6 for brand new shoes when all our other clothes were coming from thrift shops and garage sales for less than a dollar. I remember holding the shoes in my hand and examining them for durability. Spending the money on shoes that would last for a year or two was one thing. Spending money on shoes that would break inside two months was something else. They looked strong. They were adorable. And I knew that Gleek would love them. I bought them and brought them home.

I confess I rather hovered over those shoes for the first while. Gleek did love them, but left them laying around with typical 3 year old abandon. I can’t count the number of times I collected them from neighbor’s houses or even from odd corners of our own house. I felt stressed or worried if the shoes went missing because Gleek did not own many pairs. But they made me happy when she wore them. I was glad my little girl had something pretty in her life during a time when I could not buy her much. I loved watching her clomp around in them. They were big on her feet, so she could wear them for a couple of years. Time marched on and our financial situation changed. I stopped paying attention to these shoes except to kick them into the closet along with all the other pairs.

It has been five years now since I stood in the store debating whether to buy the shoes. Today Gleek handed them to me to get rid of because they are too small. The five years of wear really shows. The toes are scuffed and torn because Gleek tends to drag the fronts of her feet. The soles are worn almost smooth. You can see shadows of the feet that wore them. One of the rhinestones is missing. The small crevices have years of accumulated dirt and sand from trips to beaches or just from being left outside. These shoes have been lost for months on end, then found again. They have been left in the car, left at friend’s houses, lost in the snow, and buried in closets. I have no idea all the creative adventures these shoes have participated in, but now their time has past. Gleek’s feet are too large. She no longer loves pink and butterflies. Now she loves blue, black, green, and furry animals such as cats.

To live is to change and to grow. Things come into our lives and play a part, sometimes an essential part. Then the season passes and it is time to let them go. This afternoon I will deliver the shoes to another little girl who is enamored of pink butterflies. She will not mind the scuff marks or wear. In her eyes these shoes will be as new and they will be beautiful again. It makes me sad to part with them, they are one of the few remnants of that season of our lives when all my energy was spent to make the money last. I had no way of knowing that the shoes would outlive the financial crisis, But they did. We all made it through. Now it is time to pass them on, just as I have moved on. But I did photograph them and write this entry because I do not want to forget.

This afternoon I sat down with my kids to watch the 1975 version of Escape to Witch Mountain. This is a film with strong nostalgia for me because I watched it a lot as a kid. The kids were willing to watch, but some of them were a little skeptical.

When the opening credits began to roll Link asked “Is this movie in black and white?”

Kiki leaned over and patted his leg reassuringly. “No. It’s in cheesy.”

It was indeed filmed in cheesy. There was even a side order of 70’s clothing. Kiki actually groaned at some of the special effects. But they all enjoyed it anyway. Even Kiki.