Laughing At Spilled Milk: A Skyping Adventure

Posted on February 7, 2012 by LASM

Oh my good golly, I just did my first ever Skype talk! Yes, a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent woman with fantastic taste found my website and invited me to speak for her MOMSNext group in Michigan. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

Honestly, I don’t know who was more excited about this: me, because I was talking live half way across the country or Troy because he got all the tech stuff to work.  Of course, he totally sabotaged himself because now that I know he can do stuff like this, he can no longer defend his “the dishwasher loading procedure is just too complicated” excuse.

All joking aside, Troy was fantastic.  It pretty much rocks being married to both your tech support and photographer. Because of the latter, he set me up with a backdrop and killer lighting using his expensive photography equipment. Yes, we had a small squabble because he still can’t get it through his artsy little head that lighting the face of a 42 year old woman so that you can capture every detail of her aging face is not a good thing, but whatever.   We were keeping it real.*

There are several perks about Skyping.

–          You can do it from your bedroom, sitting on your bed even

–          You only have to curl the front of your hair

–          You can stay in your PJ bottoms

The down side to Skyping:

–          It kills my dream of being flown across the Pond to speak just about anywhere in Great Britain.

–          They were two hours ahead of me in the Eastern Time Zone which means I only managed to be alert and fresh faced after buckets of coffee and applying my make-up with a putty knife.

Anyway, the thing that struck me about this experience is that while these women were over a thousand miles away (that’s like three countries in Europe. Sounds more impressive when I put it that way), they were not any different than the women here in Colorado.  Same struggles to find time to fit everything into busy schedules, same needs for friendship and support, and same appreciation of my sense of humor (whew!). There’s great comfort, somehow, in knowing that no matter where we are in the world, moms are moms.  Our hopes, longings and love of family are the same.  We all belong to a great and wonderful sisterhood and knowing this makes me ache to give each one of these precious ladies I “met” today a great big “yep, I get it and we’re all in this together, aren’t we” hug. But I couldn’t. And that’s kind of a bummer.

So while it is fantastic that I got to reach out and speak to moms so far away and I would do it again in a heartbeat, there is something about meeting in person that cannot be replaced no matter how amazing technology gets.

Therefore, if you are reading this from anywhere in Great Britain, and you think I’m funny and would be a great speaker for pretty much any event you are holding, please fly me over.  My mommy hug is totally worth it!

*Cute incidental Troy story: OK, so he really, really wanted to listen in on my talk, which I get because he was pretty invested with all the setup he did, but I put the kibosh on that.  Yes, he is my biggest fan, but he is also my most tactless critic (he calls it honest.  I call it a one way ticket to couch city) so my talks tend to crash and burn if he is around as he makes me stupid nervous. Because of this, once everything was set up I sent him to the basement.  20 minutes later the talk is going great when I suddenly become aware of the sound of spoon scraping across the bottom of a cereal bowl outside our door.  Pathetic.  43 years old and he still hasn’t figured out sound travels.  And it’s not like I can call him out as I’m right in the middle of my talk – except that I so totally do, and the ladies find it funny and we all laugh at him and I get my revenge because I can see the red glow of his blush coming from beneath the door.  Mwa-ha-ha!

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Dear Me, about Protecting Your Kids…

Posted on February 2, 2012 by LASM

“(Love) always protects.” – 1 Corinthians 13:7

Dear Me,

Remember when you held our oldest for the first time. He was so beautiful, flawless, innocent.  There was not a single physical or emotional scar on him and your strongest desire was to keep him that way. In that moment you morphed into a mother.

This transformation from girl to mom reminds me of those comic book movies where the hero gets bit by something or radiated or whatever, and the camera races through his blood vessels and nerves to show us that he is being changed at a molecular level.  Muscles grow and the senses become more acute as he busts through his clothing to show that he has physically and allegorically outgrown his former puny, helpless self.

It was kind of like that.

The moment the surge of maternal love coursed through you it became very clear that, not only could you now run impossibly fast to catch a falling toddler, lift burning semi trucks and handle all kinds of body excretions without gagging, but you could intimidate any thug with a look or end their life with your bare teeth to save your child.  Be warned: those protective feelings never go away.

Recently our very beautiful, talented and hard-working Jenny Girl didn’t get in to the school play.  Wanting to protect her from the pain of this rejection, I offered to get in my minivan, drive downtown and hire someone to ‘meet’ with her director and ‘correct’ the misunderstanding. Love always protects, right? Right, but from what?

Here’s the painful truth: shielding kids from every rejection doesn’t do them any favors. I’ve witnessed many parents bully the director, choir teacher or coach into reversing an audition/try-out believing they were being protective when what they were really doing is stunting Jr’s growth.  Yes, if mama goes out to get their precious child what they want the pain of rejection subsides, but only slightly.  Deep down your kid knows that they weren’t good enough to get in.  Plus, they are learning some pretty damaging long term life lessons.

–      Your wants are more important than other’s wants.

–      You are entitled to what you want even if you don’t deserve it.

–      If you don’t get what you want, throw a fit until you do.

I often wonder if these parents are looking forward to the parade of parent/employer conferences when their grown child doesn’t get that promotion because they were taught manipulation over work ethic and intimidation over character.

It is excruciatingly painful to stand by as your child faces the consequences of living in a broken world, but this is the world they were born into. If you will just get out of the way they will learn how to live in it.  To do otherwise is just selfish. I mean, let’s be honest here; when you shield your child from the unfairness of life the heart you are mostly protecting is your own.

Now, there are times to step in and do some heavy duty protecting. I still fast forward through questionable bits in movies, forbid my 16 year old daughter from going to the park alone and have taken on errant doctors, but this tends to be the exception.

So how did it turn out with poor Jenny Girl? Well, she didn’t let me hire a hit man (Which is good. As it turns out the discreet ones are rather expensive), or even send a strongly worded email.  Instead she said, “It’s OK. I’m bummed, but have to get used to it. Theater is a salty business.” (She actually said “salty.” Man I love that kid!).  Then she signed up to be on the tech team without a single whine or tear of self -pity.

So, yes, parental love always protects your kids…very often from you!

Love, Older Wiser You

Posted in Anger, Child-rearing, Dear Me, Expectations, family, goals, Kids, kids and school, Letting Go, Mommy Grief, parenting, parenting goals, Self Control, temper, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Laughing At Spilled Milk: I Am My Own Grandma

Posted on January 7, 2012 by LASM

My dad is married to my mother-in-law.

Let that sink in a moment.

Picture this: it’s 1989 and I’m seeing a man who can only be described as my dream guy.  Compatible life goals, personality, red hair – the complete package.  I mean, this could be “the one” except…

His heart was recently broken and he’s kind of gun shy, so on every date and daily phone call we discuss if we are going anywhere romantic. It’s a fragile place, but with promise. Until…

My dad meets his mom.  This is on a Sunday.  On Monday he wants to ask her out.   I don’t recall my exact response but patricide was mentioned. Tuesday he calls her anyway.  Wednesday they go to dinner…and don’t surface again until Saturday to announce their engagement.

Dream Guy and I are furious.  We (who are 20 and 21 at the time) sit them down to reacquaint them with reason.  They are both on the rebound.  Where will they live?  They don’t even know each other. We tell them that relationships take time to develop. They should date for at least a year.  I even throw one of my dad’s favorite cautions at him: you are sacrificing the ultimate on the alter of the immediate.

Nothing works.  They do their part in keeping up the role reversal by telling us that they are in love. Duh. Don’t we know that love overcomes all obstacles?  When you’re in love, one date is like 20. And the kicker: “You don’t understand because you’re not from our generation!”  They seriously said this. With a straight face.

Five weeks later I miss their ceremony because I’m an attendant at my mother’s wedding – to my old high school French teacher.  They met at parent-teacher conferences and he moved in two weeks later.

Dream Guy and I have been married for almost 22 years.  As far as our circle of friends and acquaintances are concerned, his single father died in a tragic catamaran accident involving Bible running and Somali pirates (We’re not taking any chances on him hooking up with someone who will turn me into my own grandma).

“The Parents” (his mom and my dad) are still together.  They’re happy, we’re happy and we always know where to go for the holidays. It has all worked out quite well.

Except for when people discover that I married my step-brother and accuse us of incest…my children are also my niece and nephews…that time in kindergarten when Tommy’s family tree project looked more like a family circle…

And why do people always assume I’m from the Ozarks?

Posted in Acceptance, family, humor, Laughing At Spilled Milk, Marriage | 2 Comments

Dear Me: About Kids and Faith

Posted on December 21, 2011 by LASM

“And that ends round 2 between Jesus of Nazareth and Voldemort of Great Britain!” – Johnathan Durbin

Dear Me,

OK, let’s take a break from 1Corinthians to talk about the expectations you have about your kids’ faith in the Jesus area – with a Christmas emphasis.

You do a pretty good job sharing your faith with the kids. You give them the invaluable gift of a church family, are available to answer every spiritual question, and admit when you don’t know the answer (like that time back in ’96 when your philosophical four year old asked, “Mom, what did Jesus mean when he said, ‘go and sin no more?’” Nothing throws you back into the Bible like your preschooler needing answers).

You do, however, allow the kids certain…liberties. Likely this stems from the ill effects that dogmatic, legalistic theology has wrecked in the God relationship of several friends and family members.  The church Daddy grew up in, the one where the kids were terrorized by images of an angry vengeful god who would strike them dead for stepping on ants and whose pastor would up the offering by declaring, “There’s a devil in the corner! Throw money at it!” Yeah.  This did his faith no favors.  So while you are a stickler on biblical theology you do allow the kids to, well, express a reasonable level of humor in the God area.

Take the family Nativity set.  Once, at a mom support meeting, your pastor shared how he wanted God to be accessible to his four boys so made sure they had a Nativity set that they could play with. Every Christmas season his sons would start in the kitchen with Mary, Joseph, and the donkey, taking them on the long trip across the house to “Bethlehem” which was somewhere under the Christmas tree.  Then the Wise Men and shepherds would make an appearance along with the angels to worship the little newborn King with peace and joy.

This story charmed you to pieces, so you went out and bought a sturdy wooden Nativity set and told the boys to have at it.

That first year they were so precious with it that you hung garland with tears in your eyes.  Reenacting the Christmas story, they crawled through the house, figures in chubby little hands, and reciting snippets of Bible verses they learned in Sunday school. Too sweet for words.  And a bonus: something was actually turning out as you planned it!

As more Christmases came and went, however, the Nativity set began to…well, morph.  The Donkey would occasionally break away from Joseph and take Mary on a joy ride. The Wise Men began crowding out the shepherds which led to staff abuse and attack sheep.

After several Christmases of jealous termoil, the shepherds and Wise Men gave Johnathan’s plastic football figures a break and took the field to settle two millennia of mutual resentment in a sportsmanlike manner. Mary and the Wise Men had angels rounding out their defense while Joseph and the shepherds only had sheep, so the boys made Baby Jesus the referee to keep the personal fouls at a minimum. Maybe I should have put a stop to this, but decided there was a subtle beauty and theological accuracy in making Baby Jesus the ref, so let it slide. Thus, the annual Nativity Bowl was born.

I would like to tell you that this is where the irreverence stopped.  Unfortunately, our sons hit high school, thus bringing the shepherd/Wise Men rivalry to a less civilized level.  Last year as they were violently unleashing their animosities upon each other with invisible uzis and grenades, Baby Jesus got fed up and unleashed his Eyes of Justice that shot red laser beams of death, thus transporting the whole lot of them to the outer darkness where there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth (although He did spare His parents, which was a small consolation both because it showed a certain reverence for Mary and Joseph as well as parents in general).  So we have gone from the Christmas story to  Nativity of the Apocalypse. Wonderful.

It is at this point that I thought maybe I have been a bit too lenient.  Surely God is not pleased and I will have some serious ‘splaining to do when I reach the pearly gates because while, yes, God is love and this is patient, kind, keeps no record of wrongs, and such, and I’m betting that He has a sense of humor (Giving me three boys when I came from a family of three girls is just one proof of this), at the same time, God is holy and not to be mocked. Maybe all this Nativity play is not such a good idea.

I come downstairs after pondering this and what do I find?  The boys, done with their play, have put the Nativity back on the grand piano where it belongs.  They never set it up the way they found it – the traditional picturesque scene – but the same way they do every year, with Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, shepherds, and stable animals circling Baby Jesus who sleeps on in the center of their worship. OK, yes, they goof around, but in the end they really do get it. And in their day to day life they are walking in such a way that keeps that tiny baby in the manger at their center as well.

So, while I am not particularly pleased that the boys favorite characters to pit against each in Wii boxing are “Jesus of Nazareth” and  “Lord Voldemort of Great Britain,” it did make Troy and I smile to hear one of them recently commentate, “…and Jesus rises again – there is just no keeping Him down – and delivers a powerful left hook to Lord Voldemort!  Evil Lord Voldemort has been defeated!  Way to go, Jesus!”

It may not be the King James Version, but they know how the story goes.

Love,

Older Wiser You

Posted in Acceptance, Child-rearing, Christmas, Dear Me, Expectations, family, Holidays, humor, Kids, Letting Go, parenting, parenting goals, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Dear Me: About Envy

Posted on December 9, 2011 by LASM

“Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.” Jean Vanier

“(Love) does not envy.” 1Corinthians 13:4

Dear Me: About Parental Envy,

It’s so easy when you are holding your beautiful newborn in your arms to say that you will accept them just the way they are.  You and Troy certainly did, and at the time you meant it. Sort of.  When you declaired that you would do this, you went into it sort of lightly, believing that what you were accepting was what you expected to get: perfected versions of you.   This is not as unreasonable as it sounds. At the time it even seemed logical.  Take your genes which carry the codes of you natural talents, abilities, and personality, add intentional, even superior parenting and presto!  You 2.0.

Time for a science lesson – a subject only outdone by math on your list of total educational flops, I know, but stick with me. When a person procreates, they do not bring only their attributes to the womb.  You have the chromosomes of countless generations packed in those little eggs.  Mix that with Troy’s  countless generations, factor in the battle for attribute dominance between you, and who knows what will pop out? Now that the kids are mostly grown I can tell you, there are definitely qualities about them that I totally recognize (most of them I have apologized for) but others that I look at and think, “Good golly, where did that come from?”   Some of these are wonderful, but others are a total let down that can lead you to envy those parents who got the kids they ordered.

Between the two of us Troy gets hit the hardest in this area. The guy was born a brilliant athlete.  (You called him a jock on your first date and were swiftly corrected: jocks are only good at one sport. Athletes are good at all of them…except for water polo apparently). You birth three sons and a daughter giving Troy every possible chance to pass on his talents.  Alas, this man, who could knock out a curve ball by age three, breeds offspring who cannot hit, catch, kick, or throw anything with their eyes open.  Even their basic running has serious mechanical flaws.  They drew pictures in the dirt during t-ball games, never knew where the ball was in pee wee soccer (which Troy coached. Ouch!), and commentated the junior football plays instead of participating in them. While his teammate’s children either avidly watched their dad’s soccer games or practiced drills with the ball on the sidelines, Troy’s sons read history books or discussed the politics of the Academy Awards. This had to be hard, but Troy never showed his disappointment to either me or his children.  Instead, he accepted them for who they were.

I remember back when the boys were in kindergarten, first, and second grade and decided to go out for the school talent show. Heads up: I have noticed that when parents depart from a grade school talent show they all appear spiritually lighter somehow. Kind of like I imagine pre-reformation Christians looked after undergoing particularly brutal penances like self-mutilation.  But I digress.

So we’re at this talent show (an oxymoron if ever I heard one), and every parent has that glazed, but determined look about them as yet another small child gets up to perform a off key Disney ballad or to put the break in break dancing. Finally, Timothy, Tommy, and Johnathan take the stage to perform a trio they have put together from a Veggie Tale episode: The Dance of the Timothy (Cucumber).  It was amazing. They were funny, had great choreography, and were even on key (far from expected in this venue). Instinctively they knew how to work the mic and their audience. When finished the whole gym exploded in a standing ovation. It was like a scene from a underdog sports movie…mixed with an episode from Glee.

I will never forget the picture of Troy standing with the crowd, clapping his hands raw, tears streaming down a face full of parental relief as he repeats over and over in stunned joy, “They’re good at something!  They’re good at something!”

Does Troy envy the DelPiccolos whose son got a full ride college scholarship for soccer and has played for the youth National Team?  Probably, but instead of focusing on what his children are not, he has put his energy into supporting what they are.  This man has run the sound board for their choir concerts, sold tickets to coworkers for their theater productions, listened to countless audition monologues, weighed in on choreography moves, and just recently spent untold hours as the official photographer for Jenny’s production of Annie Get Your Gun. In short, he accepted the kids he got and encouraged their gifts and talents even though they were outside of his area of expertise.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of envying other people their children and, sadly, many parents do. We all initially want the child who excels where we didn’t, or is super well behaved, or stunningly beautiful, and the list goes on and on. This is such a waste of time.  More tragically, it distracts us from getting to know our children and enjoying the wonderful people they are and engaging them in a deep love relationship.  So remember: love does not envy. And let’s be honest here; when it comes to these amazing kids of ours, we totally got better than we deserved!

Love, Older Wiser You

Posted in Acceptance, Child-rearing, Dear Me, family, Husbands, Kids, Letting Go, Love, parenting, parenting goals | 4 Comments

Laughing At Spilled Milk: Franken-oven

Posted on December 1, 2011 by LASM

This past July my most prized culinary possession – the convection oven – was killed by lightening.  Seriously, lightening hit our house and fried our range. It is a miracle that this was all that perished.

Now, I would love to blame the fact that we have gone four months without an oven on Troy (especially because it’s funnier when I interject some manashing on a guy who is always willing to be the butt of my blog jokes – to suffer for my “art” if you will. Such a sweetie) and his need to endlessly shop around before coming to a decision on any big (or small) ticket item but alas, this one is pretty much all me.

See, the insurance company gave us a nice chunk of change, so my thought is, if we’re going to buy something new, why not go for the best? Like convection and gas! After all, gas is where it’s at according to every cooking show on TV.  It heats up quickly, cooks evenly and gives you more control.  Plus, I grew up cooking with  gas and, aside from the fact that if there was a leak when turned on it could wipe out an entire housing block (my parents told me this so it must be true), I quite liked it. Oh, and I hear that you no longer have to contemplate your life as you stick your head in the oven with a match to light the pilot at the back. Nifty.

The bummer about transitioning from electric to gas is that you have to hire someone to run the gas line.  Now we’ve hit “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” territory because, frankly, if you get a gas oven, you will need to run a new line. If you run a new line, you will have to cut into the kitchen floor.  If you cut into the kitchen floor, you should replace the ugly 1980’s linoleum with the screwdriver pox in it (another story).  If you put in swanky new floor tile, you will need to replace the equally dated and abused countertops.  If you replace the countertops, you need to put up a new backsplash.  If you put in a new backsplash, the cupboards should be redone. You get the point.  This gas range will end in hardwood floors for the main floor, a bathroom remodel, and an updated wardrobe so that I look worthy of my new digs.

So, like I said, there has been no oven since July.

How do I cook?  My grandmother would be impressed, actually.  Because there are so many new fangled gadgets in my basement that for years have been collecting dust I can pretty much make anything I want.  There’s the bread machine for baking, three crock pots, a fryer, grill, and rice cooker with steam trays. (This is my favorite because I can make brown rice, veggies and fish all in one go. Feel like MacGyver…with emotional range). I was actually looking forward to the challenge of cooking a sit down Thanksgiving dinner for 22 except for one thing…

The food is not so great.  Let’s just say that the other day the boys came down from college and as they left on Sunday I overheard one of them remark that he couldn’t wait to get back to the dorm food.  Not good.

Plus it has put me in a mild depression. I mean, why even bother getting a new oven with three boys in college and a daughter who will fly the coop in 18 months? I should just talk Troy into a toaster oven (if I start now he should have one picked out by the time she graduates) where we can broil our little piece of salmon we will split due to our diminishing metabolism. This runs along the same lines of my “why even bother remodeling the house the way we always wanted it when we are just going to trade it in for a ranch that spares our aging knees from stairs” argument. Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact that we are drowning in college bills I would have no reason to get out of bed in the morning. And they all want gift cards and cash for Christmas so I’m no longer needed for shopping and wrapping.   Really, I should just give in and join a bridge club and an aquatic aerobics class.

Yes, this stupid oven that was struck by evil lightening (seriously, has it done any good since Ben Franklin?) re-triggered my mommy-grief.  But then…

Troy decided to chance it and order a replacement panel.  Two days before Thanksgiving – presto – our oven was brought back from the dead (we now refer to it as Franken-oven).  I quickly made up a pie chart (Not the math thingy; a Word doc that helps me plan out the 14 pies the overachiever in me bakes off each year), put 50lbs. of turkey in to brine, and furiously dice 60 cups of bread for stuffing (Occasionally I exaggerate for comedic effect.  This is not one of those times).  Thanksgiving came.  We took tons of pictures, had pounds of food, and loads of laughs – around a table I prepared. The mommy depression lifted. They still need me after all!

To my great relief, the season’s to-do list that I have loved to hate for 21 years now has overtaken my mind.  Even though I am spared endless trips to the mall because everything can pretty much be done online or at the grocery store gift card kiosk, there are still enough tasks weighing on me to get the holiday stress buzz we moms need in order to feel important: Christmas dinner to plan, dozens of cookies to bake, the “Happy Birthday, Jesus” cake to prepare, my holiday diet plan to map out and later abandon.  Once again, the comfort of food has saved me.

Man, but I love my oven!

Posted in family, food, Holidays, Housekeeping, Laughing At Spilled Milk, Love, Mommy Grief, parenting | Leave a comment

Dear Me: About Kindness, Part Two

Posted on October 26, 2011 by LASM

Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience.” – Evelyn Underhill

“Love is Kind.” 1Corinthians 13:4

Dear Me,

OK, last time we defined parental kindness by looking at what it is not: envious, boastful, proud, rude, selfish, easily angered and unforgiving. Today I want to talk about what parental kindness is.

Just listing the synonyms for kindness makes me picture that ideal mother: gentle, mild, courteous and considerate (the opposite of rudeness), generosity (not self-seeking), sympathetic, and tolerant (patient).*

Before birthing you expected kindness to be a non-issue – mostly because of all the Little House on the Prairie you saturated your brain with growing up.  You decided to model yourself after Ma, and that chick was killer at kindness.  Unfortunately, neither calculus nor character can be learned through osmosis. Take a look back at the Pee Shooter Revenge or Christmas Spirit Massacre stories from previous letters if you don’t believe me. Sorry to say, but once again we come back to the D-word: discipline.  As with every other aspect of love, kindness is a discipline to be practiced.  And it’s takes loads of hard work.

It takes discipline to be:

  • Gentle when you’re late to the dentist and the baby won’t let you strap him in his car seat.
  • Use courteous words to a bi-polar toddler who rejects Mommy all morning, then suddenly needs your full attention when you’re on the phone with the insurance company.
  • Considerate of the feelings of a child who just made you a pretty picture colored with your newly purchased cosmetics.
  • To generously share your precious Valentine’s Candy – especially with children who don’t fully appreciate dark chocolate.
  • Sympathetic when your kid wakes you up by spewing partially digested mac and cheese on your hair.
  • Tolerant of a person who eats boogers of every color and texture but judges 60% of your cooking as “gross.”

It takes discipline to be kind. Still, over my 21 years of parenting I can tell you that the central component to a lasting friendship with your children is the simple, brutally tough, daily practice of kindness.  Just like every other aspect of love, you mess up from time to time. So, when you fall down on this apologize, forgive yourself, get back up and keep going. You will get better and better –which is good, because kindness becomes even more vital when toddlers turn into teenagers.  Keep on keeping on, girlie!

Love, Older Wiser You

*Once again, when looking at one aspect of Biblical love we
bump into several others on the Apostle Paul’s list.  Interesting how it all intertwines, yes?

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Laughing At Spilled Milk: Night of IKEA

Posted on October 21, 2011 by LASM

(OK, yes, this post is pretty long – about double my usual length – but the experience documented below felt much, much longer)

I’ve been putting off writing about this because to do so I am forced to relive the experience, but back in early September Troy and I went to IKEA.

IKEA: a perfect blend of super store and purgatory.  Even the word is a foreshadowing of injury. Look at it: all sharp edges and dangerous corners; no friendly “o” or “b”.  That and the fact that they advertise at every turn the company’s Swedish origin – you know, the descendants of the brutal Vikings who stole the riches of my English ancestors and murdered innocent monks? Yeah, those people.

Just getting in is about as pleasant as navagating a combination of sporting event and  Friday night rush hour traffic. The city had actaully set up blinking traffic signs to direct you to the entrance. You know you live in suburbia when we’re cutting teachers because of funds, but clear directions to a superstore is vital to our future.

Once you get in (and see no way out) you are directed by no less than a dozen parking attendants to an empty spot – somewhere over in the next county – change into your hiking gear, make sure you canteen is full, then set off.  Remember how you learned in school that when the pioneers came to Colorado, each morning they were just sure that they would reach the mountains that day, but because they underestimated the size of the Rockies, it took several times longer than they expected?  Yeah.  It was kind of like that.

Once we reached the main entrance the suppressed memory surfaced.

Once again I was 13 years old, trapped at a New Jersey designer fire sale in a giant warehouse with no windows and only one door blocked by my mother’s lust for a deal.  She would pile my pre-pubescent arms high with a variety of hard won clothing to guard, withdraw from the field to try on some of her loot, and leave me at the mercy of the most aggressive women in the tri-state area. Seeing the items I held and smelling my fear, rabid shoppers began to circle my trembling frame as I did my best to avoid eye contact. With three-inch blood-red decal-covered claws they would puff up already heavily teased hair to appear larger. Then through darkly lined snarling lips the attempt to bully me out of the choicest items would begin. Poor things learned too late that my 4’11” mother could take down any mob boss mistress when a cashmere sweater set was on the line.

My sister tells me that we went to several of these, but I only recall this first time. Apparently in subsequent forays I would leave my body like other victims of violent crime.

So we walk into IKEA and I begin to hyperventilate.  Painfully clinging to Troy’s arm I get on the escalator fully believing that we are on a conveyor belt of death where soulless sales people wait at the top to slaughter us like cattle and turn our hides into cheap leather sectionals.  Knowing that food is historically an effective Jamie-tranquilizer, he leads me to the cafeteria where we wind our way through a carefully constructed paddock (which does nothing to make my suspision that we are viewed as cattle go away) and orders cheap ethnic food.

Children cry in the background. You can bounce a quarter off my shoulders. I start to check out but realize that survival depends upon keeping my wits about me, so instead brainstorm ways to defend my life when the only weapons available are a fork and lukewarm spinach crepes (It’s a stab and smoother strategy). But the number of workers is comparable to that of the climax of a zombie movie, so now I have to debate just how important Troy is to me.  Would I instinctively toss his body into the fray so that I can make my escape while they’re distracted in the feeding frenzy? Or would he turn dramatically at the last moment revealing through his dead, yellow eyes that he has become one of them? This is not a stretch. He has loves shopping, the freak. I ponder whether I could take down my own zombie husband to save myself from becoming one of the undead trapped for eternity in sporting goods. Maybe I should ask if I can hold the car keys…

All too soon we enter the shopping area. This is where the nightmare hits its stride.  At IKEA (I need to stop typing this word.  Can’t type, rock and hold myself at the same time) there are no departments. There are only floors, each with a maze and no exits – as if you are the rat in the science experiment where you have to use your sense of smell to find the “cheese,” which in this case is the check out.

Are there interesting items to look at? Yes, but these exist simply to lure you out of the maze to your doom, because once you leave the path, the stream of tightly packed humanity makes it’s all but impossible to get back on it. So now you have to ask yourself, is a funky glass bowl like the ones they use on Food Network or a reasonably priced farmer’s sink really worth losing yourself in a kind of Wal Mart limbo?

After a small eternity we come to the end.  I weep a little with relief, but don’t fully relax until we are in the car, doors locked and engine started.

It is a week later that a friend tells me that everything at the store can be ordered online, so I could have gotten those stupid dining chair cushions from the comfort of my own home. This and the fact that, according to Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War could have been avoided if the heads of state had just sat down for a good honest chat are the two greatest missed opportunities to spare lives I am acquainted with.

After all this time I still have nightmares that I can’t get out.  I run and run through the maze but keep winding up back in small appliances.

So, you all are forewarned.  Stay away from IK – the Viking torture store. Unless, of course, you like shopping. And the crepes were actually quite tasty.  Oh, and they have this very refreshing lingonberry beverage.  Still, is all that  worth your very soul?

Posted in Blog, humor, Laughing At Spilled Milk | 7 Comments

Dear Me, About Kindness…

Posted on October 7, 2011 by LASM

“He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” – Saint Basil

“Love is Kind.” 1Corinthians 13:4

Dear Me, About Kindness…

We parents don’t talk a lot about kindness because it’s sort of an understood. However, it is so rich, with so many aspects to it, and so very vital to having a good relationship with the kids that we shouldn’t take it for granted.

What is kindness?  To get at that answer let’s take a look at what kindness is not. Right after Paul tells us that Love is kind, he lists its opposite: envious, boastful, proud, rude, selfish, easily angered and keeping a record of wrongs (instead of forgiving).

For example, think back to when you first had Timothy and he was into peeing on you every time you changed his diaper (and occasionally projectile pooping. Didn’t even know that was a thing).  Troy thought it was a riot, especially because the baby never did it to him.  Not even once.   He actually boasted with pride about it – which, as we have just established was not kind or loving.  I was envious that he could change a diaper and stay dry and so was angrily holding a grudge.

One day we were watching TV and I needed to change Timothy.  Troy made some crack about a raincoat and then turned back to his soccer game.  I snapped. Lifting up Timothy’s feet, I lined up his business end like a WWII sniper, undid his diaper, and waved cold air on the trigger.  A beautiful yellow arc of baby fluids pegged Troy, soaking his shoulder.  I then pretended to be shocked and apologetic.  This was unkind (but oh so worth it!).

OK, so far this is about Troy.  What about the kids?

Just like every other aspect of love, kindness is a discipline.  Yes, it is instinctual for many moms (and dads) but when you get tired and stressed kindness is the first thing to go.

Ponder a moment: when you are at your ugliest, how do you behave? You are rude, boastful, envious, prideful, selfish, temperamental and spiteful.  Now, yes, the spiteful thing is usually reserved for Troy (see story above), and you tend to reserve envy, pride and boasting for your *frienemies, but you can be very rude to the kids when you are tired (snappish words in response to a question or need for redirection), selfish (no, I don’t want to read you a book right now), and lose your temper with them over minor things – each of which bruises your love relationship with them.  You forget to be kind.

So now that we’ve discussed what kindness is not, next time we’ll look at what kindness is – and how to maintain it even when you don’t feel like it!

Love, Older Wiser You

*Like an M&M candy, on the outside the relationship looks sweet and pretty but at the core they drive you nuts.

Posted in Anger, Child-rearing, Dear Me, family, goals, Husbands, Kids, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Self Control, temper, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Laughing At Spilled Milk: Scrapbooking

Posted on October 4, 2011 by LASM

OK, so I don’t scrapbook. Never saw the point.  Not only did I not have the time when the kids were growing up, but there was NO WAY I could have justified it to Troy, my thrifty Scotsman. “Hey baby, I’m going to take this simple $10 slip in the pocket photo album and turn it into a froo-froo project that will cost hundreds of dollars. ..and to do it I’ll need to be gone, so you’ll have to put the kids to bed…and we won’t be eating on the dining table for a while because I need space for my supplies.”  Like I said, when the kids were young I didn’t have the time – or the energy – for the number of trips to “Ponyland” it would have taken to get his approval.

Well, now the kids are grown and mostly out of the house and I am in heavy grief.  Knowing we are going to spend our Sunday at the Parent’s house so that Jenny can have a date with her Pap, I decide to spend that time transferring pics from one of those old magnetic paged photo albums that my scrapbooking friends tell me will eat my precious snapshots which means that I will never have that memory again and will someday forget what any of them looked like when they were small.  This process gets me pretty nostalgic: there’s little Muffin Face Johnny D and Timothy with stick up Ducky Duddle hair, Tommy with his toothless grin and Jenny girl in various princess poses.  Oh, how I ache to hold them once more!

So I get this tug to start scrapbooking. I mean, if I am spending hours cropping and arranging it will sort of be like spending time with my babies again, right? Plus, I have my own money from speaking engagements and Troy’s labedo has slowed down so should be no problem.

I decide to start with Johnathan because he is the one who most recently abandoned me to pursue his own life at college.  After two days of sifting through pictures I begin to feel like this is not such a good idea.  There are – literally – 200 pictures that I have collected which pretty much only takes us up to 18 months of age.  This is insane.  Even if I can fit 5 pictures per page that will mean 30 pages…and we have 17 more years to go!

I share my concerns with a long time cropper and she tells me that I need to whittle them down to “just your favorites.”  So, what? I need to abandon most of the snapshots?  Sorry, son, but you’re not as cute in this one?  Impossible!  With scenes from Sophie’s Choice running through my head I shorten the pile by half.

Next thing you know I am standing in the craft store staring at walls of paper, albums and tools I don’t understand.   What does one need in a paper cutter?  Why do I want a dragonfly hole punch?  99 cents for a piece of blue paper?  I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into a world I can’t make heads or tails of where grown people get excited about stickers and stamps.

Maybe this is like learning an instrument, or French, or how to throw a ball; I’m just too old to start.

Posted in Expectations, humor, Laughing At Spilled Milk, Letting Go, Scrapbooking | 1 Comment

Dear Me, About Mom Anger

Posted on September 28, 2011 by LASM

“Love is not easily angered; does not fly off the handle” – 1 Corinthians 13:5

“Anger is a short madness.” – Horace

Dear Me,

Mom anger is an uncomfortable but important topic for us to discuss. Statistically, it holds more potential to hurt children than bullies or scary strangers at the playground because of its greater frequency and probability.  In anger mothers wound spirits, identities, and worse. How do we guard against it? Address its roots: impatience, shame, helplessness and fear.

To see how this plays out, let’s revisit the story of Christmas Eve 1996 from our last discussion. You have just reduced ¾ of your dear babies to tears because you blew your top.  What were the root causes of your melt down?

Impatience: You wanted the children to clean their rooms. Not unreasonable, but the way you went about it was.  First of all, it is unfair to ask three boys between the ages of 4 and 7 to go solo on picking up a space that was so trashed that an adult would have felt overwhelmed. You were impatient with their skill/maturity level and pushed them beyond it – an all too common mommy-blunder.

Shame: You can fight me on this if you wish, but no matter how old you get you will always long for Mom’s approval and feel shame when you don’t get it. That Christmas Eve you weren’t laboring out of love for your family; instead, your motivation was overcoming your Mom’s previously shaming remarks.

Helplessness: The goals you set that day were too impossible to reach at the level of excellence you were aiming for.  Believing that a “good mom/wife/woman” would easily achieve it all, you were trying to prove yourself to yourself.  Unfortunately you couldn’t make the cookies rollout right (choosing a new recipe was not the wisest), make three small boys clean like adults, and get everything else on your list done.  You were helpless.

Fear: This was the main issue, really.  Subconsciously you had decided that if you couldn’t pull off Christmas Eve the way you envisioned then your worst fears were true: you are not good enough.

This story actually has a happy ending.  After blowing it, you see the roots of your anger and how silly it all is. Then you go back into the boys’ room, apologize, give hugs, wipe tears away and give them your full attention.  In a sudden moment of inspiration you turn room cleaning into a game.  “Alright, boys, let’s see how fast you can get all of your dirty clothes in the hamper.  Ready, set, go!”  They totally get into it so you repeat this for books and toys.  They have a blast, the room is clean, you call Troy, he picks up some cookies from the store on the way home from work and you have a pleasant rest of the day.  If only you could have done all this before you lost your temper!

So, when you start to drift from irritation to anger, ask yourself: what is the root of my frustration: impatience, shame, helplessness, or fear?  Dealing with the root cause(s) will start you on the road to a solution instead of adding to the problem.

Love, Older Wiser You

Posted in Anger, Blog, Child-rearing, Cleaning, Clutter, Dear Me, Expectations, family, Housekeeping, Kids, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Self Control, temper, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Dear Me, About Patience Part Two

Posted on September 21, 2011 by LASM

“Love is Patient.” 1Corinthians 13:4

“There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness.” – Franz Kafka

Dear Me,

So, its 4pm Christmas Eve 1996 and the entire extended family will be descending upon your home in T-minus 16 hours. In that time you need to finish cleaning the house, prep the breakfast casserole and “Happy Birthday, Jesus” cake, transform four children from grubby preschoolers to Christmas catalog models for tonight’s church service, finish baking 4 dozen cookies (Store bought just won’t do. You have people to impress here.), and do the Santa setup with Troy which means you will be up until 4am.

You set the boys (ages 4, 5,  and 7) in their room with instructions to clean it so that they learn what color their carpet is and so your mother won’t judge you (Oh, Jay!  I didn’t raise you to keep house like this!).  While in the kitchen you hear laughing which is never a good sign.  Sure enough, three guilty faces greet you when you open their door.  “Come on, guys, enough fooling around.  It’s time to clean your room.”  You shut the door and go back to the kitchen.  Five minutes later, more laughter.  Now each of the boys is wearing a pair of undies on their heads like WWII army helmets lobbing the rest of the dirty clothes at each other like grenades. You don’t want to lose your cool on Christmas Eve so laugh and tell them once again to clean their room.  This cycle continues every five minutes or so: laughter, reprimand, laughter, reprimand.  Each time you feel more and more anger welling up inside your chest, and get less and less successful at tamping it back down in the name of patience.

After about 45 minutes of this you eventually blow (doesn’t help that the roll out cookies aren’t rolling out so great).  Grabbing the portable phone, you thunder down the hallway (wood floors, so has a good sound effect), fling open the door and declare, “That’s it!  I’m calling Santa and telling him NOT TO COME!”

Three sets of knees hit the floor in supplication, but there is no stopping this crazy train.  You mock dial the phone and use your old theater improv skills for the dark side.  “Santa?  Yes, this is Jamie Durbin.  I’m calling you because…oh you SEE they’re not cleaning their room…yes, well since they’re being naughty you don’t need to…what’s that?  Give them one more chance?  OK, you’re the boss.”  Click.  “Santa said you have ONE MORE CHANCE!” and you storm out of the room. Your walk back to the cookie dough is accompanied by a trio of hiccoughing sobs and you feel so down on yourself that you expect the door bell to ring announcing that Social Services has come to collect your traumatized offspring.  Where did you go wrong? Why did you lose your patience?*

Chick, you are confusing patience with permissiveness.

When a parent tolerates their child’s whining, or lets the kiddo negotiate away the parent’s “no” or just straight up lets the kid get away without doing what they’re told, they are not practicing parental patience. They are being lazy, cowardly or some combination of the two. You were being lazy, not wanting to stop what you were doing to deal with the situation.  You get cowardly later, when the kids are teenagers.  That’s another subject.

Ignoring defiant or undisciplined behavior will not make a child feel loved – just the opposite, in fact.  They may not be able to verbalize it, but when children don’t live within solid boundaries they feel unloved, neglected – like you can’t be bothered to confront them.  So not only will they lose all respect for you, but in an effort to get your attention as well as the boundaries that they crave the bad behavior will intensify. Guess what happens then?  You over react and discipline them too harshly –maybe even saying hurtful things to them (like that Santa isn’t coming this year).  Will this leave your child feeling loved?

So, please do not think that looking the other way when your kid is being annoying or exhibiting poor behavior is patience.  Conversely, healthy child discipline does not include screaming at your child when they accidentally spill milk on your freshly washed floors.  When children are acting like children, this is when you get to practice patience.

A great clue into what parental patience means comes later in 1 Corinthians 13 when Paul gives us the flip side of patience.  We will examine this next time.

Love, Older Wiser You

*(Remember this story.  We’re going to refer back to it a lot as we continue to look at what parental love is)

Posted in Blog, Child Discipline, Child-rearing, Dear Me, Expectations, family, humor, Kids, Laughing At Spilled Milk, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Self Control, temper, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Dear Me, About Patience…

Posted on September 14, 2011 by LASM

“Love is Patient.” 1Corinthians 13:4

“You can learn many things from children;  how much patience you have, for instance.” – Franklin P. Jones

Dear Me,

Everyone knows that parents need patience so I ‘m not writing to you of the importance of this love attribute because you’re oblivious to your need for it.  I am writing to you about it because:

  1. You don’t know what patience is
  2. You often confuse it with permissiveness

Chick, sorry to say, you straight up don’t know what patience is.  Now, before you get all defensive, let me clarify.  You know the definition of patience:

The capacity to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience without complaint; calmness, self-control, and the willingness or ability to tolerate.

What you don’t know is that patience is not an attribute or talent a person is born with like good teeth or perfect pitch.  No one has patience – and this is why you’re blowing it.

It’s not your fault, poor deluded one.  All your growing-up life you have been told that you are patient and, yes, as a child you were pretty good at it, but this is very similar to how Mom always said that “you have such long legs, Jay!  They just go on forever!” and then you got to college and, seeing the other girls, realized that your legs were actually rather short and stumpy and you were all resentful that Mom lied to you all those years until you realized that compared to your 4’11” mother you did have long legs.  Yeah, like that.  Sure, you were patient when all you had to put up with were a hyper little sister and a few difficult kids at school – people you could get away from.  But your own children?

Some brilliant woman once said that motherhood is like being pecked to death by chickens.  The patience testing episodes don’t come in the form of an occasional rude comment or inconsiderate action or temporary invasion of space like you experienced from your peers or parents. It’s the accumulation of all the little things that never. stop. coming. Someone is always:

  • Demanding something
  • Creating a mess
  • Breaking your stuff
  • Touching, pushing, pulling at you
  • Undoing your work
  • Interrupting
  • Making irritating noises
  • Looking for ways to push your buttons
  • Testing your patience

Parenting is the equivalent of a doctorate level testing of your personal character that lasts for 18 years. This process shreds every parent’s delusions of grandure – especially in the area of patience.

So, no, you don’t know what patience is because, again, you think you have it.  Patience is not something you possess. Patience is a moment by moment discipline. It’s a choice.  You have to find a way to give it out even when you dig down to the bottom of your emotional barrel and find that there isn’t a scrap of it left.  That is love, my girl.

Now, does this mean that you have to put up with everything that the kids throw your way?  No, and we’ll look at why next time.

Posted in Blog, Child Discipline, Child-rearing, Dear Me, Expectations, family, Kids, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Self Control, temper, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Dear Me: So What is Parental Love?

Posted on August 13, 2011 by LASM

“The kids who turned out great knew they were loved.” – Aunt Louise

Dear Me,

What does it mean to love your child?  Well, Let’s look at what this kind of love – the kind that helps a kid turn out great – is not before we dive into what it is.

Jane Austin once posed from *Sense and Sensibility’s Marianne, “Is love a fancy or a feeling…or a Ferris?”   In this case, as well as in the type of love that exists between a man and a woman (which I confess is what she was actually referencing), I would have to say neither.  As I said in our last letter, just about every parent has a warm fuzzy feeling for their child – even the nasty ones.  So it must be more than that.  And love cannot be a transient fancy or none of us would love our child after that first diaper when the poo- poo tragically turns into crap.  So love that contributes to a great kid cannot be a fancy or a feeling.

Speaking of Jane Austin, if you were to ask me how I feel about her, I would say, “Jane Austin?  I just love her!” but I have never actually met the woman and we historically know very little about her, so what do I mean by that? I mean that I admire her work.  Well, obviously this isn’t the type of love that could contribute to the making of a successful child, because you won’t admire the kids’ work until about high school when they overcome generations of your gene pool to get high marks in Algebra.  Until then, their “work” (finger painting the couch, taking a bite out of each cooling Christmas cookie, giving the dog a bath with the kitchen sink sprayer) just creates more work for you!  So this is not the kind of love we need to be an effective parent.

You love chocolate peanut butter ice cream, chick flicks, that year Troy remembered your birthday, but this is because they give you pleasure.  Yes, the children very often are great sources of pleasure, but if this is love than it sure is a selfish thing!  I know parents who have raised their children this way – where the only way the child receives love is through pleasing their parent.  It’s heartbreaking to watch.  Eventually, after years of therapy, the child concludes that they weren’t really loved at all.  So, affective love is not that which gives the parent pleasure.

Nope, sorry to say, love is not any of these things.  Love – real love that impacts your children for the good (also husbands and friend by the way) is something you practice- something you do; and the best instructions for the kind of love that will really nourish a child are found in the Bible – 1Corinthians 13:4 – 7 to be exact.  You usually hear this one at weddings, but I think it works well with pretty much every relationship.  It goes like this:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.”

I realize this may feel overwhelming.  According to the Bible love is a lot of things you have to practice, so let’s start unpacking each one of them and see how they apply neatly to parental love.

Love, Older Wiser You

*Ok, I geeked out there a bit.  You didn’t need to know the book title or character name…or even the Ferris part.  I was shamelessly showing off how much you will eventually know about Jan Austin books.  Pathetic, really.

Posted in Child-rearing, Dear Me, family, Kids, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Dear Me, about the secret to a successful child…

Posted on July 30, 2011 by LASM

Dear Me,

So I promised to tell you the secret to bringing up a child successfully.  Today’s the day.  Mostly.

More than a decade ago, when the kids were all still pretty young, I had lunch with our dear Aunt Louise and spent a good chunk of our time verbally up-chucking the parental panic attack of the day: how do I ensure that I make the correct decisions when it comes to raising the children?

See, before acquiring any I had a plan:  when at a fork in the road of the parental journey I will always take the correct path – the one that is best for the child – instead of the easy or selfish one.  Poof!  Perfect kid!

Once a parent, however, I soon found out:

  1. Rarely are parental paths clearly marked. At times I would come to that fork in the road, look down to where each path would eventually lead, and see the City of Doom at the end of both.  For example, I have friends who complain that they have a horrible work ethic because their parents were strict and friends who say they have the same problem because their parents weren’t.  Fantastic. Now what?
  2. There are often more than two paths to choose from. So many, in fact, that some parents sit at the fork instead of venturing down any of them…which I can tell you from experience is the most dangerous choice of all.
  3. It’s not that black and white. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your child is apply a strategy that is selfish and/or easy for you.

Anyway, I’m bewailing all of this to Aunt Louise – the woman who logged about 20 years with Child Social Services – and she gives me the secret to raising a great kid.  Please excuse the following paraphrase (it’s been about 15 years, after all).

She says, “Jamie, I’ve seen lots of parents who did everything ‘right’ with kids that grew into walking disasters and parents who made countless mistakes whose kids turned out great.  The difference?  The kids who turned out great knew they were loved.”

Huh.  So apparently John Lennon was a parental genius.

All you need is love (all together now)

All you need is love (everybody)

All you need is love…love…love is all you need

But what does this mean?  Pretty much every parent, even the really nasty abusive ones, will say that they love their child, and I’m sure they do in the have-a-special-place-in-my-heart-for-my-kid sort of way.  But that isn’t the kind of love she was really talking about.

So what is love?  Is it affection?  A warm, fuzzy feeling? No, because it is very possible to love your kids without them knowing it. Which is we we’re going to spend the next few weeks defining parental love.  Spoiler: it’s a lot of work!

Love, Older Wiser You

Posted in Child Discipline, Child-rearing, Dear Me, family, goals, Kids, Love, parenting, parenting goals, Paths, Wisdom | Leave a comment