A New Year...

I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions.

For very long.

It's not that I don't want to do anything differently. I want to do lots of things differently. I want to lose weight. I want to walk more. I want to eat better. I want to parent better.

But there's something about New Years resolutions that's just so daunting. So overwhelming. So completely, utterly ridiculous.

I also find the whole concept rather anxiety producing, and nothing sets us up for failure more than being completely freaked out that we're going to fail.

So this year, I'm not making those same old resolutions.

I'm making a new one instead.

I'll take each day as it comes, and I will do my best.

I will do my best to eat better, exercise more, breathe more deeply, and yell less. Or at least more quietly. I know that on good days, I will fail at some of these things, and on bad days, I will fail at all of them.

I will do my best to be OK with that, too.

I will do my best to remember that if I wasn't as successful today as I would have liked, there's always tomorrow.

I will do my best to recognize each tomorrow for the gift that it is, in spite of how many things I failed at that day. To remember that if I get to hug my children, kiss my husband, and laugh with someone, it really is a good day.

Wishing you a Happy New Year.

And good days.

One Foot in Front of the Other...

It dawned on me last night that I'm not sure I know how to do this. How to raise our children in this kind of a world, in the way we want to raise them, to be the people we hope they will ultimately become.

I'm not sure I know exactly how I--how any of us-- are supposed to keep living peacefully, happily, and positively in a world where things like this happen.

Where people do this kind of  thing.

Already, so many people seem to have the answers. If we would ban guns, this wouldn't happen. If we let everyone carry them, this wouldn't happen.

If we installed metal detectors.

Put security guards in all of our schools.

If we got rid of video games.

Of our TVs.

Of our computers.

If we had free mental health care.

If we were tougher on crime.

Maybe some of those things would have made a difference. And maybe they wouldn't have.

At this point, we don't know enough about the specifics to really say, though that hasn't stopped so many from jumping onto their soapboxes, declaring that if only this had been different, such devastation couldn't possibly have happened.

Call me a cynic, but I tend to believe that if a person is intent on committing evil, they will find a way to do it. And yet, I hope with all my heart that we find that something could have been done differently. Maybe then, somehow, we will avoid similar devastation in the future.

I don't pretend to know what needs to happen on a larger scale to stop this kind of thing. We seem to look at that larger scale a lot, though. If only we could change the laws. If only we could enforce the laws. If only we could march on Washington, to show that this time, we really are serious, and we are no longer going to accept a society that glamorizes, glorifies, and unfortunately often exemplifies violence.

If only we could look at the smaller scale a little bit more.

If only we could focus more on being the parents our children need us to be. The extended family members our families need us to be. The helpful friend. The concerned neighbor. The listening ear. The watchful eye.

The open heart.

If only we could be the voice that says "Something is wrong here, in this house, or in this family, or in this neigborhood. And we can't ignore it anymore".

If only we could look at what we want our children to know, and make sure we are teaching it. What we want them to be, and make sure we are helping them become it. What we want them to believe, and make sure we are an example of it.

I don't pretend to know what led up to this latest incident. But I tend to believe--I have to believe--that if each of us truly decided to surround the people in our lives--all of them-- with not only love and acceptance, but also with responsibilty and accountability, something would have to change.

Wouldn't it?

Maybe the only way to make big changes is to start small. And when we don't know where to start, maybe we start by putting one foot in front of the other, realizing that there is something we can all do.

We can try.  And then we can try harder.

We can fight.  For our children. For their futures. And for the kind of world we want them to live in.

We can love. Our families. Other families. Strangers. Even when it hurts.

Especially when it hurts.

We can pray. For peace. For strength. For guidance on how to go on in a world as sad as this one.

We can live. For them. For us. For the future.

We can also, in the midst of something as devastatingly heartbreaking as this, choose to embrace all that is beautiful and good in this world. We can choose to surround ourselves not with TV and Internet images of horrific crimes and brutality, but with nature, and art, and music, and friendship.

And love.

Then we can hold our children.

And hope their world will be a better one than ours. And have faith that somehow, it will be.

As we hold them tighter still.

Thank you

I just wanted to thank you for trashing the house today.
For yelling, and being belligerent, and ignoring me completely.
And thank you for calling your brother stupid.

Thank you for throwing that roll of toilet paper down the stairs.
For being loud. So incredibly, beautifully loud.
And thank you for eating the candy in the Advent calendar for breakfast--all twelve pieces.

Thank you for talking back, and getting mud all over the kitchen floor, and leaving a trail of clothes, and toys, and superheros behind you wherever you go.

Thank you for rolling your eyes at me. And for never putting your clothes away. And for stomping your feet as you sulk away up to your room.

Thank you for screaming, and sobbing, and crying. Whenever and wherever you feel like.
At decibels I didn't know existed.

And thank you for your laughter, too.

It is all a reminder of all that I have. Of all that you are.

And of how quickly it can all be taken away.

Grieving. Embracing. Praying.

All at the very same time.

Forty Shades of Gray...

I'm not sure how this happened.

I'm pretty sure that I was just twenty (and dating losers). It seems like only yesterday that I was twenty-five and getting married (when you find one whose not a loser, you have to grab him). It wasn't long ago at all that I was twenty-eight and buying a house. And it seems about impossible that it's been almost eight years since I was thirty-two and having our first baby.

That's what did it. The babies. Oh sure, time flew before that, but not like it has since having kids. I mean, excuse me, my thirties, but where exactly did you go?

Are you still back there, somewhere, under the diapers? Or the wipes? Or the onesies with identical  poop stains on the back? Or did you disappear completely, under the mountains of laundry, and the sippy cups, and the shoes?

The shoes. If someone had told me ten years ago that my thirties would be all about shoes, I would have pictured myself as a character on Sex and the City. In actuality, my thirties were a cross between A Baby Story, What Not to Wear (you know your standards are low when you settle for anything that doesn't have spit up or poop stains), and Hoarders--the Toddler Years. And the reality is, I will never wear those Sex and the City shoes because, thanks to my three beautiful children, I now have flat feet that have somehow grown to a size ten. With callouses. And bunions.

OK, fine. I can't really blame the kids for the bunions. I read all about what causes them. I thought maybe they were due to pregnancy. Or tight shoes after pregnancy. Or too many nights pacing the floors with a crying baby.

But no. Apparently, I have bunions because I'm turning forty.

As it turns our, forty is giving me other things, too. Like wrinkles, and gray hair, and insomnia.

Thanks, Forty. Your generosity is more than I could have ever imagined.

I've heard people say that they've found themselves at forty. I guess there's some truth in that. As I approached forty, I found myself staring into the refrigerator, looking for my car keys. I found myself staring in the mirror, wondering how those ended up there, when they used to be up there. I found myself buying a lot more things in the drugstore with "repair" in the name.

And then today, I found myself thinking what a gift it is, this turning forty thing.

So things are sagging. And wrinkling, And turning gray.

I've earned it all.

Thirties, I don't know where you went. And I'd be lying if I said I won't miss you just a little. We were good together, you and I. But hopefully, I'm just a little bit smarter now. A little bit wiser. And a lot more aware of what really matters.

Family, Friendship, Joy, Love, Laughter.

I don't know what else you'll bring me, Forty. But I know that the greatest gift is being here to receive it.

So just bring it.

Tis the Season

I went shopping yesterday. At a toy store. I won't tell you which one, but it rhymes with Hit Me With a Bus.

I don't love toy stores, but you know, tis the season, and there was a sale. Allegedly. I guess it was a sale, but the ad I saw online said something about 50% off, and since I don't have  time to read the fine print--ever--I assumed that meant 50% off the toys. I didn't know it meant that, by the time I left, I would have lost 50% of my sanity.

I had a list. And limited time. I needed a truck. A bat cave. A tool set. A doll. An art set. And a pirate ship. How hard could this be? I envisioned walking in, looking at my list, finding said toys, putting them in the cart, paying, and leaving.

My visions, however, did not include all the other people. They never do. That's the problem with visions. The important parts are often left out. And the other people, in this case, were quite important. I mean, some of them made it abundantly clear, as they attempted to run me over with their overflowing carts of made in china crap that were, obviously, very important. One in particular made it clear that she was obviously even more important, as she stared at me from the opposite end of an over crowded aisle. Someone was going to have to move if we were both going to get our overflowing carts of made in china pieces of crap out of this aisle.

I don't mind saying that I am usually the mover. I will back up. I will go around. I don't care. I won't engage in Holiday shopping cart rage. I tend to think that's not what Christmas is all about. So as we eyed each other from opposite ends of the aisle, I knew that this could turn into a game of Shopping Cart Chicken, or I could back up into the main aisle, so she could get through. And as I looked at our ridiculously narrow aisle and smiled at my fellow shopper, I was getting ready to do just that.

Except that she didn't smile back.

In fact, she stared at me, as if I had somehow inconvenienced her. Just by being there. In the toy store that rhymes with Hit Me With a Bus. And then, from the opposite end of the aisle, she said "Excuse Me", which is generally a very polite term, except in those cases when you really mean "Excuse me, you will need to back up so I can get through the aisle. Because there's no way I am backing up so that you can get through the aisle".

I'm sure you can guess what I did next.

I backed up. Duh.

She gave me a half smile as she passed. Or maybe it was a half smirk. In either case, it looked much more smirky than smiley. But since she didn't actually speak, I'm thinking it must have been code for Thank You. So, I did what anyone does when someone says Thank you.

I smiled and sweetly said "Oh, you're welcome!"

And then I watched her run into the rather large stack of Barbies in the middle aisle.

Oops.

I found most of what I needed, but when I was looking at the art sets, which were allegedly 50% off, there seemed to be a minor issue with price tags. As in, there weren't any. Anywhere.

I found a clerk. His name was Clark. Really, his name tag said exactly that.

Clark.

Clerk.

Clark, however, was not a happy clerk. He sighed at me when I asked him if he had a circular with the sale prices in it. Then he slowly took a circular from the shopping cart in front of him, and appeared as if he was even going to open it. Except that he didn't. He just stared at it. Eventually, he turned the pages. Without looking at them. Then he asked me what art set I was looking for. I told him the one that was on 50% off. He said it was hard to know, because they had so many. Then he sighed again. He asked me what sale day I was talking about. Was it for Tuesdays sale, or Wednesdays sale?

Um, well, since today was Wednesday, I was kind of thinking Wednesdays sale.

But then I wondered if that was his way of asking me what day it was, and I started feeling kind of bad for Clark. I got the impression that Clark had been a clerk for a really long time, and he's got to be sick of dealing with important people and their overflowing shopping carts, and their stupid art sets.

In fact, I started thinking that I should just leave Clark alone.  Mainly because, as Clark the clerk stood there, with a circular in his hand that he was occasionally sort of, kind of looking at,  it wasn't clear if he was actually helping me, or taking a long over due break.

But as I thanked him for checking and started to walk away, he must have felt bad for me, too. He said we could go look at the art sets together. So we did. Eventually. First, Clark and I wandered around for several minutes, dodging overflowing shopping carts, and their important, hostile drivers. And as we did, I thought, no wonder Clark sighs so much.

Eventually, we found the art sets. Clark found me one that was 50% off, and I was on my way. Through more shopping carts. More important people. More sighing clerks.

And a pile of Barbies in the middle of the aisle.

I said Excuse Me, but they didn't move. So I ran them over.

Cause I'm important that way.

Holy Motherhood

N made her first confession today.

I wasn't sure about this, since I'm not so sure about confession in general. ( No one tell my priest.)

I wasn't big on confession when I first made mine in fourth grade. I still wasn't big on it before my confirmation in 10th grade. Sometime after that, I saw on the news that the priest who had heard my first confession had been a pedophile.

That one kind of put a damper on the whole confession thing for me.

In all honesty I'm pretty sure I was done with confession long before I heard about that priest. But it did serve to strengthen my convictions.

Of course, I have plenty to confess. I just prefer to confess it directly. And truth be told, I'm always asking God to forgive me for something. Just this morning, after I called the driver in front of me an incompetent idiot, I asked God to forgive me. And when I lost it with B yesterday, I asked God to forgive me, because surely he didn't send us these children so that I could act like an incompetent idiot when it came to parenting. There's more, but suffice it to say much of it involves someone being incompetent, or an idiot, or both.

And most often, it's me.

All this time., I've been pretty comfortable doing it my way. Even the Church agrees that I don't need to be in a confessional to ask for forgiveness. I can be in my car, or my kitchen, or hiding in my bathroom, and I'm forgiven just the same.

But then we had kids. And we decided to raise them Catholic. And kids now have to make their first penance before their First Communion.

Which would be now.

When I first mentioned the whole confession thing to N, she looked at me and asked me if she understood this correctly. She was going to talk to the priest...by herself..about her..sins?

Um, yup, that's about it.

Then she cried.

I can't say that I blamed her.

I hoped that as she learned more, she would relax a little. We took classes. And read. And talked. And I attempted to explain it all, though probably not very well, since after all, how could I explain why this was so necessary when I didn't really think it was, well...necessary?

I seriously considered not making her do it, but that would involve pulling her from religious ed which I definitely didn't want to do.

So, instead, I gave her ideas to talk about with the priest .

After all, she is only seven. She's never called anyone an incompetent idiot. She's probably never even thought about calling someone an incompetent idiot.

"Just tell Father that you hit your brothers sometimes", I told her.

She stared at me for a minute and said,  "I only hit them when you tell me I can hit them, because they hit me first".

Huh.

"I know", I told her, "And I stand by that. But it's probably not what Jesus would do."

She stares at me again. She's doing that a lot lately.

"So, what, am I going to confession for you?"

Well, at least one of us would be.

In the end, she told me she had it figured out and didn't seem interested in my suggestions.

Today was the day. I prepared myself for tears. Drama. Sobbing in front of the Church.

In reality, she took a few deep breaths before we went in, and we sat quietly while the priest prayed for those making their first penance. At one point, parents were invited to lay their hand on their child's head and pray over them. I should say that the Catholic Church in which I was raised did not have parents lay their hands on their children heads. We also didn't hold hands during the Our Father. We sat (or stood, or kneeled) completely still, looked straight ahead, shook hands at the sign of the peace, said hello to the priest as we hoped he didn't notice that he had never once seen us at confession, and left.

But, hey, I'm open to new ways. So, I raised my hand toward N's head. And she looked at me like I had lost my mind.

And then she ducked.

She did, however, go to confession. There was a long line, as she had made it clear that she was only going into the room that had a screen, and that room just happened to be the most popular.

So we waited.  A mom next to me tried to take her son's picture, and her husband looked at her as if she was an incompetent idiot, and said "This is not a Kodak moment."

"Other people are taking pictures, " she told him pointedly.

He shook his head, buried his face in his hands, and muttered something that caused her to stalk off with her camera.

I know the priest must hear some stuff in that confessional, but I have to say, I was finding it pretty interesting outside of the confessional.

The line was getting shorter. Some kids were coming out happy, clearly ecstatic to have it over with. Some came out laughing, since our priest is incredibly funny. A couple boys came out crying.

When N's turn came, I hugged her and thought I should say something profound.

So I smiled and said..."Have fun!"

Have fun?

Dear God, it's true, I am an incompetent idiot.

In the end, my girl went in, she confessed some quite possibly made up sin, she came out, and smiled, and shrugged.

Clearly, this was no big deal.

I don't know if this will serve her in the future. Maybe at some point she'll find some tremendous benefit from it that I so far haven't. Or maybe, thirty years from now, she'll tell her kids that she's not making them go to confession, like her incompetent idiot of a mother did.

But at the very least, she did something hard, and now she knows that she can do hard things. And she learned that to be forgiven, all you have to do is ask.

Most importantly, she learned that when your mother makes you do something hard, like talk to a priest about sins that you quite likely had to make up, she will stop on the way home and buy you a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing, and let you eat in the car.

There are many ways to ask for forgiveness.