so campy

for about a year, brooke has been talking about going to summer camp. she'd read about it in a book and seen some tv episodes about camping and she wanted to give it a try. it made me a little sick to my stomach when i first started considering actually letting her go. she's always been explosive when things got too loud or overwhelming. she likes to know what to expect all the time and she needs time to transition more slowly than most kids from one activity to the next. these are all things that would likely be aggravated by a typical camp environment.

there's a place i went as a kid, every summer, called word of life ranch. it's a wonderful, beautiful place in the adirondack mountains where college students who have done a year at their bible institute work as counselors during the summer. i have tons of happy memories of being there and i felt like, if brooke was going to camp, that's where it would need to be.

i got over my anguishy belly and signed her up for a week. i decided she would only go as a day camper rather than overnight every day for a week so as to have a chance to detox and calm down in my presence if things got too overwhelming for her. i was anticipating at least one SOS call from camp admin asking me to come get her because she was freaking out and inconsolable.

well, as it turns out, brooke was incredibly ready for camp. we drove to new york (15 hr drive) and for a couple nights we just went to the evening camper meetings and walked around the property. she had a chance to absorb the noises and smells and chaos and yelling with me at her side before i dropped her off for a whole day. she met her counselors and the kids who would share her cabin for the week. she was more than ready when i left her at 7:30 monday morning.

all day long, i waited for the phone call of distress. nothing. i enjoyed my day with family and when i picked her up in the evening, she was happy and full of sugary joy.

she got to take a horsemanship class that allowed her to spend a total of six hours with the horses over the course of the week and that was definitely her favorite part.

brooke functioned happily through so many various new things all week long. she had to learn how to go through a food line and pick her own meal choices three times a day. she had to sit still and quiet through bible meetings. she had to always keep track of at least one of her counselors and she had to stay calm even when things got super loud.

each night when i picked her up, she didn't want to sit quietly with me to cool down after a hectic day. she wanted to play and squeal with her cousins and practice her newfound trick of armpit farts.

all in all, it was a fantastical week, better than i'd even dared to hope. she can't wait to go back next year and she wants to sleep over in 2013 now that she knows what to expect.

it's amazing to see my little aspie girl absorbing and applying all the coping skills she's learned so that she can go new places and try new things without becoming overwhelmed or freaking anyone out in the process. my soul is a happy place.

God won't let me go naked

Five months ago, i had just started dieting. i wasn't entirely sure how it was going to go or if i'd be successful, but i was determined. i remember saying to my mom that i didn't know what i'd do if i shrunk out of all my clothes. i can't afford to buy new ones just because the older ones don't fit anymore. she assured me that God wouldn't let me go naked.

i've been volunteering with a thing my church does called "the closet." it's a place where anyone can drop off clothing or linen donations, much like goodwill, but instead of selling the items cheaply, everything is free to anyone who needs it. they have shopping days 4 times a year and everyone who comes in can take what they need for their family. i love this organization. i've donated tons of our clothes and brooke and i work there - sorting, organizing, carrying, hanging, painting, helping customers, etc. 

this place has also been a wonderful source of clothes for us this year. i can't wear anything from last summer unless i'm able to tailor it. i've cut down a few things, but not everything can be altered by me, by hand and i really needed a lot of new things.

today i got to do some shopping in there and i got a whole bunch of stuff, including some things for brooke and i to wear to my sister's wedding next month. i even got a pair of brand new, gorgeous heels that are exactly what i need for the couple dressy things i own. and might i also mention that the quality of my clothing has improved tremendously since i started getting second hand stuff. i've never even tried anything on in ann taylor or banana republic or some of the expensive department stores, but now i've got all that pretty, high quality stuff hanging in my closet and it was either free or really cheap from goodwill.

on a separate, but related note, i started doing P90X three weeks ago. a few months ago, i never would have been able to do most of it, but i'm keeping up fairly well, though there's room for improvement. i've lost 54 pounds now and i think i'm physically stronger than i've ever been in my life. free weights are new to me, but i like them. it's kind of cool to be able to see muscles popping in my arms and legs. and i'm discovering that i have bones that i'd almost forgotten about. collar bones, shoulder bones, hips, ribs. so exciting.

i feel like my life has gotten bigger as my body has gotten smaller. when i was fat, i wanted to be physically invisible. i wanted to wear baggy, plain, uninteresting clothes to avoid drawing the eyes of anyone i didn't know. i avoided doing fun or silly things that might cause my fat to jiggle. 

so many things have changed for me internally as i've changed externally that i'm wondering why it took me so long to do it. then again, the shrinking world sneaks in, a little piece at a time, not all at once, so that you almost don't notice it until you've gotten used to it. and i wouldn't appreciate the changes as much if i hadn't lived life in chubbytown for ten years.

i'm so glad that God didn't want me to look frumpy or go naked.

brookie

sunday, brooke got baptized at church. she's been wanting to do this for a few months and finally got the chance. however, once the moment arrived, she got pretty nervous and almost changed her mind. i guess the hundreds of people and big cameras surrounding her, as well as the strangers smiling at her from around the edges of the dunking pool became a little too much.

but she hung in there, clinging to my side with tears in her eyes until the last possible second and then went in like a champ. she said that she loved Jesus and wanted to be baptized to show that.

i love this picture of brooke hanging on my dad.

on a different and unrelated brooke note, yesterday she was super annoyed by school. it was hard and she had no patience for the shenanigans of her math and spelling assignments. i found this note written on the top of her spelling page. and i had to laugh because "screw" is one of her spelling words and she used it correctly in a sentence.

i'm such a proud mama!

greasy tow truck man

nine years ago, we lived in a smallish city in north carolina and my husband was working as a youth pastor at a small church. it was the kind of church where it's filled with mostly old people and their families. families who attend because they've always attended and their mom and cousins and grandpa will be there every sunday. there wasn't much of a youth group because most of church's finances seemed to be sunk into their building and maybe the music program (those elderly folks loved their old hymns), rather than the future generations.

as a result, chris had a lot of time during the days when he wasn't doing anything youth related. he cleaned the building, created the bulletin, answered the phones, and went on sick calls with the rotten lead pastor.

on one of those days when he was out riding around with that snide man, i had to run to the bank to make a deposit, but the bank i needed to go to was about an hour away. no problem. i bundled up brooke, glanced at myself in the mirror and decided that i wouldn't be getting out of the car, so there was no need to brush my hair or change out of my pajamas. i slapped on a coat and away we went.

on the way back from our errand, about 45 minutes from home, my car got a flat tire. we were on the highway, but i was able to safely steer over to the shoulder where i proceeded to evaluate my options. it was march, so it was still pretty cold. i was wearing pajamas. i didn't know how to change a tire. i had a baby with me who was too heavy to carry very far in her car seat/carrier. i had no cell phone.

i decided that my best course of action would be to walk to the next exit which, thankfully, wasn't too far ahead. i picked up brooke, glad that i'd dressed her warmly, and started trekking down the highway, carrying a baby, a purse and a diaper bag. in my slippers.

i got to a gas station and found a pay phone inside the building. then i found that i had no coins. there was an ancient phone card in my wallet, so i was able to place a long distance call to my house. no answer. i called the church. no answer. i would NOT call the old pastor's cell phone even though i knew chris was probably with him.

that left me with very few options. i went into the bathroom and cried while sitting on the toilet with my jammie pants on and my baby on my lap. then i gave myself a stern talking to and dried my eyes. i went back out into the store and sat down at the table where you could eat a nasty hot dog or pre-packaged sandwich if you were so inclined. i tried to think of what i should do when a female employee walked over and asked if i needed some help. i explained my predicament and she told me that there was a customer who usually came in around that time every day who drove a tow truck. she was just sure he'd be happy to help me out once he got there.

she walked away and i raced to the phone to try to call my husband again. still no answer. i started praying. praying that the tow truck man would show up soon and also that he wouldn't be a rapist or baby murderer. my stomach was in knots the size of small puppies.

that man did show up before long. he came over and assured me that he'd be glad to help me out. he smiled crookedly from beneath his dirty hat and reached out to shake my hand with his grease stained fingers. i reluctantly shook back and then mentally ruled that hand to be off limits for touching any part of brooke's skin.

he directed us toward his truck. it was a large tow truck, way off the ground and up i climbed with brooke and all our stuff in my arms. i'd never ridden in a vehicle with my baby not strapped into a car seat, but there really was no decent option. so i zipped her into my coat with nothing but her little bald head showing and strapped the seat belt around us both.

he started up the rig and headed out of the parking lot. away from the highway. when i realized that he wasn't driving toward my car, but rather away from it, i gulped hard, trying to wrestle my stomach puppies into some semblance of calm so that i could speak without my voice trembling. i reminded him where my car was and he informed me that he was just going the back way to the previous exit so that he'd come up on my car from the right direction.

i was pretty sure that i was never going to see my husband again. we were driving down country roads in a place where i'd never been with a dirty man i didn't know and i was completely defenseless. what was i thinking getting into that truck? i did a mental inventory of anything i might have with me that could be used as a weapon. my keys were probably my best bet because diapers and breast milk weren't going to be helpful in any conceivable way if it came down to defensive maneuvers.

i held brooke tightly to my chest and kissed her warm, little head. i told her in my mind that i would be willing to die to protect her. and i prayed. the same prayer over and over. "please God, keep us safe. please, God, keep us safe."

the ride probably lasted less than ten minutes, but they may have been the longest ten minutes of my life. we pulled up behind my car and the greasy tow truck man told me to sit tight while he got out and changed my tire for me. when he was finished, he handed me back my keys and helped me down from the cab of his truck. he wouldn't even let me pay him for changing the tire, just tipped his hat and told me to drive safe. then, with a rumble and a chug, he was off down the highway, leaving myself and my snoozing bambino in his fumes on the side of the road.

i got a cell phone after that. and i stopped leaving the house in my pajamas.

africa

i talk about my mom fairly regularly on here because she's such an interesting person. she and i have a lot of fun together and since i moved to her town 8 months ago, we get to spend a lot of time together. she helps me figure out how to do the projects i dream up and she's encouraging when i need uplifting.

a few years ago, my mom started going on short term mission trips to different countries. she's been to south america a few times and two years ago she went to china. a few weeks ago, she went to africa. she went to a tiny little country on the western side of the continent called guinea bissau.

this place was rated as the worst place on earth to be a woman. the living conditions are awful and poor and dirty. the women do all the work and have piles of babies to tend to while trying to keep their homes maintained and food in the bellies of their families. they live in mud houses with dirt floors and thatched roofs.

the purpose of my mom's trip there was to spend time with the ladies in the villages surrounding the missionaries' house giving them some pampering and showing them that they have value in God's sight. she bought and packed piles, bags and boxes full of all kinds of fun beauty, spa treatment things. nail polish, exfoliating scrubbers, foot soak, massage oil, nail clippers, moisturizers, the works. 

these ladies didn't even know what most of that stuff was and had certainly never had any kind of pampering before. there isn't even a word in their language for "spa" so they settled on calling it a "salon" because they at least knew what that was even if they'd never been to one.

my mom started a blog after she got back to tell the stories of how she got to guinea bissau and what happened happened while she was there. she includes lots of pictures and tales of how different life is in that amazing place.

you should definitely check it out. i've read all of it so far and keep going back to look at the pictures again. 

here's the link to the first post, but don't stop there. keep clicking. Where He Leads

self improvement in 2012

i used to hear people say things around new years like "well last year was a really bad year. i hope next year will be better." and i never really grasped the concept of a "bad year" until a couple years ago. right as we rang in 2010, one of our cars died. never to be resuscitated. i thought it would be only a brief foray into being a single car family, but here we are more than 2 years later still with only our vanny to share.

right after the car died, chris developed auto immune disease and lost the hearing in one of his ears and found out that he was pre-diabetic, so it seemed like everything for him changed all of a sudden. and as his life changed, so did mine, but it certainly didn't feel like it was for the better.

so 2010 was a rotten year of learning to adjust to new norms. i hated all of them. i was so glad when 2010 was over and i was hopeful that 2011 would be better. however, as the year progressed, chris' health got even worse and brooke was doing badly with school which, as a homeschooling mom, left me feeling extremely frustrated and often helpless and stuck. but in june, we packed up and moved all of a sudden. we left behind a few friends, but for the most part, our lives there had been feeling like we were at a dead-end for a while and we desperately needed something to change.

we moved in with the in-laws and have worked our way through some adjustments. it's hard to live with other people, but chris' health has improved quite a bit and that's worth a lot to me. but i've been feeling stuck here too. it's time to stop just being as i've always been. stop living my life simply in reaction to the needs of the people around me.

2012 is going to be my year of self improvement. i stopped swearing. i've got tons of will power when it comes to decisions i'm really ready to make, so that hasn't been too hard.

i've started volunteering with a group that's associated with my church to provide clothing to people who are too poor to purchase clothes. brooke's going with me each time i work too, so i'm setting a good example for her of learning to take care of other people even if they're not technically our responsibility.

i got to the dermatologist and my skin is loving the new products i'm using. for the first time in over a year, i've been able to spend days without makeup covering my face just to make me presentable.

a couple weeks ago, something happened to a family member and it was life changing for me. it's not my story to share publicly, so i won't, but it made me desperate for answers from a supernatural source because there were no good answers to be found in the world around me. so i dug into my bible like i haven't done in far too long. and i opened back up a relationship with Jesus that i have neglected. that's definitely an improvement in my life.

my sister sarah asked me to be in her wedding in august. of course i'm happy to do so, and it gave me exactly the kick in the pants that i needed to start getting in shape. i've dropped most of the bad foods and added in many healthy ones. i've started exercising every day and already, in just 3 weeks, i've lost 10 lbs. i've also started eating barley powder again, but that's a story for another post.

all in all, i can feel my life shifting in a much more positive direction. i've never been one who's always looking for ways to change and improve myself and clearly, that's why so many things have been wrong for so long. but this is a new year and today is a new day.

and by august, i'll be ready to wear whatever dress sarah decides to put me in. here's the picture she sent me today as a possible option for the wedding party. won't we look awesome?

 

things that take my breath away

have you ever gotten a gift that took your breath away? it doesn't have to be for christmas or your birthday. it could be any time.

i've had a few of those in my life, but it's been a long time since the last one (which was vanny, our minivan, given to us for free by chris' brother 8 years ago).

this year, for christmas, i got two such wonderful gifts.

a couple days before christmas, i got an email from my mom telling me that she was going to tell me what my present was early because she wanted to be sensitive to my feelings and didn't know if i'd want the whole family to be there when i got it.

here's the poem she wrote for the occasion.

Zits are the pits

And bumps are for frumps.

Blemishes give you

A case of the grumps.

So run to the doctor

And get your new skin, 

Cuz this is the year 

Of the new Sherilin!

i burst out in ridiculous sobs as i read that email. the idea that they're going to pay for me to go to a dermatologist and get my awful face fixed so that i won't be a slave to the concealer anymore makes me more happy than i even realized til that moment. it's hard being too poor to go to the doctor. and too poor to dress decently. and too chubby to look good in my cheap clothes. and for me, having my skin be a wreck all the time is like having to lug around something big and heavy and rotten all the time.

that was amazing gift number one. i was sure that the amazingness was done for a few years. i was satisfied and pleased and content.

then i went to my family's house on christmas eve for all our special traditions and fun and food (ohmygosh the COOKIES!) and presents. we didn't have much to give, but i was delivering the quilt i made and some other little goodies as well as a certificate for my mom for 90 minutes of massage from my magical fingers and for my dad, a declaration that i'd clean and wash his filthy old 1993 van - twice. 

i made these out of the tips of ferns that i snipped off a big pretty plant.

my youngest sister, erica, said she had to go get the gift for me and she ran down to her room. she came partway back into the room and said, "i want everyone to know this is not a rash decision. i've been thinking about it for a while now and i'm really okay with this."

this is what she pulled from around the corner.

i think the air got sucked right out of the room. no one knew what to say, least of all me. i stared at the computer, i stared at erica. i couldn't form words, but my tear ducts were working overtime.

this is a great big, 27 inch iMAC she had bought for herself and then decided she didn't need as much as she needed the money, so she was going to resell it. only, instead of waiting for it to sell, she gave it to ME! 

i couldn't believe she did that. but then again, erica is a girl with the biggest, most generous heart of anyone i know. she is giving with everything within herself and she proved it yet again last week. 

my family amazes me. they bestow love and gifts and friendship on me, more than i could ever deserve or dream for. they remind me to be thankful even when other pieces of life feel difficult or frustrating. i'm very blessed.

here's one more picture from that day. it's my brother, parents and myself. the sisters weren't around for this one.

belly baby

this post is not going to be entertaining and you will not leave here laughing your abs off. if you're not in the mood for some raw & honest emotions, feel free to click away, baby, click away.

when we had been married for a couple years, i decided that i needed to have a baby. i told that story over here, so if you're interested you can check it out. it took a couple years and a some fertility testing and treatments (including a sperm donation from my husband) before we eventually got pregnant with brooke.

we decided that if we were going to have the one, we would like her to have a sibling so she wouldn't be a bored, selfish only child, and we wanted that second child to be close to brooke's age, so our goal was to have the kids 2 years or less apart. almost as soon as brooke was born, we were ready to try again for baby number 2, but once again, we had no success at getting pregnant.

2 years went by with no luck, so we decided that as long as the kids could be 3 years or less apart, it would be fine. at least then brooke wouldn't be an only child. shortly after brooke's second birthday, i got pregnant. i was still doing the whole temperature charting, ovulation predicting thing, so i knew i was pregnant within just a few days of it happening.

i was looking forward to the time when i was far enough along to take a pregnancy test and see the positive results. i waited a few weeks because i was busy and i already knew in my mind that the results were positive, so there wasn't a big rush. then one day i started bleeding and cramping and i rushed to the store for a test. the result was a very weak positive, but it told me my baby was really there. unfortunately the bleeding continued and i resigned myself to the fact that was having a miscarriage.

i tried to block out the emotional distress. i went on about my life as if nothing was happening and i didn't talk about it very much. i took care of brooke every day, but i couldn't focus on anything except my lost baby.

three months later, i was pregnant again. it was 3 years to the day of when i'd gotten a positive result on a pregnancy test with brooke & that felt to me like a good sign. i was going to have 2 kids 3 years apart and one of my best friends had just found out she was pregnant a week earlier, so there was the extra excitement of sharing my pregnancy with her. i felt confident that this one was going to work. i didn't let myself dwell on the miscarriage, i just prayed and trusted that this was the who was going to complete our little family.

 a few weeks later, the bleeding started again. and it was painful. i went to a doctor who told me that yes i was pregnant, but that the baby had died before the heartbeat could be detected. i probably wouldn't need a d&c, i just needed to wait for it to pass.

this time, i was eaten up with the grief. i was devastated and felt like i'd been destroyed. i could hardly get out of bed. my child was left to fend for herself during many of the hours when chris went to work. she would sometimes hug me and kiss my stomach and say she was kissing my belly baby. she brought me her toys and snacks to try to cheer me up, but all i could do was cry and tell her that the belly baby was in heaven now.


i dreaded going to the bathroom because i knew that i would have to see the mess that was flowing out of my body. i didn't want to let it go. it was coming out of me in clots, so every time i changed a pad, i felt like i was throwing pieces of my baby in the trash. one night i sat on the toilet and held a used pad wrapped up in a wad in my arms and hugged it and bawled because it was the only chance i'd ever have to hold and hug my baby. i knew it was gross, but i just couldn't let go. just because it was small didn't mean it deserved to go into the garbage with old hair and q-tips. it took me a long time to leave it behind.

i ran a bath that night & filled the tub with a massive quantity of bubbles, then turned off the lights and climbed in. i dunked myself so far down into the tub that only my nose and mouth were out and i closed my eyes and thought about how i would never get to spend any time with my second or third babies. i'd never get to know them or see them or hug them. i thought about how maybe if i just ended my own life in the bathtub, i could go be with them and stop feeling like i was breaking all into little pieces.

knowing that brooke would be left without a mommy if i went through with that terrible idea was enough to keep my nose out of the water. barely. so instead i took that time in the bath, in the dark, and i cried out all my pain. i buried my head in a mountain of bubbles and imagined that my two tiny babies were in there with me and that they knew how much i loved them. i thought about an email i'd gotten from a friend's mom telling me that she'd had a miscarriage too and that she was consoled at the idea that her baby was being cared for and loved by Jesus in heaven. and what better babysitter than the king of the universe.

eventually the physical pain subsided, but the emotional pain lasted a lot longer. so many people said things to me that they meant to be kind, but were hurtful instead. they told me i'd have more children eventually. they told me it was God's will that the babies weren't born. they told me that most likely they didn't make it because they were physically defective and therefore, better off not ever being born.

i wanted to scream at all of them. i wanted to tell them that their child was dead and then pat their shoulder and with a trite little smile say that it was God's will. i wanted to tell them that they were defective and better off dead. i wanted them all to shut up. they had nothing practical to offer me and their words were brutal. i wanted them to stop asking if they could help and instead, come over and take care of brooke for me. i wanted someone to bring dinner to my house so that at least there would be something to eat for the family members who could still swallow food. i wanted someone to do the piles of laundry that were piling up that i didn't have the energy to wash.

but i didn't ask for help. i didn't ask for anything. i just slowly started picking up the pieces of myself and trying to put me back together again.

after that, i decided that i had enough children. one was going to be my perfect number. i was going to do everything i could to prevent brooke from becoming a spoiled, self-centered only child, but i was going to pour myself into her every single day and be thankful for her.

and i was never again going to offer stupid condolences that had no action behind them. i was going to send cards to anyone i knew who had a miscarriage, just like i would if their breathing child died. i was going to use my own awful experience to become a more sensitive person. and i was going to hug brooke. a lot.

grandpa

i can hardly believe that june is almost over & this is only my 4th post of the month. i've never been so dry for so long. i've seen other bloggers go through dry writing spells & thought it would never happen to me. i'm such a foolish, naive girl sometimes.

my brain is dry like sand paper. uncooked pasta. my mouth after eating a scoop of chocolate milk powder. deserts. a fence post in the sun. my skin after too many zit cream applications. . . . i've got nothing else & those weren't even particularly colorful. i'm just dry. parched. drained. arid. depleted.

my grandpa died thursday. it's been a long time in coming. he was suffering and had so many things wrong with his body at the end that i'm sure it was a relief for it to end. i believe he's in heaven now and he's probably running around on the leg that he lost last year, happy to be mobile and energetic again.

the last time i saw him was about a year and a half ago and he was still riding around on his scooter, quacking to the ducks at the pond. he'd roll up and start quacking & ducks would come flying straight in, like they were his own personal pets. brooke loved riding with him on his scooter, around the mall or the botanical gardens or the neighborhood. he always made funny noises and did silly things to make the kids laugh.

grandpa feeding brooke snacks before a wedding in 2006.

sitting together in the garden in 2009.

his final moments. holding his daughter's hand.

i'll be leaving in a few days to drive the 13 hrs with my parents & the brookster to attend the funeral and visit the relatives. when we get back here, we'll be back to trying to find our new normal. everything seems to be shaped differently now.

we'll miss you, grandpa.

where oh where has my husband gone

this move has been crazy. in the process of us getting here, it seems pretty clear that God has worked out a bunch of details that we couldn't possibly have arranged or finagled ourselves. we feel confident that this was the right move at the right time.

once we got here last week, it was time for chris to find a new job. the plan was that he would get a job & i would be able to quit working so i can be a better homeschooling mom. with brooke's aspie challenges, she needs more than i've been able to give her while i was working even though i've only been working 2 days a week most weeks. my goal is to change that and be super teacher/mommy starting in august or september when we resume the necessary evil that is schooling.

we arrived on tuesday night. friday i was contacted on by a mutual friend of ours who was the best man in our wedding, but who we haven't seen in several years. he had a job suggestion for chris. chris emailed his resume friday night. he texted a couple times back & forth with the potential employer over the weekend & he was told to be at an address at 9am monday morning. we thought he was going for an interview.

when the guy showed up to meet him monday morning, he said, "you ready to go to (fill in the blank of a city a couple hrs away)?"  chris said he guessed so but he'd need to return the car to the house. he called on his way back here & asked me to pack him a bag. he thought he'd be gone one night. okay, that was monday morning & here it is, the wee hours of friday morning & he hasn't come back yet. i've talked to him on the phone a couple times & we've texted quite a bit, but it's so weird to me that he went for an interview and then was gone for 4 days and counting on a business trip, with no warning. i've joked that he either just got a great job or he got kidnapped. every day when we communicate he tells me that he thinks he's coming home that day or the next day. maybe he'll come home tomorrow.

it's kind of strange living with his parents and him not even being here. i heard on the news though, a couple days ago, that for every job opening available right now in america, there are 4 people trying to push their way into it. so i can't complain that he got a job, he likes it, he's working enough hours that there should be a lovely paycheck in our near future. he didn't even have to hunt for the job, so once again, it feels like a God thing. i believe that, but i hope he won't be gone this much all the time.

turmoil in tune town

brooke's been doing this thing lately where she's suddenly growing up. she's interested in clothes & not just wanting to wear all natural animal colors anymore & she likes cute shoes. she's been wearing animal ears less frequently and wanting to talk on the phone & skype. these are all good things & nice for me to see because it has been very hard for me to imagine what kind of teenager and woman she would become when i didn't see any signs of interest in "normal" stuff before.

she's also become interested in music lately. chris is a musician and has very eclectic taste, so we've got lots of different stuff playing around the house & in the car when chris is around. i usually hear music & just think it sounds like noise when i'm home, so i turn it off, but when we're driving, i generally tune in to one popular radio station or another.

we've discovered that we can put music onto brooke's DSi & she can listen to it & mess with the songs using lots of special effects, which is a lot of fun for her. in the course of finding some songs to load onto it, she's made some suggestions of songs she'd like that are popular, but once i really listen to them, or look up the lyrics, they're really bad!

when i was a kid, my parents didn't let us listen to "secular" music. it was classical or christian in our house & i always felt like i was missing out on part of growing up that all my friends enjoyed. as a mom, i've decided not to make that rule for brooke, particularly since i don't follow it myself. i appreciate some christian music, but it's certainly not all i listen to. but with that being said, sometimes it's hard for us to find music that's acceptable & appropriate for an 8 yr old girl to be listening to & singing as she plays.

there's the katy perry song "california gurls" with the line, "Daisy Dukes, Bikinis on top. Sun-kissed skin So hot Will melt your popsicle, Oooooh Oh Oooooh." of course, brooke's favorite bit is the one about the popsicle, because what kid doesn't love a popsicle, but i'm not loving hearing her sing about daisy dukes and bikinis so hot they'll melt anyone's popsicle.

she was singing along with lady gaga on the radio when i heard the line, "i wanna take a ride on your disco stick." ick! not something kids should be singing, time to change the station.

then there's the kesha song she wanted called "blah, blah, blah." i googled those lyrics & found this little batch of verbal gems. "I dont really care where you live at. Just turn around boy and let me hit that. Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat. Just show me where your dick's at."

she was getting frustrated that i shot down that song too & she didn't understand what my problem was, so i finally told her that the song was about sex. her face shut up in mid-complaint. we recently had the birds & bees talk, so she knew what i meant. she started backing away from me, but i figured since i had started, i might as well throw in another hunk of disturbing info for her - "it talks about penises." at that point she started waving her arms & telling me that she'd never ask for another kesha song again & to please stop talking about it.

this parenting business is tricky, but i'm thankful for google because it puts all the information i could possibly want or need right at my fingertips. but then again, it puts all that same info at the tips of my brookie's fingers too & that might not be such a good thing as she get curious about more things. damn...

stupid, stupid girls

i've had a couple people write out a story from their childhood memory bank for me lately & that's gotten me to thinking about my own ancient history. one certain thing keeps coming to mind, but i cringe every time i remember it.

between the ages of 9 and 16, i lived in this one house in a suburb in new york state. it was typical suburbia, with neighborhoods never far from shopping or restaurants. i'm not sure how old i was when i finally convinced my parents that i was old enough to walk to the store, but eventually i was allowed to walk down to the stores and fast food places about a mile from my house. at first i could only go if my older brother went, but eventually i was trusted to go, as long as i was with one of my girlfriends.

it was an easy walk, no hills, and we'd just meander along the shoulder of the road since we were really only going for fun, not because we needed to get somewhere. sometimes, when we girls were walking, people would honk at us as they flew past in their cars. at first it startled us. but then we realized that many of the drivers were actually guys who we presumed were checking our fine selves out. sometimes they would yell things out of the window as they sped past, like "woohoo!" or "yeah, baby!" or "nice rack!" it was shocking and offensive and amazingly exciting all in one rush of wind as a car went past, leaving us foolish girls in a wake of exhaust and excitement.

one summer, somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16, a friend and i spent a lot of time walking. we walked in my neighborhood, her neighborhood, the mall, the local pool, the beach on vacation together. anywhere we could freely go, we went. and we were getting so many honks and yells that we decided to start counting them. i have no idea what our final count was, but it was fun trying to keep track of our percieved awesomeness by seeing how much honky feedback we could collect.

sometimes a car would slow down or stop to talk to us. we knew we should get away from cars who stop in the road for girls like us, but there were times when we couldn't resist the urge to see if maybe our parents were wrong. if maybe the world wasn't out to harm and destroy us like we'd been warned, but instead might have wholesome intentions and just want to ask for our phone numbers or tell us we were cute. there were times when a driver would stop and ask us where we were going or even offer us a ride. there were a few times when it was adults, generally couples or a mom-ish woman who probably legitimately wanted to be helpful, but mostly it was teenaged or young adult guys. and i'm horrified to admit that sometimes we would climb right into those cars with strangers and accept a ride to the nearest grocery store or hardees.

we would huddle together in the backseat, scared and thrilled to be living dangerously. we made small talk with our drivers and hoped that this wouldn't be our last day on earth. we hoped that the person who's car we were riding in would actually drop us off where we intended to go rather than drive into the woods & do unspeakable things to our clueless, naive selves.

every single time we accepted rides from strangers, they really did take us to our intended destination. the couples and moms would warn us that we really shouldn't be getting into cars with people because not everyone was as nice as them. the boys would ask for our names or numbers and we'd give our aliases and fake digits, thinking we were the smart ones by not giving out our real info.

at this stage of my life, as a mom of a little girl, i pray and teach and warn my child about the very same things my parents told me. i thank God that he never let me or my friends be stolen or hurt or even really scared, in spite of our own stupidity. all i can say is that i think the prayers that my parents were praying really worked because my safety and well-being clearly cannot be attributed to my clear-headed thinking & wise decision making process.

the christmas fiasco of '87

i was thinking about writing a christmas story to help out tracy at "it's an average life" while she takes some time off from writing, but doesn't want her blog to go silent. i was digging through my brain bank of christmases past & there's one that stands out from my typical childhood holidays.

all through our growing up years, my brother & i almost always knew where our parents stashed our christmas presents. they'd told us the real deal on santa when we were only 3 and 4, so it only went to reason that if there was no santa, then the gifts must be stashed somewhere nearby. it wasn't long before our parents wised up to our snooping & put a padlock on the basement cupboard where the goodies were being stored. that shut us down for a few years... until we moved into a new house that didn't come equipped with such a conveniently lockable storage space.

it didn't take us long to start up our snooping ways afresh when we moved & realized that the hiding options were limited. we figured that the most secure location in the house was probably our parents' bedroom, so we took a divide & conquer approach & it wasn't long before we hit pay dirt. we found stuff in the dresser drawers & a bonus batch of loot in the bottom of their closet.

we kept up the digging & sneaking each time my parents were expected to be out of the house for at least half an hour. it seemed like that left us enough of a buffer to check for any newly acquired goodies & still get out without being caught. we'd keep each other informed if we found things for each other so that there would be no surprises come christmas morning. if we only had limited time, we'd hit the closet first because that's where mom kept the good stuff. the dresser was mostly the piddly stocking stuff like gum, cheapie toys and maybe some bags of rubber bands (we loved to shoot each other with them).

by this time we were probably 10 and 11 & we did the naughty spying for at least 2 years, undiscovered. our parents had laid down the law at some point & made it perfectly clear that if they ever found out we'd been peeking at our presents, those very presents would be returned to the store & we would not get them.

we thought we were master spies. we thought we'd never get caught. we thought wrong.

i clearly remember being deep into the pile on mom's side of the closet, admiring the cute new clothes i'd be getting in just a few days. chris was digging through his own future belongings...when we heard a noise. we both froze for a moment before starting to frantically stuff things back into the spaces where we'd found them. we usually tried to be precise about putting them away, but this time it was more about speed so we wouldn't get caught with our heads tangled in mom's dresses & our fingers in the cookie jar.

we weren't fast enough. in less time than we'd have dreamed possible, mom had made it up the stairs & into her bedroom & caught us in the act of spying. there was no way to deny it. the evidence was plain as day for all of us to see. and i've got to give my mom credit for thinking on her feet because she separated us right away & gave us paper & pens & told us to write down everything we'd found. since we'd made sure to keep each other informed about every scrap we came across, we couldn't plead ignorance about anything even if we hadn't laid eyes on it ourselves. and since we were separated & didn't know what the other would write, we had to put it all down there, on paper, to damn ourselves or risk even further punishment for trying to lie by omission. HO-LY CRAP!

she compared our lists & consulted with dad; all the while we tried to hide away where we wouldn't be seen & might possibly be forgotten about altogether rather than face the consequences that we knew were coming our way. i don't remember any yelling, just that eery silence that should never exist in a happy home with 4 lively kids. silence...

it seemed like it would never end. we whispered together about whether or not they'd actually go through with their threats. they were usually pretty solid about sticking to what they'd said, but in this case, surely they wouldn't take away our whole christmas! surely they loved us enough to have pity on our souls. if there was any love in the world, they would have to change their minds & let us have all those beautiful presents in their stash.

a couple days later, it was christmas eve. it was a saturday. dad didn't have to go to work that day, so it was decided that it was time for the presents to all be returned. my dad & brother drove around town & took back all the gifts that we'd thought we would be getting. i stayed home & helped mom cook & bake the festive food. i wasn't mad at my parents because in my heart, i knew that i'd broken the rules. i knew that i wasn't exempt from the rules & that there were repercussions for my actions. i was sad, but i'd learned a valuable lesson that i knew would stick with me for my whole life. if mom & dad said it, i could be darn sure they meant it. they meant business even in the things that hurt them too.

the next day, the space under the tree was pretty sparse. mostly just gifts for my little sisters & the ones that chris & i were giving to the family. we didn't wake up at 3am ready to pounce on our stockings. we actually got some sleep for a change and we woke up calm rather than hyper. we actually remembered the true meaning of christmas for once because we weren't distracted by all the presents we hoped for or got.

as it turned out, we got a few little stocking things each. they must have been hidden somewhere else where we hadn't discovered them. i got the fake nails that i'd been dreaming of. i'd always had crappy nails & wanted to have long, luxurious nails to tap constantly on any hard surface, but my parents had never thought i was old enough for them. this was my lucky fingernail year. and i also got the jean jacket from the gap that i'd been coveting for so many months. it was one of the things that i'd been so excited to find in the closet & was heart sick knowing it was going back to the gap to be owned by some other girl who'd be cooler than me.

i was shocked & amazed to find this most precious item wrapped up under the tree because i was sure it went back to the mall with everything else. my brother also got his most desired item. my parents told us that even though we'd broken the rules & we didn't deserve to receive these gifts, they were having mercy on us. like Jesus had mercy on the world by dying on the cross for all of us who didn't deserve his love & forgiveness.

that's a lesson that i'll never forget.

mini bible reader

in the midst of all of the stresses of life and anxiety we have to face, brooke has discovered how good it makes her heart feel to read her bible. every night she takes her pretty purple bible up to her top bunk, burrows under the covers, clicks on the book light i loaned her & buries herself in God's words. she especially likes the parts in the new testament that are written in red because those are the words of Jesus & she feels like he's speaking directly to her when she reads them.

i got this picture last night & it makes my heart feel all warm & snuggly.

happiness junkie

i feel like an old grandma or something when i say this, but i think that what's wrong w/ the world today is that people in this country are turning into happiness junkies. on the surface, that seems silly because what's wrong w/ happiness? if you've got to be addicted to something, that sounds like a good one. except that it's not. because life isn't continually happy. relationships aren't always going to be easy or smooth. our health and bodies won't stay perfect indefinitely, despite our best efforts (or at least our best wishes).

i think a lot of people look at their thickening waistline or drooping boobs & feel like they're failing somehow. sure, it's great to stay thin for the health of your body, but you shouldn't feel like you're a less valuable person because you don't have the body of a 20 yr old athlete anymore. there is so much more to life than being sexy. i am overweight, granted, but i've lived life on the other side too & i honestly think i've got more going for me as a human being now than i did when i was a sexy little 20-something. i have fewer body image issues now than i did back then & fewer than a lot of my much thinner, more svelte friends do now. i think it's because i finally believe that my worth isn't caught up in my outer wrappings. sure, i do make an effort to stay showered & put on makeup before leaving the house, but i'm lovable, even if i'm not fixed up. and i have a fantastic husband who shows & tells me that i'm pretty even when the mirror says i'm not.

it seems sad to me when people look at their lives & see mostly the negatives. they see the fight they had w/ their spouse or kids & that looms larger than the years of mostly good stuff they've lived up to that point. so many people feel dissatisfied with their lives because they only seem to be able to see & feel the bad parts. the money issues or lack of mushy feelings or whatever the issues are take on inappropriate significance.

when i was in college one of our profs said, "act your way into your feelings, don't feel your way into your actions." i really took that to heart. when i was 18 it seemed like that wasn't even possible, but i was willing to try & as it turns out, a lot of the time it works. there are a lot of things in my life that i could point to & show someone how my life sucks & i could justify being miserable. but why would i want to do that? i could point out my husbands flaws or failings & determine that i need a new one. but if we're going by that standard, then he could just as quickly point out mine & trade me in for a new model too. i choose to look at all the things about our lives that are good & let my focus linger there. i don't want to be sad or miserable or feel like i got the crappy end of the stick. i want to smile & laugh & enjoy life in a real way.

i don't want to spend my life searching for my next happiness fix. if i did that, like i used to, then i'd always be looking for something new. trying to replace my current blah things w/ the next great thing. i'd be putting the responsibility for my own happiness onto someone or something else. that seems backwards & counter productive. i am the only one who's responsible for my feelings. only i can keep them in check. only i can pick me up when i get low. God can help me to adjust my attitude when it seems too far down to fix it myself & he does. there's no man or food or body or kid or life that can fix me. and when i turn to God & myself and just do the work, God and i get all the credit. and somehow, by not searching for that next happiness fix & instead finding ways to see the happy i already have, i can maintain joy on the inside. and compared to joy, happy is over rated.

i give you permission

i love parenting. i love the snuggles & the challenges & the cuteness & creativity that come into play when you're a parent. you get to do any of the stuff that you loved as a kid & sometimes it's just as awesome as you remember, sometimes not so much. i love that you can choose to let your kids do things that you were never allowed to do when you were growing up. i love that you can repeat the things you loved from when you were a kid in hopes that it brings your own kid as much joy as it brought you. i love getting to make the rules. i love that there are as many flavors of parents as there are of people.

sometimes i think i fall into rather non-traditional parenting because we don't do santa clause or the easter bunny. i kind of tried to the do the tooth fairy thing, but brooke told me "mom, i know it's just you & you can't be the fairy because you're too big to wear the suit." (that was around the same time that she told me i was round & have a bulbous chin. she makes me feel so good about myself.) i have reasons for doing these things, it's not just some arbitrary law that i've decreed. santa steals most of jesus' thunder (to my mind) and i want him to keep his thunder. also, i want brooke to be thankful to the people who make her christmas gifts possible. how can she show proper gratitude to some imaginary entity? and as for easter, i think that bunny is out to do the same thing as santa. upstaging God again. she still gets the gifts, baskets & candy so she won't feel like she got the crap end of things, we just do it on a day prior to easter morning so that the focus of the holiday doesn't get diluted by sugar & goodies.

we also celebrate valentine's day in the way my mom invented when we were kids. growing up, we didn't get easter baskets for the same reason as brooke doesn't get one on the real day, so instead, mom made valentine's day a big deal. we got a basket with candy, a treasure hunt with some great gift at the end & the valentine squirrel would hide hershey kisses around our room for us to find when we woke up. sometimes it was months before all of them were found & they had melted or turned white. i haven't worked the treasure hunt in yet because once you introduce something fun to a kid, it becomes the expectation rather than just a one time treat & i'm not ready for that yet. maybe i never will. brooke, of course, felt like she needed to be able to see the valentine squirrel, so we found one in the dog toy section of walmart & now he comes out for about 2 weeks each february & the rest of the year he hibernates. this past year, i made Tiny, the squirrel, a little shirt to wear for his big day. you can't see it very well in the picture, but there's a white heart on the back of it. i never knew creating a pattern and then hand sewing a shirt for a stuffed squirrel would be more challenging than making people clothes!

i also let brooke do things that most other kids aren't allowed to do. i realized it when brooke was about 2 & we'd go out to restaurants to eat with other people & i let brooke stand on her chair or crawl under the table because it was too much to expect her to be able to sit & be quiet while the adults finished eating & talking. my other friends made their kids sit still, but it just didn't seem reasonable to me, so i didn't care. she couldn't jump around, but standing & crawling were fine.

when we got a new refrigerator a few months ago i spent a lot of time switching the contents & cleaning up the old one while the new one cooled down. while i was working on that, my big cat sat up on top watching me like a vulture. brooke decided that she wanted to be a raccoon up there beside sophie cat, and for once in her life, i let her sit on top of the refrigerator. she was required to sit still while she was up there, but she loved the chance to sit up above the regular world & get the critter's eye view of the kitchen.

this past winter, brooke asked one day if she could throw a party with a bathroom theme. i barely hesitated for a second before saying yes. for the next few weeks we plotted & planned & laughed as we came up with all the different things that would make a potty party fun & yet not over the line into obscene. we invited friends from out of town who wouldn't be offended & we served burritos with refried beans & corn because it looked like things you might find in a bathroom. we drank pee punch (lemonade) & served chocolate cake made in a crockpot & call it crotchpot cake. it was the most, ooey, gooey, delicious thing i've ever eaten. we all wore panties on our heads & everyone had to tell a potty joke before they'd get their plate of gross looking food. somehow i only managed to snap a picture of my friend & i, but not the kids. probably even funnier that way. most moms i know wouldn't have wanted to attend our shindig, but i tell ya, it was a good time! and i think brooke will always remember our potty party fondly. i know i will!

i let brooke wear costumes around the house every single day if she wants to. until she turned 7 i even let her wear them out in public almost whenever she wanted. last summer a friend of hers was in the hospital for nearly a month after having surgery & brooke wanted to wear her dinosaur costume when we went to visit one day because she knew her friend thought that costume was particularly funny & she wanted to cheer her up. it was a bit odd strolling through a hospital with a kid in a big, furry dino suit, but it brought smiles or bewildered stares to most of the faces around us. then we had to run several errands afterwards, so she went to walmart & the library as well as a couple other places in the dino suit too. and when brooke wears a costume, she doesn't just walk around like a normal person. oh no, she gets into character & with the dino attire, she holds up just 2 fingers on each hand (to be a proper t-rex) and puts on her snarliest facial expression. she likes to lurch around hunch-backed & roar loudly & sometimes scares small children. she never apologizes or comforts a kid who she scares - because a t-rex would never feel badly for scaring children, so she doesn't either.

i let brooke color on our kitchen floor regularly. it started out as a reading game for school (thanks, mom for the awesome idea), where i'd draw out a big game on the floor & she had to read words & if she read them all & was pleasant about it, i'd wash it all off & let her have her way with the floor for the rest of the day. now we just design maps or other things from time to time. it's a bonding thing for us & it washes off easily, so there's no harm.

recently brooke & i went to a creek with my friend who has 2 girls close in age to brooke & we sat on the banks while the girls romped in the water. it wasn't long before one of them found a good, muddy spot on the bank & started rolling in it. then all three of them were doing it, and reveling in the opportunity to get wholly & completely filthy. there was a wedding going on at the park several yards away & people kept walking down to the creek in their fancy, wedding clothes to take photos & i can only imagine that some of them had to have gotten pics of our disgusting mud crawlers in the background. thank you, God for making kids washable!

brooke spends most of her free time lately drawing. she makes scenes & animals & people & anything else her awesome brain can dream up. she likes to cut them out & play with them like toys. she also likes to draw eyeballs and collars onto her hands to make her hands be dogs. it makes her feel better if she's lonely or nervous in public to be able to take her dog friends with her. she draws on her legs regularly - says it's her tattoos. i don't care. it washes off & isn't hurting anything. until recently, i've always said no when she asked if she could color on her face. i don't really know why since if i'm going to go with the rule of "if it's washable & not hurting anything, then i should say yes" then this would qualify for a yes as well. so a couple days ago, i surprised her by telling her to go ahead, get to coloring. her face lit up like it was christmas morning & she dashed for the marker box. she got a little mirror & set it up below the computer monitor so she could google pictures of various animals & then look into the mirror & draw the face onto herself. none of them lasted long because she always quickly thought of something else even better to color onto herself. but she was so happy! she was grinning from kitty ear, to kitty ear.

i can't give brooke everything i'd like to in life. i can't sign her up for cool activities or take her on fabulous outings very often. i can't give her kids to play with regularly, but one thing i CAN give her is permission. permission to fantasize about crazy schemes & then make them happen. permission to do the things other kids would get yelled at for doing. permission to get dirty & make messes & create memories.

does he really have my back?

i think it's great when churches can attract people of varying nationalities, wallet size & lifestyle. i think everyone should feel welcome at church, and yet... i've had some interesting experiences with those other people at church in the past year.

around christmas time brooke & i were getting onto the escalator & an odd woman jumped in between us. brooke squeezed past her on the single file ride to get in front of me rather behind the strange woman. after she did, the woman leaned against my back from the step directly behind me & started singing opera loudly into my ear. later in the service as the worship was winding down, the music went low & there was mostly just humming or quiet, that same woman started belting out the star spangled banner. she was allowed to go on for a minute before our pastor stepped over to her & next thing i knew, her solo ended. i wanted to know what he said to her because i have no idea how a situation like that should be handled.

there's a man who attends regularly who gives off an air of homelessness. he sits in the same section where we generally park ourselves & a few months ago i was pretty sure on one occassion that he was talking to himself, and not just talking, he was swearing to himself too. it was vaguely amusing to me in a twisted sort of way. i was glad there weren't kids sitting near him because it would be a shame for them to learn the bad words at church.

well, today we were sitting in the same row as that dude. as the music wound down, i heard him start mumbling. it was louder than a whisper, but quieter than talking & definitely in the growly sort of speech category. the first thing i clearly heard him say was "your f%cking mother's a bitch." he kept it up for a few minutes, dropping an arsenal of F bombs. there was something very disturbing about sitting next to him, albeit with seven empty seats between us (yes, i counted) and listening to him cussing up a storm right there in church. i'm pretty irreverent in a lot of ways because i don't think Jesus was the reverent type, but this was over the line, even for me. i was getting a distinct vibe of a spiritual nature, and not the kind you hope to encounter when you're sitting in church (or anywhere else for that matter). i've had some dealings with such things in my life & i felt that same feeling that i've felt in those situations before, which just made me all the more tense.

a couple who was sitting right in front of him got up & moved. i've never seen them before, but i hope they weren't scared off. people started glancing around & i hate to admit it, but i put my shoes back on & moved my purse close to my hand so that if i needed to leave quickly, i'd be ready. i couldn't concentrate on anything the pastor was saying, even though, based on the pictures, it seemed like it was probably a good one. chris got up and went to speak to someone in leadership about this guy & i felt my heart thumping when he got up because then i was alone w/ the disturbed man. he kept zipping & unzipping some little bag & repeatedly changing cd's in his player that i could distinctly hear coming through the headphones in his ears.

all through the service, i kept thinking & praying that God had something going on that would end well. i cautiously asked Him if there was anything i was supposed to be doing (i was kinda hoping He'd tell me to move, but i was willing to listen if He had another suggestion) but i got nothing. i couldn't even close my eyes to pray because i felt like i needed to keep them open & be ready for the slightest movement in my peripheral vision so i could snatch up my purse & haul ass if i needed to. i know that makes me a coward and probably an un-compassionate one at that, but that's how i felt.

i feel like i failed somehow. i'm not even sure what i failed at. maybe just by feeling fearful, as if God couldn't or wouldn't protect me if protection was needed. i was left wondering if i really believe that God's got my back.