Tag Archives: mom stuff

Little Miracles, Can You See Em?

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One of the cool, inspiring blogs I follow, Love that Max, had a post that has kept me thinking. It’s a post about seeing miracles, big and small and worth a look. Go see, then come back…

Ok, thanks for coming back! So. Heres what I’m thinking after reading that: It’s easy to only have eyes to see the “Capital Letter Miracles.” Heck, who doesn’t want that? It’s awesome and wonderful to see the “Capital Letter Miracles!” Let’s face it, we crave those kinds of miracles (So much so that tv charlatans have manufactured fake ones for decades, don’t be snookered)….

But what I’ve been thinking about is Max’s point…that we see miracles every single day. In our own families. And no, I don’t only mean that it’s a miracle we got to school on time! Ok, maybe sometimes I do mean precisely that….ahem. Not to be too drippy or saccharin..but we can and do see them, all the time. And I need to remember to mark them, heck I need to marvel at them, with a wide open grin. Because, I don’t know about you, but I can all too easily slip into the daily grinding drill and forget to see any of those moments for the clutter and clanging of the chaos. Yes, chaos. The puppy peeing, the small boy banging, the larger boy crashing down the stairs while the silent attitude of the teen is a siren stomping up the stairs. Those times, I’m pretty darn hard pressed to see any miracle. Much less a capital M one. Mostly I see a certain preteen left shoes in the hall and someone else left the towels on the stairs….

But they are there, those tiny flickering miracles. And I kinda like the small ones best, in many ways. Maybe it’s all I can take…who knows? But really, if I can slow down my vision, still my spinning gears or, at least, stop after the rush hour is over and gaze around the momentarily silent house, take a breath….I can see past the smudges and the socks. I see miracles.

We did get to school on time!

And that silent-bellow, the freezing attitude of the newer teen? It shouts of a newfound security, strong enough to withstand a huffed stomp up the stairs and the scowls of a sibling and/or second mom. We weren’t sure we’d get there many months ago. A miracle.

The quiet drawing, so carefully intricately etched by a loud crashing whirling dervish of a seven year old boy? A miracle: the artistic gift, and the few mintes of stillness to allow it forth onto the paper.

A small warm sweet four year old, sleepy curling under his covers, whispering to me…asking if I would hold his hand while he falls asleep. Pure miracle; he came, wary, from across the world and now nestles by choice next to me.

A preteen with a guarded but hopeful heart, joining the same school again with her siblings, no longer needing to be separated in order to get the accommodations she needs….everyone doing their part to make up the differences. That one might be a capital M, it’s so good, so important, so unexpected all those years.

The same new teen from hard places who can freeze you out…. being able to finally relax enough to actually play, be playful…with a new sweet puppy that sparks laughter and silliness in a child that has known so little.

The unbidden hug goodnight of the eldest teen daughter, just now as I type, on her way to bed…with a real sparkly true smile in her eyes, and the same in mine, right back at her. If you have a fifteen year old, you know that, in itself, some nights, IS a miracle! I’ll take it.

So, I’m counting my miracles. I’m trying to open my eyes to see them. Because you know, miracles are funny. If you don’t have the heart to see them, or if you close your eyes for a moment too long. They are gone. And that is just a waste. Because if we open our eyes to look, we can but marvel….

Bank Deposits, kid version

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So, this is in many ways an oldie but a goodie….this concept of banking with your kids.

No, I’m not talking about the allowance or financial planning; coins and greenbacks.  I’m talking, rather, about the most important kind of banking: the Bank of Our Children.  What I mean is this, an old parenting nugget is to make sure you make “deposits” in  your child’s bank account of affection, daily.  Sounds simple, no? Simplistic even.  That very aspect, so basic, doh, makes this an easy nugget to drop or brush off. It’s easy to nod in agreement and then blithely trip along on our daily treadmill.

But that would be a mistake.

It’s one I’ve made all too often and even too recently.  This has been an intensive summer, to say the least.  You all know that.  But numerous other events and things have been cranking up the pressure as well and with that vise, something has to give.  That would be me.  Or, more precisely, that would be my equanimity and even on some days, my kindness and affection.  One of my kids, in particular, has born the brunt of this, fueled by my frustration and disappointment in some of their choices, but aggravated by the general stresses of this summer and simply, mostly, by my sheer laziness and/or burnout in keeping that razor sharp tongue and lightning fast temper locked up.  Happily, Coffeedoc is most excellent at doing this, he doesn’t fall into that bear trap of temper and intensity.  He’s the most even keeled guy I know.  Thank goodness for such gifts.

Suffice it to say, I’ve made more withdrawals than deposits in this bank account lately.

So, I’m once again, flipping back the pages to the basics for a refresher course in parenting basics 101.  And the most fundamental one is: make sure you make sure your kid knows you think they are great, good, even awesome.  Even if they are frustrating you, you (ok, me) can look ’em in the eye and kiss them on their forhead and smile at them with soft eyes a couple of times in the day.  You can tell them “I love you,” without it sounding snarky.  Really, you can.  And if you can’t, you can touch their shoulder as you pass by them in the kitchen and you can let them see you looking at them with a smile.  Really. You can.  Ok, that’s right, I can.  But some days, some of those hard brittle parenting teen days…or five year old days, or kids from hard places days…..you have to intentionally MAKE yourself do it.

That’s right, you have to MAKE yourself do it.  Because you might want to growl at them, you might want to tug their ear to get them to listen, you might want to hold up your palm toward their face and glare instead of hearing them.  But that would be a mistake.  Because then your ‘bank account’ {by which I mean: THEIR bank account of this resource too} of closeness and affection with that kid, your kid, is draining like a sieve.  And if you (ok, me) can just pull them into even a half shoulder hug….you’re changing that pattern and building that interest and that reserve back up again.

But, this particular bank account….it’s not only your best resource for happiness and heck, even retirement (fair warning children!) but it’s theirs.  For their future too.  It’s their most important IRA, it’s  an IKA  – Individual Kid Account.  And you are the steward of it.  Those deposits may seem fleeting and ephemeral, but they are worth more than platinum or gold.

Mama Strength

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Today is a kooky day in a choppy crazy week.  I mean, today’s parenting had me looking at the clock at 6:38 a.m. and thinking, “I’m done. Uh-oh. I’ve used up all my parenting goodness already, holy mackerel.”

But of course, I wasn’t.
Not by a long shot.

Not much later, I went to the school Mass and my sweet Emmy came to sit by me.  Ah, bliss.
After, I got to canoodle with the small boys and touch base after a very tough morning with a wild Little Man…and bump noses to remind him that I loved him “to the moon and back” before he went back to classes.

Minutes later my eldest called – ebullient – to tell me that he was finished with college, he had finished; all undergrad classes, work, exams, the whole shebang – done.  We whooped it up together on the phone and I told him I was proud of him for a job well done.
A bit later, my other college frosh son called to tell me he was done in another way: drained and depleted with one hard final left to go.  So, tips and encouragement and prayers for him.
Exactly as I was hanging up, an email came in from Marta’s teacher giving me a heads up about a meltdown at school and incoming home this afternoon; change just throws this girl under the bus.  Tears there, tears to be here.  Oh dear….and a little bit/lots of dread.
In between all of these were moments, of course, of other mundane mom-job stuff, tending and caring for the bodies and household stuff……and all of it seemed pretty routine.

And then I read this post of a dear girl/um, friend.   She writes of needing to go to Ethiopia soon, to court for her next child.  To do so, she has to leave her first sweet boy.  And it takes her breath away.  Oh, just reading those words I can conjure up those feelings from doing that very same thing.  I had to leave my small boys to go across the world to bring home my child.  Twice! One of those times was to get one of those small boys {the one who jumped me after Mass while I was hugging his sister}.
And I remembered back to that feeling and those panic attacks and that breathless feeling.  It’s awful.  But….I also remembered what came with that.
Mama strength.

It is the strength that we build as moms, in the doing of our everyday tending body and soul of these kids….it builds mom muscle.
That mom strength is resolute in it’s willingness to do what needs to be done for her kid.  
Even if it is gaspingly hard.
Even if it is wearisome, tedious, or….dreadful, we will do it.
If it is skittley, or tap dancing happy, or peaceful,  we will do it.
If it is sorrowful, grief-stricken, we will be there, we will do it.
If it is irritating, tiresome, frustrating, we do it.
If it is funny, or quirky or weird, we do it.
We do what needs to be done; from threading belts through pantloops to pouring juice, from listening through gulping tears to counting down a timeout.
We sit through meltdowns, we endure raging spewing and bottomless grief.
We read, we research, we get status reports by phone on classes and roommates.

We hope, we dream, we pray.
We cook, we clean, we counsel.
We drive, oh, how we drive.

We fly across the world with our hearts lurching up, unable to speak for the love that chokes our words.
We stand in the gap, or, really, next to the fridge and sink, and we are strong.

I forget that…oh many many days.
It might seem that the strength is only on the good days, but I say it’s not.
We only SEE it and feel it on the good days.
But it’s there, we’ve built it in a million uncounted exercises of our heart and body.  To use common fitness parlance; it’s our core.  It’s mama strength.  It builds on itself in a magical kind of way and draws deep.  It is as real as real is; too bad it doesn’t look like a six-pack {abs, people…ok?} or better in a bikini.  But I’d say it’s more beautiful, all the same.

“Old Mother Stitching” by Jurij Subic, 1855-1890