Tag Archives: Raising Children

A Grown Up Party?

03 Thursday Dec 2009

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Amy & Bryan

My sons Bryan and Kyle and Bryan’s girlfriend Amy are playing a round of Laser Tag right now, compliments of “the best” mom in the world.

It wasn’t always so.  I was an absentee mom until Bryan was eight, burning the midnight oil trying to become the first female vice-president at my company.  I ended up burning out and trading my corner office for an office with no windows and a more favorable “mommy’ work schedule, but not before Bryan told me that I didn’t care about him, one day when I was late picking him up from daycare.  I was devastated.  And Bryan was one angry little boy.  Deservedly so.

Bryan deserved a better mom and got me.  And though I don’t believe one can ever make up for past mistakes, I did my best to put the past behind me and become the best mom I could from that point on.  I became involved in whatever my boys were involved in; if they played baseball, I was Team Mom.  If they were in Cub Scouts, I became an assistant camp counselor and banquet party planner.  If they went to UM ARMY, I helped with camp registration.

My sons and I have done a lot of growing up together.  All to soon they will be out of school and on their own.  And I’m sort of feeling sad that I’m no longer going to be playing the role of Mom anymore — even though I realize that I’ve mothered less and less each succeeding year of college.

Me and Bryan

But I look at both of my sons with such pride at the adults they have become.  And it seems odd that Bryan will be pursuing a career in tax consulting while Kyle ventures off into the world of professional writing; and here I sit in the middle, having already practiced one and in the midst of practicing the other.

Even though my husband and I ate and ran at this all grown-up birthday party at a place that reminded me of Chuck E. Cheese, it was nice to play mom one last time and advice Bryan on the dress shoes he wanted for his birthday and  dole out money for pizza and drinks and tokens and hand out money for Laser Tag.  And it was that last hand-out that landed me the prize of that rare compliment  — “Mom, you’re the best!” —  from my son who once said I didn’t care about him.

Oh, honey, but I do care.  And both of my boys are the best in the west.  Like a good mom, I don’t play favorites.

Better Letters

28 Saturday Nov 2009

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Rather than writing next week’s Advent presentation or contemplative prayer practice, I’m twiddling  thoughts for this year’s Christmas letter.

I dropped one percolating thought right into Friday’s Food post on oatmeal cookies.  Remember this line? — Isn’t it ironic that we remember the times when certificates change hands —  like  for a marriage or the birth of a child or a college graduation — and forget that the best of real life is found sandwiched in between?

When I wrote that line, I was thinking of this year’s Christmas letter and how the contents of past letters, both sent and received, were not much more than a series of life punctuation points accompanied by certificates.

I want to write a better letter this year though I’m unsure of what ‘better’ will look like.  I’d like the letter to recognize the importance of the everyday.  But how do I do this in the age of no words please – in the age of twitters and texts and short-attention spans?  Longer will definitely not do;  and if longer is not better, this means the content must change.

Perhaps I need to write more than I need and then distill.  Cut, cut, cut.  I could even begin with my everyday thoughts on certificate days.

Thoughts on marriage:  It is in the  daily living rather than on the wedding day where two lives are joined together; where true knowledge of each other grows out of mere knowing about the other, where each learns, often the hard way, what brings the other joy or angst and where dreams and fears are shared and sometimes even heard.  On  good days, one partner may deftly read in-between the lines of a spouse’s spoken word, though not too often.  But  it is upon the smooth and rough seas of the everyday, where days of sameness collide together, that an unnoticed miracle will occur: a few threads of the mystery of each partner will gradually unravel to allow the loose threads to be woven into the others own.  The weaving  of lives together is not a pretty process or even a pretty result.  Nor does it happen overnight.  But thread by thread and day by day, two lives will become one, as long as they remember to stay loose and unravel every so often.

Thoughts on parenting: Parenting grows out of everyday care and the raising of  a child rather than in conception and delivery.  If most parents are like me, they haven’t a clue of what to expect when they bring their darling newborn infant home; no mere eighteen year commitment this, since love is sown deep to keep parents forever parents to a child, no matter how many wrinkles a child ultimately grows.  Parent boot camp consists of never-ending feedings and diaper changes and later the never-ending chauffering and coaching and all the sleep-deprived nights from sleepovers and sickness and forgetfulness of some teen- aged child who stays out  past curfew.. or forgets to come home.  Parents are made and not born.

Thoughts on graduation: It will be mixed bag of emotions (pride, joy, relief) to watch two adult children walk across the stage to receive their college diploma next May and walk off the stage and their father’s payroll.  But the celebratory moment would be hollow without awareness of  the hard work that preceded the certificate… and the hard work that will follow it.

Of course lessons in the classroom are important — but the lessons outside are the ones that birth character, as one of mine has recently discovered through a Shakespearean tragedy of errors where he became the unlucky scapegoat of the university student newspaper.  Helplessly, I have watched him suffer.  Thankfully, I am now seeing him pick up the pieces to carry on  life wiser and stronger.  He has been fortunate to attract two able mentors to see him through his ordeal. Perhaps, Hillary Clinton was right in saying that it takes a village to raise a child.   So yes, while there is pride, joy and relief, it has less to do with certificates than in the men they have become.

These thoughts will take some serious editing.  I guess shorter really makes for a better letter.  If so, perhaps this sweet tweet might just do?

This year we had one marriage, no births and two graduations.

All our best to you and the rest.

A Christmas Labor

23 Monday Nov 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care

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This time every year, for the last seven anyway, I begin drafting a short letter to accompany our annual greeting card.

So why is it that every year’s writing grows harder than easier?  I think the 2003 edition took an hour to write, while last year’s model required untold hours spanning seven days of time.

Last year at this time I was procrastinating like crazy.  Where to start, how to say what I wanted to say; I longed  for words  —  to those I love “enough to send the very best”  —  to be more perfect than I could ever write them.

Eventually, I sat myself down in front of the computer and looked at the blank screen hoping something would come.  And then I looked out my window to see  that the 50 foot Pecan tree next door was raining down its yellow leaves in mass.  It was this  “long loving glance at the real” that nudged me to deliver my first sentence.

So here I sit again, another year and another Christmas letter later, with nothing to say.  Maybe I should just enclose a white sheet of paper and sign it.  Or maybe I should hold a white sheet of paper in my lap and lift it to God and then let the words fall where they may.  Just like those yellow leaves.  Amen and Amen.

But no. Either of the above approaches sounds more like my son Kyle’s way of writing than mine.  That son of mine writes as natural as breathing while I write like in the throes of natural childbirth.  Having three of my four children ‘naturally’ makes me quite expert on the subject — I’m told I cussed like a sailor during my first labor; but all I can clearly recall was wanting to call the whole thing off.

Breathe.  Relax.  Don’t fight it.  Just let the words slip into the world.  Then celebrate like crazy and pass out the bubble-gum cigars.  And as I write this, I think of that little soon-to-be Mother Mary in labor two thousand years ago as she delivered her Word.  One Word was enough; and I wonder whether Mary’s labor of a single Word was with or without pain?

Perhaps I should approach the writing of my Christmas letter as I would any act of prayer, where I sit empty before God waiting to be filled.  Yet.  While I’m waiting, I did think of a way ‘in’ to the Christmas writing  spirit that may actually pry open the writer’s block.

With nary a wince, I’m going to re-write my last six opening paragraphs without edit or commentary; it will be a fresh look at my best words and wishes of Christmas letters past.

2003: It’s difficult to believe that this year is almost gone.  Perhaps the year has gone by fast for you as well… but whether fast or slow, we pray the year has brought you and yours many precious times with friends and family.  Here are a few of our precious happenings.

2004: Our year was good in so many ways.  I celebrate the goodness that is the very fabric of our daily lives — good health, good food and good times with those we love.  I hope you, too enjoyed a good year.

2005: Change, like God, is in the very air we breathe these days, as Don & I prepare for “empty Nest-ness” and a change of residence.  We have busily spent the last three months getting our home ready for sale, in anticipation of an eventual relocation to Oklahoma.  Perhaps, next year, you will find us living in my dream home — a renovated historic house on the edge of downtown Oklahoma City.

2006: Winter arrived firmly on our doorstep last week, bringing us another change in a year full of changes.  After twenty-plus years of living near the Texas coast, we are once again Oklahomans, enjoying life in a renovated historic house on the edge of downtown Oklahoma City.

2007: With the year almost gone, we must soon begin ‘dressing’ our home for Christmas and ourselves for our youngest daughter’s late December wedding.  While neither will be easy, both dress-ups will be good, as old traditions and the celebration of new beginnings will help us begin a life without Mom.

2008:  On days of falling leaves and temperatures, I’m drawn to the kitchen with treasured recipes in hand.  Gathered across forty years, some are neatly typed on index cards and others are handwritten by the good cook themselves; but most are in my hand or Don’s — from the barely legible, scrawled on handy slips of scrap paper from busy days of four children at home — to those carefully preserved on notebook paper in early school-girl cursive.  Regardless of style, they all conjure up comfort — in the form of good food and good memories — and they all mysteriously bind present to past and future.  To see a recipe is to see the friend of family member who shared it, even when distance and death separate us.  To share a recipe is to share ourselves with the future, especially as they make homes with our children.

Wince away.  I did.  There’s nothing like a healthy dose of humility to bring a gal to her Christmas lettering senses.

These is no magnum opus there.  But I have them, oh do I have them.  Mine bear the names of my children.  And I bet Mother Mary thought the same thing about her’s. And if so, she was write.