Together We Have it All

One of my favorite quotes is "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all." That especially describes our family or as I often quip, "The ADD family." As much as I would like to think that we are somewhat organized, I know that is definitely not the case. More often than not, even my best efforts cannot conquer chaotic mornings. 

On a typical melt down morning, my eight-year-old son and my five-year-old daughter flatly refuse to get out of bed and get ready for school. "Please let me sleep," is the plaintive reply each time I stomp back and forth from my son's room to my daughter's room. Eventually the children do tumble out of bed, but not without one of my tried and true strategies, one of which is to grab onto the child’s ankles and yank.

When brushing my daughter’s hair, I occupy her by dumping all the hair supplies on the floor for her to play with...messy but effective. Even the slightest tug on a stubborn knot will send her into orbit.  "Mommy didn't mean to hurt you," I say in the sweetest voice I can muster. My mother-in-law’s euphemisms run through my head, “You must win.” or “she just needs to know her hair must be done.” But even if I do win, I have lost in more ways than I have won. Her knight-in-shining armor, Daddy, races up the stairs and barks..."What are you doing to her?" My daughter sobs in her savior's arms simultaneously glaring at me, the big, bad mommy. “Let her do it the way she wants!” Hmm…does that mean she will leave the house for school looking like an orphan from “Annie.” It’s definitely a hard knock morning.

One morning, we were running late. The clock was racing ahead of us. When everyone was dressed and each child had a back pack (one item often left behind), we headed out the door to the van. In our rush down the street, we saw flashing lights behind us. Daddy had been stopped for speeding. As my husband sat with the police officer in the cruiser, my children began sobbing. Daddy was in trouble and the cops were going to take him away, despite my reassurances to the contrary. Finally, daddy came back to the car and all was well – he only got a warning. So, now, whenever the kids are slow getting ready for school, I smile, and remind them of the morning daddy got picked up for speeding.  Maybe they learned something from it. Maybe they didn’t. And maybe someday we will have it all together, but I doubt it.  I like us just the way we are…delightfully imperfect.

I'm Wearing Jeans to Church

Whenever we go somewhere, I am never ready. I spend so much time trying to find our son's shoes and my daughter's precious stuffed pig that I have little time to figure out what I am going to wear, much less throw on a little make-up. Eddie Bauer mom in high-topped boots I am not. In fact, Eddie Bauer is not less than 100 miles from us. As we were preparing to leave for church yesterday, I realized that we had nearly 10 minutes left for me to get ready. I yell to my husband, "I'm wearing jeans to church today! I hate all my clothes!" He looks at me with that humorous smirk that I both love and find annoying. Besides, he has clothing issues as well. I finally find a pair of "not too wrinkled," and "not too visible hanger crease," black pants, and the one blue top that is not more than a year old. As flighty as I am about fashion, new means it's my favorite.
As a mom, I find that fashion is becoming more incredibly challenging and even more so, it becomes less interesting as I rise to the occasion of motherhood. Fashion, and impressing other people, is no longer my biggest priority. I remember when I was in high school and junior high, fashion was everything. Even back then, I wasn't incredibly successful at the whole thing. I still felt inadequate even though I worked so hard on myself every morning. My hair had to be just right, as well as my make-up. I spent forever on my "eighties wall-o-bangs." I did all of this in my early twenties as well, although thankfully of course, the "wall-o-bangs" had since expired. All of the fuss didn't make me look better. It didn't make me a better person.

When we finally got to church, for which we are perpetually late, my three-year-old daughter behaved quite well to begin with. Our speaker this past Sunday was very inspiring. His whole message was about "Holding the Light." He explained how when helping his father work on the farm, his job was to "hold the light," so his father could do his work. He paralled it to the work that humans do for God. It was a very interesting, meaningful sermon. I wish I could have heard the end of it. My three-year-old was very tired, and when she's tired, and things are not exactly how she wants them, she has a meltdown. I had committed the mortal sin of taking her animals out of her brother's new bug box. And as we all know meltdowns can be hideous, and this one was. She was promptly marched out of the sanctuary and we ended up sitting on the stairs (when we act up in church, we don't get to go the playroom). She sat for awhile on the stairs and began to calm down. We wrote on her magna-doodle. She drew an egg, a very large egg. Then she wanted me to draw an Easter Bunny.

My previous, fashion conscious self would have been mortified at all of this. She would not have lived through going to church with half-brushed hair and a child having a screaming fit. That woman would have been paralyzed with fear. My children have taught me to "hold the light" for them, to be brave, to be self-assured. They don't care how my hair looks. They care about the path I walk on and how I'm forging it for them. They have taught me to be a better, more forgiving person. Eddie Bauer, you will have to wait.