Children & Chocolate and Other Paths to God

I’ve lately been trying to wrap my brain around some creative ideas, but am having a hard time coaxing my vocabulary out of the dark recesses of my brain. From the time I was in grade school I loved to write, and continued right through college, working, marriage, etc.

Then I had children.

I’m know that lots of people who write have children, but for some reason this event seemed to have sucked the life out of that part of my gray matter. It appears that I only have so much blood in my body, and if it’s flowing to my uterus, it’s not making it up to my brain.

Now I’m officially done bearing children (for a variety of darn good reasons), and I’m trying to remember who the heck I was before I turned into this jeans-and-t-shirt-wearing/mini-van driving/can recite dr. seuss but not my phone number/haven’t seen anything but a rated G movie in years/ person.

And not that I want to go backwards, because, let’s face it, most of us are much better people in so many ways once we have children. But there are one or two things, like this writing stuff, that I would like to rekindle.

So I may just break out a dictionary this week and start flipping through it, you know, when I get that quiet five minutes each day for such a luxury.

A few examples from the last 24 hours…

- I caught Miss A repeatedly shoving the baby off a chair because she was sitting on Tubby (the I.F.)
- When I was trying to use a star chart to encourage desirable bedtime behaviour, at one point during our struggle, Miss A declared between sobs ”Momma…it’s…just…so…hard…to…do…a…chart…” at which point I had to laugh…
- When I told her I had a surprise for her if she was good and stayed in bed, she calmly told me that “I’m not going to be good right now, but maybe tomorrow I’ll sink about it, okay?”
- When I started to get frustrated with her this morning for taking toys away from her sister, she told me that I couldn’t put her in time-out because she was invisible.

You just can’t argue with pre-school logic.

I’m reading an interesting book my sister-in-law gave me on children’s developmental stages - and it’s divided by ages. The author’s approach was much like Jane Goodall’s study of gorillas - meaning that as much as you like to think your child is one of a kind, there are certain age-related traits inherent to all children.

And supposedly the half years (18mths, 2 1/2, 3 1/2, 4 1/2, etc…) are times of disharmony, and the full years are times of harmony. Which means that since my girls have the same birthdays, that my life will be six months of heaven, followed by six months of hell, for the rest of my life. Awesome

What I did find to be helpful, was that this scientific approach leads you to believe that you will have a much easier time of things if you stop fighting the stage your children are at (ie, trying to exert control for control’s sake, something we’ve all done…), and just learn to enjoy the quirks that each 6 month stage brings. And it’s important to remember that the strategies that work when a child is say 4, will not work at 5, but by then the issue you’re trying to “fix” may have resolved itself anyway. (this isn’t to say that you don’t discipline, but that you pick your battles by recognizing what is behind totally age appropriate behavior).

So while I still have the ordinary daily struggles with my children, I’m not as stressed out about them. I’m learning to take the lead from them on what the day will hold, and I’m just trying to enjoy the extreme silliness that living with an 18-month-old and a 4-year-old can bring, because they won’t be this age long! 

I missed the anniversary yesterday.

It was one year ago, on October 1, 2007 at 3am, that my husband woke me up to the smell of smoke in the house. An oil-soaked drop cloth spontaneously combusted in the storage area under our back porch, smoldering and blowing in the windows to my basement, filling the house with soot and smoke. It wasn’t the size of the fire that alarmed my husband, it was the fact that it was on a work bench directly above several cans of gas.

So I grabbed the girls and the dog, called 911, and carried them all outside, while my husband ran in the other direction in his boxers to fight the fire by himself while waiting for our neighbor (a fireman) and the fire department to show up. Yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds, and that’s my point.

Our smoke detectors didn’t work - the batteries were either dead or removed. The scent hound beagle we owned didn’t wake up, like I always assumed he would in the event of a fire. (I actually had to carry his sorry fat butt downstairs and kick him outside…) We had no plan, obviously. (note: leaving your wife to carry two children by herself in a dark, smoky house is not a good idea) In short, we had some damage, but overall, we were very, very lucky.

So, please, this is my yearly warning to all who read this:

1) check your smoke detectors and change the batteries
2) develop a plan and discuss it - where you will meet if separated, who will take what child, and at least two escape routes from every floor
3) buy at least two ladders for the upper levels of your home
4) instruct your children on what to do if there is a fire (get out of the house, crawl on the floor)
5) let your children hear the fire alarm so they know what it sounds like and aren’t scared by it (children have been known to go hide in a closet when they hear such a loud noise)

If you type in “Fire Safety Plan” in Google, you’ll get dozens of checklists and plans. Please, take the time to review these lists, and go to Home Depot this weekend and get everything you need. Don’t think for a second that this kind of thing can’t happen to you - it can - and you need to be prepared.

I’ve just returned from a 24 hour trip to NJ for a funeral, and it always strikes me how you can be so busy, busy, busy with your everyday life, and then when someone dies, you just have to stop and immerse yourself in that experience. And while I mourn greatly for the family members, this was not someone whose absence I will feel in my own life. In short, I could very easily get back to the busy-ness I was doing a few days ago.

But sometimes these experiences change you. Sometimes it is a good thing to be plucked from your daily grind, and removed to someplace that can give you a little perspective. Get out of your little bubble, so to speak.

For the last three weeks, for various reasons, I’ve been feeling a bit like I’ve been on some kind of acid trip (or what I imagine an acid trip to be like…).  You know what I mean, like you’re standing still and the room is whipping around you, and the colors are so neon bright and incredibly vivid, and every moment and emotion is just more intense - so intense that it can be physically painful. I really, really wanted to go to the top of the proverbial mountain and yell STOP to the world, just to give me a chance to catch my breath.

Ask, and you shall receive.

Though entirely unfortunate, God definately put this experience in my life at this moment because I needed it. There was simply no other way I was going to be able to get out of my acid trip without a little help.

And while the whole world didn’t stop, my little world hit the pause button for 24 hours. Just enough time to refocus. While I certainly love my children, being around them doesn’t often allow for quiet reflection time like I’ve been craving. Heck, I can’t even go to the bathroom in peace these days. So you can see why this was so good for me.

The gentleman who died lived an exemplary life. Worked at the same job since 1972. President of multiple organizations. Army major. Extremely active in his church. Smart as the dickens. Wonderful family -married for 49 years with 6 kids and 15 grandkids. And the stories people shared of his generosity and kindness were incredible. There were well over 250 people at the church this morning, probably more. There wasn’t a person who left that mass who didn’t want to be more like him, including me.

So it was a combination of events - a brief visit with an old college buddy, time with some favorite relatives I stayed with, a quick run on the beach of my youth where I got sand between my toes and deeply inhaled the sea air, an intense amount of seriousness and focus on the deceased’s life, and just time alone with my thoughts - this is what calmed everything down, and brought the bed spins to a slow, safe, and healthy, stop.

And now that I’m home, the colors have returned to normal.