Because it wasn’t going fast enough already?

Maybe my longest break in posting! It’s been a crazy summer, but it’s flown by. You probably know I did my internship this summer, at Hamma Library, Trinity Lutheran Seminary. I can’t even begin to tell you the things I learned there, but a lot of it is recorded in my e-portfolio. You can read about it there, if you like, and maybe down the road, I’ll write about some of the wonderful things I got out of the experience that didn’t fit in the portfolio.

So, the thing with doing an internship instead of taking a class or two online, is that it’s OUTSIDE THE HOUSE! I was committed to be somewhere other than at home for fifteen hours a week. Every week. All summer! And for FREE! The first problem this raises is that those three young humans living here had to be cared for. Also for FREE! Another mom in the neighborhood agreed to take my kids two days a week, while I took hers two days, and then they went with my parents on Fridays. A mostly winning arrangement for most involved. Mostly. It meant the kids spent time everyday with friends or their grandparents, even if they didn’t have the freedom to roam the neighborhood they might have hoped for. It meant I had extra kids here on the days I wasn’t “working” just like the other mom I was swapping with did. It meant everyday was a busy day. All summer. So, I dipped my toe, or my whole foot, into the world of the working mom.

Three days a week I got up and got ready for “work” took my kids to “dayare” and headed out. Two days a week slept a little later, took in a couple extra kids, and went to the library, the pool, or the grocery, broke up fights, monitored screen time, and served grilled cheese sandwiches. It was busy, and exhausting, and totally doable! That might have been the most shocking part. My house is a wreck, but the essentials got done. The laundry wasn’t always up to date, but nobody went more than a day or so without clean socks. Socks are totally overrated in the summer anyway.

And after I survived the internship summer, I turned around and realized school is starting and I’ve got a kindergartener, a fifth grader, and a sixth grader! How’d that happen? So, I think I can survive this working parent thing. I’m even excited about it. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing or where or what hours, but I can live. And now I know I’m going to have to be prepared for life to speed up a little more.

And THEN, I applied for graduation. For real.

This Spring

I let all of March go by without a post. Not sure how that happened, but it probably had something to do with our even busier than usual schedule. My two hardest classes ever wrapped up in the middle of the month, a week after an extra workshop with one of my favorite professors. I was single parenting while the Daddy was traveling for work for a total of two weeks, and there are two more three-day trips to go. The kids had spring breaks (separately, since the preschool follows another district’s schedule), and then there was all the usual busy three-kid-household stuff going on.

So, there were big things and little things that happened in the last several weeks. Big things first, right?

The biggest news: Girlie took her First Communion on Thursday night. She was so excited. I was so proud of her. The instruction given at the church was pretty minimal, but she went through all the materials and then came to me with all her questions. She felt like the materials she was given were written for a bit younger audience, and I agreed, so we went right to the Luther’s Small Catechism. She read what Luther had to say and we discussed it at length. I am so proud of her blossoming faith. I am so thrilled to be able to share mine with her. She’s so smart and sweet. She works out her questions so carefully. Sometimes I can’t give her an answer, but she accepts that maybe sometimes the idea is to explore the question rather than find the definitive answer. When she stepped up and knelt at the Lord’s Table, surely no more humble or earnest heart has ever received the sacrament.

That Middle Kid is TEN! It’s astonishing to me how fast it’s going. Everyone said it would, you know it will, but there is no real preparation for the speed at which they grow. He was just a toddler and now he’s pushing his way toward teenhood. He makes me absolutely batty sometimes, but he’s the neatest ten-year-old I know and I can’t believe I get to be his mom.

Also of note, as mentioned above, I finished my hardest semester to date. Digital Preservation and Cataloging I. I knew they would both be rough, and that taking them together would be an enormous challenge, but waiting to take one of them might have postponed graduation up to a year. Had to be done. I got an A- in Cataloging, but the grades are still pending in Digital Preservation. I really have no idea how it’s going to turn out. There were a lot of points left to be awarded. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a B, though it would be disappointing. However it turns out, I made some good friends in the group project work, which I didn’t expect. I hate group projects with a passion, but I got lucky this time. All three other members worked hard and got along well together.

So, that leaves an internship this summer and just one class (Foundations of Archives) in the fall. If all goes well, I’ll graduate in the middle of December. It’s so odd to think of being done. It will have been a full three years of work, but it seems like it’s all I’ve ever done. The Baby Bird doesn’t remember a time when Mommy wasn’t in school. Then, of course, it will be time to get a job!

The littlest kid is all registered for all-day kindergarten. Here in Worthington, half-day kindergarten is free, but full-day is available for a pretty reasonable fee. The curriculum is not expanded, but they get more time to spend on each learning target. The fee is by far the best value in childcare around here, and having him at the school with his big brother and sister is well worth it. The idea is that I’ll have a little more flexibility to get a job and work out additional childcare with him in full-day. It’s awarded by lottery, though, so it wasn’t a done deal until they drew names but we made the cut.

In lesser news, both big kids read and loved Harry Potter this winter. The girl is off on the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon series) and trying to get me to read it. I want to, but discretionary reading hours are so precious, you know? And the Middle kid passed along a series he read in school, Brian’s Saga, that I never read. I’m most of the way through the first one and it is a quick read, but I almost never sit down. I will get through them all, kids. I promise. Having more reading given to you by your kids is a problem I’m happy to have.

So, tomorrow is Easter. I want to write about Good Friday. I’m so filled with emotion every Good Friday, and I always feel the need to write about it. It doesn’t seem right to tack it onto the end of a catch-up kind of post, though, and I haven’t really worked out exactly what I’m trying to say this year. I just read this post, a sermon by a friend of Nadia Boltz-Weber, and it’s good. It’s really good. I gasped several times at the sheer truth it contains. It’s painful. Good Friday must be painful.

For today, I’ll get back to deviling eggs and layering pudding and bananas. There are clothes to be ironed and kids to be bathed. We cut the Baby’s curls off yesterday. They can grow back, but for a while I’ve been thinking that he looked like a big boy with a baby’s haircut. No more. One haircut and he looks like he grew up by two years. I can’t wait to get everyone all dressed up tomorrow and take their picture.

The Sweet Spot

It doesn’t feel like a sweet spot. I’m swamped with homework, and laundry, and meal prep, and more daily drudgery than pre-Mom me thought was possible. These days, with all of that, are still a bit of a sweet spot.

Today, in 2015, we have no babies, no teenagers, and no aging parents requiring our care.

I registered the Baby Bird for kindergarten today. It’s the end of an era. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming, bit it’s still something to make me think. I’ve known it was coming, this whole Master’s Degree saga is a direct result of my knowing that it was coming. In the fall my baby will start school and I’ll complete my degree in December. Then I’ll have to get a real job.

So the last decade has been full of pregnancies and diapers, ABCs and 123s, learning to throw a ball and ride a bike, constant supervision, and minute-to-minute-in-the-trenches parenting. The next decade will bring a whole new set of challenges. Working mom life, learning to drive, teenagers, college choices, and more and more letting go. Our lives, our children’s lives, our parents’ lives will all look pretty different in the next decade.

But it’s all good. I wouldn’t change it. It’s going fast and I just want to take a minute to look around and take it in. I want to remember that this IS a sweet spot.

Twas the day before Thanksgiving…

Yeah, this is what I come up with when I don’t want to be writing for school. Here’s a little dream I had this Thanksgiving Eve. Enjoy!

Twas the day ‘fore Thanksgiving
And all through the land,
The people were scurrying to come up with a plan.
The news was on non-stop, crying violence and pain;
In hopes that folks could find victims to blame.
The stores were all busy, and tempers flew hot;
While visions appeared of deals to be got!
And kiddies in their pjs and I in my sweats;
Had just sipped the cocoa, as good as it gets!
When down in the basement arose such a ruckus,
I sprang from the couch to see what fuss is.
Off to the staircase I flew like a goof,
The kids were sure fighting and now I had proof!
The toys and the junk in the unfinished space,
Gave the illusion of mayhem, not a thing in its place!
When what to my screen weary eyes did appear?
But a clean little corner of holiday cheer.
With a sweet little cherub, so funny and cute,
And his brother and sister, both smart and astute.
They stood up and picked up and gathered the stuff,
The dolls and the robots, the cars; all enough!
To donate, to sell, to throw away, or just pitch,
They want it cleaned out and they just don’t care which!
To the top of the bookshelf, to the back of the trunk!
Now clean it up, sweep it up, pick up the junk!
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky;
So to the job, these children now turned,
With the dusting and sorting, oh my, they had learned!
And then in a twinkling, I felt such great joy.
They’d each like to donate a favorite toy!
As I sucked in my breath and felt ready to praise
Up the staircase they hurried, these children I’d raised.
They were dressed all in fleece, from their head to their feet
And the oldest’s top and bottom would just not quite meet.
A bin full of toys they were pulling behind,
And they looked like sweet elves, but still didn’t mind.
Their eyes, how they twinkled, their giggles, how funny!
They squeals were like music, their smiles so sunny!
The sweet little creatures moved as quick as the light
And they cleaned out the basement so nicely that night!
The piles of their toys that they knew they’d not need
Were just sitting and ready to be their good deed.
They’d sorted them carefully, marking by age
The dollies, the puzzles, that Minecraft game rage.
They were jolly and sleepy and sweetly alive
And I teared up when I saw them and tried not to cry.
A rub of their eyes, and a twist of their heads,
Soon gave me to know it was near time for beds.
I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work
I loaded the toys, they’d worked hard, I can’t shirk!
And driving to Goodwill as fast as I could,
I thought how I’d never believed that they would
Realize all their blessings and give something back.
But I must remember and not give them flack!
And I heard them but whisper as they started to doze:
“Happy Thanksgiving, Mom!”
They’re good kids, I suppose!

 

Halloween Grinch

Sometime over the last few years I have become a Halloween Grinch. And it grieves me.

I’m such a fan of all things autumnal! I have never really been a fan of summer weather. My heart rejoices when the temperatures fall enough to turn off the AC and open all the windows. I fight with my family over leaving them open when the temperatures further fall. “Put a sweatshirt on and I don’t want to see your bare feet until MAY!” Leaves turning colors and pumpkins appearing in the stores thrill me. I have special fall decorations that live in bins in the basement next to the Christmas decorations. There are a few ghosts and the like, but mostly pumpkins, scarecrows, fall leaves, and harvest themes. I’ll leave them up until I put the Christmas stuff up after Thanksgiving!

But Halloween! Arrrgghh! It used to be fun. Cute little costumes for the kids, candy, socializing with the neighbors while the whole neighborhood comes out for Trick-or-Treat, all of that is fun.

Something of the magic is lost when the kids get a little older, though. There were fights over costumes. The price of said costumes is crazy, though I ended up getting off pretty easy this year.

The girl will be her favorite character from her favorite book series. All Annabeth requires is one Camp Half Blood t-shirt, picked up on Amazon.com for less than $15. She owns, or can borrow the rest. Except for the clay bead necklace that I’m fooling myself into believing she’s forgotten. The only one we can find online is an etsy.com product and costs $40, so I nixed that pretty quickly. I’ll have to figure out how to get myself to the Michael’s or Joann’s on Friday to find just the right beads for that, I’m sure.

The middle child had the best costume lined up. He and Daddy were both going to dress up as Gandalf. It was going to be epic. Big Gandalf, little Gandalf. We even tried to talk the youngest into joining them for a fun stair step set of Gandalf’s but he was having none of that. I’ll get to his. But since we put so much faith in Amazon to deliver what we needed JUST when we needed it, at an acceptable price, we were disappointed when we finally got around to shopping last week. Dressing the both of them, IF we could find the right size for the kid, would have run close to $100. Didn’t plan on that. After explaining the situation to the kid, dealing with the usual meltdown that accompanies news of any kind that isn’t exactly what the nine-year-old wants to hear, we went back to trusty Amazon and looked through costumes until he decided on a ninja, probably because we allowed the extra set of “accessories” that include a big, stupid, plastic sword. The sword won’t be allowed at school, obviously, but hey, he gets to run around the neighborhood at dusk with it, so there’s that.

The little guy who refused to play along with the Gandalf plan insisted he would be Buzz Lightyear. Fine. Perfectly innocent costume, right? And readily available anywhere. Fine. Put the word out on the neighborhood Facebook swap board that I was looking for it and one of my favorite dads on the planet (at least of those I’m not related to) swooped in with a free outfit. Paired with a set of wings picked up on the swap board for $5, he’s good to go!

You’d think we’re all set, right? No, there are all sorts of plans and scheming to change this, do that, whatever, between the big kids, and I’m never included on these discussions until they need something. “Mom, I need a leather sleeve for my dagger! Annabeth would always have her dagger on her belt!” Or, “Moooom, I’m not going to wear those tie things that came with the costume because they’re red and want black ones. Do we have any black material I can destroy and then decide to wear the red ones anyway because the black ones won’t look like the picture in my head?”

The little one put the wings on once and the rubbed his nose as we took them off. Now he is refusing to try them on again and I’m honestly not sure he’ll agree to wear them to school for his parade on Thursday or for Halloween Friday night.

I am beyond grumpy about spending $30 on candy I won’t even get to eat.

Friday morning, the big kids get to have a costume parade at school. They are thrilled and delighted, and I guess I get that, but what a pain. Costumes must be worn to school but cannot require a bathroom trip to change back into regular clothes after their party. No face paint, no masks, no blood or gore, no weapons both real or pretend. They’ll have to keep the costumes safe and together and get them home. HA! No problem. And I’ve got a million things to do on Friday morning, but I’ll have to get over to the school to see the parade.

That should be fun, right? I mean, really. They only have a couple more years at the elementary school, which runs through sixth grade here. They’ll be too cool to dress up and wave at mom from the sidewalk any year now, right? Next year, the little one won’t be standing next to me, he’ll be in the parade with them. This is the last time they won’t ALL be in school together.

The girl is part of a little group of friends, all of whom have claimed a character from the Percy Jackson to dress up as for Halloween. One mother has volunteered to take them Trick-or-Treating so they can go together. Another mother has volunteered to have them all over after the door to door begging for movies and popcorn. She’s going to have so much fun, and make memories she’ll never forget. I can’t believe how grown up she’s getting. And these are good kids that I love, and their parents are all wonderful folks who I love. This is all good stuff!

Okay, maybe my heart is growing a size or two. Maybe I’ll find the joy in this Halloween stuff. I’m just not feeling it this week. Maybe I’ll feel it a little more when I come back with a crop of lovely pictures.

 

Heroin happens. Why we HAVE to keep talking about it!

So, here I sit in the middle of my not-so-clean house, not cleaning it. Yesterday was the final deadline for my summer class, it had been extended from last Friday. I really hate when the finish line gets moved, but there you go. I’ve been hanging on for this class to be over so I could get on with summer and all my grand summer plans, and this morning all I feel motivated to do is sit here. Gave each kid a bowl of oatmeal and now I’m just wallowing in the idea that I don’t HAVE to do anything. It will pass in a minute and I’ll get up and get on with my to-do list for the day. Wash the shower curtain in our bathroom, strip and wash the kids’ beds, scrub the upstairs bathrooms, go the grocery and pick up graduation gift for the last grad party of the season. Think about the fun the kids and I can have next week with no homework hanging over my head.

Life is good. My life is good. I am so aware of my blessings today.

Last week’s post about heroin lurking just on the edge of our world got a lot of hits. I am glad that folks are reading. I got feedback on Facebook, through emails, and even a comment here, about personal experiences of parents. My friend who wrote the piece I posted has written a bit more to share with you. I hope you will read it, too, and keep the conversation going. I can’t tell you how important I think it is to have this conversation. So many of us as parents are hanging on the idea that we can all somehow find the perfect book/blog/philosophy/guide/support group/whatever and we’ll be able to do this job perfectly. Or at least well enough that our children will be spared any pain, or bad decisions, or any of the pitfalls of life. I want to make the point again, with the help of my friend, that we’re all making mistakes and some of our children will get themselves into really bad places, whether it’s drugs, or something else. What I’m NOT saying is that it isn’t worth the struggle. I’m not saying that we should just accept the fact that some of our kids will turn into junkies and all we can do is hope it isn’t ours. I believe that talking about it will do two things. First, it will help remove the stigma felt by these kids who are trying to recover, and by their parents. Less judgement, more love, is always beneficial in healing. Second, it will increase awareness by those of us who don’t have a lot of experience with these things. A head in the sand never solved anything. Ever.

So, here is the next installment of a conversation I hope will continue.

 

How Did You Know?

How did you know? I’m not sure I did.

Why did you go looking? My gut told me to.

You invaded his privacy? I saved his life. For now…

Heroin is seductive; it lures you in and makes you its slave. It does not discriminate and invades families of all socioeconomic backgrounds, races and cultures. Heroin provides an almost immediate emotional and physical pain free escape from reality. It is as instantaneous as social media. RAPID RESULTS. Something our young people have become accustom too.

Statistics are showing that there is a terrifying trend. More people under the age of 21 are trying heroin. In fact, there has been a sharp increase in first time heroin use in the 12-17 age group. #Staggering

How did this happen? Ohio waged war and shut down illegal pill factories. Unfortunately, they created a climate that was ripe and ready for a heroin epidemic. Pills became less available and costly. Think $80 for a single pill. My son, since rehab, has shared with me that similar to his experience, most of the heroin addicts he knows, started on pills. For my son, his dealer struggled to get pills, so his dealer turned him on to heroin. Here is a

FAST FACT: Did you know heroin costs about $5 a hit. That is cheaper than pot and way cheaper than pills.

Guess what else? Heroin is more accessible and easier to obtain than not only pills, but pot.

The tiny blackish-brown square of black tar heroin, wrapped in foil, placed in a sandwich bag costs about $5. The physical and psychological relief this little mistress provides is reportedly amazing. Euphoric. It gives instant relief to anxiety, depression, mania, physical pain and everything else. You just don’t feel.

Regular use changes brain chemistry. Not only does your tolerance increase, so more is the only thing you desire, but your brain chemistry changes so you think being high is normal. And you will continue to use more, so you avoid any withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms include, goose bumps, watery eyes and runny nose, excessive yawning, loss of appetite, tremors, panic attacks, chills, nausea, muscle cramps, insomnia, stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting, shaking, chills and profuse sweating and irritability.

So first, let me state, I am no expert, I am a mom. And my son’s addiction, although I know it is not all on me, it feels like an exceptional parenting fail. So please, no need for you to judge me, I am judging myself daily. So there is no perfect science in how to tell if your loved one is using.

What I know is that my son was dealing with some pretty challenging personal SHIT just before his heroin addiction. I could see he was spiraling and he did not want our advice or help. I also knew he was not coping well with his stress. There was excessive pot smoking. I discovered he was drinking my booze. And although there were fights and consequences, I know he could have cared less and I felt helpless.

Then I noticed a couple times some seriously glassy eyes. It was weird and it was a look I had not seen before. I don’t remember the puddley looking eyes with the tiny pupils. I thought to myself, whoa, he looks messed up. So I would ask if he was okay. How do you think he responded? He’s 20 and he would become volatile if I pressed, so I didn’t.

He was also pulling away from us. Isolating himself, spending time with his personal shit problem girlfriend and became more private and more withdrawn.

In my gut something was horribly wrong, I knew it, I felt it and people around me would talk me out of

it. So I gave it time. I gave it about five minutes.

Then I did it. I invaded his privacy. I went in to my 20-year-old son’s room and searched. It didn’t take much searching; I saw the baggie, syringe (sans needle), a small piece of foil, a spoon and a lighter sitting out on a chair. It was right out in the open.

(By the way, what this taught me was that there is no privacy in my house. If I suspect my child is in trouble or doing something troubling, I will search their things and be unapologetic because it could be life or death. It is not a betrayal, it is my house and my rules – I can search and I will search.)\So what were the signs? The signs sucked, I relied on my gut and his behavior. Did my gut tell me he was using heroin? No, but I knew something was happening.

What should you do? Every situation is different. Not every addict presents the same. There are some similarities though. They lie and they get really good at covering their addiction. They may bargain and make promises that heroin never intends for them to keep. They stop caring about everything, except heroin.

BE PRESENT, OBSERVANT AND TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS.

What should you look for:

Pin Point pupils

Droopy appearance like every limb, including their head is heavy

Dry mouth and extreme thirst

Behavior changes

Appearance lacks care altogether

Withdraws or other behavior changes

Baggies and foil laying about or in trash

Missing tablespoons

Understand that addiction is a disease. It is complex and your loved one will struggle. Relapse is part of this struggle.

Understand the difference between support, enabling and meddling. This is tough, so rely on help from professionals and friends.

TALK ABOUT IT – tell trusted friends and talk about it. This hardship is too much of a burden for you to carry alone. Go to a meeting like Al-Anon or Nar-Anon.

Remember, there is no such thing as recreational heroin use, get them to rehab. Find a program. If they have a family component, go to every meeting, rearrange your life for your family. This is important. Embrace taking things one day at a time. You need to live during this time too. Live and find joy in every day. Look hard for it, because it is there, even if it is to be grateful your loved one is safe and in a facility.

 

Heroin happens, even here

I really should be working on my last week of class stuff, but as I’d hoped, once I started writing, I can’t stop. And this morning, someone sent me something I want to share. But first, some other thoughts, and some background.

We bought this house in May 2009. Though both my husband and I were drawn to a bit more urban setting, the best schools we could afford, with the most house, were here in Worthington. And since our oldest child would be starting kindergarten in the fall, we were thrilled to find a house in our price range with some of the upgrades it needed, walking distance from shopping and restaurants, not to mention the elementary school, with wonderful neighbors and mature trees. I had never had the experience of moving into a home that I loved with no expiration date on my stay. We would live here for an indeterminate period, a long period. The kids would grow up here. I remember joking that I would never move again. We probably will, but that’s a post for another day.

We were so happy. We loved this place. The spot, the schools, the neighborhood, all of it. We thought it was the perfect American dream we were living. Then one morning in September we looked out the window and saw several police cars parked across the street and many officers in bullet-proof vests and Kevlar helmets. There didn’t seem to be a high degree of alarm among the officers, so we watched. Eventually they left and we didn’t find out what was going on until we watched the evening news. In the morning, the Columbus Dispatch ran the story with the headline: “13 caught in heroin sweep.” One of those kids lived across the street from us.

Bubble POPPED!

Reality!

There is HEROIN IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD! And not just “in our neighborhood” like out there, somewhere, close, but vague. It’s ACROSS THE STREET!

I didn’t panic. I really didn’t. I mean, this kid was out of high school. There was no reason for this incident to affect my children. After all, it wasn’t like they found it in the elementary school, right? But it’s awful damned close to home. I could see into the bedroom window of someone who was doing, possibly distributing, heroin. Now, let’s be clear, it’s not like I’ve never been exposed to people doing heroin. It’s not like I have no experience with drugs and the people who use them. But not like this, not since I became a mother. This is different. No part of me felt sorry for the kid who got busted. No part of me thought, “What a shame they got caught” like I might have 15 years earlier if I’d read about someone caught with a joint. No way. This time all I could think about were this kid’s parents.

I am a fact finder by nature, I guess. Some might call it stalker, but we quibble about language. I wanted to find out about these folks. I hadn’t met them, yet, despite living across the street for four months by then. I looked them up on the tax auditor’s website and found out that they’d lived there for over a decade. They’d probably moved here to put their kids into the good schools we’d moved here for. They’re just parents. How heartbroken they must have been that this was happening. What did they feel like?

I lost some sleep worrying about these parents. I kept imagining myself in their position. I don’t know how you get there, but I knew that despite my best efforts and hours of praying, it could happen. I could find myself in just the same position. I was absolutely sure that at no time had those parents across the street thought to themselves, “Oh, we’ll just let this one thing go and if it leads our kid to get involved in heroin, it will probably be okay.”

But after a while, when there were no more news stories about heroin in our specific neighborhood, just vague rumors about it’s existence in the city, the whole thing got pushed to the back of my mind. Not forgotten. Never forgotten. It’s such a frightening thought, too frightening to really dwell on all the time. So we got back to the business of raising kids who would hopefully avoid such a thing. Kids who would be properly scared of the prospect. Kids who would be smart and strong and capable of pushing back against such evils. But we were not under any illusion that such evils were far away, that they don’t still lurk way too close for comfort.

Then a few months ago a friend “introduced” me to another mom on Facebook. I’d seen her also commenting on our mutual friend’s posts, but didn’t think much of it. One day this mutual friend just posted and tagged us both and said something like, “Here, you two should be friends. You are the same brand of cool.” Well, this particular friend’s opinion is good enough for me, so I had a new friend. You know how you just click with someone right away? Well, that’s how it was with this friend. After a few months, we decided to meet in person for coffee.

When we met, we ended up talking for a few hours, and only because we both had other places to be did the conversation end. But most of the conversation was around the things she told me that were not posted on Facebook. There are lots of blogs and such out there about how we all use Facebook differently, but most of us don’t put our worst stuff up there. We don’t put the stuff that makes us too vulnerable to judgement, to others seeing that life isn’t at least sometimes Pinterest-worthy. Her son was recovering from using heroin.

I was floored. She seemed so, I don’t know, so normal. Like me. So much like a mom making all the same decisions I would make. Like she’d probably approached the subject of drugs with her kids in much the same way that I was. But there it was. A mom whose kid was using heroin. She’d found it in his bedroom. She’d FOUND it! It’s not like she suspected and ignored her own red flag. She’d FOUND it.

Again I found myself realizing that it wasn’t just about making the right parenting choices, whatever those might be. Raising kids is anything but an exact science. Despite all the best intentions, and informed decisions, it had happen to this mother’s son. It could happen to mine.

So, I listened to her tale, and I made many mental notes. I was in awe of the strength she showed in the way she’d handled it and in the way she told her story. Later I went home and digested it all further. I prayed that if it were ever my kid, I would do many of the same things she’d done. First of all, she didn’t bust him, accept his apology with a promise that it would never happen again, and then forget about it. She got his butt into treatment RIGHT THEN. She went through several months of advocating for her kid because there is no good system in place to take care of him. I’m sure it was no picnic for the kid, but I still can’t see it from his perspective. I can only see it from his mother’s eyes.

In the months since, my new friend and I have met again and we’ve continued to communicate regularly. I have encouraged her to start the blog she talks about, but she isn’t ready to do it, yet. But this morning she sent me something she’d written. She’s not ready to out her son, nor does she want to tell his story. This is what she felt and I want to share some of her feelings. I’m betting there are other parents out there who have thought about these things. So, I share this as a bit of hope. Yes, she’s just like me, and many other moms and dads out there. Middle class, good family, involved parent who “kept open the lines of communication.” But it still happened. And here’s how she felt.

Six months.

I am six months out from a day I thought I would not live through. It was the day we found heroin in our son’s room and had to confront him. This day was terrifying, sad, frustrating and a new beginning.

So how does a seemingly normal family respond when you find a substance like heroin in your child’s room? Well:

It makes you question everything you believed in.

It makes you doubt any remote possibility that you were a good parent, because at this point, you pretty much know it was an epic parenting fail.

You long for the days when your child was an infant or toddler and you wish you would have enjoyed them more.

You learn how to live with the terrifying realization that heroin takes many lives and your child’s could be one of them.

You wonder every time your child leaves the house if you will see them alive again. You learn that this struggle is their struggle and you need to focus on you.

You realize you must try to rely on a relationship with a higher power that you now completely wonder if there really is such a thing.

You are also angry because you know this should not be happening but you can’t change or stop it. The pain you know your child is living with, is almost unbearable for you to feel or think about.

You are scared.

You realize your child, whom you have loved with all your heart, is in for a life long struggle and challenge that seems insurmountable to you.

You become keenly aware of every heroin death and it sits like a cinder block on your chest. It is not the life you planned or wanted, but it is now your life.

Come on NEW BEGINNING!! My life came to a halt December 6, 2013. I was afraid. I felt like a failure. But as things evolved, I dug deep and my strength kept our family afloat. As the dust settled, my strength was not needed and I was not sure what to do, but I thought I was okay: I wasn’t. I became sick. Sick with fear, sick with worry.

A friend gave me a gift. She stopped me and took a chance that I could hear her truth. She told me to stop. Stop being paralyzed by my fear. She told me to stop being afraid, afraid to live and afraid to make decisions.

You see, my fear for a long time has been my guide. It was making my decisions for me. I was not in control of my own destiny and I was unable to be myself. The heroin and the fear was defining a new me. I was becoming someone I did not want to be.

Everything felt bad. I took her truth and I am working every day to let go of the fear, turn it over to my higher power and live: live life and be grateful. Live life and stop being afraid and letting the fear guide me into despair. I am grateful for my new friend who took that chance on me and told me to let go of my fear. This is my new beginning.

My son, he has a new beginning too: six months clean. But, that is his story to tell. What I can share is that he is working hard every day and he is happy – and for this, I am incredibly grateful.

Perfection. It doesn’t exist, but the story DOES!

In 1978 I started second grade at William H. Blount Elementary School on Princess Place Drive in Wilmington, N.C. I liked school. I liked books. I liked the library. I remember being in the space with lots of short stacks and paint-stirrer sticks used to mark the spot on the shelf where you removed a book. I remember going into the library for storytime. I don’t know how often we students were herded into the library and seated on the pea soup colored carpet to listen to a teacher or librarian read a story, but I remember one particular story so clearly.

Do you remember any of the stories you were read in the second grade? How about any of the stories that you never heard again? I mean, sure I remember the Dr. Suess stories. I remember the Madeline stories. I remember Eloise and Curious George. I’ve been reading those, or hearing about them, or watching them be turned into children’s programs, since I was a child. We read those at home and read them over and over. But this one time, this one story, that I would not hear again for 36 years, I remembered. And I spoke of it sometimes to friends. We would laugh about how ridiculous it was. Who tells kids a story like that? I often wondered over the years if I had made it up in my own memory. Or perhaps I just remembered it differently.

The story, as I remembered it, was about a perfect little girl and the devil. The devil was, of course, unhappy that a little girl could be so perfect and began trying to get her to be angry. If she were to get angry, he reasoned, she wouldn’t be perfect. So he gave her the chicken pox, but she didn’t scratch or complain. He had a cow step on her favorite doll, but (and I always used this exact phrase in retelling the story) she forgave the cow. He tried all sorts of other tricks that didn’t work, but in the end he did win. He let her have her perfect life, a perfect husband, and a perfect house. And a less than perfect child.

When I started thinking again about becoming a librarian, this story kept coming back to my mind. I knew that I had to find it. I had to find out if it was even real. It seemed like an excellent wannabe librarian challenge. I Googled and Googled, and eventually, I figured out that it was a real story and it appeared in The Devil’s Storybook, by Natalie Babbitt, first published in 1974. At the time, that was fine, I only needed to know that some story about a perfect little girl and the devil was real. I probably twisted it around in my head anyway. I probably didn’t remember the story just right. I’d only been seven, after all, and I have never heard the story since.

This week I happened across an article about my old elementary school. It doesn’t matter much what it was about, so I’ll spare you, but it made me remember those storytimes when I was little. I decided I needed to get hold of a copy of The Devil’s Storybook. It was time that I actually READ the story and compared it to my memory. It only took a couple days for my library’s consortium to get it delivered to my local branch. It’s a really short story, so bare with me while I share the whole thing.

“Perfection,” by Natalie Babbitt

There was a little girl once called Angela who always did everything right. In fact, she was perfect. She had better manners than anyone, and not only that, but she hung up her clothes and never forgot to feed the chickens. And not only that, but her hair was always combed and she never bit her fingernails. A lot of people, all of them fair-to-middling, disliked her very much because of this, but Angela didn’t care. She just went right on being perfect and let things go as they would. 

Now, when the Devil heard about Angela, he was revolted. “Not,” he explained to himself, “that I give a hang about children as a rule, but this one! Imagine what shell be like when she grows up–a woman whose only fault is that she has no faults!” And the very thought of it made him cross as crabs. So he wrote up a list of things to do that he hoped would make Angela edgy and, if all went well, even make her lose her temper. “Once she loses her temper a few times,” said the Devil, “she’ll never be perfect again.”

However, this proved harder to do than the Devil had expected. He sent her chicken pox, then poison ivy, and then a lot of mosquito bites, but she never scratched and didn’t even seem to itch. He arranged for a cow to step on her favorite doll, but she never shed a tear. Instead, she forgave the cow at once, in public, and said it didn’t matter. Next the Devil fixed is that for weeks on end her cocoa was always too hot and her oatmeal too cold, but this, too, failed to make her angry. In fact, it seemed that the worse things were, the better Angela liked it, since it gave her a chance to show just how perfect she was.

Years went by. The Devil used up every idea on his list but one, and Angela still had her temper, and her manners were still better than anyone’s. “Well, anyway,” said the evil to himself, “my last idea can’t miss. That much is certain.” And he waited patiently for the proper moment.

When that moment came, the Devil’s last idea worked like anything. In fact, it was perfect. As soon as he made it happen, Angela lost her temper once a day at least, and sometimes oftener, and after a while she had lost it so often that she was never quite so perfect again.

And how did he do it? Simple. He merely saw that she got a perfect husband and a perfect house, and then–he sent her a fair-to-middling child.

I was stunned at how perfectly I’d remembered the details of the story, but at the same time, how different the story really was. It was essentially the same story I’d remembered, but in Ms. Babbitt’s words, now it was about the concept of “perfection”  and the idea of perceptions, and parenthood, and life. Now, with my 42 year old, mother’s sensibilities, I read this story and cried. Not because I’d ever, EVER been perfect, or even aspired to perfection. Not because my husband, or my house, or any other aspect of my life, is perfect. Not because I have any fair-to-middling children. 

My mind is still wrapping itself around this little story. I don’t suppose there are a lot of K-12 librarians reading it to school children these days. Why did I remember it so well? I wonder why it made such an impact on my seven-year-old mind. Regardless, I feel so satisfied in having tracked it down and found out that I DID remember it correctly. I feel so vindicated.

Here we go again…

Here I am again, overwhelmed at the amount of schoolwork and a little panicky about getting it all done. It will get done, it has to get done, but it’s gonna be a manic few months here. Maybe two classes at once is too much at this level. Especially if I have to add some volunteer work. I’m thinking of dropping back to one class at a time. I’ll revisit that thought later. Right now, I’m committed to these two, so I’ll get it done.

Note that, even while eating, there’s homework in the background.

Meanwhile, I’m also determined not to just eat whatever the heck I want to this semester. I’ve dropped a few pounds when classes are out only to pile them back on when classes resume about three times now. I can’t be bothered by the whole calorie counting thing, though. That’s too much trouble anyway. I’m also having some inflammation issues, particularly in my joints, and I’m wondering if diet can help that a bit. So I’ve decided to try a little paleo. I’m going to start with the Whole30 idea and see what happens. Maybe I’ll hate it and that will be the end of it. Maybe I’ll feel a bit better and keep going. Maybe I won’t be able to live without sweetener in my coffee and I’ll last two days and freak out. We’ll see. I know there are a lot of meals considered paleo that I can get excited about. I like that I don’t need to keep track of anything and as long as I keep plenty of veggies and some fruit around, I’ll never have to figure out what to eat. I like that I can cook meat and serve it to me and my family. I will have to make some modifications and maybe I won’t consume the whole meal that the rest of the family gets, but I won’t have to make two separate meals every night, either.

So far, I’m just experimenting with some meals. I have not committed to get started. I’ve got a half a loaf of Ezekiel bread and a chunk of 1000 day gouda I’m not willing to throw out. I’m pleased, though. Last night I had sweet potatoes, onions, and spinach. It was delicious! I was a little shocked at how much I enjoyed it, actually. That’s the dish in the picture. Breakfast was two eggs, spinach, onion, mushrooms, and avocado. I was stuffed. I should have left time for lunch before I go pick up Joey, but I’m going to snack on some sugar snap peas and I think I’ll make it. I’ll keep you posted. I’m not looking forward to giving up alcohol, either, but that’s not exactly a deal breaker.

 

Let’s call it what it is. Fat.

A friend posted this on Facebook about “Fat Talk.” You need to watch it to know what I’m talking about. It’s only about two minutes. I’ll wait.

I seem to be seeing a lot of this lately. We’re not supposed to call ourselves “fat” because we’re degrading ourselves and it’s damaging, or some such. Yeah, I get it. I’m supposed to be happy in the skin I’m in. I’m supposed to love myself for who I am. I’m supposed to get past the body image crap that we girls grow up with thanks to society and the media. Well, guess what! I am. I did. I used this body to produce three of the most beautiful children the world has ever seen (yeah, I said it!). I am forty-two years old and looking like I did in high school is not a priority for me, and I’m okay with that. I do not loath my body. I do not hate myself for the extra 60-75 lbs (depending on the month) that I am carrying around.

Let’s face it. This is not the chin of a healthy person.

But I am fat. I do need to lose that weight. I don’t need to lose it because I don’t love myself when I’m fat. I need to lose it because I love myself and want to be healthy. I don’t need to lose it because I want to like myself when I look in the mirror. I have to lose it because I DO like myself when I look in the mirror and I want to see that face get old! I don’t need to lose it so I can strut in a bikini, that ain’t ever happening again at any weight. I need to lose it so I can breathe better at night, so my knees feel better, so I don’t get so winded running around after my kids. I’m so out of shape, it’s almost as bad as when I was smoking. Almost. I don’t hate myself for being fat. I do get upset with myself for letting it get this bad.

I have a daughter about to turn ten years old. She is already well aware of the whole body image thing. She knows that her mom is overweight. We can say fat. I am fat. We can just call it overweight if that feels more like a medical term and makes everyone comfortable, but it’s semantics. My daughter knows that I am struggling with my own issues that cause me to gain weight and to shirk my responsibility for my health. But let me be clear, any negative body image crap she’s picking up on is not coming from me. She has NEVER heard me say that I hate any part of my body. She has heard me say that I am disappointed in myself for not getting healthy. She has never heard me “wish” to be thin. She has never known a time when her Mommy wasn’t willing to dress up with her and feel pretty. To walk tall and confident. I’m far more proud of that confidence that I’m trying to pass on to her than I am ashamed of my short falls in the fitness area.

And even more importantly, she has never seen her father wane is his attraction to me. She has never, EVER heard him make any disparaging remark about my body, my weight, my size, or my clothes. She has never heard him say anything to me or about me except that I am beautiful. I know this because that’s all I have ever heard from him. Yes, I am a lucky woman. If I could wish anything for my daughter, it’s not that she always stay in shape. So many things can affect how fit a person is at any given stage in life. I wish her health, but fitness is not as important as confidence. My one wish for her would be that she always be confident enough to wait for that man who will love her like her daddy loves me. And for that matter like my father loves my mother. Some extra weight has never been a reason for even the most mild of negative thought or remark.

The media is pounding on my girl every minute about body image. I know. And for lots of girls it’s too much. I pray every day that she will be stronger than that. I think I’m doing the best I can for her on this one, though. Not by going on about how beautiful she is no matter her size, and not by telling her that fat is beautiful. Instead I’m showing her that fat is just another thing. I’m also really bad at keeping up with the laundry. None of us is good at everything. I’m not so good at staying healthy, but I’m working on it. It’s a constant struggle. I think I’m pretty emotionally healthy, if not physically.

All that said, I’ll be jumping back on the wagon after the holidays. We had family pictures taken for the church directory yesterday. That was a bit painful. I swear I don’t look that fat in the mirror. I did not see a healthy woman in that picture. I did see a happy one, though.