On Mother’s Day afternoon, I was sitting on my parent’s porch with my mom, Grandma, Sarah, and the kids. We were eating strawberry shortcake and enjoying the beautiful weather, while Bean and Gracie puttered around their little picnic table my mom bought for them.
Life was grand.
Sarah and I were talking about something when all of a sudden, we both heard Bean say (quite loudly), “HOLY SH…” Immediately, it was silent out on the porch.
“What’d he say?” Sarah whispered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. And then turning to Bean, I said casually, “What’d you say, Buddy?”
He looked right at me and clear as a bell said, “Holy shit.”
Now, I know the appropriate thing to do in these situations is to ignore your child. Bean wasn’t doing it for attention, and so I didn’t want to call attention to the phrase unnecessarily, but I turned to look at Sarah and she was literally falling off the front porch swing where we were sitting because she was laughing so hard.
Which got me laughing.
Which got Sarah laughing.
Which got me laughing.
Which got BEAN laughing.
And then we had to stop. Because if he knew what we were laughing at, there was a good chance he would say it again. So, we stopped.
And then Sarah started laughing again.
And then I started laughing again.
Goodness, I never knew inappropriate language from a toddler could be so funny! NOT THAT WE ENCOURAGE THAT, but still. It was good for an afternoon giggle.
09Apr
Easter this year was pretty low key for us. In light of all that has been going on over the past few weeks, we decided to take it easy. I even put hosting the Easter lunch off on my parents, so I didn’t have to cook much either! How’s that for avoiding responsibilities? We did the traditional things like dying Easter eggs…
Later, we hunted eggs, too!
But mostly, we just sat around and enjoyed being with family.
The one thing I really focused on were our Easter outfits because I really want a good family picture. We haven’t had one since the lovely Jenn Hopkins Photography took ours a while ago. So, I bought Bean and Chris matching ties, found dresses for me and Gracie, and planned to get at least ONE good family picture. But then on Saturday, Gracie face planted on the sidewalk in front of our house and got a bloody nose and giant bruise on her forehead. She survived, but she looks pretty rough.
Plus, by the time we got to my parents, the kids were ready to play, so pictures were hit and miss.
This was as close as I got. Not bad, but Gracie looks pissed off and Bean’s twisting Chris’s tie. Eh…it’ll do.
Since those didn’t work, I thought I’d try some of me and Gracie or Chris with Bean. I figured if we reduced the number of variables, maybe we’d have better luck. Not really…
Though, Bean and Chris seemed to do better.
Pictures aside, the only other must-have at Easter this year were Easter baskets. Gracie just had her birthday, and both kids racked up on a bunch of new toys, so I tried to come up with other things to get them. With summer coming up, I decided to go with summer themed baskets and pick them each up some summer items they’d be needing very soon.
Bean had a Lightning McQueen summer basket. I found him a Lightning McQueen beach towel, Lightning McQueen sunglasses, and Lightning McQueen flip flops.
I wrapped propped everything up in his Easter basket with Easter grass, then filled in the holes with eggs and some candy.
I put the whole basket in a basket bag and tied it at the top with yellow and white polk-a-dot ribbon.
Gracie needed some summer clothes like WHOA. In one week, she outgrew all of her nine month clothes and is now wearing twelve month clothes (which are a little snug sometimes around the belly!). She didn’t have any summer play clothes in her new size, so I picked her up two new little romper outfits at Target.
She also got a new pair of summer sandals (which conveniently matched her Easter dress).
The last of her goodies were new sippy cups because we are trying desperately to get her to drink out of a sippy cup. Girlfriend wants nothing to do with a sippy cup right now, so I tried a different brand and style to see if that would help. Surprisingly, it did a little bit.
Just like with Bean, I filled her basket with green grass and arranged all of her goodies. She got some Easter eggs, too, but I skipped the candy for Gracie Girl. (Don’t tell her, though. I don’t think she noticed!)
I finished the baskets around 9:00 that night and realized that I had only gotten ONE basket bag, so I had to haul myself up to Target at 9:30 and hunt down another bag for Gracie. But the morning when the kids woke up, the Easter Bunny had arrived in all his basket bag glory. I felt a little bad that there weren’t toys or anything fun in the kids baskets at first, but it ended up working out really nice. Bean loved his stuff, and Gracie didn’t care one way or another, but she sure looked cute!
24Feb
I haven’t had one of those parenting days in a while. You know the ones. Those days when nothing goes right and everything is a struggle. I mean, don’t get me wrong. On most days, there’s always something that is challenging, but there are certain days when it seems like everything I touch becomes ten times harder to accomplish. It’d been a while since I had one of those, so I was probably overdue. On Wednesday, I paid for it.
I had the best of intentions on Wednesday afternoon. I was going to pick the kids up from daycare as soon as I was done at school, and we were going to head across town to our church where Chris would meet us for a family dinner before we all went to the Ash Wednesday service at 6:30. It should have been fairly simple. Ahhh…best laid plans…
I had forgotten when I planned this little soiree that I had after school tutoring scheduled (I tutor in writing two days a week for an hour after school), so I ended up leaving a full hour after I originally planned. Which meant I would not, in fact, miss the rush hour traffic as we headed across town to the church. But, I was still optimistic. I picked up the kids and we set out. But we didn’t get far. We pretty much came to a dead stop on the interstate in rush hour traffic and we continued to creep for the next full HOUR. For one hour, I sat in traffic with a screaming Gracie and a whining Bean, who were both hungry. As we crept closer and closer to the church, the sky grew darker and darker and darker until I was sure there was a hurricane getting ready to hit us. But as bad as the wind blew and as dark as the clouds grew, no rain fell and so I thought that maybe we’d be able to get to church before the heavens opened up and soaked us.
And the rain did hold out. It waited until I had just loaded my arms full of diaper bags, a thermal tote with our dinner inside, my purse, and I had just pulled Gracie in her carrier out of the car. THEN, the heavens opened up. So, holding all of these things, and trying desperately hard not to drop Gracie’s carrier, I now had to try to wrestle with an umbrella, too. All of this while Gracie is screaming bloody murder in her seat. She doesn’t like the rain. It makes her hair curl.
So, I’m hurrying and balancing and trying to protect my screaming banshee of a child from the rain, when I finally make it over to Bean’s side of the car to get him out and I discover that – surprise! – he’d taken off his socks AND shoes in the car.
Now, at this point, I am very carefully balanced with all my bags and supplies and giant babies in car seats. My arms are full and I’m standing in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella handle under my chin, trying to keep Gracie dry. In order to put Bean’s shoes on him, I’d have to put everything down. But where? It was pouring!
“Michael!” I barked. “Why did you take off your socks and shoes?”
“Because my feets were hot,” he pleaded.
But before I could even begin to think of how I was going to handle this (I’d have to put everything back in the car, including the car seat, go put Bean’s shoes on, and then reload everything in my arms for the second time…), a Good Samaritan appeared.
This very kind older woman was walking by with her umbrella, trying to get into the church, but when she saw me struggling to hold everything and then heard me asking about Bean’s shoes, she turned back to me and said, “Hi there. My name is Betty. Can I please help you?” I tried to kind of smile and say that I really had it under control, but it was very clear that I did not. So, Betty kindly pushed me out of the way and told me to keep Gracie dry while she literally climbed her 80 year old self up inside my SUV and dug out Bean’s shoes which had been flung to the nether regions of my floorboards. The whole time she climbed and searched, she talked to Bean, and he must have liked her because he talked right back. He told her about his day and about his “bes’ fend” at school, and about how we were going to go to “cherch” tonight and eat God’s snack (which is what we call Communion). Finally, Betty got both shoes on Bean and helped him out of his seat and then she walked up to the church with us, holding him under her umbrella while I carried Gracie’s seat and all my bags under mine.
At the outdoor entry to the nursery, she said goodbye and I thanked her profusely, while insisting that I now had everything under control. So, she leaves, and I turn around to go inside the building to the nursery only to discover the entire nursery wing is locked. No lights are on. No doors are open. It’s shut tight. So, now I’m standing under a tiny awning with all my bags, my screaming baby in her car seat, and a squirming, hungry toddler.
Cue the lightning and thunder.
It started popping lightning around us and the thunder boomed so loud that Bean literally scaled up one side of me and down the other. He was terrified. Gracie was, too. And I had no where for us to go. When I had stopped to thank Betty, I had set down all of my things in the process of our conversation, so I very quickly started piling my bags on my arms again, picked up the infant carrier (which, with Gracie in it, weighs about 35 or 40 pounds, at least), and tried to also carry/drag Bean, who was now terrified of the lightning and had strapped himself to my right leg.
Now, our church campus is beautiful and very Floridian, which means it’s open air. Which meant we now had to get from one side of campus to the other in order to find a building that was unlocked. So, we start the trek, me balancing all these things and cursing myself for choosing to wear heels that day to work.
We finally made it to the other building and managed to get into the church kitchen, where I dropped everything in relief and immediately texted Chris, “I really need some help. Where are you?” He responded with, “Running late. Won’t make dinner. Will be late for church. Love you.” To which I responded with a text that was not appropriate for church OR this blog. I ditched my phone and concentrated on feeding the kids dinner. Only, I just realized that in the shuffle of sweet Betty helping us get out of the car, I had accidentally left our dinner tote in the backseat of my car. Which was across the church campus. And it was still raining and thundering and lightning.
Awesome.
So, I left my bags in the kitchen, threw Gracie on my hip, and held Bean’s hand while we ran back across campus to the car through the rain, got our dinner, and then ran back across campus to the kitchen again. If we hadn’t been before, we were now SOAKED.
But soaked or dry, everyone was hungry. So, I got Bean all set up with his PB&J and sat Gracie on the table so I could hand her little pieces of steamed veggies I’d brought for her. About 10 minutes into dinner, Gracie knocked her entire bowl of food onto the floor and then immediately started crying because she wanted more. As I was cleaning that up with the one small napkin I could find, Bean spilled his cup of apple juice all over the table.
Excellent.
I finally got everything cleaned up and loaded up and we headed back to the nursery. It had been half an hour and it was only 15 minutes until the service started. Surely, the nursery would be open. We fumble our way once again through the rain with all my bags, the infant carrier, and Bean in tow, only to find the nursery to still be locked. Seriously, I almost started crying. Instead, I prayed.
I believe the exact prayer I prayed went like, “God! What the crap, man? I’m trying to get to church! Are you freaking serious with this?”
So, I just gave up. I set my bags down, I sat down on the ground and pulled a crying, scared Bean into my lap, and we sat there for 10 minutes under a tiny awning in the rain and thunder while we waited for the nursery to open. Finally, one of the nursery girls came flying up and let us into the building. I got the kids all set up and made it to church right on time. Chris, unfortunately, was about 20 minutes late and ended up sitting in a pew behind me because of the crowd.
Sometimes these days, I forget how hard it is to be a parent. You get so used to going, going, going that you almost forget what it’s like to not be on full speed all the time. And I forget that I’m tired, and I somehow manage to fit it all into the 24 hours in a day. But then there are other days. And on those other days, the only thing that holds it all together is the fact that you don’t have time for it to all fall apart. On those days, you just pray angry prayers to get through the moment and hope you aren’t doing any permanent damage to your children’s psyche. Then, you go home, wipe everyone down with a diaper wipe, kiss them goodnight, as you climb into your own bed, you say another prayer that somewhere in this somber season of Lent, you find a little time to be still.
And then you wake up tomorrow to blue skies and happy babies, and life goes on as it always has.
05Feb
On Sunday mornings, Bean and Gracie go to their own nurseries while Chris and I go to “big church.” Up until Gracie was five or six months old, we brought her to church with us because I was nervous about leaving her with the nursery girls. She was just so tiny! But since then, she’s been in the nursery on Sundays. We’ve brought Bean to “big church” on special occasions before, like holidays or when we have family visiting with us at church or if the choir was doing a major performance. Anything that we thought would keep his attention. But, for the most part, the kids are in the nursery.
Today, though, our church served Communion and so right before they started that part of the service, I slipped out and went to get Bean from the nursery. Chris and I have talked before about how we thought he was old enough to start receiving Communion with us and today just seemed like the right time to start.
At our church, Communion is given once a month and everyone is invited to attend. Growing up, I remember my parents letting me have Communion from as early as I can remember. As a Christian, it is a very important symbolic act to me. It makes me feel connected to God through his son’s sacrifice and, while I want Bean to come into a relationship with God on his own terms and in his own heart, I want to give him the opportunity to feel at home and comfortable in the church by showing him the customs and traditions we practice. That was how it was in my family. Religion was never forced on me. It wasn’t a requirement. It was just an environment that my parents continually exposed me to so that I came to feel comfortable and at home in the church. Years later, in college, when I began to simultaneously grow in my faith and question my faith, I could go through those thoughts and struggles within the context of a place that I felt comfortable and safe in. As a parent, I think that’s the best we can do for our children. I want Bean to know that Christ and the church are where I find my strength, and I want him to see the importance of that in my life. But then I want him to make that commitment to faith for himself.
I pray every single day that both my children make that commitment for themselves.
We haven’t really done too much up to this point to introduce God and Christ to Bean. We sing the blessing before we eat, we say prayers together at night, we watch Veggie Tales, and occasionally we talk about Bible stories.
Actually, when I write it out, I guess that’s not too bad. But what we haven’t really gotten into with him is the Christian doctrine (to the extent that you could do that with a two-and-a-half year old). We haven’t really talked about what we believe. I just don’t feel like Bean can understand the abstract ideas of religion yet. So, instead, we focus on things that he CAN understand.
Communion this morning was a perfect example. When I brought Bean into the “big church,” we stood in the narthex while the minister prayed over the bread and grape juice. While he prayed, I held Bean and whispered in his ear what was happening. I said things like, “Do you see that man in the robe? That is one of God’s best friends and he is going to give us a snack today.” I told him that the snack was a gift from God because “God loves Michael.”
I told Bean what it was he would be eating – bread and juice – because I wanted him to know what would happen when we went up front. Then I pointed to the Communion rail (where we kneel in our church to receive the Sacrament) and told him that we were going to go up front there to the rail and then we would sing our blessing before we had our snack. When Bean understood what we were going to do, we went to the pew and sat down until our row was able to go up front. He does better in situations when he knows what’s going on and what he is supposed to do next.
When we got up to the Communion rail, I knelt and Bean stood in front of me with my arms around him. I held my hands out for the bread in front of Bean and he copied me. When our minister came along (who, by the way, is one of the sweetest men I have ever met), he put bread in my hands and then a little piece in Bean’s. I whispered into Bean’s ear while we waited for the juice to come down the rail, “This is our snack that God is giving us because God loves Michael and God loves mommy.”
“And God loves Daddy and God loves Gracie,” Bean whispered back.
“Exactly!” I whispered.
When the juice came, Bean was super excited when I gave him his own little cup, but I told him we had to sing our blessing first. Normally, before I take Communion, I pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of his son and for his presence in my life. For Bean, that equates to a blessing. So, that’s what we did. Very quietly, Bean and I sang our family blessing right there at the Communion rail. Then, we both took Communion together.
When we stood up from the rail to go back to our pew, Bean happily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then announced very loudly to me, “Mommy, I want more snack!”
I’m sure I turned three shades of red in front of the laughing congregation, but inside I was praying, “Dear Lord, please keep his heart hungry for you.”
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