Fight or Flight

I really love biology. Loved it in high school and loved it again when I took it at UW just a few short years ago. Ideally, I'll end up in a field that deals with it, but right now is not the time to be too discerning about what the future holds.

I've always thought one of the most interesting aspects of animal behavior is the idea of fight or flight. That when presented with some kind of very real threat, we have two choices. We run from it or we do battle.

In parenthood, you kind of have to choose the second.

Before you think I sound crazy and violent, hear me out on this.

Being a parent is the first thing I have ever done that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not that I ever stop being married, of course, but with a rational human adult, one can take breaks. One can ask for space. One can assume one may sleep through the night without the other one waking her up. (Well, sometimes. The early months were dicey as we figured out how to share a bed, but that's another, more comedic story.")

Once you are a parent, that's it. If your kid needs you, nothing else will do. Maybe someone will give you a night off, but you always know there is the possibility of being called home in an emergency. Maybe you'll take a weekend away with your spouse, but you are still parent. Your brain cannot move from that state of being.

So when the battles come, you have to choose fight. You have to stay in it.

Now, biologically speaking, if I were a lesser being this would probably mean punching my toddler in the face after he has just punched me in the face. Meet force with force, right? Thankfully, I have rational logic and compassion to choose a different way to fight. If I didn't, my instinct to protect myself would surely kick in. And I would fight back at a very base level. A level that would not be in my children's (or my) best interest.

But, friends. It's hard. Take someone like myself who can be easily angered and add sleep deprivation and hunger to the mix, then when my 2 year old wallops me, I really, really have to work hard not to react. Not to lash out. Not to yell or freak out. Not to put him in time out and run to google and job search immediately so I can end this stay-at-home thing asap. Not to make the whole day about the one (or ten, as the day may be) incident. Everything feels more dramatic when I am hungry and tired.

This week, as I've been preparing myself to be alone for a few weeks with the little people (with some help coming a few days here and there, lest I mislead you), I have had to work hard to not fear. To emotionally plan ahead for the witching hour and how I will handle it on my own when the baby is crying and the toddler is melting down and throwing food and my 9 year old needs someone to read his spelling words to him to practice and the dog is barking at the neighbors at the hour of the day when my energy is the lowest.

I am preparing for battle.

But, I've really wanted to prepare differently than I might have a week ago. Prepare with hope, with intention, with a "WE CAN DO THIS" attitude.

And to get there, I have got to get past this perpetual feeling of anger. Anger at my life not looking like what I imagined. Anger that I am not working and not in school. Anger at being covered in bruises. Anger at being far from family and my closest friends during this challenging season.

I came across a quote this week in a rare moment of quiet reading about how Christians should approach that which feels like it's choking us of life.

"We should run to the cross. To death. So lay down your hopes. Lay down your future. Lay down your petty annoyances. Lay down your desire to be recognized. Lay down your fussiness at your children. Lay down your perfectly clean house. Lay down your grievances about the life you are living. Lay down the imaginary life you could have by yourself. Lay them all down...Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross. There is more joy and more life and more laughter on the other side of death than you can possibly carry alone." (From "Mom Enough")

Ouch. And phew.

Seriously, it hurt to read it but at the same time, it was like the breath went out of me.

Clinging to myself is not the way to do battle. The only way is to enter into the battle that God himself already won.

So, as the preparations continue, as I ready our family to handle being without superdad for a few weeks, I am finding glimmers of hope, small shreds of strength, quotes that are being put on index cards and placed around the house. Any little thing that will remind me that IT WILL BE OK. And maybe more than that, IT MAY BE GOOD.

Fight or flight?

I choose fight. But I choose to fight differently.

The Nine Words I'll Never Say

Last week I found myself leaving our YMCA in the midst of dramatic spectacle. My 2 year old was upside down (I was holding him by his legs because he is so strong that once he decides he is IN IT, I cannot actually hold him by his body any longer.) He was mad because..well, actually I don't know. It came on suddenly and inexplicably and no amount of logic or talking was going to break it. We just needed to get the heck out.

So as I tried to stay calm (and thanked God that I had no other children along on this outing because HOW??), we walked through the foyer of the Y, my son suspended in midair, flailing about like a landed fish. People stopped talking, they stared.

One woman smiled and said "I remember those days!"

And I cringed...because I wondered if she was going to say it.

The words that ALWAYS make me feel worse no matter what kind of day we are having.

You know them. Maybe you've said them. Or been the recipient.

"Treasure these moments. They grow up way too fast."

Right.

Thankfully, in this instance, she didn't say it. I let out the breath I was holding, praised God for bicep curls that enable me to carry my 40 pounder with one arm and moved carefully out the door to the car.

So here's the thing.

I get that statement a lot. Sometimes verbally, sometimes people post articles telling me not to miss even one beautiful moment(which I click on for some inexplicable reason), sometimes I just see it in people's eyes.

And do you want to know my honest reaction?

Guilt.

Yep, guilt. Now, admittedly, I dabble in guilt more than the average person. It's my constant companion, the area of my life that I have to continually crawl back to God with and ask him to remove. It's not His fault I feel guilty. It's all my own. Self-forgiveness is a huge challenge for me.

But when someone looks into my life and tells me to treasure each moment, that they will pass too quickly, all I feel is terrible. Like I can never possibly do a good enough job because on top of feeding them, getting them on good schedules, changing them, wrestling them, loving them, enduring the freakouts and public humiliations, I am somehow supposed to find this magical all the time and remember every moment or I will regret it later.

That is a LOT of pressure.

And we almost never know the story of the person to whom we offer these trite phrases.

What if this was said to a woman suffering from post-partum depression? Or post-adoption blues? The parent who has a child with severe needs who is just beyond exhausted and doesn't know how he or she will do it again tomorrow? The father who cannot connect with his son or daughter and blames himself for somehow not being a good enough dad? The mom who battled her two-year-old from 7 am to 7 pm yesterday and had just enough energy to physically put herself to bed just after?

Yes, some day I will probably look back and miss some elements of when they were tiny. Heck, some days I manage to treasure it in the now, I really do.  When we are having a good day and the boys are reading to the baby or the older ones are tickle-wrestling and the giggles are abundant. Even when some of the moments are hard but I can see the progress we're making, I can find moments to pause, to reflect, to be thankful, to see the magic in childhood.

But on the days where I am just covered in spit up, when I've been kicked in the head trying to get someone in the car, wrestled two squirming humans through 12 diaper changes, forgotten what it feels like just to be a clean, reasonable woman...on those days, we just do life. Without magic or treasure.

Maybe the women who say this (and I have NEVER had a man say it) to me really felt in their element during the young years or maybe they are in the midst of it now and by speaking it aloud they are trying to remind themselves. But I've said it before and I'll say it again- we all have different gifts. I feel like I'm a pretty darn good mama some days, especially to my 9 year old. I am willing to play crazy games, chase him around the yard, shoot goals on him so he can practice soccer, paint cardboard to help him make a lego city, curl up for an hour reading Harry Potter together. I feel good at it.

But the younger years? Every day I wake up and have to ask God for deep grace and patience because the younger years don't come naturally to me. I'm not a "baby" person. I don't look at them and think "Oh, don't grow up!" I look at them and think "hmmm..if you could tell me rationally and eloquently using your words, we wouldn't be having this miscommunication." Or, rather, I would think that if my brain were capable of such verbiage in the midst of someone kicking me in the head.

All this to say, you can go on saying those nine words to people if you really want to. I, however, will not. I don't know their story, I don't know their gifts.

What I will say is this:

"I see you. You might be great at this right now or it might not be your strength. But you're trying and that's what matters. God's got the rest." 

The Stillness and the Knowing

I sit this morning watching an amazing view- huge, breathtaking mountains, blue and white, shadowed and light, all stillness and calm from a distance but teeming underneath with activity. The scent of pine fills the air. There is no sound of cars or human chatter...just birds and a light hum from far off in the distance.

I sit on the cold stone steps of an amphitheatre set in the side of a mountain. Inside the buildings around me people are hard at work - thinking, creating, dreaming.

My view of the Rockies as I write this morning. 

Those are all things I really like to do.

Today, though, I am just being. Just soaking.

The air is chilled but the sun is bright and I know that in a few hours I will no longer need my coat. I am grateful for an early spring here.

The words of Psalm 9 spring to mind:

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; 
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you; 
I will sing praise to your name O Most High. 

Those are the only words I can really find surrounded by such beauty.

This week, the world is still for me. I am still mother, still wife, still friend and daughter and sister, still new business launcher. But primarily this week, I am just me. Whatever that means these days. It is easy not to see myself in the day-to-day rush. To cook and love and listen and sing and to be found fully in those most pressing roles I fill in this season of life.

But this week I get the privilege and gift of stepping back. Slowing down. Walking, not rushing. Sleeping. Eating slowly, savoring food.

And friends? It is good.

I had a pastor a long time ago who would preach a sermon and then, after offering practical ways to implement his message, would offer grace as an aside to parents of young children. Draw near to God in new and different ways, forgive yourself, know that old habits might not work well with sleepless nights and unpredictable wake times and cranky, teething toddlers. Find ways to continue to know your God, but know those ways might look different than they used to.

For someone like me, who likes consistency, habit and predictability, that aside was a gift and a challenge, both of which I've been learning to accept even more so this second time around the young child phase. Grace, flexibility, stolen moments of peace in the midst of the good chaos.

This week I get to take my time, though. My prayers won't be during my showers or at red lights. My reading won't happen just in those ten minutes of pre-bed stupor. It will be quiet enough and still enough to listen.

I will slow. And revel. And fill up for the next round of joyful adventures that parenting and life brings.

So as I gaze this morning at a creation so beautiful there are no words, I claim this week for joy and rest. For connection with my God and my husband. For the finding of the current me, the seeing of the good work that God has done in me even when I've been too tired this last year to see it.

I breathe in and out, I rejoice, I hope. I gratefully receive this most precious of gifts.

This week I will be still and know that He is God.

I Am Lonely Guy

Our church has been going through a series about truly seeing what's around us. Opening our eyes, calming our schedules and being willing to really look. During this time, two men have been performing a skit called "Lonely Guy." Each week these two guys meet again onstage- really, crash into each other- and have an awkward interaction. They are both wearing sandwich boards- one that says "busy" and one that says "lonely." Predictably, the busy guy fumbles with his phone, mumbles something half-hearted in response to being reminded again that the lonely guy works at his grocery store and then goes on his way with the lonely guy staring after him. It all resolves when God intervenes and the busy guy truly SEES the lonely guy and they start to interact.

The first few weeks I laughed at this skit. I resonated with the busy guy- chasing my toddler around, too tired and frustrated to really see any opportunities around me and the men had done a good job keeping the feel of the skit light and humorous, even with its deeper message.

The final week, though? Something shifted. And I saw in the lonely guy the reality of my own life.

Just this morning I took my son to something called Wiggle Room. Held in our community center, it's a place for parents to bring their young kids to get out of the cold, let them play with different toys (and presumably, different friends) and just run around and get the cabin fever out. N and I have been trying to come every week since it started and have invited friends to come along. We had a few show up the first week but since then we've been on our own. Like we are most days.

Today I followed my son around and watched a lot of parents talking to each other. Mostly moms, a few dads and an occasional grandma. Their kids swirled around them, mostly playing well enough for them to have conversations with the semi-regular need to intervene in some kind of sharing debacle. I smiled at these groups of people. I tried to strike up some conversations with strangers. And it didn't really work. No one really talked back. I just felt alone.

As I leaned against the wall watching my ginormous toddler step on a kid to get to a toy, I felt alone.

As I chased him around, trying to keep him from knocking down other kids painstakingly built towers, I felt alone.

As I gazed longingly at people who clearly felt known and comfortable with the people around them, I felt alone.

I am lonely guy.

Bringing home a newborn baby in the midst of the coldest winter in recent years combined with hating to drive in snow, switching churches just before he came home and being a first-time SAHM was a tough combination last year. And when I reached the summer, desperate for human interaction, I realized that I had been dangerously sad. Tired. Alone. Dealing with post-adoption blues. Frustrated that this huge life-changing event on which we had waited for 5 years took place far away from our family and close friends. I spent the summer soaking in the amazing weather, trying to get closer to people I had met, hanging out with neighbors, treasuring time with my oldest during his vacation time. And I was determined that when winter came again, I would have a person.

You know who I mean.

THAT friend. The one you can call up last minute and who knows that all you need is company and coffee. Your house doesn't have to be clean and you don't need healthy snacks in your fridge. You don't have to have showered, which would be particularly helpful during this stage when my toddler thinks my shower time equals an opportunity for him to attempt to dive head first into the tub and crack his head open. The one who won't care if your kid throws his 5th tantrum of the afternoon because she loves him, too, and knows you are doing what you can to keep calm and make it through the toddler phase alive.  That friend.

As fall flew into the busyness of the Christmas season, I felt full. I was seeing friends sometimes, N and I were managing to get out of the house when the kids weren't sick and the joy of the holidays and visiting family loomed. I didn't really notice that I still didn't have that person.

But now? In the throes of deepest winter? I've got some friends. I really do. Lovely people. Friendly, inviting, welcoming. Most of them, like me, are pretty overwhelmed by the chaos of just getting their toddler from one end of the day to the next. And I enjoy my time with them. I do. I wish we knew each other better.

But I don't have that person. The one that makes life just feel easier. The one who knows me. Who knows that staying home is the hardest thing I've ever done. Who knows that sleep deprivation turns me into a maniacal human. Who knows that crying makes me uncomfortable and that I can't eat sugar. And BOY did I want to eat me some cookies after Wiggle Room today.

So, while I am going to continue to keep my eyes open and look for opportunities to SEE and love on people and try to get to know some of the people I already know better, I am also going to pray that someone, maybe "busy guy", will be keeping his eyes open for me, too. And that when I try to strike up that random and somewhat painful conversation at the next Wiggle Room, someone will see me, too.

And maybe, just maybe, by next winter I will not be lonely guy.

Drops of Rain Roses

My son loves music. And at some point, when I was trying to think in vain of another song to sing in response to his protests of "no, mommy, a different song!", I started singing songs from the Sound of Music. Now, daily, one of the first things out of his mouth is "Can we sing "Drops of Rain Roses" and "A Female Deer" and the "Goat Song"? And so, we select a scene, grab our pots and chopsticks(drums and drumsticks, of course) and proceed to march around the house gleefully singing about our favorite things, needles pulling thread and goats. We can never forget the goats. We do this multiple times a day. It is the answer to boredom, to a spectacular fall that scrapes his poor little chin raw and, I'm beginning to think, a reflection of his current philosophy of life: laugh a lot, sing a lot and make sure you're near Mom and Dad while you're doing it.

When I was a kid I loved this movie. I loved the songs. I always wanted a chance to play one of the characters in a school musical. When I visited Salzburg in college with Norah, we spent a whole day on the Sound of Music tour, singing with a bus-full of Americans and Canadians at the top of our lungs and experiencing the settings from the movie up close. It has always brought me great joy and it certainly didn't hurt the the socio-political backdrop to the movie was the impending Anschluss in the late 1930's.

So as I've been working through these different books, examining my soul and delving into my first go at stay-at-home motherhood, what a fitting soundtrack for this period of my life. I'm finding I look forward to the request and am getting just as much joy as Josh is from marching around the house and making such a racket that Zeke has taken to hiding under the piano. They have become more than fun songs to me, but as I think about the words to "Drops of Rain Roses", I'm thinking of it alongside who God has made me to be. What and who really defines me? Where do I run when the storm bites? As I was singing this song to Josh during his nap the other day, he improvised during the chorus and as I was singing "I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad" he sang "I go to my mommy and then I don't feel so bad".

Man. What a sweet but stark reminder to me that this little person is looking to me and his daddy to heal him. To define him. And unless I really let the Lord change me and secure me and define me, I could royally screw him up because I could attempt to mold him into my image rather than encourage him to discover his unique identity in God. Don't get me wrong. I know God is in control and helping me to parent him but now I'm praying for humility as I approach my son and that alongside all the chaos of raising an almost-3-year-old, I would be able to step back and really see him for who God has created him to be and cheer him on in that journey. If that means we'll have to listen to the Sound of Music songs 6 times a day, well, then I'll just be grateful to God that he created him with the same taste in music and breathe a sigh of relief that we are not dancing around to Barney.