“Be careful what you pray for – you might get it.”
I’ve heard this so often, I try not to pray for anything at all. I’ve always been a believer that God really listens – even when I don’t really listen back. I worry not only that I’m wasting His time with my menial prayers, but also that my wishes might cause unforeseen grief to someone else.
I remember reading The Monkey’s Paw in school, a story that terrified me. The story tells the tragic tale of a man who wishes for – among other things – enough money to pay off his house. His son is killed the next day, leaving him with just enough insurance money to pay off his house.
Talk about an unforgettable story.
Anyway, when I was blogging last week about my resolution to BACK OFF and let my kids be who they are, I also said a few prayers. I really want to change, to be less fearful and more able to go with the flow.
The next day, I went to church. On the bulletin, a blurb caught my eye about an upcoming 10-week series of meetings:
“Adults and children alike thrive in healthy, loving relationships. Come and learn how to rise above anxiety, manipulation, control and conflict…”
I know I am more anxious and controlling than most people. I also know that being aware of my problem has cost me plenty of money and time in self-help books, courses by the experts, and other assorted therapies. I’m not sure that any of them have done a bit of good, but I do spend a lot of time now apologizing for my behavior.
And I’m not sure this church thing is going to help, either. Still, it’s so obvious to me that this group is meant for me. I said a prayer – and up popped this group.
I hate groups. I don’t like socializing and I’m honestly not that fond of many people. I always worry far too much that I am bothering them when I speak. (This goes for the whole world, actually.) I’m nervous and anxious and a bit resentful about the whole thing already… although that’s exactly why I’m going to register for the group.
I just wanted to announce that I’m doing it – so that I don’t back out – and note that my prayer was answered. And now I’m doing something I don’t want to do, in order to get what I said I wanted. It may even help, but who knows?
So now I am scared. “Be careful what you pray for.”
After a long, long winter break, I knew my kids were not looking forward to going back to school. I’d like to say that I did something really cool, like cool moms do, and made their first day back fun or – at the very least – not routine.
Instead, I pushed them right back into the routine. I made sure their lunchboxes were on the counter before they went to bed. I reminded them to set their alarms and warned them that I wasn’t going to wake them up. (This was mostly for Dylan, who gets up two hours before Shane has to get up. Shane gets up without an alarm anyway on most days.)
Then I tried to get myself to sleep at a reasonable time, and didn’t stress as much as I normally do. I did jump back out of bed to do a few things – although I can’t remember what they were – and finally fell asleep in time to get my allotted six hours.
When I woke up, it was still dark – as it is, most days, in the winter. I checked the clock to make sure I’d set the alarm right. I was exhausted, but I crawled out of bed. I brushed my teeth and my hair, changed my clothes to get ready for the gym, and slogged downstairs.
And there was Dylan.
The lights were all on in the kitchen, and Dylan was slathering peanut butter onto a piece of whole wheat potato bread. He’d gotten downstairs before me – something I’d never seen, on any day.
He’s making his own lunch, I thought. Normally, this is a punishment. If the kids forget to put their lunchboxes on the counter, for example, they are required to make their own lunch. Dylan’s forgotten enough that he rarely forgets anymore.
Did he forget last night? I asked myself – and realized in the same instant, No. He didn’t forget. It’s the first day back at school! I remember both lunchboxes sitting there!
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning,” Dylan said.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just making my lunch,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do, since I got down here so early.”
“Well, I can finish it,” I told him, “if you want to go do Lumosity.” Lumosity is a brain-game website that, supposedly, helps him function better mentally. (It sure doesn’t hurt.)
“Okay,” he said. He put his sandwich in his lunchbox, and went to the computer.
I watched him go. It wasn’t far, but I couldn’t quite keep my jaw from the floor as he left the kitchen. He was early, I thought. EARLY! I was simple too astounded to do much of anything.
Then I remembered: I volunteered to finish making his lunch. And so that’s what I did.
And Dylan hasn’t been early since.
But he also hasn’t been late.
I am sitting at my computer. The house is quiet. It is a school day, but schools are closed, so Dylan is asleep and Shane is reading in his room.
It’s the first real snow of the season.
Outside, it is still falling, steady and strong. It’s enough snow to thoroughly blanket the driveway, but not yet enough to cover the autumn leaves strewn about in our yard. The silence is unusual and glorious.
Across the driveway, we have a tiny stream that runs through a patch of trees. We call it “the woods” because in our county, this is one of the few remaining places where more than two trees stand together. It’s a group of maybe a hundred trees – enough for the stream to flow through unimpeded, but not enough to encourage hiking.
All of our local wildlife lives inside the group of trees. They have nowhere else to go. We have a family of raccoons, some foxes and plenty of squirrels. Often I will see a group of three, or even ten deer.
But today there is just one. He is a very young buck, his antlers barely longer than his ears. He has been lying in the snow for hours, and has a full inch of snow on his back. He is so still for so long, I start to wonder what he is thinking – if he is thinking. Does he understand the snow? It’s probably his first, with antlers that small.
The females live in groups, lifelong. But the bucks go it alone when they’re barely old enough to walk.
This one set out so early in his life, he has no one to teach him about snow – or anything else. Even though he’s not yet a year old, he is destined to figure it out for himself. He’s a teenager in deer years.
After hours of snow, he stands up. Unlike a dog, he doesn’t shake. The inch of snow still covers his back and the top of his head. And he just stands there, turning his head every few minutes, then standing still again.
A squirrel scampers past and he seems to watch. If the squirrel is okay with this, maybe it’s not the end of the world. A minute after the squirrel passes, the buck shakes himself off and walks a few feet.
There isn’t anything to do. There isn’t anywhere to go for food, but he is up and exploring. He has decided that it’s okay to get up, shake it off and explore.
I watch him in his seeming peace and imagine his confusion. I see only calm, but I wonder if he’s scared.
I am watching a deer – another of God’s creatures. And all I can think about is Dylan.
Shane and I were out in the country, and we drove past a rural gas station. The price per gallon looked low, but I didn’t know for sure. So I decided to check GasBuddy.com – a website that allows consumers to check gas prices.
I don’t drive and type, so I handed my phone to Shane in the back seat. “Google ‘gas buddy,'” I told him as he took the phone. “It should come right up.”
“It did,” he said.
“Then click on the one that….” I said, but Shane interrupted me.
“I already did,” he said.
I was astounded. Shane is cautious and rarely ventures a step ahead of my instructions. “That’s great!” I told him. “You’re starting to think ahead! You must be at the website. Do you see a gas tank in a circle?”
“No,” he said.
“You don’t see a picture of a gas tank?” I asked again.
“I don’t see any pictures.”
For purposes of brevity, I will just say that Shane had not ventured a step ahead after all. He was still on the Google site, waiting for instructions on what to do next. It never occurred to him to click on GasBuddy.com.
Eventually, with the car stopped, I clicked on the link for him. Then I walked him through the process of typing in a city/state name to get a list of gas prices. Shane adores numbers, and I thought this would be great fun.
So he typed as I assisted with spelling. He still couldn’t get a list of gas prices. I looked at the phone again. He had spelled everything right, but he didn’t type in a space between the city and state.
“You didn’t put a space between the city and state,” I said, thinking, he is in FIFTH grade! How is he going to survive in the real world?
“You didn’t tell me to put a space,” he said.
“But you know that the city and state are two separate words, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“So why wouldn’t you put a space between the two words?”
“I thought it was like a website or something.” He was quite serious. And suddenly, it made sense.
It occurred to me, for the first time ever, that the problem was not Shane and his inability to think. The problem might just be my constant and consistently overly specific instructions. My forceable control over every movement he makes, my dictating every single step in order to “help,” was actually hindering his progress – and not helping anyone.
So I started over completely, I got the phone back to the home screen and then I handed it back to my incredibly smart son, who most certainly was capable of handling this simple task.
I said, “Okay, Shane. I have an idea. Go to GasBuddy.com and find out what the gas prices are in this city.”
And he did. Within two minutes, he was able to tell me what the gas prices were in our rural location.
All I had to do was back off, and let him think for himself.
And while I do hate resolutions, I consider it essential that I create one now: I will back off and let my kids think for themselves. Not just for 2015, but for the rest of time.
It will take a lot of practice. I am a control freak. But if it means that my kids will be better equipped to handle life, then it is worth the effort.
And also, gas prices were 13 cents per gallon cheaper at home, so we got gas later.
With such excess everywhere at this time of year, I wanted to dwell on an excess of my own: dryer sheets.
I don’t enjoy doing laundry, but I try to do it well. As soon as the hampers start to overflow, I wash. Sometimes I wash before they overflow. And I do my best to ensure that if one of my kids needs specific attire on an upcoming day, that said attire is clean and dry.
I also fold and sort the clean stuff, so that each person gets one pile. Dylan is very good at picking up his clean laundry, since he only owns three pairs of pants that fit him. Shane, however, is a bit less enthusiastic about his clothes. He only picks up when asked; then he shoves it into balls in his drawer.
But I digress.
I just opened a brand new box of dryer sheets. I buy my dryer sheets at Costco, which means I buy a few boxes at a time. Whenever I open the last new box, I usually put dryer sheets on my Costco list, so that I don’t forget to buy them. Heaven forbid. I wouldn’t want one moment of static cling on my chemical-free, bleach-free, scent-free laundry!
As I opened the box, however, I noticed the number boldly printed on front: 250. I was holding a box with 250 dryer sheets in it. And as I tore the cardboard from its top, I gave this a moment’s thought.
I have to do 250 loads of laundry before I need a new box. Do I really need to put dryer sheets on my Costco list today?
Let’s say I do four loads of laundry a week. With two kids, this is not unreasonable – although it is improbable, given how I procrastinate. But just for the sake of argument, I thought, perhaps I will do four loads of laundry per week.
That’s 62 (and a half) weeks before I will need another box of dryer sheets. There are only 52 weeks in a year!
But just in case I really need to buy those dryer sheets now, let’s say I get really crazy and I do FIVE loads of laundry per week. Or even SIX loads per week. Five loads per week still means it’s nearly a year before I need another box – and even six loads a week is still more than 40 weeks.
It would be insane for me to buy dryer sheets now. What if the house burns down? What a waste of $12 that would be.
Interestingly, though, it’s not the excess amount of dryer sheets in my cupboard that bothers me.
It’s that I can’t for the life of me figure out when to buy dryer sheets, if I don’t buy them right now. If they don’t go on my list, I am afraid that I will forget to buy them until it’s too late and I will open that cupboard to get a new box and – oh no! There will be no new dryer sheets.
In 40 to 62 weeks.
But I am going to wing it. I’m going to be totally radical and not buy dryer sheets yet. Who knows? I may be so rad, I’ll do a load of laundry – or even two! – without using a dryer sheet at all.
And these are the things that make me worry that I’m a bad mom. Because God knows, those poor kids could grow up to be just like me.
I can remember believing that we weren’t going to survive, as a country, to see the year 2000. Somehow, we survived. In fact, January 1, 2000 turned out to be just another day, like the rest of them.
As a child, I believed that a nuclear bomb was going to wipe out our civilization before I completed elementary school. I lived most of my childhood in fear of death.
Now I’m 50. There have been no nuclear holocausts in my lifetime, and I’ve been alive for half a century. My parents are still alive. My husband is 60. And both of my kids have survived for more than a decade.
When my kids were born, I worried about everything. They could choke. They could be kidnapped. They could be murdered. We could all be murdered. I watched lots of crime TV. I discovered – and watched – the entire original Law & Order series in the middle of hundreds of midnight breast-feedings. Dylan would fall back asleep, and I’d stay awake in terror until fictitious justice was served.
So of course, I passed along these fears to my kids.
One day, toddler Shane announced, “We could all die!”
And that’s when we started our new family motto: It COULD happen… but it PROBABLY won’t.
We now use this motto on a regular basis. And of the people who have heard this motto, I have benefitted more than most.
A new year is beginning. There is still death, destruction, war and crime saturating the media. I still watch the crime shows – but stay away from reality television. I try to remember that they are different genres.
We are fifteen years past the time when I thought the world was going to end because of some oddball computer glitch.
I can remember watching the New Year’s 2000 celebrations from other parts of the world, where it became January 1st there before it became January 1st here.
I remember thinking, Gee, they did okay on that side of the world. Maybe we’ll make it after all! I was so excited about our good fortune, after all the worrying I’d done.
I still think, maybe 2015 will be devastating.
It could happen…. But I am going to believe the best this year.
In 2014, I learned some wonderful lessons that I can carry with me throughout the new year. I learned from Dylan that changing where you are doesn’t change who you are. My cousin’s son discovered – and beat – cancer this year, too, which reminded me what is really important in life. And if I can remember those two things for this whole year, I’ll be a better person by 2016.
I don’t want to make any resolutions, because I tend to rebel against them. But I do want to declare that I am aware, and alive, this year.
And I will … probably … live through today.
When Dylan turned 14, he was quite sick. He used a humidifier in his room, to help relieve some of the congestion. And to keep the humidified air inside, he did something he’d never done before.
He closed his bedroom door.
I haven’t seen Dylan a lot since then. He sleeps with his door shut, still. He does have a lingering cough, so perhaps the humidifier is helping. But it is also helping him to sleep well past 9:00, which is when the rest of the world is awake. Originally, I would leave him notes as I left the house – until I realized that I was spending a lot of time writing and exchanging notes that Dylan never even saw. He’d sleep till noon and I wouldn’t even know if he was awake in there.
“Can you leave your door open?” I asked the other day, in the middle of the day, when no one was around to disturb him on either floor of our house.
“I like the privacy,” he said, “but whatever. I guess I can leave it open.”
So sometimes he comes out during the day. Then he goes back into his room at night and closes his door, even before he takes a shower.
Besides his brand new music studio – a birthday gift for creating electronic music – Dylan has two iPads and a cell phone in there with him. All electronics are required to leave the premises (and alight outside the door) at 10:00 p.m. I’d hoped this would allow him some extra, earlier sleep. But last night, he was trouncing around at 11:30.
Why I was up at 11:30 to see him trouncing is beyond me.
Anyway, I think this is the beginning of the end. I think turning 14 set him tumbling right off the precipice from “tween” to full-blown “teen.” Now that the door is closed, we never see Dylan anymore. He is a teenager.
And if I’m not mistaken, when Dylan fully emerges, he will only do so to go to college.
December 25th was winding down when Dylan said, quite seriously, “Today didn’t really feel like Christmas.”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed.
After a jam-packed day of presents, food and family, I wasn’t sure how to take this. So I just said, “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know,” Dylan said. “It was nice and all, but it didn’t feel like Christmas.”
“Maybe you’re just getting too old to enjoy it,” I told him, only half jokingly. Honestly, it hadn’t felt much like Christmas to me, either. It was a nice day, and everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts. We spent some pleasant time with family.
But it didn’t feel magical.
At bedtime I asked Shane, “Why do you think it didn’t feel like Christmas? What do you think was missing?”
Shane didn’t hesitate. “Nothing was missing,” he said. “It just didn’t feel like Christmas.”
I thought back through the day. We didn’t do our usual dramatic filming of the walk down the stairs this morning. I didn’t snap a photo every time a child opened a present. And I didn’t videotape every moment of Christmas morning.
I enjoyed watching this year, instead of recording. Dylan even mentioned it later: “I really liked that there wasn’t a camera pointed at me all morning!”
Looking back, that was the only difference in Christmas this year compared to last year – with one exception.
This year, there was no Santa Claus.
Sure, the presents were labeled with tags that said “from Santa.” But Shane declared that he no longer believed in Santa. Still, I’ve never moved presents when a kid was awake – and I was willing to wake in the wee hours to keep the ruse alive.
At one point, I told my husband I wanted to go to bed, and that I would get up at 1 a.m.
“Why would you get up at 1 a.m.?” he asked. He didn’t seem to have a clue. I didn’t want to talk too loudly about it, since Dylan was still awake, so I stayed quiet.
But at 10:00, my husband suggested to Dylan that he close his bedroom door because “Santa and Mrs. Claus were tired.” So Dylan shut the door and lay there, awake, listening to us shuffling about.
Then that same husband, who so blatantly disregarded the magic on Christmas Eve, sat next to me on Christmas morning and repeatedly said “your mom” in place of “Santa” while the kids were opening their presents.
My husband made this decision alone – to toss Santa out the window. But the magic went right out the window, too.
I am 50 years old and my parents still haven’t taken credit for any of the presents labeled “from Santa” that were under my childhood trees. I don’t remember any revelation or any secrets. I just know that those presents always came from Santa.
So the presents I put under the tree are also “from Santa.” But this year, no one paid any attention. They gave Santa about as much credit as they would give to a passing stranger. The gifts just appeared, and people opened them and talked about them like it was just a big birthday celebration.
Which, of course, it is – after all.
Maybe now, we’re ready to move to the next phase: the one where Christmas is not so much about the magic of sparkling gifts under a lighted tree as it is about the magic of love and joy, spread through the world on this one special day.
Maybe next year, we’ll be able to celebrate Christmas.
Christmas is going to be different this year.
First, the family grab bag tradition – my favorite – was kiboshed. So I decided to create a new family tradition and take the kids to the Bull Run Winter Festival – basically a summer fair in the freezing cold. Woo-hoo! I can’t wait.
Then I drove by our favorite walk-through Christmas light display: CLOSED FOR THE SEASON! They are remodeling the entire park. Who remodels a park during their biggest money-maker of the year? And there’s nothing I can do about it.
So I thought we’d add another new thing, and go to Baltimore’s famous 34th Street – a huge, light-filled extravaganza that is free and fun for anyone who ventures out that way.
I thought we were done with changes but then, wham! – another change. My sister stepped up and decided to have Christmas at her house, rather than at my parents’ house. Everyone at my house was flummoxed. We always went to my parents’ house after we opened our presents! Now we will be driving to West Virginia instead.
And just when we thought it couldn’t get any more different, my sister decided we will not be having our “traditional” Indian dinner, but Christmas tacos instead. Those of you who eat ham or turkey will not understand having an Indian Christmas dinner, let alone the tacos – but for me, it’s huge.
I decided we should eat Indian food on Christmas Eve instead. This works out well this year, because Shane will be singing in the early church service. Dylan, whose voice is in flux along with everything else, has declined his midnight mass performance.
Meanwhile, Bill declared that he would like to go back to the Mormon Temple – a tradition we once had that kind of disappeared after I got tired of doing it. But this year, I told him, we could do that, too.
Then the season got underway.
I am a bit excessive and obsessive, so I started shopping in May. I was done by Halloween, and then I bought some smaller stuff to wrap it all up. This year, I spent most of December selling things my kids never opened last year, in order to pay for the things they won’t open this year.
Then, on Christmas Eve, my sister decided not to have the Christmas day celebration at her house – but by then, I was actually prepared for the change, and it was just another change!
My plan was all set. I wanted to do new, fun things to make up for all of my beloved lost traditions.
But honestly, I am tired.
I feel like Christmas arrived way earlier than it did last year. We got our tree right after Thanksgiving and our house decorated shortly thereafter. (It is not impressive.) And then, suddenly, it was five days till Christmas and we hadn’t tried out any of our new traditions!
The kids don’t seem to care. I sure don’t care. Of the things we have to do – Bull Run, 34th Street, Indian food on Christmas Eve and the Mormon Temple – we haven’t done a single one.
I did order Indian food for tonight. And we did, at least, put Bull Run on the calendar. So we are going to squeeze in Indian food tonight and at least one new tradition after Christmas.
And then I’m going to settle down for a long winter’s nap.
Now that we’re done with Toddler Tunes, I’m trying to stay current with the music my kids like. As a result, I discovered a song called “All About That Bass.”
The song is quite catchy, with doo-wop harmony that sounds like it was created in the 1950’s. But the subject of the song couldn’t be further from that era. It’s a song about a woman who loves and appreciates her body, even though writer/singer Meghan Trainor “ain’t no size 2.”
“All About That Bass” has become a sort of pop anthem for women of all sizes. The song skyrocketed to Number One on the Billboard charts and around the world. It’s got two Grammy nominations, for Song and Record of the Year.
The kids think I’m hysterical. When the song comes on the radio, Dylan dictates my car-driving dance moves as if he choreographed them himself.
“Then she puts up her pointer finger and waves it from side to side,” he says, laughing, as I dance with only my finger – for safety while driving a car.
And while it is fun and catchy, I discovered one horrifying thing when I tried to sing along with “All About That Bass.”
I can’t sing it without crying.
Meghan Trainor sings, “My mama, she told me don’t worry about your size,” and I burst into tears. Because I was taught that I should worry about my size. I learned it from everywhere.
Two lines later, when the song declares, “Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top,” I am sobbing.
I think the reason I cry is because I spent the vast majority of my life not believing I was okay.
I feel pretty good about me now, for the most part. But I always feel 30 pounds overweight which, like much of the population, I am.
This song promises me that I am okay anyway. So I cry. I cry for the sheer joy of remembering that I am okay, no matter what size I am.
And I cry with happiness that the woman who wrote this song is broadcasting this OK-ness to the rest of the world. I cry because people are listening – young and old – and because maybe, like me, it reminds them of their own beauty.
Dylan’s 7th grade girlfriend, who is naturally gorgeous, was on a diet for the entire four months they were together.
She was 12.
It was so sad to watch, to hear, to know that this gorgeous girl was constantly worried about her size. Most of the girls in Dylan’s school are worried about their size.
And this song stands out among all the other pop songs, which come with videos – gorgeous guys declaring their love to perfect, leggy blondes, and size-zero girls dancing seductively on the screen.
Meanwhile, “All About That Bass” says what no one has ever said before: “Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.”
And it reminds me – but it’s painful, too, remembering the years that I hated myself for not being perfect. For not knowing that I was perfect, at any size. (There were other reasons I was not perfect, too – of course.)
I love the song, for what it can do for the new generation. I love what it does for me, every time it comes on the radio.
And I hope its positive impact lasts – for our kids’ sake, as well as ours.
