Big Brown Eyes

A loud smash of bodies on glass jarred my nose out of the book I was reading, and I looked up to find chaos at the front of the gymnastics center. People were screaming, “call 911!” and I saw a man dressed all in black tear out the glass doors into the parking lot with a woman in a headlock.

Fear gripped me, and I thought that someone had been kidnapped, or that there had been a robbery.  Two women who were sitting close to the doors and witnessed the whole scene informed me that it was a domestic violence issue.

A man and woman had been arguing about who would bring their son home from the gymnastics lesson.  Somehow, these women knew that this couple was separated, and that cheating was involved.

The man was violent, and she had told him that he couldn’t come home with her and the boy.  He responded by slamming her into the glass door in a choke-hold.

The police were called, and my mind began racing with worries of whether or not this man would come back inside the gym wielding a gun and take us all out.  The coaches were trying to keep the children calm and distract them from the incident.

With one eye on the glass doors, I began to plot out my actions if he returned.   Estimating how quickly I could reach my daughter at the balance beam on the opposite side of the gym.  Calculating the number of steps, once I reach her, to the giant stack of mats we would use as a shield.  Scrutinizing the trajectory that bullets might take from the glass doors to various parts of the gym.

This is how my brain works now, because of the way things are.

I continued monitoring the glass doors, waiting for the reassurance of a siren and blue uniform, which finally arrived.  The woman had returned safely inside, thankfully, and she was crouched down with her arms wrapped tightly around a young boy. 

The son, caught in this crossfire.

The boy pulled out of her grasp and began to walk in my direction, the direction of the cubbies where the kids keep their shoes.  He stopped at a cubby right in front of me and reached in and grabbed his navy blue Crocs.

As he turned to go back to his mother, my eyes locked with his.  They were the Biggest, Brownest eyes I’ve ever seen on a child, and they were filled with fear, shame and tears.  I fought the urge to reach out and hug him, knowing that a touch from a stranger may do more harm than good, at this point.

But with that moment of eye contact, I poured out everything good my heart had in it:  love, understanding, empathy, sadness, peace, faith and hope.

I don’t know if that child felt any of it. 

I pray that he and his mother are safe tonight.

And I know those Big Brown Eyes will haunt me for quite some time.
 

Summer Reading Red Alert! Don't Miss "11 Stories" by Chris Cander

Photo courtesy of Chris Cander

 

Nothing says summer to me like summer reading, and I’m getting a jump start by posting about an incredible book I just read, 11 Stories by Chris Cander, a local Houston author.

11 Stories is a novel about Roscoe Jones, the superintendent of a Chicago apartment building with a talent for playing the trumpet.  The story encompasses his experiences and encounters with the residents of this building, floor by floor. 

The characters and associated plot lines are so unexpected and unique, I was hooked from the start.  Cander’s writing is delightfully intelligent, but not pretentious, and her writer’s voice feels like it has a slight male edge to it.  This is not chick-lit, discerning readers.  Fluid, lyrical and descriptive, I fell into her story and felt as if I knew each of the characters in a previous life.  

Accordingly, I began to imagine myself as a character in the book, as one of the lives that touched Roscoe.  On which floor of the building would I have lived?  How would my life and seemingly innocuous daily activities have impacted his?  Who is watching me now, today, paying attention to what I’m saying and doing and how I’m treating people?  How would my shortcomings be perceived by a stranger?

These are all questions that I’ve been pondering since I turned the last page.

I won’t give away any more of the goods, but I promise, you don’t want to miss this compelling illustration of how we are all interwoven, and our stories overlap in ways we may never realize. 

Put 11 Stories on your summer reading list right now by visiting Goodreads or Amazon.  And if you're like me, you'll want to follow Chris Cander's Blog and Facebook page.

OK, next up, I’m taking a break from the cerebral, thought-provoking stuff and diving into VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.  It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the first MTV VJs from the 80s. 

Stay tuned for a review, coming soon to a mindless computer near you, probably from a lounge chair poolside…

M-Day: A Mixed Bag of Emotions

Mother's Day is a mixed bag of emotions.

And I'm fine with that, as long as it’s a Louis Vuitton. 

Because I'm a dreamer that way.

But really, Mother's Day can be all kinds of tricky for all kinds of women.

If you’re a mother of young children, like me, you try and keep your expectations low, so that you won’t be disappointed when your special-occasion brunch takes place at Luby’s, and all you got in the way of presents was a decorate-it-yourself wooden picture frame, minus the decorations or picture, and a macaroni necklace.

But all of that is OK, as long as the bathroom door remains shut for an entire day.



Photo source: Scary Mommy

The other not-so-humorous aspect of M-Day is how it shines a spotlight in the faces of those among us who are not mothers, but want to be.  Those who suffer from infertility, miscarriage, failed adoptions, or just never found a path to marriage and motherhood.

Those friends will not be at church on Sunday, at brunch, or plugged into social media.  They are probably hiding in their homes, clutching a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, waiting for the day to be over. 

I certainly was, for several years in a row, while we struggled with infertility.

M-Day was a reminder of my expectations and disappointments.  While others around me were taking pictures of their children in their Sunday-finest, I was reeling and recovering from another month of failure.

I was lucky, in that my suffering came to an end, my prayers were answered, and I became a mother not once, but twice. 

But now what? 

Motherhood is nothing like I thought it would be.  It’s hard as hell, and doesn’t appear to be getting any easier.  There’s joyous stuff, but then there’s also hard stuff.  Really hard stuff.

Each week, it seems, the news hurls another horrific event in our faces, even when we have yet to recover from the last one.

Every mother I know reacts in a similar way: how do we keep this from happening to us?  I’ve been struggling to stay positive, but I’m catching myself peering around the corners of society and checking for proverbial monsters under the bed. 

There is, and always has been, a degree of evil in the world, but I find that I’m more aware of it, and possibly even looking for it, wondering if it’s something I would even recognize.

Because I think that if I shine a light on it, it will scurry away and never return.

How do we do this motherhood thing, without helicoptering and fixing and paving the way for our kids, but still keeping them safe?

I’ve read numerous articles on this subject, and so far, what makes the most sense to me is this post by Glennon Melton at Momastery.  We need to accept that we can’t keep them safe, in the traditional sense of the word, because that would involve no risk-taking.  And we would then deprive them of the good stuff in life, as well. 

The Best Things.

And no mom I know wants to do that to her kids.

So, on this M-Day 2013, amidst the pain that keeps rearing its ugly head in the world, I choose to put it all in the hands of the Man Upstairs and focus on the Best Things. 

The smiles on the faces of my children (when they’re not fighting).  The meal lovingly prepared by my family.  The homemade trinkets and cards that say, “Mom.”   My other Mama-friends who keep me sane.  The women I know who are not mothers in the traditional sense of the word, but breathe life into other people and the world around them.

We are each different variations of the same theme: to mother.  And I have yet to meet a woman who does not fit this bill, in some way.

Let’s all enjoy our day, because it belongs to each one of us.

Now pass me the homemade macaroni necklace, because it’s family picture time.

This Must Be the Place

He set the coffee cup down on the table in front of me with a clink, sloshing brown liquid over the rim into the saucer beneath.  I caught a glimpse of blue ink snaking up the inside of his wrist as he pulled his hand away to rest back on his bluejean-clad hip.

I fought to ignore the sound of my two children squabbling over what kind of waffle to order.  Instead of intervening, like I usually would, I turned away, and my eyes were drawn up to his face to see if he was frowning at me, judging me for the ill table manners of my spawn.

But I only found the calm half-smile of a twenty-something young man who was clearly not a morning person, yet making the best of his early shift at the diner on Magazine Street.  I studied his red-rimmed eyes and dark-brown stubble.  Together with his lightly mussed bed-head and semi-wrinkled cotton shirt, these indicators of a late night adventure kicked my imagination into overdrive.

As I sipped my coffee, my mind wandered off to all the places he could have been until the wee hours.  An obnoxious bar in the French Quarter drinking Hurricanes?  I doubt it.  A smoky dive in the Warehouse District playing cards?  Maybe.  Or possibly, he was in a local rock band, playing late into the night, until they ran out of songs or there were no more girls. 

I’ll go with that one.

He was handsome, in a scruffy way, and I imagine that if I’d encountered him twenty years ago, I likely would have been intrigued. 

Talking Heads blared in the background, and he tapped his black Converse sneaker not impatiently as he waited for us to place our breakfast order.

His eyes moved around the table and finally settled on mine.  I quickly spat out my order, feeling self-conscious and out-of-date.  Not wanting to keep him waiting, I barked at the rest of my unruly bunch to hurry up and decide. 

I wasn’t sure if he was irritated or just felt sorry for me to be tied down to a place in life such as this.  Loading the crew up on breakfast before hitting the interstate in our SUV to return home.  We were, no doubt, more than his transient, single, fancy-free self could comprehend.

I know, I wanted to say.  I used to be like you once.  I swear. 

Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore.

As he rounded the corner back to the kitchen to put in our order, he hummed and sang along softly to the music, with almost a bounce in his step.

Home is where I want to be

Pick me up and turn me round

I feel numb, burn with a weak heart

So I guess I must be having fun

He looked up from the cash register , smiled and gave me a wink that promised he believed I was doing the best I could.
 

This Traveling Road Show Will Not Be Coming to a City Near You

The suitcases, Pack and Play and other assorted tote bags were crammed into the back of the SUV, after much struggle and cursing.  With only one item left to fit into the puzzle-piece mess of cargo, I was feeling optimistic. 

But, sadly, the last remaining hole in the chaos wasn’t big enough for the odd-shaped bag I was attempting to stuff into it, and the whole mess came tumbling down like a Jenga tower.

Baby Boy is screaming in his carseat for a movie, and Big Sister is moaning that she’s hungry and wants a snack. 

And we have yet to pull out of the driveway.

This is the traveling road show that I sometimes admit is my family, and I can assure you that we are not coming to a city near you.

You can breathe a sigh of relief.

After three road trips in the time span of a month, I’ve made the executive decision to shut down this tour of terrors.

As a single person, I used to love to travel.  The longer the distance, the better. 

But throw these other humans into the mix, and it becomes my own personal hell.  Schedules, naps, terrible-two temperaments, and bizarre food fetishes don’t mix well with the uncertainty and unpredictability of travel.

And that’s just the getting there part.

What happens once you’re there, and you realize you’ll now have to suffer the humiliation of your child’s temper tantrum in front of a public audience?  If you’re me, you worry about whether you should pull the plug on this visit before your host (or anyone within a three mile radius) reports you for disturbing the peace.

And then there is the fun that ensues at bedtime, with the entire family crammed into one hotel room.  Our last night of misery featured Baby Boy standing in his Pack and Play at the foot of our bed, screaming all night, refusing to sleep.  Then Big Sister fell out of bed with a thud, knocking over a cup of water on the nightstand, which spilled on me, of course.

The next morning, I packed my ragged bunch, sleep deprived and crabby, back into the SUV and high-tailed it back home to nurse our wounds in the comfort of our own insane asylum.

So, talk to me about a girls’ trip, or I’d certainly entertain a weekend away with Husband.  But do not ask me to drag this rag-tag crew back out onto the interstate, or I might hyperventilate just thinking about it.

We will not be the family sending out a Christmas card showcasing us in a picturesque setting from our summer vacation.  We will not be those cool parents who take our kids to Colorado, or Europe, God forbid. 

I don’t know how you people do it.

This Road Warrior is hanging up her REI Packable Travel Hat until further notice. 
 

I've Sunk to a New Motherhood Low, and it's Confession Time

Do you ever feel like this?

 

Or maybe a better question is, do you ever not feel like this?

We each have our own unique set of plates we’re spinning, but we can all relate to the feeling of teetering on the edge, trying to keep all the plates airborne.

I have a confession to make.  I dropped a plate.  A big one.

I completely forgot to pick up my two year old from preschool yesterday. 

Totally.  Forgot.   

And I wasn’t even doing anything important.  I was pulling weeds in the yard and watering plants.

I really have no idea what happened, except that my brain hit a glitch, as a result of old age or old fashioned exhaustion.

When the school called at 2:15 wondering where I was, the reality of what I’d done was too much for me to handle, so I sputtered out an excuse about how my driveway had been blocked, and that’s why I was late.

So, I forgot to pick up my kid, and then I lied about it.

I lied.

I apologized profusely to the school secretary and promised I’d be there in ten minutes.  As I jumped in the car and frantically raced to school, I suffered all of the following:  shock, self-loathing, anger (at myself), fear (what’s wrong with me??), disgust and desperation.

I am not a person who does things like this.  In case you don’t know me, I’m not a flake.  I am many things, and certainly not perfect, but, by God, I am reliable.

If I say I’m going to be somewhere at a certain time, I am there.  Usually five minutes early.  I once had a boss write on my performance review that I am the Canadian Mountie of employees.  I always deliver.

Until now.

I can make lots of excuses about why this happened: old age, stressed out, overscheduled, forgot what day it was, etc.

But the reality is…I messed up.  I made a mistake.

Luckily, Baby Boy was at a safe place, and he was completely happy to have a few extra minutes to play.  He was no worse for the wear.

I, on the other hand, was, and still am, a complete wreck.  I didn’t know if I could even tell anyone what I’d done.  But the Catholic in me knew I had to confess. 

First stop: a good friend who’s known me for 25 years.  Her reaction?  Laughter.  That’s right, she laughed at me.  She said, “Jen, I think this is good for you.  You’re someone who always has her t’s crossed and i’s dotted, and it’s good for you to let something slip through the cracks and see that it’s not the end of the world.”

Whoa!

Maybe she’s right?  I started to cut myself a little slack.

But no, that nagging sensation to flog myself continued, so I decided to go for Confession #2.  And where did I go?  Scary Mommy.  Because some of those people are confessing crazy shit that my brain can’t even comprehend, so I knew I’d feel better comparing myself to the seriously disturbed masses. 

 

And look, I got 4 “likes,” 78 “hugs,” and 4 “OMG, me too!”  For some reason, those 78 hugs from the mentally deranged didn’t do the trick for me, so I decided to confess to Husband.  His response?  “Don’t feel bad, I’m sure I’d do that too, if I was in charge of the kids.”  Well, duh.  That doesn’t help me.

After confiding in a couple more friends and hearing their stories of being forgotten by their own mothers as a kid, I’m starting to feel much better.  And maybe my friend is right.  Maybe this is good for me to see that I can “drop a plate” and the world will not fall off its axis. 

I am not perfect, and the world will forgive me for that.

But the confession process won’t be complete until I hit “Publish” on this post.  And if even one tired, crazed and overworked mom who’s done the same thing reads this and feels better, it’s worth it.  And I know I will feel better.

So, here goes nothing.

Now pass the wine and the king-sized Kit-Kat bar, and I’ll retire to my Happy Place for the night. 

Have you ever forgotten to do something really important?  If so, please make me feel better and tell me about it.  If not, just move along quietly back to your perfect life.
 

Here’s a Trophy, You’re a Winner! (Even If You’re Not)

In the process of rearranging my daughter’s bookshelf, I came face to face with this:

 

I was struck by the quantity, quality and pure grandeur of her trophy collection.  And I even left one out because they wouldn’t all fit on the shelf.  And she’s only eight.  She has ten more years of schooling to add to this assemblage. 

It prompted me to ponder my own childhood trophy collection, which looks like this:

 

Sad, eh?  Granted, I do have a box of ribbons and medals from swim meets and horse shows.  As well as certificates of achievement for other random stuff like French competitions, volunteer work, etc.  But I only have three trophies.  Count them, three.  I actually won my class, division, or whatever to earn those trophies, hence they mean something to me.

If you are a parent these days, you know that times have changed.  My first experience with team sports as a parent was Pre-K T-ball.  They were all so cute in their tiny little uniforms, running the bases or picking daisies in the outfield. 

They didn’t know thing one about playing baseball, and many times had to be prompted to ‘Run!” after hitting the ball, when they actually made contact with the ball.  Some even ran the wrong direction. 

No one kept score, and a good time was had by all.  And at the end of the season, they had a big party where my daughter received a trophy that was half her size.  Every player on the team got a trophy, I learned, even though we didn’t keep score of the games, and we have no idea if they even won a game.

At that moment, I caught my first whiff of entitlement brewing in these young bucks, and it kind of scared me a little.  But hey, we all want our kids to have high self-esteem and be winners, right?  I get that.  I love my precious girl more than anything and want her to feel good about herself, which will give her the confidence she needs to move forward, take risks and try new things to be good at, right?

Not so, according to this article I just read by Tim Elmore at Growing Leaders.  Elmore makes three strong points about mistakes we’re making in leading this generation of kids.  I especially connected with #3: We Rave Too Easily. 

The trophy thing is just a small part of this, but there is very strong research to suggest that by making every kid feel special in every situation, regardless of how he or she performed, we are actually doing the opposite of what we intended.  We are harming his or her ability to take risks and have the persistence to see something through without immediate rewards.

 

This really began to weigh on my mind when basketball season ended recently, and I saw my daughter proudly add her trophy to her shelf.  It towered above all the others, the grandest one yet. 

Her team did not win a single game all season.

My fear is that the trophies keep getting bigger, and my daughter’s expectations grow right along with them.  The reality that hard work = success = reward is non-existent.  She has been conditioned to expect a great reward, regardless of how hard she works, how much effort she gives and what the result is. 

I am wary of the effects this pattern is having on her developing character, and I try and do all I can at home to counterbalance it with the reality of natural consequences. 

Yes, I want my kids to feel loved.  Of course I want them to feel good about themselves.  I want them to shoot for the stars and believe they can be whatever they want to be.  But I also want them to know how to deal with disappointment and how to pick themselves up when they’re down.  I want them to have the tenacity to try and try again, even without a trophy being dangled in front of them like a carrot.

It’s called the Real World. 

And we’re supposed to be raising adults, not children.