More Than . . .

One morning last year, I sat my youngest child on the counter so he could watch me make his egg. He said, "Mommy, I wish you weren't already married to Daddy, because I want to marry you." I said, "Oh, trust me. As much as you love me, you'll love your wife someday even more."

I hated admitting that to him.

He gave me a hug and said, "I'm in love with you."

Of course, five minutes later he was in love with his shirt, his shoes, Curious George, his scooter . . . whatever could hold his attention. But if I rank up there with a monkey and his favorite mode of transportation, I'd say I'm doing okay.

He just headed outside with his helmet so he can ride his bike around our driveway for a few minutes before I call him in for bed. He's singing and making up the lyrics as he goes along, standing up on the pedals to show off to his sister, and then swinging his bike around in the other direction for a new set of lyrics. And I have to say I'm in love with him, too--in love with all of my kids--even more than monkeys, scooters, applesauce, and diet wild cherry pepsi.

That's always been a common game my children and I have played when they're still young enough to gush over me: "I love you more than . . ." And "anything" is always the shortest and most honest answer, but it's cheating as far as the kids are concerned. According to their rule book, you have to really think about what you'd be willing to do without if you had to choose between them and the next best thing.

I don't feel I gave up anything when I chose to be here at home with them. It was the right choice for my husband and me, and I'm grateful it was a choice I actually got to make--that circumstances haven't dictated my decisions in this regard.

Yet recently I've been thinking a lot about the role of a SAHM in 2011. We have it easy in so many ways. Come on. Admit it. Don't give me, "Yeah, but mothers 50 years ago didn't have to worry about the X, Y, or Z." At the very least, we have it easy as far as the actual work required of us is concerned. I don't know about you, but I don't have to wash my clothes by hand. I don't have to beat my rugs outside. I don't have to scrub my dishes in a dry sink with water I hauled up from the creek and then have to take outside to empty when I'm done. I don't have to grind the wheat for my bread, bake the bread, pick the beans, dry the beans, cook the beans, slaughter the pig, and hang it to cure in the smokehouse. I don't have to sheer the sheep, dye the wool, spin the wool, and make my own clothing. And all of that before breakfast.

What I do have to do is figure out how to let my kids head out their own without circling above and over and around them. I have to figure out what "stay at home" means when I've had the luxury of defining "home" as the place I get to be with my children. I have to figure out how to give them--my kids--up to the big scary world because I love them. I have to figure out how to make my life as meaningful from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. as it is from 3:31 p.m. to 7:59 a.m. I have to decide how much of what I do is about making our home into a home and how much is about making myself into someone they can call "home" just as I call them "home."

I'm in love with them all. I love them more than anything, even myself. That's the easy part. The challenge is making the "even myself" mean something.

Fearless

When Ivan, my youngest, was four, he took swimming lessons not so he could swim in case he fell in the pool (which yeah, that's important, of course) but so he could swim when he dove in, did flips in, cannonballs in, belly flops in (intentionally), all of which he'd been trying even without knowing how to swim. And he was four. Four! Sure, I was proud of that tenaciousness. But I was also a little scared of the fearlessness this kid showed--and still does. He jumps into the pool, into trouble, into a crowd of kids, into life without worrying about how he's going to swim back to the side after he gets there. Daily life with him is unpredictable and erratic and frustrating and exhausting and insanity-producing . . . and exciting and wonderful and gratitude-inducing as well.

Not too long after starting those swim lessons, however, he showed a moment of fear. Ron took him to the deep end of the pool and, with the lifeguard's approval, let him onto the diving board. Now, Ivan had dived into a pool before, but the diving board was much lower than this one and fewer people were watching. Ivan got to the end and froze. He looked around, saw all of the eyes on him, and started to cry. He turned around and headed back for Ron, who assured him changing his mind was fine, and the two of them sat down for a few minutes before Ivan looked at the board and then back at Ron and said, "Daddy, I want to try again." So Ron took him back, Ivan headed to the end, and jumped in without hesitation.

More than his fearlessness without thinking of what will happen next, I admire this kid's willingness to do something he is afraid of. That was not me at four or six. That was not me in elementary school or middle school or high school or college. I still don't think that's me. Part of my refusal to try is my unwillingness to fail. Failure scares me to death. And I know that confession shows off my immaturity, my self-consciousness, and in turn my vanity. Because that's what fear of failure is, really, isn't it? The fear that someone else is going to see me as less than I want to be and the admission I'll have to make to myself that I have yet one other weakness, flaw, or area of complete ineptitude.

One of my favorite books is Moby Dick. Yes, really. I read it once in high school, once in college, and then again after graduation. I didn't like it at all the first time, tolerated it the second, and loved it the third. I was determined to like this book, and it became an obsession for me. One of my favorite lines is delivered by Starbuck, the first mate: "I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of the whale."

We so often think of fear as paralyzing, which it can be and which it has been for me in many respects throughout my life. Lack of it, however, is recklessness. So how do we acknowledge our fears and learn to overcome them, use them to our advantage, without ignoring them completely and putting ourselves and others--whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually--at risk?

Ahab wasn't afraid of Moby Dick. Ahab hated Moby Dick. He wanted his revenge on Moby Dick. We all have a great white whale in our past that has beaten us, even ripped our leg off. Do we go after it again and again until it destroys us and those we love, claiming courage rather than stupidity and megalomania? Ahab said, "Ignorance is the parent of fear." He claimed to KNOW the whale, and therefore had no fear of it. So does knowledge shield us from ignorance? Yes. But stupidity? No.

This is where I am in my parenting lately. I want my kids to be courageous. I want them to tackle what I never would have dreamed of tackling at their age. I want them to ignore what people say they can't do, even ignore what their fear is telling them they can't do. I want them to have huge dreams and I want them to do what it takes to make them come true. And I'll help as much as they let me. But I don't want the whale--that uncontrollable aspect of nature and human nature--to beat them. I don't want them to get out on that dinghy and think, "Crap. Mom should have told me I didn't have the right life vest on for this one. And she should have told me that freaking whale is a lot bigger up close."

School starts here in another week. My oldest starts high school. My second oldest starts junior high. My daughter starts fourth grade--the first year she'll get actual grades and not "shows improvement" or "needs improvement." And my fearless six-year-old starts elementary school where he'll mix with the big kids instead of being king of his own little castle at the kindergarten. It's a scary year ahead.

So the most I can do right now is agree with them that the diving board is more frightening than the kiddie pool. Then I'll cheer them on to get back up there anyway, and keep my fingers crossed that nothing in the water is going to surprise any of us.

Feeling It

I've kept a journal on and off (mostly off since getting married) for the last . . . let's just say since I was in sixth grade. Only it wasn't a "journal" then. It was a "diary." Journals are for record-keeping and for passing on to your children's children. Diaries are for burning before anyone else can find them and decipher the bubbly letters and the various initials of the boys you were madly in love with from week to week.

Oh, yes . . . I had a diary. And I wrote in it faithfully. Important stuff like, "He didn't even look at me today," and "I got a new haircut. I wonder if he'll notice." Or there's my very favorite: "All hope is forever lost." That last one was an entry in and of itself--no clues as to why I felt hope was lost, why ALL of it had to be lost, and why ALL of it was lost . . . FOREVER. But I'm pretty sure the hope was concerning the boy who didn't look at me and probably didn't notice my haircut.(You know who you are, SW!)

Last summer, I looked up from my driveway and caught my youngest (five at the time) tearing a hole in his screen window with some piece of hardware that had ended up on the ledge. Ready to lay into him for destroying our house, I took the stairs two at a time up to his room. And there he stood sobbing, looking out at the other kids playing in our backyard. He was completely oblivious to my impending rage--too caught up in his own sorrow.

So I took a deep breath and knelt next to him on the floor. He glanced down at me and then crumpled, heartbroken, into my lap.

He'd been betrayed by his sister and her friend. Of course, he didn't put it quite like that. It was more like, "They dared me to pee in the pool and then I did and then they laughed at me and said they were going to tell on me." And it wasn't the "telling on me" part that upset him. It was the realization that the three of them weren't in on the fun together: it was them against him. They weren't laughing with him: they were laughing at him.

I didn't have the heart to punish him for the hole. I realized while he cried and cried, and it had "only" taken me thirteen years as a mother to get there, that my feelings are no more valid than my child's. Perhaps they're even less valid at times, because they're complicated by logic and a facade of maturity and the need to be the adult.

I've worked a lot over the last year to slow down my "reaction time" a little. I've tried to be six and nine and (heaven help me!) twelve and fourteen when I'm dealing with my kids' emotions. I've tried to take the steps one at a time instead of two. I've tried to take more deep breaths and to imagine what my children would write in their journals about who didn't understand them or notice them or simply listen to them.

When I was in high school, I went on a huge Richard Bach kick. Jonathan Livingston Seagull wasn't enough for my sixteen-year-old self. I had to read everything he ever wrote. (Weaker teenagers would've collapsed under the weight of my microcosm.) And one of my favorite quotes of his was "Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true."

Okay, so that one doesn't really have a lot to do with the point I'm trying to make here, but, like I said, it was one of my favorites. However, he also wrote, "The simplest things are often the truest." And what's simpler than a child's emotions? Kneeling down on the floor next to a child in the midst of a tantrum--his or yours--is the best and fastest way to figure out how to calm the heck down.

The hole is still in the screen. Unlike the little boy who made it, it's small enough to be inconsequential.

What Happened

This is a hard post for me to write. My heart is pounding a little faster than usual, and I'm thinking about stopping and just never writing this at all. Because I've done a really good job for the last 12 days of not thinking too much about what happened. That's what I call it: "what happened." Or "the accident."

But things are slowing down a bit: fewer doctors' appointments, fewer hospital visits, fewer headaches, fewer vomiting episodes. But also fewer hours of sleep each night because no matter how tired I might be, depression and anxiety have been known to keep me relatively sleepless for months at a time.

First, she's better. That doesn't mean she's fine. She's nearly back to her normal self, and if you didn't know "what happened," you wouldn't know anything had at all.

Second, my nine-year-old daughter was hit by a car on July 3 while crossing an intersection with my 14-year-old son.

She'd walked with my son, husband, and in-laws to go watch fireworks at a nearby park. Originally, I'd said no, it's too late, the kids need their sleep, fireworks aren't even a novelty anymore, so why bother. But they were all in such a good mood and I thought, fine, it's summer, even if they don't sleep in we can survive a day of them being a little tired. Then my 12-year-old wanted me to drive because his ankle had been hurting him. I said okay, and then my six-year-old wanted to ride in the car as well.

I dropped my older son off at the park then headed to look for parking. I found a spot on a street not quite a block away. I took my youngest's hand and walked a few yards before remembering I didn't have the chairs. So we went back to the van, unlocked the back, and I grabbed them. Then off we went again.

Then as we neared the intersection, I saw a little girl get hit by a car and fall to the ground. I got out my cell phone and started dialing 9-1-1. As I watched the street, I saw someone try to pick the girl up, and I yelled for them to leave her where she was, to wait for the paramedics. Then I heard a man shout and run to the girl. The street was dim, but I could see it was my husband. I thought, good, he'll take care of the little girl. Kneeling next to her, he was holding his arm out and shouting for cars to stop.

And that's when I finally realized that little girl was my little girl.

My husband moved her to the yard at the other side of the intersection. Because there were no police on the scene yet--and hundreds of people milling about waiting for the fireworks to start and cars still looking for parking more than they were looking for pedestrians, let alone children lying in the street--keeping her where she was would have been more dangerous than picking her up.

By the time I got to her, I was calm enough to try to calm her. She was crying and scared and had no idea what had happened that day, why she was lying on the ground, why her head hurt so much, or what the boom of fireworks in the background was all about. The paramedics eventually assured us there were no external injuries aside from the abrasions on her arms and legs, but, of course, they were worried about her head b/c the driver's side-view mirror had hit the back of it hard enough to spin her around and throw her to the ground.

Once she and I were in the ambulance, she began screaming at me to wake her up. And then she began screaming for her dad to wake her up, even though he wasn't there with us. She was convinced she was dreaming. And I realized at that moment how completely helpless I was. Holding her hand and shushing her gently and talking to her and singing to her--none of that helped. She just wanted to be woken up.

She had a concussion and was kept overnight in another hospital for observation. Her memory came back over the next 24 hours. She now remembers it all, unfortunately, and has nightmares. But at least I can wake her from those.

She also has/had a small subdural hematoma--too small for surgery. For the first five days, she couldn't keep anything down except enough liquids to keep her hydrated. She was given a blessing that fifth day, and by that night, she was finally able to really eat something. She's only improved since then, although she has double vision, which the pediatric ophthalmologist says should go away within the next six months. We're waiting for word from our doctor's office about a referral for a pediatric neurologist. We hope to get her in either today or early next week.

It could have been worse. I'm no polyanna when I say that. I'm not sitting here at my laptop shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Phew." I'm saying: it could have been worse. And how worse is what keeps me from sleeping. It also could have been better. I could have said no, we're not going. I could have insisted she ride with me. I could have left the stupid chairs in the van and gotten to the corner in time to hold my daughter's hand myself and crossed her myself. She could have been my responsibility that night instead of someone else's. Which is why I don't blame my son for walking her across at the wrong moment. And I don't blame my husband for not having hold of her himself. I'm the safety freak in this family. It's my role and it's one I've generally been pretty good at.

But it's not guilt that digs into me or makes my heart race or my hands shake. It's the tenuous hold we all have on life. It's the alternative realities any one of us might be living if even one event had played itself out the tiniest bit differently.

I was telling one of my sister-in-laws that sometimes you have to believe in miracles because otherwise you have to believe in good luck. And if you can believe in good luck, you can believe in bad luck. And good luck has to run out eventually.

The first few nights after the accident, I waited until she was asleep next to me in bed (she won't sleep anywhere that isn't beside me) to cry--from relief, fear, visiting those alternative realities for too long. And to bring myself back to the sound of her breathing, I had to chant to myself, "I have her. I have her. I have her."

I still do keep that mantra running through my mind. I have her. I have my other three children. I have them all. They're mine. They're here. And for all of this, I am incredibly blessed/lucky/grateful. I do know how much worse it could have been. And when I'm not aching over the thought of not having all that I have, I'm aching over the thought of all those who don't have what they once did.

We're not all the way to fine. But we will be.

In My Most Humble but Strong Opinion

My dad was known for being an opinionated man. He didn't mince words, but he did manage to mince a few relationships along the way. I always admired that about him: his ability to feel strongly enough about something to speak up and then not regret a single word he spoke. I have a nephew just like him whom I admire quite a bit for that same reason.

Me? I try to be diplomatic. I weigh virtually every word before it comes out of my mouth. I have a filter through which you could strain the finest of teas. Do I pretend to approve of something when I don't? No. But I do hold back more often than one might imagine.

Getting to my point: a friend sent me a link to this article this morning. He knows I write young adult (though "publish" isn't part of the definition of "write" for me quite yet) and, more importantly really, that I read it.

Now, I'm not quite as plugged into the YA writing community as I was even a year ago. I won't get into why because it's irrelevant. But I did forward the article to a good friend of mine, Brigid Kemmerer, who is coming out with her own amazing YA novel in May of 2012 (and I can't tell you how excited I am because it would make you all sad, honestly, to understand the level of my vicarious living). She replied to tell me she'd read the article already and that quite the hubbub was brewing over it. I hadn't heard a word about said hubbub ([1] see above line re: being unplugged, and [2] I feel about 112 when I say the word hubbub but can't seem to help myself).

And my response to her is below. This is my opinion. But it's a strong one. You can blame my father.

I just don't have the energy to get worked up over much these days. What's the point?

And all writers prey on their audiences. It's the nature of the business. You go after the readers you want. These particular authors were just pointing out how going after teen readers might seem a little icky, but at least they (the authors) are appreciated there. If anything, the writers were ragging on literary fiction.

It's also all about reliving high school. Not a single YA writer out there (myself included) can say they're not thinking about being a teenager when they're writing about teenagers. To go back and do things differently--to be different--is virtually everyone's fantasy, and that's where the obsession with the paranormal comes in. Wanting to do it all over again is, by definition, fantastical. I mean, come on . . . people have been obsessed with youth since time began. We're just writing about it more now, and the thought of a bunch of 40-somethings out there doing this is comical in a pathetic (pathetic in the best possible way, of course, because those who write YA also read YA!) sort of way. I can admit that. These authors are admitting that. They're laughing at themselves, not the industry. They're being self-deprecating, not insulting.

As for the authors' assertions that the story is what matters and not the writing, of course that's what matters! No one is calling Stephenie Meyer a literary genius. No one is calling J.K. Rowling that either, for that matter. Teens are much more caught up in their story, not how their story is told. It's a selfish audience being written to, so you write what they want to read. They want to focus on the angst of being them and on the necessary microcosms they build for themselves so their drama can continue to matter more than the impending apocalypse. If you're a good writer on top of that--on top of creating a great story--then so much the better, b/c then you'll get the reviews and the adult audience as well.

The people getting worked up over this article simply have misplaced priorities, in my opinion. In a world where most teenagers can't afford to buy a book or eat lunch before reading one or even read at all, getting upset about someone saying something that might possibly be interpreted as insulting to those writing for teens is absurd in the most selfish sense possible. If you're able to write and to publish and simply do what you love, then god bless. Seriously. Maybe these are the authors who write YA not because they want to relive high school but because they never really left it in the first place.

In Case Anyone Is Watching . . .

I would make a terrible nurse. It's not the blood and various other bodily fluids and broken bones that would get to me; it's my impatience with complaints about stubbed toes, hangnails, splinters, slivers, and minor cuts, scratches, and bruises. Sure, nurses don't have to exactly deal with these sorts of complaints on a daily basis, but it's the thought of having to deal with any molehill of a problem blown into a mountain that would show my lack of bedside manner and get me fired if not sued.

My six-year-old just came in a few minutes ago to whine about his finger, which had apparently been attacked by a small stick earlier today. I sent him back outside with a brusque wave. My daughter, 30 seconds later, started into hysterics over . . . what? I don't know. I stopped her from finishing her sentence. She's outside playing now too. That, or she's up in her room composing a letter to Santa to ask for a mother who knows how to ooh and aah in sympathy more regularly.

Let me tell you about how sickness was handled in my house growing up: Quarantine. Any of us got sick? We spent the fevered period in our bedrooms. With the door shut. When I was a junior in high school, I got a terrible sore throat. My mother's solution was (and I quote), "Stand in the hot shower with your mouth open. The steam will make it feel better. You're going to school." This routine went on for three days until Mom relented and took me to the doctor. I had strep throat, of course.

At 19, I had a lump removed: pre-cancerous. If my parents were concerned, I don't recall them letting on. I'm not saying they weren't concerned--only that they didn't fawn over me or coddle me or make me feel like the world was going to end, and I didn't mind the lack of attention. I didn't want it, honestly. Had they been more alarmist in their reaction, I would have, well, felt more alarmed.

About a year into my marriage, my husband caught on to my feelings about "in sickness and in health." Just because I'm all for sticking by him in times of sickness, I don't mean right by him. I mean in the next room or farther down the hall or downstairs while he stays upstairs and only calls for me when he really, really, really needs something. He was a little shocked at this revelation. In fact, he kind of panicked.

"Please," he said. "Please tell me that when we have children and they get sick, you'll take care of them."

I laughed. "Of course, I will."

He didn't laugh. He went a little paler. "I mean it. You need to promise me."

I laughed again. "Promise you? Do you really think I wouldn't take care of them?"

He still didn't laugh. "Promise me. Promise me you'll take them a cold wet washcloth and make sure they're okay."

So I promised.

My twelve-year-old had some serious kidney problems for seven years before doctors finally diagnosed him correctly. And I was the vision of empathy night after night while he lay in bed next to me, vomiting for hours on end. I was furious and frustrated and just wanted to find a way to make him feel better, which meant I also felt helpless, which, really, is no way for any parent to feel. He had surgery just over two years ago to finally fix the problem. I still look at him in amazement sometimes, immensely grateful those days are over and that he can just be a normal kid now.

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago, I felt that same fury, frustration, and helplessness, which is no way for a child to feel either. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments didn't fix his "problem." He died after ten months of fighting the good fight--but, really, what's good about any fight that ends like that?

I chased my daughter out of the house before I let her finish that sentence a few minutes ago because, as I told her, "You kids are healthy in every way. There's no reason at all for you to complain about the little things in life."

I'm not trying to raise stoic children. I'm not trying to raise children that lack compassion or that are afraid to cry when they fall off their bike or trip up the stairs. I'm trying to raise kids that are grateful for the bruises, scrapes, splinters, and slivers that show they got to spend summer evenings playing in the backyard with each other and with their friends. I'll give them that wet washcloth for their heads or their bloody elbows. But then I'm sending them back outside to play, because they get to go back outside and play.

So in case anyone is watching or listening: I do care about my children's well-being. I care a lot.

A Kind Word

A fellow parent called me this morning. She's the kind of parent I say hello to at social events, but we never speak for more than a few minutes. Our daughters (9 years old now) are in the same grade and they were in the same class two years ago. They're also in Brownies together. Otherwise, their paths don't often cross.

So I was surprised by the phone call. She started with, "I just want to bring your attention to something that happened yesterday during the Brownie field trip."

And those of you who are parents can probably imagine what I thought: "Oh, no, what did my daughter do?"

Now, my daughter is a good girl. Truly. She's kind and sweet. She thinks the best of everyone around her. She loves everyone around her, even the mean girls who tell her she's fat or make fun of her for still loving Hello Kitty. She's big on giving people second and third and millionth chances. She wakes up at 6 a.m. every morning because she's excited about what that day holds, even if there's nothing special on our schedule: to her it's all special. She skips down the sidewalk, tripping over her two left feet most days. She laughs until she cries. And she gives hugs because she figures everyone needs them as much as she does.

Still, I braced myself to hear what she might have done yesterday that would warrant a call from another parent, because that's our instinct as parents: to believe the best but to be ready for the worst, because we need to be able to defend our children against the world and to be prepared for our children to have been the one doing the wrong--because that's what we're used to having to do.

It's so easy for the world to spoil kids, to take something wonderful and pure and then slowly or suddenly damage it--to teach them words at six that we didn't hear until we were sixteen, or even to teach them too-common words that make them reassess themselves and others, such as "stupid" and "shut up" and "idiot" and "hate." And there are the actions and attitudes the world teaches them as well: hatred, bigotry, revenge, boastfulness. So we're always on our guard, trying to stifle the parroting nature of a child and begging them and God and whomever else might be listening, "Please, please, let my apple-cheeked daughter stay apple cheeked and innocent." And also, "Just in case she doesn't, help me know how to teach her the right things over and over, again and again."

This mother said, before telling me what happened, that she knows too often she focuses on what her own daughter might be doing wrong. And I felt guilty instantly--guilty for, in spite of knowing how wonderful my daughter is, not praising her enough for her kind heart, guilty for doing the same thing this mother does and the same thing parents everywhere do, whether it's silently or loudly criticizing our children for not working hard enough, not studying hard enough, or not simply trying hard enough.

The reason she called was to tell me how gentle my daughter had been with a friend who was struggling during yesterday's hike. She wanted to let me know she'd seen my daughter doing something good and decent and kind. She made time in her busy morning (I could hear the doorbell and the chaos of kids in the background) to look up my number and to call me. From one mother to another, she wanted to let me know she understood how much we want to know our kids are okay and are doing right, even if our instinct is to fear the opposite.

Our children aren't perfect. And I'm grateful they aren't because then they'd expect us to be as well. But I'm also grateful they have moments of perfection, moments when we can see the clean spots the world has missed and we can be reminded to notice those clean spots and moments more often.