Tag Archives: Parenting

The 5 Most Important Words My Friend Shared in the Middle of the Night.

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I knew my energy was low, but a spontaneous opportunity to join a small group of friends for a quick drink seemed just about right. Until you notice yourself barely keeping up with conversations, and not really engaging. So after a couple of hours, I excused myself with the need to pick up one of my three teens and get him home.

Seeing through my mood, a close friend who had been there texted around 11:00 pm, “Everything ok? Did you round everyone up?”  “Did you see through my stress?” I responded. “Honestly, I don’t know how much more I can cope with,” was my next text.  I shared with her the letter I had received earlier in the day from our township with a neighbor complaining about the disrepair to the shed out back (aka, the boys’ “clubhouse”) and rubbish in the yard.

(What it felt like to get the letter….)

Just another battering in the saga of single-parenting three adoptive boys. The teen years have hit hard.  As the testosterone levels have surged on their prenatal toxic stress brains, their fragile coping abilities have been decimated and the impulsive, reckless, scary behaviors have escalated.  Ever the introvert who likes to let calls go to voicemail, I now answer every single ring. It could be the police. It could be the hospital. It could be the kid needing extraction from a bad situation. It could be another mom letting me know that she got to the scene first and she’s there for my boy waiting for me as chaos swims around them.

As my body and brain fight to stabilize every wave that comes, I’ve been trying my best to focus on the current day. Focus on taking care of myself. Fill thy cup. Practice self-care. Sleep. Eat. Because if I’m not stable, I can’t co-regulate the emotional spikes of these fragile boys.

But that night, I couldn’t figure out how to stay stable in response to the next onslaught. The neighbor who had warmly welcomed us to the community years ago apparently became tired by the mess that a group of energetic inattentive boys leave in their wake. He had yelled at the middle child a couple weeks ago, but apparently is unable to address me as a human and neighbor.

There are very few parents who can understand the depth and the anguish and the trauma and the stress of parenting these tough children.  But those who have walked through this hell also know the deep cavern a parent sinks into when they hit the breaking point. When it all just becomes too much. When the coping is gone. The self-care bucket is empty. The future seems bleak and the brain searches for a way out of it all.

“Don’t let it break you,” my friend responded. It’s 11:35 pm and I feel broken. The eldest is just barely holding on to 11th grade. After a rough year, the middle is refusing all educational attempts (despite homebound, charter school, and a trial of cyber) and the next important IEP meeting is scheduled in two days. The youngest has had a precipitous decline over the past few months and and parenting and life have been beyond scary and stressful. The list of appointments to make, plumbers to call, clutter to clean, and work to be done is just too long. The perception of failure gnaws in the recesses of the mind and I am just barely holding on in the middle of the night.

“Don’t let it break you.”  The tears flowed. Scattered texts floated back and forth over the next few hours into the early morning. Not saying much. Many lapses of time. But the words were the lifeline. Flying off to Bermuda was not going to help me (though I do love the beach). Moving to Australia was not currently a viable option (but my friends would welcome me). Being jailed with a book and a puzzle for my truant kid seemed like a beautiful time of respite (but that wouldn’t keep my boys safe and healthy).  There’s nothing but to know that I cannot let myself be broken.

I am the parent for these boys. I am the heart that wraps them in love. I am the brain that reads and calls and questions and seeks information and resources for them. I am the voice that fiercely advocates for their needs. I am the arms that prepare the meals, clean the clothes, sweep the fur-balls, fix the breaks and drive the car. I am the legs that bend to the floor to play a game and that rise up to stand against those who would discriminate against or harm them. I am the mom supported by my family and friends and neighbors (though clearly not all the neighbors) and that community is vital. I am the one the Lord has chosen for these boys.

And I will not break.

~ Call or text me when you need a friend. I am here. And be kind to one another 🙂

Here’s how to successfully raise teens in 2023

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(tongue-in-cheek because single-parenting three teen boys is usually the feeling of drowning and just being thankful that the day is over!)

When your 14-year-old son leads on a weekend morning with, “Mom, are you busy today?”, the correct answer is never to list out all the cleaning and projects you had lined up for the day in your brain. The correct answer is, of course, “What do you have in mind?” And, of course, if you do not like what he has in mind, you may proceed with your list of impossible-to-accomplish things. But if his answer is, “Can we get a new hamster….I kind of miss mine after it died” then your answer is, “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

That is one thing I’ve learned about raising teens. Here’s a few more:

  1. Keep them alive. This feels near impossible many days as their brains are 1000% crazy ideas and 1% “oh that might be dangerous” critical thinking. After a couple midnight joy-rides (and, they are always amazed that I can tell the moment I get in the car that it has been “used”), I now have the car keys in my pocket continuously (as well as the key to the alcohol cabinet and to my bedroom).
  2. Keep them fed. There is clearly “never any food” in the house as apparently, “there’s only ingredients,” but I do make sure to have plenty of quick-to-heat-up or grab-and-go foods to block part of the hangry moods.  Sometimes they figure out how to put ingredients of butter, bread and cheese together in a pan, but most of the time they want Mom to do that. Much of the time they want Mom to do that when she’s settled down at her puzzle table listening to an audiobook at 10:00 pm, but they’ve learned it’s a waste of breath. But not to fear, friends, there is always food in our house!
  3. Keep them engaged. This is the sage advice of every person who has had very little difficulty with raising their own teens.  But it really only works for teens who actually want to be engaged in sports or music or the arts or reading. But for some teens, “engaged” means connecting with friends on Fortnight gaming. Or for Mr. Ornery, now 14, it was months spent stripping down the parts of a kid electric dirt bike and purchasing a powerful battery and motor and chains and tires and converting it to something capable of 40 mph (see point #1)! I would whine to myself and to him about the cost of this “nonsense” so much until I realized the cost was likely comparable to a sport or music lessons and it was keeping him engaged.
  4. Keep them related. Some days, I barely see the boys. It’s off to school and then to friends or to their rooms. The best way to find some time to talk is driving them somewhere, so I’ll even do the 5-10 minutes to school. But these days, you’re competing with the cell phone in the hand and the earbud in the ear, so we have to work hard at finding ways to keep connected.
  5. Keep them healthy. While physical health sometimes seems effortless (with an occasional cold or COVID sprinkled in), it’s the mental health that’s harder to address. In the wake of a nation-wide rise in teen mental disorders, the resources are not easily available and rarely “accessible” in a way that my teens are willing to connect with. This year has been waves of depression and cycles of rage with furious destruction. I’ve had to be very intentional and very persistent to keep working toward diagnoses and treatment, but it remains a frustrating cyclone.
  6. Keep them safe from trauma. Raising biracial boys in a very white neighborhood is beyond challenging. This year the boys experienced blatant racism in the schools, the community and in their peers.  I have worked to understand their feelings, help them begin the process of learning to manage their fight-or-flight system, and have become a voice to call out the racism when it occurs. But it shocks me every time they tell me what people have said to them.
  7. Finally, keep the focus on the goal. A parent’s overall goal is a healthy and developing child moving toward an independent, thriving adult. So when anxiety and depression precludes school attendance for this week or this month, the goal remains that the child feels loved and supported and understood. That grade in biology will have to wait. The school year might have to wait. There is a bigger goal. And sometimes you might have to remind the “systems” of that bigger goal. (And sometimes someone reminds you. Like when I moan to the 12-year-old that I had not anticipated the amount of time it would require of me to teach his older brother to drive, his response was, “Well, you have to do it, Mom. It’s an important life skill for him.”  The youngest has his eye on the goal!)

And most importantly, for the parent:

  • Keep your patience.
    • Get sleep – which generally means being in bed by 9:30 because the kids’ bus comes at 6:30 am!
    • Practice self-care – spend time in any activity which causes time to stand still. Walking. Running. Pickleball. Jigsaw puzzles while watching TV. Reading by audiobook while walking or running or puzzling 😊.
  • Keep your sanity.
    • Find your tribe – those groups of mothers who hang at the pool with you, friends who go out for brunch or collect “stamps” at the local breweries, or those who visit in the evenings for a quiet dinner or drink. Find those who listen; those who offer suggestions; those who text back when you reach out in panic or anguish or frustration. Hold them close and nurture them as well.
  • Keep yourself healthy, mentally and physically.

Because your focus is on the goal – independent, thriving adults.

I Really Needed the 20 Seconds.

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This summer has been exhausting. Totally and completely exhausting. The boys have all aged out of summer day care or camps. They are not actively engaged in any sports at this time. They get bored. They get “creative” in so many ways to take up the long hours of day.

So three teens with minimal impulsive control, brains that crave dopamine rushes, and with flaring tempers has been a daily struggle.  I have fought to stay a step ahead of their activity.  I sleep with the car keys under my pillow to prevent any additional joyrides by underage boys.  I lock up the alcohol (only to find that a boy has tried to open the lock and damaged the mechanism). I monitor the security cameras to see who is sneaking out in the middle of the night and when. Keeping up with full-time work and volunteer positions, managing the greater food intake by teens (funny how much those school lunches made a difference) and the endless piles of dirty dishes and laundry seems impossible.

Through all this, though, the 12-year-old Little Guy did participate in the community summer swim league. He didn’t actually want to be there and didn’t do any of the daily practices because he just wanted to “hang” with his friends. But with generous encouragement, he joined the swim team for competitions every Tuesday and Thursday.  He swam well and helped win many relays.

At the end of the 8-week season, the neighborhood pool team had championship races which culminated in an award ceremony.  As parents gathered around, the coaches took turns presenting the “Fishy Awards” in which they said 1-2 sentences about what most impressed them about each child.  The swimmer was called forward to receive a fish-shaped paper with a couple words on it and a gift of an embroidered swim towel. My boys have participated in this swim club for the past eight years and I always look forward to hearing what strikes the coaches about each of my children.

As the Fishy Awards wrapped up, I suddenly realized that The Little Guy had not been selected to come forward at all.  The microphone had been passed on to thank the volunteers. The coaches had walked away.  I left my chair and walked over to the head coach in his mid-twenties and asked, “Why is my son the only kid who did not receive any recognition?”

The problem was, I had hit my limit. All the stress of the summer fell upon my heart suddenly. The injustice poked at my brain. The lack of sleep knocked down the walls that hold in emotions, and I was flooded. When the coach couldn’t grasp why I wanted him to take back the stage for a moment and call my son forward to recognize him like every other member of the team, I just walked away. I found myself in the bathroom sobbing until I could stem the tears a bit. Gathering up my things, I sat in the car and waited for The Little Guy to wrap up with the party.

A friend came over to chat and when The Little Guy joined us, he kept saying, “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t mind at all. It’s no big deal.”  I reassured him that my flood of emotions was just the culmination of fatigue and stress and disappointment. I added, “I just love you so much and sometimes as a mom, it is just really nice to hear how much other people love you too.”  I just needed those 20 seconds. Just 20 seconds of encouragement that my kid is doing okay and that I as a parent am doing okay. Yes, it was an unintentional mistake in dropping the “award” and not recognizing my son, but it was the absence of a much needed 20 seconds in just that moment of my life that punched.

Dry the tears.

Shove emotions back.

Gather up.

Parent on.

So I thank all the people over the course of this summer who have given me 20 seconds of stories about how well the 14-year-old is doing when they see him at his job at McDonalds. The friends who provide 20 seconds of stories about their struggles with their own kids and yet are doing okay. And the 20 seconds of sitting silently together, exhaling deeply about just how hard parenting is.

Share those 20 seconds with others. We all need them.

Open Letter to My Sons’ School

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Dear School Board and Administration,

Do you not understand how thoroughly exhausting this is? How every single day of my life is now shaped by your decisions to constantly alter the course of my children’s schooling?

The phone rings. A recorded message informs me that my two middle-school sons will now be “remote learning” for the next two days. My brain begins its mental gymnastics (again). I begin to process what the new morning routine will look like, adjusting timings to get one kid to school and two kids logging in. My brain strums through what meetings I have to coordinate for the day and what changes we will make for the next couple days.

My brain is constantly reading, processing and filtering emails from the school. This building is now closed. A case was reported in your son’s school, but your child does not have to quarantine. A case was reported in your son’s class but your son is not deemed a close contact so you can choose whether or not you want to keep your kid home in quarantine to do remote learning or to send them to school. Because this building is now closed, your son’s basketball practice has now moved to tomorrow at 8:30 instead of today at 7:30, but the other boy’s swim practice is now shifted to Saturday to allow for….

I take a sip of wine….

Because I don’t know how else to cope with the relentless stress. The constantly changing schedules. The pervasive uncertainty. The steady level of worry of exposure to COVID or the chance of one of us getting sick. The struggle to maintain some semblance of education and growth for the boys while balancing limited social contacts and the boys’ mental health.

Is it a “he’s tired” headache or a COVID headache? Does his belly hurt because he’s hungry or he’s sick? Is there a fever? Was that a cough? Do I send him to school or keep him home? Test him or wait it out? Do I call the school nurse or fill out an absence form or ask to make him remote…..or just say to hell with it?!?!

Do you not understand how tired and stressed we parents are as we try to understand the ever-shifting “guidelines” and “procedures” in this school district? As we try to figure out whether your guidance even makes sense based on data and science? As we struggle with the basic knowledge that we can not and have not been able to trust our community leaders to make the right decision?

I take a sip of wine….

I have spent the last couple weeks starting every email with “I apologize for my delay in responding.” Sometimes I attempt humor (“my kid left the garage door open and the pipes froze; I’ve been a bit distracted”). Sometimes I am honest and confess that I’m stressed and I’ve lost track of…well, of life. Sometimes I just move right along and answer the question I should have answered last week as if there weren’t seven days missing in there.

I’ve nicknamed myself “Last-minute Lynne.” My work is done the night before or it’s late. There’s no in-between. There is no staying on top of things. There is no managing anymore. Balls have dropped. Back-burner heat went out long ago. The to-do list got so long I’ve lost the first couple pages….

There is no relief in sight. Just constant worry. New COVID variants. New guidelines on masking. New impeachment trials and messy politics. New weather patterns and slippery roads. New research and new opinions. New vaccine roll-outs and new stimulus ideas. New evidence of health inequity and disparity. New, more, different, sudden, changing, insidious, good-luck-coping-with-this-curve-ball stress.

I take a sip of wine….

I’m a physician. I trained under a great deal of stress and experience stress at work which I can manage. But this stress is different and sneaks through my coping tactics. And, as a physician, I know that this chronic, ever-shifting stress is taking a toll on me. It’s taking a toll on my family as I waffle between fatigue and irritability. It’s taking a toll on health and on productivity. It’s taking a toll on my community and my city. It’s taking a toll on our country and across the world.

Dear school board and administrators, please decrease our stress.

Sincerely,

A very tired parent.

Cheers.

You Got This

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Easter of a pandemic. I stayed up late for Easter bunny fun designing a nice scavenger hunt for the boys to find their baskets in the morning. What I failed to appreciate was the vicious combination of holiday excitement and poor impulse control. Within minutes, Mr. Ornery was in tears about how hard the hunt was, how this was stupid, and how angry he was about having to do this. Within minutes a fight had broken out over whose tiny piece of chocolate was whose after cracking open all the plastic eggs from the family-room-egg-hunt. Within minutes, I was tucked away back in my bed sobbing.

My expectation of a beautiful morning clashed with the ADHD expectation of immediate access to candy! My expectation of a fun bonding moment in the midst of quarantine clashed with the need to just get to the end goal. It took me awhile to bounce back and realize that we are all stressed. Holidays add stress. Decreased amount of sleep adds stress. Constant, smoldering worry of an ongoing pandemic adds stress. A complicated scavenger hunt for an Easter basket was not the right type of stress to add.

I’ve been imparting wisdom left and right about how it’s most important to attend to our social-emotional health during this time, especially the health of our children. The other day, I stood in the hallway of our medical office listening to a mother stress about how many hours of school work she was trying to get her 6 year old to accomplish. She had gotten home from work and spent about 4 hours with her kindergartener trying to get assignments done. There was stress. There were tears. There was guilt about not spending time with the younger sibling because of all the attention on school. Her voice cracked. And my heart paused for her.

“Listen, we’re living in a pandemic. We’re just hanging on some days trying to cope. There’s too much stress of trying to do work well, trying to parent well, and trying to help kids with school. She’s in kindergarten. She’s going to be fine if you just focus on her emotional health,” I spouted.

There are just a few times I’ve cried during this pandemic and most of those times have been while on a phone (or after hanging up) with a teacher or learning support teacher at my boys’ schools. I find that I keep voicing how hard this is for parents to try to do their own work from home while simultaneously trying to figure out how to help the kids. I’ve advocated for paying more attention to “how are the kids feeling?” and figuring out how they are coping with their stress.  We’ve revised 504s and IEPs. We’ve decreased some of the workloads. But it’s a work in progress.

The moment the schools closed, Super Tall Guy packed up and moved over to my sister’s house. He loves being there with her two teenage boys. He spent the entire summer there last year. And while that seemed fine when they talked about closing school for two weeks, when the governor closed schools for the rest of the year – a total of 3 months – that just didn’t seem sustainable.  I struggled with the fact that he wasn’t getting the same “bonding” time that the other two boys and I were having (not that he’d come out of his room to go on our daily family walks, anyway). And although I kept fussing about whether to “make” him come back home, I finally relaxed into persuading myself that his stay there was buffering his social-emotional health. He is happy and that is good enough for now.

There’s just no right and wrong. No clear cut answers to anything. We are all just trying to do our best each day and waking up to try again tomorrow. So I wrote this….

 

 

 

Social “Distancing” – Week 1

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When the fifth-grader’s teacher texted me on Tuesday night to say she had an “inkling” that schools would be closing by Monday, I panicked. “Oh, please, no,” I responded. The thought of having the boys home ALL the time was overwhelming to me.  But as I read more and more about the coronavirus COVID-19 and as more and more places closed, I slowly started to grasp the reality.

And then by Thursday night, my stress level climbed as I got downright frustrated that the school district had not informed parents about a closing. As more and more neighboring districts closed and ours wasn’t, I got more and more worried. I got so worried, that I had to rip open another jigsaw puzzle box, pour a glass of wine and stay up late into the night putting tiny cardboard pieces together to help me relax and unwind the tightness of the stomach and muscles.

Super Tall Guy called me Friday afternoon right after I hung up from listening to the school district’s automated message. “We’re out of school for two weeks!” he exclaimed. “Where are you?” I queried, hearing a cacophony of noise in the background. “In reading class,” he responded, “Everyone is calling their parents.” I imagine the reading teacher had basically just given up with her room full of teens!

….There’s a reason I was never a stay-at-home mom. Well, of course, the reason is that I need to work as a single mom. But the other reason is that kids are entirely exhausting to this strong introvert. There’s nothing I like more than curling up with a great book beside a fireplace. Taking a long run or walk. Losing hours to the lull of a jigsaw puzzle (do not mess with my pieces – I know the location of every single one of them as they await being placed!).

Kids are entirely exhausting to me. And juggling kids while trying to work from home is entirely exhausting. Making food all day long is exhausting. Keeping up with the tracking in of dirt is exhausting. Biting my tongue and escaping to my room when tempers flare and kids quarrel is exhausting. Listening to the whine of “I’m bored” is exhausting. And trying to explain in a safe and non-scary way why we’re not playing with other children for awhile is exhausting.

But what is most exhausting is stress. Stress is exhausting. Holding ourselves together is exhausting. Reading about the insidious spread of a virus is exhausting. Worrying about the health of your own family and your aging parents is exhausting. Frustration at the lack of a coordinated and helpful response by your own government is exhausting. Worry for colleagues in the medical field is exhausting. Worrying about seeing patients is exhausting. Stress is exhausting!

I slept a lot last week. A lot. So did the eleven-year-old. The eight-year-old watched a lot of TV. A lot. The 13-year-old played Fortnite. A lot of Fortnite.

But we made it through. We made it through with rest, with games and movies, and cardboard creations for the hamster. We made it through with faith and music and stories. We made it through with cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. And, we made it through with understanding that it’s not “social distancing” we’re trying to accomplish, it’s “physical distancing.” The social connection must remain. So, I continued to call my mom daily. I texted many people I hadn’t connected with for awhile. I started getting outside for walks or runs with a neighbor, each of us letting the other know when we were about to blow and needed some physical activity to clear the head and raise the endorphins. We started to figure out what it meant to stay away from others and yet try to stay connected (I miss hugs….).

And, we made it through because there was no school requirement yet and no pressure to juggle one more thing…

….but then there’s tomorrow morning. Remote school starts.

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Jeremiah 29:11

A Climbing Wall: The Art of Parenting

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“I need you to check in with me,” I said to the 9-year-old as he placed his foot on a ledge on the climbing wall. “I am what keeps you alive.”

In the boys’ endless quests for adventure, the climbing wall at the gymnastics facility was their next journey. There was fun and challenge to be had on the walls and in the attempt to swing up into a little “cave,” but the greatest fun was to descend into the pit, hook up to a harness, and scale the wall. My job was to belay them. My job was to keep them safe, to keep them alive.

This was a new adventure for me as well. I had no experience in belaying and it’s been way too long since I’ve tied any knots in Girl Scouting (“Form a guy, give him a tie, poke him in the eye.” – viola! – a figure-8 knot). I realized as a stood back, craning my neck, watching my fearless boy climb straight up that there was a great deal of learning happening in a short period of time.

Mr. Ornery was learning strategy of placement of hands and legs. With encouragement from the two men who climb each week, he was learning to focus on his legs to push him up higher. He was also learning to listen to others (even if he had just met them) who had more experience and thus could give him some guidance. If he could reflect deep enough, he was learning to respect his elders.

He was also learning to trust himself and develop confidence. The first couple times, the wall with an overhanging cliff loomed against his skill. Several attempts later, he fought to keep his toes in the footholds and extend his arms high enough to get the next rock. Scrambling over the edge, he shot to the top to ring the bell and joyously called out, “I did it.”

He was learning to trust his mother. “You sure you got me?” he’s asked several times as he reaches far up to the top. He knows he’s high enough that a fall would be devastating. He knows he’s connected to a rope, but he’s not so sure that rope is secure. He knows the rope is connected to me, but he’s not so sure this system is going to work. So, I remind him that he’s safe. I remind him that his mom has him. I remind him that he checked in with me at the start so that we’re in this together – he’s ready to explore, I’m ready to catch. Just as he used to walk off as a toddler and then circle back to check that I was still there, now as an adventurous third-grader, I’m still there. I’ve got his back in this life.

As I hold the rope, I contemplate this parent stuff. I’m responsible for keeping my kids safe, but also for encouraging them to try new things. Before clicking onto the rope, we review the knots together so that my kid thinks of safety first (helmets, seat belts, paying attention – whatever it is, safety matters). Before giving advice about the next possible step, I hang back as much as I can and let him struggle for a bit. Of course, I have an answer for him because I have a different vantage point (I’m not on the wall and I’ve already had a lot of experiences in life), but some of this he needs to wrestle with and I need to hold my tongue.

I am also reminded that part of what makes this parenting gig tough is that I don’t always have all the answers and new things (like belaying) come at me all the time. The great thing is that there are others, more experienced climbers, who can provide help – check the knots, teach me to hang the rope up at the end, provide soft encouragement. And there are more experienced parents who can give advice and share wisdom and provide soft encouragement when the going gets rough. There’s no way I could do this without them (and I’m looking for them as we approach the teen years!).

So, I’m learning to say “Go for it.” I’m learning to coach my kids just a little but hang back as much as I can so that they can figure it out. I’m learning to let others mentor and teach them skill sets that I don’t have. I’m learning to support but not hover. I’m learning to figure out what makes each boy tick and what they need on their journey. I’m learning the outward expression of the love withing.

Before you venture forth, my dear sons, check in with Mom.

And I will say, “Climb on.”

Seven Friends Every Mom Needs (Especially this Single Mom)

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Skiing has always held a strange mystique over me. Having grown up in a non-snowing foreign country and transplanting back in my teen years, I could never understand the fascination of propelling oneself down a hillside on thin blades and hoping for balance. Yet, it has remained on my list of things I “must” do with the boys (it’s my own internal list, half the stuff doesn’t make sense and the other half likely will never get accomplished).

However, the vast unknown surrounding the world of skiing has until now blocked my boys’ experiences. How do you even dress to ski? How do you put boots on kids’ feel? How do you navigate a ski lodge in which everyone walks around in the confidence of knowing where they’re going and what they’re doing – except you? It was too much to comprehend. Too much to attempt alone. Too much until a friend said, “Hey, my husband would be happy to teach your boys.” What beautiful joy.

This week, two very happy boys learned about clicking in ski boots, skicreating pizza or French fry poses, and the thrill of flying down the side of a little tiny mountain. Their brilliant faces and sparkling eyes spoke of their joy. I stood near the outdoor fireplace warming my toes and capturing moments on film and in my heart. Gratefulness overwhelmed me at one point as I thought about the joy that friends bring to one’s life and just how important they are to my parenting journey.

It seems to me that every parent needs at least seven kinds of friends. Clearly, one of them needs to know how to ski!

People who can do stuff you can’t Friends – There are things I can teach my boys like how to do the laundry, wash dishes, and say please and thank you. But there are so many things that I clearly have no ability to teach, like lift the toilet seat, flush every time, and how to ski. For this and so much more, I need friends who not only have skills I don’t, but who have a desire to spend time with kids and help them learn new skills. I’m very thankful for these friends.

Text Me Friends – In this digital age, it’s great to have these friends when you just want a little affirmation or to share a funny story that you know no one else except another mom would appreciate. The most important thing about these friends, though, is that when you’re stuck in a moment of parenting and just need a kind word, advice or empathy, but don’t have the emotional energy to actually talk, these friends are there for you in the pretty immediate response mode.

Call Me Friends – When you’re ready to chat about the little things in life, the surprise find at the grocery store or the cost of gas, or when you’re ready for a good heart-to-heart in-depth discussion, these are the friends you need. Though for us introverts, sometimes these are the Send Me An Email or Reach out on Facebook Friends! It’s pretty handy to have a friendly pediatrician in this category when you can’t figure out what that rash is or whether to grab the kid and run to the emergency room or just dole out some ibuprofen.

Dropping-by Friends – You need these friends to just come knocking or send a text and say, “Hey, watcha doing? Mind if I drop by?” And then you rush around picking up unmatched boys’ socks, doggie toys, and shoving the shoes into a pile so they don’t trip up your guest before opening up the bottle of wine. It’s going to be a nice evening and these are the friends you need.

You Got This Friends – The parenting journey is impossible without multiple moments of complete meltdown and desire to give it all up. You feel lost. You don’t know what to do next. You know you’re the worst mom (or dad) in the world. These friends pick you up, brush off the dirt, wipe off the baby drool, and push you back into the game. Listen to them.

Been There Done That Friends – Now these are key. When your eldest son refuses to talk to you on his first trip away from you in the ten years that you’ve known the dude, these are the friends who say, “Yep, boys are like that. Don’t worry.” You don’t believe these friends at first, but then you realize that they speak from experience and they actually are right! It’s also wise to listen to these friends as they rant or tell stories about their little ones, because pretty soon these “ho-hum” stories become your reality.

Meet Me Friends – It might be coffee. It might be a margarita. It might be a walk in the park or a bench at the playground. These are the moments when you pause and breathe and rest in a rhythm together. You smile, you laugh, you cry. You get together in the monthly M.O.C.K (Moms of Crazy Kids) meet ups. It’s really best to have these moments without the little ones around if you expect to put more than two sentences together in a conversation, but if that’s not possible, meet up anyway. Human contact is part of sanity.

Got-your-back Friends – Every once in awhile, the fine structure you’ve built up of how to make life flow smoothly crashes a bit and when your family is busy or is already watching your other kids and it’s midnight and you’re in the emergency room with one of the kids, these are the friends who arrive with a bag of every possible cell phone charger made in the past fifteen years so that you can plug in yours. No matter what, no matter what time of day, no matter what they are in the middle of, these friends drop it all. They’ve got your back. They will be there. (I know, this is technically the eighth type – but these friends are so crucial they are in their own must-have category!)

You need friends. That “village” that they’re always talking about. It’s not really for the kids…it’s the village behind the parent that keeps you going.

Build your village. I sure am thankful for mine – old and new.

 

 

An Open Letter to the Coach at my Son’s Gym

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Interestingly, Facebook just popped up “memories” of last year’s gymnastics Halloween party as I was writing this post and considering copying it into an email to the owner. Sadly, this year’s memories are of a much different flavor. Maybe I’m over-reacting. Let me know.

Dear Coach,

I am struggling with feeling so unhappy about how you treated my son during the Halloween Party at the gym last weekend. Yes, he was being loud and silly, wrestling IMG_3720with his cousin, as they got off the mat after the costume parade. But as he had rolled right over to my feet, I was about to correct his behavior when your booming voice and harsh tone sent my little four-year-old panicking into my arms. I comforted him and reminded him that he needs to be quiet, sit and listen, but I was a little surprised at your tone. When the owner of the gym came over to see why he was sobbing and if he needed encouragement to engage in the fun activities, I told her we were just taking a break, but the truth was that he was trembling and needed to calm down.

Later when you returned upstairs and said to me, “Your boys are being too wild,” I wasn’t sure exactly what you were referring to. However, I didn’t get a chance to dialogue about it as you shortly thereafter yelled once more at my Little Guy. Having just exited the bounce house, he was unaware that you had proclaimed the tumble track off limits. Had you held your tongue, I would have walked over to my son and explained to him that that equipment was not to be used and we would have found another activity. Instead, it was clear to me that my family had been targeted in your mind as “trouble” and we weren’t going to have a good experience anymore. You certainly did not raise your voice to any other children or families – only mine and my sister’s boys. So, I gathered up my guys and we left early.

You see, my children may look like “normal” children and they often act like “normal and active” little boys, but deep inside the brain there is a shift in the neurotransmitters and the neuronal connections which leaves them struggling with hyper-reactivity and very poor impulse control. It’s not a physical disability that you might see and have empathy for, it’s a mental one and clearly you have no empathy for a condition that occurred before they were born. But it is precisely for this reason that I have my boys enrolled in gymnastics, to teach them the skills of strength and self-confidence and self-control, all of which your employing gym espouses so frequently. Yet, your direct and harsh yelling shatters the self-esteem, demeans the child and breaks the spirit.

Furthermore, your rapid discipline of my children when I am right there takes me out of the equation. I’m not sure if you think me too permissive or incompetent at parenting, but your actions were completely disrespectful. When my children are in class with you, then you have the authority. When they are at an event with me, I hold the authority. Unless they are in danger of hurting themselves or someone else, then it is my responsibility to handle their behaviors.

Here’s what I expect of a teacher and a coach – someone who treats all people with respect and dignity. Someone who encourages a child to do their best and reach new goals. Someone who celebrates hard work and dedication. Someone who models what it means to be a strong, competent athlete and decent human being. Someone who works with the family to reach out to kids with unique developmental “challenges” and develop self-confidence, increase self-esteem, and develop sportsmanship. If you are unable to be that great coach, then we will find someone who can.

Please let me know.

Thank you,

A tremendously disappointed mother

 

Cold sacrifices

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People talk about the sacrifice you make when you become a parent. They talk about so many sacrifices for your kids. If was sounding pretty “yeah, yeah” to me…until yesterday. Until I sat in 42 degree weather with the sun pushing the clouds out of its way for miniscule moments of time before the darkness and gray returned and the wind whipped through tiny entrances of layered clothing to reach my very soul as I sat cheering for Super Tall Guy at his baseball game.

This, I thought, this is what “sacrifice” means. Every muscle in my body wanted to sprint for the warmth of the car. My head ached from the tense neck muscles as I hunched as far into the blanket as I could. I sat there wishing for just a couple more degrees of warmth and possibly for feeling in my toes.

I glanced at the coaches on the field, blowing on their hands to diminish the numbness. “Come on, kid, you can do it. We got a hitter here,” they would yell to the batter. These men, these fathers, were sacrificing their Saturday morning to stand in the freezing cold for what? For my kid. And for that kid over there. And that one over there. Sure the kidsbaseball were cold. Sure they were rubbing their hands. Sure Super Tall Guy asked if he could leave after the second inning (knowing it would take two innings to get to his turn at bat given his bottom of the line-up position). But the coaches coached and the parents huddled and froze so that the kids could play. And the kids played so that they could learn about sacrifice and being cold and persisting and being “tough” and showing up for the team and winning and losing….and well, because their parents made them show up in the hopes that they would learn some of those lessons.

It’s been nine and a half years since I turned over under the covers and slept past 7:30 on a Saturday morning. It’s been nine and a half years since I last woke up and said, “hmmm….what should I do today?” Going from single, carefree woman to “what am I going to do for and with you today?” has been a pretty dramatic adjustment. Learning to sacrifice myself and my desires and even my needs (like you know, to sleep, to eat (a warm meal), to get to the bathroom before desperation) has been a big change.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy. I’m not complaining. I don’t mind leaving the movie theater right at the part I really wanted to see because the four-year-old can’t sit still any longer. I don’t mind staring at the huge painting in the dining room and wondering who shattered the upper corner of the glass. I don’t mind contemplating if the dampness seeping through my sock is urine or just water from the evening bath. I think it keeps me in shape to continually bend over and pick up those paper airplanes that missed their landing strip. I kind of enjoy slithering under the car to retrieve the soccer ball being melted onto the hot frame. I’d rather sleep on a narrow sliver of bed than spread out like an eagle and take up so much space. It’s keeping me limber and young and inquisitive, and so I really don’t mind….because I have three awesome boys…and I’ll get them back some day for all these sacrifices!