The Case for Stripping (and other theological postulations)

It's been a long two weeks. Today was friggin' hot. Obviously there was only one thing to do this afternoon:

It was our first beach outing of the year, and we did it right: lots of laughable mistakes and even more fun. It was almost like I was putting together my audition tape for Modern Family. When I looked at the forecast early this week I'd planned to do this little trip. I had a doctor appointment after school, so I figured I'd go from there to pick up Ben and we'd head straight to the beach. I even put a bag in the car this morning with some items so that I would be prepared (this is the part where God starts to chuckle). I told Ben when I dropped him off this morning that we'd go to the beach when he woke up from his nap, and when I picked him up he was already stoked. I asked if he wanted to stop and get french fries for a treat/snack on the way, and he said no, he just wanted to go to the beach (I stopped anyway, and shocking, he wanted some). We drove down, and he talked the entire way there about how excited he was. There was some traffic going down the peninsula, which I expected, but it wasn't too bad. We got to our favorite spot and parked; Ben's excitement levels had reached a fever-pitch. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought to bring quarters. We were seriously feet away from the sand, and I had no quarters. It was still an hour and a half before the meters would be off, and despite my frantic digging through the purse and the car, no quarters. I told Ben we couldn't go to the beach, but maybe the park. Worst. Mom. Ever. He refused. It was Beach or Bust. I headed to the closest grocery store I knew of--Newport businesses will not give you one solitary quarter more than would be required in your change. And I didn't have any cash anyway, so I'd have to get cash then buy something then get quarters with my change. Of course the nearest grocery store had literally been torn down. So I had to go all the way back to Costa Mesa to the next nearest grocery store, which I wasn't sure was open because I knew they'd recently remodeled. Oh, they were open alright. They were having their Grand Opening celebration, as a matter of fact. It had literally been open for thirty minutes. And they had a parking lot full of food trucks, radio stations, and customers to prove it. If I went any deeper inland I might as well go home, so I braved the Grand Opening. For quarters. I bought a bottle of water and asked for $10 cash back, with $1 in quarters. But no, they just opened, so she didn't have any quarters. Any. Sigh. So I took my bottle of water and $10 and went to the CVS next door. I asked Ben if he wanted a new bucket and shovel (thinking you can usually get a dinky little set for $2 at most. He said yes and got all excited. But they didn't have any. They only had $10 sets. If you do the math, you'll realize that I would not be getting any quarters back.  So if anyone's keeping score, I've now devastated my little boy twice by promising and failing to deliver on both the beach and new sand toys. So I got some licorice and told him he'd get to have a treat. Because apparently the french fries were not enough crap for the day. At any rate, we finally had our quarters, plus some water and candy, and we went back to the beach. I parked, put five quarters in the meter, and the meter stopped giving me time after 30 minutes. Two wasted quarters, and thirty minutes short of 6:00. Whatever. I was done. We went to the beach. The last thing I needed was a ticket, but I didn't care. We couldn't turn back now. But I made a mental note to get a job where I'd end up with plenty of $1 bills so I could easily get quarters.

Totally worth it.

Confession: I have an irrational fear of swimming in the ocean. True story: the weekend of my eleventh birthday I went on a beach camping trip with the Bible Club of my middle school, where I got sucked under by the undertow and almost drowned (that might be a tad hyperbolic, but whatever), stung by a jellyfish, and ditched by all my friends. Best. birthday. ever. So I don't swim in the ocean. But I've got a little Nemo on my hands with Ben. The kid can't get enough of it. He seriously will just throw himself face-first into the oncoming waves, and laugh with joy if he gets swept out to sea. Let's just say it's a good thing I'm standing in water when he does this, cause otherwise things would get embarrassing. So going to the beach with him is very stressful, with him rushing headlong into the tide and me on the verge of a stroke on account of the anxiety.
But today something special happened. While I was trying not to hyperventilate every time the tide came in, I had this thought. It's good to have a healthy fear of the ocean--it's very powerful and can be very dangerous. You should never be absolutely fearless in something that could legitimately kill you. And as a parent, I need to carefully watch and help my son both learn that and learn to swim safely. But that whole healthy fear is a lot like how we should approach God, isn't it? I mean, let's not get irrational. The ocean is powerful, but good. God is powerful, but good.

The first half-dozen times the waves or undertow knocked Ben over, I freaked out, dove in (no swimsuit for me, by the way), grabbed him by the rash guard, and dragged him back, while he of course squealed with glee. Then I tried to calm down. I tried to step back and let him work through it (within reason, of course). And wouldn't you know, after a couple of falls, he figured out that when he got knocked on his back he could flip over immediately and push himself up. And after a couple of those, he figured out that if he planted his feet firmly in the sand and just let the wave come in and out, he wouldn't fall at all.

So that's what the ocean and my son taught me today. That God is powerful, but good. That sometimes I will get knocked flat on my back, but I need to flip myself back over and push myself back up. And if I plant my feet firmly enough, I maybe won't fall at all.

The Single Life, Day Eleven

Things about today that are lame:

-Ben woke up at 6:30, after having gone to bed at 8:30.
-Our morning playdate canceled on us.
-Our brunch date canceled on us.
-It's raining, so we're stuck inside.
-The mall doesn't open until 11:00 on Sundays.
-The DVD player isn't working, so no movies with Ben and no evening The Good Wife DVDs for me, which I specifically got from Netflix to give me something new and interesting to watch during The Exile.
-The garbage disposal is broken, so the kitchen smells.
-Our car door leaks, and it's been raining a lot, so the car is soaked and smells like wet dog.
-No one has responded to Matt's and my pleas for help.

Things about today that are cool:

-I let Ben watch three episodes of TV this morning, and I don't care.
-He colored in the kitchen for a bit while I wasted time on the internet.

-His continued love for playing dress-up and pretend.
-When he grabbed my knitting, said "I'm knitting for you!" tried to do it, and sang a song about knitting.

-When he wrapped himself around the 3/4 done blanket and said, "mmmmm...it's so cozy!"

-He just did puzzles on the floor for a half an hour while I knit.
-Now he's playing with his dinosaurs while I write.
-There is a big yarn sale at Michaels, and I have a coupon.
-Michaels will open soon, then the mall will, and we will have something to do that does not involve taking out every toy in the house or tracing my head into a coloring book (and my husband isn't home to stop me from emptying our savings account for the retail therapy).
-My husband. He is stuck a couple of thousand miles away and has listened to me sob on the phone and email him "woe is me" tales, and he is doing everything he can from a different time zone to improve my quality of life, including calling the neighbors to ask them to help me take out the trash and fix the various things that are broken (they have ignored him, but that's okay because it's my sweet love's hear that counts), asking on Facebook if anyone can help me today, and shoe shopping for me at the Zappos warehouse, sending me picture texts from the store to let me pick.

My Treasure

The quality of the video is not amazing or anything, but you get the idea...

A Hoot and a Handful

I haven't posted this week because Thumper says if you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all.

It's been a challenging week, as I suspected it might. Work was insane. A new trimester, a six-hour textbook meeting, a BTSA meeting, Open House, report cards, getting ready for conferences. In.Sane. And so was Ben. He's doing great at his new/old daycare. So great, in fact, that when I went to pick him up the other day he said, "no, I don't like you." Nice. So excited to have reached that important milestone: the first "I don't like you." I hit a real low point Wednesday night when I'd had enough of the two-year-old-ness. I think the specific point at which I lost it was, after a long afternoon and evening of "no, I don't want _________, I want _____" he refused to wear the pajamas I'd pulled out because "I don't like stripes." Then the only book he wanted to read was his ridiculously long Toy Story novel, and all I wanted to read was the buttons on the TV remote. I actually started crying. About a stupid book. Of course, it wasn't about the book. It was about toddlerhood, being exhausted, missing my husband, and pregnancy hormones. I all but threw Ben into his bed and fled from his room in tears.

It's been a long and challenging week.

But because I don't want to be Debbie Downer, I will confess to a couple of highlights. Yesterday my sweet students threw me a baby shower (yes, I've already gotten one from my 5th period, but I teach 6 periods, and the other five would not be outdone). So sweet. I almost cried. I think I didn't because I was too tired, and I knew that several of them would turn on me when I gave them their report cards later that day. But it was amazing and sweet and I was so touched.

Matt has a return ticket. He will land on OC soil at 10:00 next Friday night. Who the heck knows how I will manage to pick him up, but at least he'll be in the same state.

On top of it, Ben has been a ham bent on cracking me up. When I figure out how to do it (or at least find the energy to try) I will upload a video his babysitter took of him being a pirate. When he's not making me pull my hair out from being so needy and high-maintenance, he's being the funniest little bugger God ever made.

Six more days...

The Golden Hour

Praise the Lord for the time change. The world is my oyster for the next seven months (I think?) between dinner and bedtime, and I plan to drink it in like an ice cold glass of cherry coke...okay there might be some pregnant-lady-who-misses-cherry-coke buried in there. But regardless; my buddy and me know how to do evenings right.

Okay seriously, can someone go get me a cherry coke, STAT? And maybe find a way to take the caffeine out of it?

The Single Life, Day Six

I intended to write more during Matt's exile, but to be honest, things haven't been that interesting around here. At one point I had this idea where I'd take pictures every day and write about all the fun we're having so that Matt can feel connected to us from afar. But really, I have very few pictures and very few fun stories. It's not that we have been miserable (although that's certainly the case every now and then)--it's just that we have just been living our lives. Also, I'm too busy cleaning, cooking, grading, and parenting to do much else. Cause it's just me over here.

Over the weekend we spent some time hanging around the house and running errands. Saturday morning we joined some friends at the park, and Saturday evening we went to church. Sunday the weather was out of control, so we mostly laid around in our jammies. Ben read and did puzzles while I knit. It was a little like a Rockwell painting. Eventually we went to brunch with my mom and step-dad, who then took B for a couple of hours while I ran some errands and did some grading. Sunday night we made cookies, ate pizza, and watched a movie. It was a nice little weekend (despite the fact that we had a major player missing). Monday we went out with my two girlfriends and Ben's cougar girlfriend (Selah's four). They ran each other into the ground, and Ben slept until 7:45 this morning. Heaven.

B is busy wearing me out and cracking me up. Right now he's walking around in my shoes with his Buzz Lightyear flashlight in his pocket, whipping my necklace around like his cowboy lasso. This is only one in a long line of ridiculous outfits he's donned in the last several days (most of which involve his rain boots).

We did have one moment that stands out. Last night we were cuddling and singing at bedtime, and Baby Emma packed quite a wallop. Ben felt it and jumped, saying "what's that?" I told him it was Baby Emma. He said, "let me check it again," and lifted up my shirt. He put one hand on my belly and one hand on his leg, because he was convinced that his leg was what did it. Emma kicked again, and he got really excited. So cute. Definitely goes in the books as one of the sweetest moments of my life.

We still have a long way to go before Matt comes home. Sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I'm overwhelmed, sometimes I'm thankful for time with my little guy, always I'm tired. Very very tired.

I can't wait until my other half comes home.

March of Graditude

Things I am thankful for and blessed with:

1. My students. Sure, they can make my life, um, challenging. But in the last few days, one of my classes, the one that has been my biggest, um, challenge, threw me a baby shower. My homeroom is collaborating to throw me one as well. Three girls came in yesterday afternoon to help me grade, file, and clean. And those 200 awkward little nerds make me laugh every day and remind me why I do what I do.
2. My son. He is so funny and cute and wonderful that sometimes I think I might explode.
3. My husband. He's working his butt off for a company that's putting him through the wringer so that he can provide for his family. And he is hot.
4. Ben's old/new daycare. See previous post.
5. Kind and generous friends. One of my mom's friends, whom I've never met but "known" all my life, is giving me the gift of amazing yarn for Little Miss's blanket. I am humbled and grateful. It seems small, but it means more than I could express.

God for freely blessing me with everything when I really deserve nothing.

The Single Life, Day One

I am going to spare you the emotional, stressed out ramblings because I feel fairly confident that I don't really need to tell you how I feel about Matt having to go on a two-week business trip, particularly while I'm pregnant, particularly at the same time as Ben gets a new daycare and my job really amps up with report cards, conferences, open house, BTSA, textbook trainings, and the like. Yesterday Ben and I got up at 5:30am to take Matt to the airport, and I'm sure you can guess how my day went from there. But in the midst of the sadness and the overwhelm, light crept through.

As of three days ago, we had settled on a new sitter for Ben. She's a friend of my mom's from Bible study. We didn't know her that well, and neither did Ben, but the hour that we spent with her, her experience, and my mom's commendation of her was sufficient for us to feel comfortable in leaving our sweet boy in her care three days a week until June. Honestly, she seemed pretty great, and I think it would have worked out fine, if not really well. But honestly it was settling. Not because of her--just because I think that really no matter what we chose would have been settling. With just a couple of weeks to find someone, I don't know that I would have felt great about handing Ben over to any stranger--mostly for his sake, and mostly because the transition would inevitably have fallen during or immediately after Matt's trip. Fortunately for me, God is a much bigger and better God than I really ever seem to remember. Every year we go through this. I hate that I have to leave him at all, I dread taking him to a big, giant center where he naps on the floor in a room full of other kids, and I cry and stress and bemoan my horrible life. Okay, that's a little hyperbolic. A little. And inevitably, God comes through with a situation that is the penultimate plan (but not the ultimate--because that would be Matt's salary doubling so that I could be a stay-at-home mom until my children go to kindergarten). This happens every freaking time. So why didn't I think it would happen this time?

Two days go, the day before Ben's old sitter was to start her new job, two days before Matt got on a plane, I got an email from Ben's old sitter from last year. She was sending out a flier to her teacher friends to pass on to other teacher friends that might be looking for daycare for next year. I replied to her that I myself was looking for daycare for next year. She replied that she wished I needed her right now. Ta da. Within twelve hours, we answered each other's prayers. Ben provided a last-minute replacement for her last-minute opening that she needed to fill until June. She gave me my sanity and faith back. There's no rough transition period--Ben is already happy and comfortable there; she loves him, he's already got two friends there, and he could start immediately, during Matt's trip, without any fear or stress. And the cherry on top? She's changed the policies that made it so that we couldn't keep Ben there in the first place (financial things, like paying during school holidays and summer).

So yesterday after I dropped Matt off, Ben and I came home, cuddled and watched TV, and I dropped him off at his old home-away-from-home, where he confidently walked in the door and headed straight for the toys and his pals without looking back.

The day was still rough. I was still tired from waking up early, still overwhelmed by work, still missing my man. But I could feel all of those things without also feeling anxiety over my sweet boy. And I could feel confident that I'm not unrealistic or too picky in what I want in a child care situation--that God knows what I want and need and will provide accordingly. So now we just need to pray that I can hang on to that promise and trust it for next year...we shall see. In the meantime, Ben enjoyed his first day back playing with his pals, making crafts, and having a green jello eating contest. A note about that last thing: I got to be there for it, and it was hysterical. Not because Ben was burying his face in green jello, but because he wasn't when everyone else around him was. The two other kids dove right in; Ben looked down at the jello, then looked up at me and said, "Mommy, can I have a spoon?" I encouraged him to try being silly like the other kids, but he just kept insisting on the spoon--you know, because he's far too civilized to eat jello like the other two barbarians. When we got him a spoon he scooped himself a tiny bite, ate it, made a face, then said, "Mommy, it's cold. Please cook it." And that was it for the jello-eating contest. Funny little boy.

Random tangent: Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. I'm pretty sure that the missionary priest that brought Jesus to Ireland, if he could rise from the dead, would prefer to die all over again if he knew that the anniversary of his death was celebrated with freely flowing booze.

There's still a lot on my plate. I still have too much to even think about much less do over the next two weeks. But I think I'm on my way to handling it. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed. But my mom has always told me that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So that's what I'm gonna do--take it one little item at a time. A few weeks ago in a message about anxiety and faith my pastor told a story about his son having these crazy nightmares and freaking out about tigers coming into his room and eating him, to which my pastor responded, "son, tigers aren't indigenous to North America." So that's how I'm not gonna freak out and be afraid of things I can't control and all of the things that might fall apart or happen. I'm going to remind myself to calm down and stop being afraid, because tigers are not indigenous to North America. And VegiTales says that God is bigger than the Boogeyman.


One day down, sixteen to go. Sigh. I can do this.

Sanity Savings Time

The time change may or may not have broken the sleep curse, but it is welcome all the same. Now that it no longer gets dark during dinner, we can go out and play in the evenings and the little guy can run his little heart out, and not in the living room. Every week Ben and I go on a date, and for six months out of the year we have two choices: run errands or go to the mall. The other six months hold endless possibilities that are far more fun and cheap (not to mention a photographic gold mine).

Welcome back, Sunshine!