My Cape Is Threadbare...

The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about how thin we’ve spread ourselves with various activities for the kids, and she referenced my annual Christmas letter. She said that if she wasn’t already feeling like a loser, she sure was after she read it.

I was just… shocked…

I am sure she didn’t mean to throw me into a state of self examination over how I make other people feel. I am also sure that this is exactly what happened, whether she meant it or not…

Let me just debunk the Christmas letter myth for a minute here…

I spend countless hours every year writing about the ups and downs of my life, and the life of my family, in blog form. I have shared before how I actually received condolences after some of our vacation adventures were published. I am shameless in admitting things like my inability to perform dances in my 6 year old’s music class, my insecurity over my lack of savvy hair styling ability for my pre-teen daughter, my struggle with materialism, my frustration over the fact that I am never going to wear the cute, little clothes in my closet again, my postpartum depression experience, my severely inconsistent life. Yeah… If you’re reading this, you’ve probably read it all before… You get the picture…

I try to be transparent. I try to be real. I try to share a little piece of the human me, because super heroes are really cool, but they don’t connect all that well…

And then every December, I dust the pedestal off and compose the letter that contains a recap of life as I know it on my greatest days… and life as I wish it was all the time…

To be honest, my regular blog readers (all three of you) probably breathe a sigh of relief when they receive our letter and realize that even though I considered giving the goldfish CPR… and even though I fed the kids burnt pizza… and even though I cried when I threw away a couple of huge trash bags full of the kids’ art (and watched the garbage man heave it into the truck)… I haven’t really lost it completely!

The Christmas letter brings balance to the force… or something… Wait a minute, wrong theme… I don’t brandish a light saber while writing the letter… I wear my cape…

Oh yes… I should return to the subject at hand…

My cape…

My cape is threadbare…
It used to have a magnificent “W” on the back. I loved being “Superwoman” until I realized that I couldn’t save the world. People expected more than I was capable of, and well… it kind of lost its luster after that…

It’s been awhile now since I turned it upside down…

Come to find out, that was a bad move for “Superwoman”! (It was not a bad move for Lisa, but we’ll get to that)… Apparently, once you have brandished the shiny “W” cape, people don’t like it too well when you take it off. I’m suddenly not the highly esteemed, best… well… anything, anymore. I really hate that. I really hate that I gave… and gave… and gave… and gave… and gave of myself, and that when I finally said, “Hey wait! I have to stop, ‘cause there’s nothing left,” that was the end of a beautiful… well… just fill in the blank…

I hate it, but I’m learning to live with it…

I think maybe my biggest mistake was putting the cape back on…

I sure didn’t put it back on the way a lot of people wanted me too, either…

When I fastened it this time, there was a huge “M” on the back!

Enter “Supermom”…

Now, I have always tried to be a good mom. That’s not what I’m talking about here. But lately, I have tried to be an “everything” mom, and it’s not really working out for me. I have five children… count them… they’re a handful… literally!

If you do the math, you know that if every one of them participates in even one activity, we could potentially have every weekday filled with practices, classes, or lessons, and there would undoubtedly be events, games, performances, etc. on Saturdays… or Sundays… or both.

At the present moment, we have 4 children enrolled in music classes, 1 child enrolled in art classes, 2 basketball players, 1 cheerleader, and 3 Bible quizzers… We homeschool, we have play dates, and Phil and I run children’s church with the help of our beloved “Horsey” who shall remain nameless, because it’s just embarrassing when you’re a Junior in High School and multiple children call you, “Horsey”! This is all I can handle! No, really, this is more than I can handle! And the obvious question becomes, “Why don’t you just say no?”

Let me make my answer very clear. I do say no. I said no to gymnastics. I said no to dance. I said no to soccer. I said no to Little League. I said no to pottery class. I said no to swimming (and even canceled the Y membership). And I say no to circus, year… after year… after year…

Well… I thought I was going to become “Supermom”, but what I really became was ultra dirty mini van driving mom… I mean, the van’s dirty. I am not dirty. My one non-negotiable is that I will have time to bathe. When the activities start encroaching on my hygiene, we’re done (although actually styling my hair in any way or putting on make-up have gone out the window, so if you see me and there are flies swarming around my head and drool is running out of my mouth, you might remind me of this high standard I’ve set for myself)…

Somewhere along the line, though, I noticed that my cape was starting to unravel…

Maybe it was when Seth begged to not have pizza… again… last week…

Or maybe it was when Grace’s eyes almost spilled tears when she realized I had completely forgotten about her mini-musicale (which I did make it back for, just so you know)…

Or maybe it was when I adhered Caleb’s iron on stars to the iron instead of to his basketball shirt (when you are too tired to distinguish shiny side from fuzzy side, something’s wrong)…

Or maybe it was when I sat down to read to Ian and realized the book was worn, and I’d never read it to him before…

Or maybe it was when I was shouting through the house today that Grace should stop trying to teach Miah to walk, because I’d like to be there when it happens…

Ouch…

I am not “Superwoman”… and I am not “Supermom”… and maybe, just maybe, the number of accomplishments you can cram into a Christmas letter does not determine whether or not you are a loser…

Ouch…

I do not know where I’m going from here… Where we’re going from here…

I need to get things into perspective.

I’m going to be taking some time to do that.

Lisa

Why 5 Is Enough For Us (Part 1)…

I am having the extreme pleasure of watching a friend’s baby today. Ella is two weeks old. She is beautiful, and she is exceptionally good. As of this writing, I have had her for almost five hours and she has cried twice… for about 15 seconds each time. I hope Brandy needs me to watch her on occasion, because I am loving every minute of it.

However…

I think something must have changed in me at some point, because up until today all of the little “last firsts” with Miah have been very sad for me. I have nearly been dreading Miah’s birthday next month as it gets closer and closer, because it will mark the end of the “baby year”, and therefore the end of our “baby years”.

But I realized something as I was snuggling Ms. Ella while Miah tried with all of her might to tackle us (don’t worry Brandy… she did not succeed… that’s what older siblings are for)… I don’t want another baby. I totally love Ella. As the years go by and my friends continue to produce offspring, I think it should be a law that they have to leave them with me for a full day at two weeks old. But Miah is… and forever more shall be… my baby.

OK… so never say never, right?

I may wake up on my 40th birthday and just have to have another one in order to survive. If that happens, then fine. I will grow old changing diapers. However, at this particular moment, I sure don’t think so.

There is a lot more to this… But it has to be a two parter (at least), because I have an awful lot of little people who need me now!

Lisa

My Thoughts on Snow Days…

The truth is… as a kid… I lived for snow days! I mean, really… who didn’t? I had the phone number for the bus garage memorized, and I kept my purple phone by the head of my bed (not a cell phone, mind you… just a good old land line). That way, I could dial the number, listen to the automated message, and if school was closed; I could roll over and resume my hibernation for a couple of extra hours! Later, of course, I would get into all of my snow gear and play outside (most often sledding in my own backyard with the neighborhood kids). Looking back on it, it feels as if we stayed out for hours. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, though, because it seems that my own kids only make it 1 – 1 ½ hours tops… and maybe I wasn’t really a whole lot more resilient. When I was done playing outside, there was ample hot chocolate waiting for me in the kitchen.

This kind of thing happened maybe once a year… The only exception was the true blizzard we had when I was probably 9 or 10. It was a really bad idea to go out and play in that one, because the snow was covered with ice, and I fell and smashed my face in it… I think we got two days for that one…

At any rate, I grew up in Michigan. If you grow up in Michigan and you have a responsible parent, he or she takes you outside when you are 15 and the roads are covered with ice. He or she then says, “Here are the keys… it’s a good day to learn how to drive!” You get into the car, and you are expected to go from 0 to 120 in 3 seconds. You are then instructed to hit the brakes as hard as you can, and if you can regain control of the vehicle, you are allowed to take Driver’s Ed. the following summer. If you crash the car, you are banned from driving until you turn 31. That’s just how you have to do it in Michigan. (And, as a sidenote, this can all take place in your driveway, or at the very most, on your private dirt road, while all of your neighbors watch and shield their children from possible disaster.

Exaggeration? Maybe a little… but I really did learn to drive on sleet…

I also remember countless days, trying to make my way to the school bus and slipping and falling on the ice. It happened every year. It was embarrassing.

Now, I am all for caution! If you are uncomfortable driving on the roads, then by all means, PLEASE stay off of them. I say this for your safety as well as my own. The truth is; I don’t really worry a whole lot about my own driving abilities in the snow… and on the ice. But I do worry a great deal about other drivers. I am an extremely defensive driver in the winter months, because I know full well that not everybody learned to drive in Michigan. It scares me that an awful lot of people think you can drive just as fast as usual over the ice and they don’t leave extra time to brake. These two mistakes are often very costly. That’s precisely why Michigan parents have their children make these mistakes on purpose. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never want to do it again!

I guess all of these thoughts came from the debates I’ve seen going on this week on facebook. I realized, yesterday, that people are starting to get a little upset with one another over whether this stuff is safe to drive in or not. Then it occurred to me that I was probably falling way on the “apathetic about snow and ice” side, and I wanted to share a little bit of background. People who do not feel safe or who do not have experience driving in this should not do so! I value all of my friends, and I would not want any of them to meet a tragic fate because of this weather. However, I do not really think it is treacherous out there if you are used to the snow and ice and know how to handle it properly. That said, I haven’t left the house since Sunday. I have had no need to go out, since the refrigerator is stocked (thanks, Phil), and all of the kids classes have been cancelled all week.

If you cannot avoid going out, and snow and ice make you nervous, PLEASE drive very slowly and carefully, do not hit your brakes hard (you really shouldn’t need to if you’re driving very slowly and carefully), use your lights (even during the day), make sure you’re not going any faster than your visibility allows, watch for other drivers (maybe the very most important), and if you have to pull over and call off, then do it! Although I have heard the argument that some people cannot afford to miss a day of work, I’m still thinking it’s better for your family if you miss one day than it is if you are killed trying to get there and miss the rest of your life!

Realistically, do I think the local schools needed to call another snow day today? No… I don’t. I think this makes the 4th or 5th snow day this year. As you probably know, we homeschool. We did, indeed, give in and take a snow day yesterday, but that has been our only one. We are currently involved in the two weeks a year when I teach for the ITBS. Although I find standardized testing to be quite important; I tend to be able to cover anything we’ve missed in a week or two. But this is a story for another day… probably later this month…

Drive Safe!

Lisa