The Burdens Shared

I have recently grown more convinced that everyone is carrying a burden.  Larger than we can see, heavier than we can imagine.

We move among each other- award-winning actors and actresses, earning more awards than Hollywood has time to create award shows for.

We are not fake, per se, we are surviving.  We are civil.  We are functioning members of a society that does not expect more than a sentence to the question, "How are you?"

Among our closest we may say more.  Or sometimes, even less.  But our burdens are real and our weariness is real, and sometimes, in moments we don't plan or prepare for, we find ourselves getting real with the unlikeliest people in the unlikeliest places.

And that's why my job is studded with encounters that leave me a little breathless at the raw humanity that sits right beneath each of our carefully constructed images.

I work at a very busy public library.
And when I'm on the floor, there are days when I can tell that I am meant to simply be an ear.
That someone just needs somebody to listen.  With an open heart, with no answers or advice, with no judgment, with no fear.  Whatever you say, for these next moments, I'll get in your boat and listen as you describe what it's like to bail like crazy, paddle like mad, face every kind of storm and trouble and feel like you are making absolutely no headway at all.

Felony charges.
Drug and alcohol addiction.
Abandonment.
Grave and terrible illness.
Accidents.
False charges.
Death of your loved ones.
Your baby having babies.
Betrayal.
Loss.
Unemployment.
Unemployable.
It's a crowded, perilous boat.

He came back.  One such paddler.  A young man making his way out of a terrible place.   I admired his courage.  I admired the open, frank way he could talk about his life without self-pity, but some real regret.
"I found a job!  A good job!  I had to come back and tell you.  You showed me how to get on the computer and look, and I put out hundreds of applications and I finally got one and it is awesome!"

Someone saw the spark in him I had so admired.  His dogged persistence.  His teachable attitude.

I cried a little.

I'm so, so proud of you!  And so honored that you let me be part of your journey.
I cannot even begin to comprehend a mile in your shoes,  but thank you for setting your burden down for a moment at my reference perch and sharing your humanity with me.

I shoulder my own load with a little more hope today.

Entitled or Empowered

"I hungry, Mommy.  I hungry.  Mommy, I hungry.  I hungry, Mommy."

Ceaselessly.  Plaintively.  With pathos to tug at my heart strings, a whine to get on my nerves.

And still I kept my eyes tightly shut, hoping that in this little battle of the wills at midnight, mine would prevail.

(and before you wonder whether I am cruel and unusual, dinner had been served, and a before-bed snack given that was so generous, a bowl of dry cereal was leftover on the table for morning)

I don't remember signing up to staff a 24/7 diner for my three-year-old.
 I just wanted to sleep already.

Landon and I were sharing my mom's basement guest room; there was no escaping his mission.  I finally realized that I could not outlast him.

"You can go upstairs and get that bowl of cereal if you are so hungry, then."

"But it is too dark.  I can't reach the light.  I a little scared, Mommy."

These seemed like valid points.  Kind of.  I felt a twinge of guilt that I may be sending my toddler upstairs on an errand of terror just to settle a grumbly tummy.

I dragged myself out of bed, prepared to turn on the light to the stairwell.  It was on.  Illuminating the trail to the answer to all hunger in this house.  A bowl of cereal.  Take it or leave it.

"The light is on, Landon.  If you are so hungry, go upstairs and get it yourself."

And with a little more fussing and fretting, he decided he was not that hungry.

I thought I had won.

Until 3 AM rolled around and I was barely asleep (tough night), to be woken up by an outraged, "Hey!  Who turned off the bedroom light?!  I want that on.  I can't sleep with the light off!"

Will I ever get any sleep?

"If you want it on so badly, turn it on yourself," I say, thinking I'd found the magic formula.

And so he did. Flooding the room with blazing light.  At 3 am.

Alrighty then.

We have officially learned to call each other's bluff.

Cooperative Water

Landon's shirt was soaked because he was watering the grass with a hose.
"This will dry, Mom," he assured me as I buckled him into his carseat.
He explained, "It will just cooperate into the air."
"Evaporate?"
"Yeah, evaporate.  It will evaporate, mom."

How did he learn about evaporation?  I was lost in my own thoughts about it when he piped up from the back seat some time later, "How does it evaporate, Mom?"

I couldn't help myself.  I launched into a lesson on the states of matter: solid, liquid, gas (steam), carefully explaining each one with examples from our kitchen.

Since I was driving, I couldn't tell if he was intently listening or zoning out, but since he was so quiet I decided it was worth the effort.

Landon is my little sponge, and if he wants to soak up knowledge, I'm happy to oblige.  I figure I must be a true-blue nerd if I started dreaming about the science lesson we could create with the ice cube trays and tea kettle to really demonstrate all these states of matter.

Kinda makes me want go check out a book from my local library and read up on it.

Landon's World

"Who are those people up there, mom?" (in an overhead walkway to the light rail)

"I think they are passengers from the train."

"What are passengers?"

"People who ride a train.  Or a plane.  Or a bus."

"Oh, so their name is people and their middle name is passenger."

Something like that.

~~

We were doing our Memorial Day Annual Puzzle (though I can't remember if we've only meant to do this every other year), when Landon spilled his drink over half of it.

During the clean-up Bill said, "Landon, I could use a hand here."

And oh, so earnestly, Landon held up his hand in Bill's direction and kept it there.

Got you covered, dad.

Oh!  And now I must go b/c a certain favorite little boy just came in and said, "I can read now!" with a book in hand.

This oughtta be good.  

All in the Same Boat

"How can I judge you, when this is my kid?"

This is what I ended up saying after Landon was a guest at one of my library programs.  My mom had very sweetly agreed to bring him, but he was being anything but sweet when he got there.

When it was time to pass out rainbow scarves, Landon went to the bin and took them all.  (I had not realized this was possible).  He gathered them all up to his chest, and clutched them with a fierce look on his face.  "These are mine!  I'm not sharing these!" he declared.  When another child tried to pull one free, they began the toddler dance of possession, with the accompanying territorial grunts and groans.
"Oh, buddy, we share the scarves.  You need to let this boy take one."
I am talking to a tyrant.  He is not softened by my gentle tone or the affectionate use of "buddy".
Instead I must resort to, "Landon, if you can't share, you'll have to go," which is a trigger for him to begin a loud wail that even picking him up could not comfort.
He had to go.
There was that awkward half moment when the rest of the moms are watching to see what I'll say.

"I could be mortified, but I'm just....not."
And they laugh.

Collectively, we share the knowledge that we try to shape these little people, but we cannot control them.
We can set reasonable boundaries and they stomp over them.
We can model good behavior, we can practice it, we can expect it, we can ask for it:
and not get it.
And at inopportune times they can make it seem like we have no parenting "skills" at all.

So really, dear friends whose children are as mixed a bag as my own sweet boy,
how can I judge you?

To a Birthday Boy

You were a noisy bundle bent on survival as a newborn
A bright-eyed, happy baby at one
A hundred questions, a thousand discoveries, a climber and a runner at two
Now you are an exuberant,  interesting little person, a talker, a thinker, a mover and a shaker at three.

Every age has had its challenges
And every age has had its joys
You are more than I could have imagined, and better than I dreamed
So happy birthday to you, dear Landon!

Let's enjoy year three together.

One Man's Gas

When do you start teaching a child about money?  I figured when Landon's piggy bank was full would be a good starting point.

This weekend, it finally was.  So technically, he's been learning a bit for months now as we've gathered loose change and let him put it in the slot.

I told Bill that I thought it would be a great plan to put some aside for giving, most for saving, and one dollar (plus tax) for Landon to spend at the dollar store. 

I came home late Saturday night, and the very first thing Landon says to me (skipping, "hi, mom,") was, "I bought something from the dollar store."

I couldn't wait to see the bubbles or car or stickers or puzzle he had picked out.

Instead: Flarp! Noise Putty.

I'm not kidding.

Some weird pink goop in a little container that when you pressed your fingers in, made realistic noises of the most unpleasant kind of flatulence.

"Really?" my eyebrows asked Bill.

Landon demonstrated and was so hilariously amused, I had to crack a smile.  Bill was laughing so hard his eyes were crinkling up.  Watching the two of them reminded me that there is, indeed, a realm in "boy world" that will always be just slightly beyond my understanding or appreciation.

Although I think it might be kind of funny to tell Landon that at his very first opportunity to make his first self-directed purchase he bought a fart.  Or, more precisely, a "flarp!"

Last Child by an Urban Stream

The park was noisy, large and loud.  A trio of teenagers dropping f-bombs.  A few smokers on an erratically windy day.  Every child in a 3-mile radius climbing over the apparatus like a herd of ants collecting a morsel.  Perhaps the whole structure would begin to move away when a few more kids joined the effort. 

I wanted it to be fun and joyful and peaceful.  I'm not even sure if Landon was enjoying it,  although on principle he wandered around and tried not to get knocked over amid the horde.

"Let's go walk around the 'lake', buddy."  (To be fair, I did not put air quotes around the word lake when talking to my 3-year-old.  I only add them here to suggest that 'lake' may be a bit generous of a word for a man-made scoop in the soil in the middle of suburbia.)

At first, the option held little appeal to him.  But we pulled away from the pack, and onto the sidewalk path that circumvents the water and began our new adventure.

Quieter.  Landon talking to me.  One hand clutching my finger as he balanced on a retaining wall.  We stopped to talk to a gentler trio: a grandson, dad and son sitting patiently by their fishing poles. 

Flowers to smell. Goslings to adore. Goose poop to be endlessly fascinated by:  avoiding it, pointing it out, exclaiming over it, examing it, warning me against it...yeah, we're still in that poopy phase.

And it started to get fun and joyful and peaceful.
I had never really noted that one side of the path runs parallel to an urban stream.  A wild little wonder that just so happened to have steep foot trails to its bank if you wanted to take the path less traveled by.
And Landon did.

In a classic knee-jerk reaction, I said no at first.  I was still wearing my work clothes and shoes.  The eroded path to the water was steep. I could picture harrowing run-ins with drug paraphanalia, broken liquor bottles and used prophylactics.  (yeah, I've taken these paths before, little man; sometimes they are disappointing)
But if you could see the way he put his hands on this thighs to bend over to peer into the unknown, and then look back at me with such eager hope that, "Please we go there?!"  you would know why I decided to stay alert for the biohazards of my worst-case-scenario thinking and follow him down.

I was ten thousand times rewarded for the decision by a little boy turned intrepid-explorer who had no end of delighted comments to make about these wonderful woods.  The water, the cozy tree space, the magical forest, (yeah, he actually used the word magical), prevailing past where I could comfortably get my grown-up body: ("Crawl under, mom!")  We found a circle of trees that had fourteen trees (I counted) sprouting from one small circle, that felt like a place you'd want to sit around and tell stories in.  We found our favorite spots. ("The woods are lovely, dark and deep." ~R.F)
  
We found the urban waterfall, cement lined and litter-strewn, but Landon's big take-away was, "It sounds like thunder, mom!"

I saw none of the unsavories I had feared, only the joy of seeing a little boy gravitate toward nature the way the moon pulls the tide: irresistable, mysterious forces creating life on the edges of the tumult. 

We may not be a wildnerness-exploring, backcountry camping, cliche of Colorado-ness family, but the whole little outing reminded me:

We need to draw a little closer to creation.
I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before we sleep.

On the Teeter-Totter of Parenting

One day, I'm regretting not having a camera with me at all times to capture all the adorable, milestoney type moments that seem too precious to let slip by.

The next, I'm grateful nobody can hear my frustrated thoughts, hoping that this is not the scene that becomes an indelible childhood memory.

So here was the "teeter" day:  (Teeter is the high side of the apparatus in my book)

Landon and I see a crew of guys putting down new asphalt in a fast food restaurant parking lot.  I pull in and park and we get ourselves front row seats on a grassy part to watch this motherload of fascination: men building a road.  At first, I'm doing it for Landon.  I'm remembering the trucker we met a while back and enjoying another moment to learn something about the world Landon is drawn to like a magnet.  But then, the scene is pretty interesting.  They steam-melt the old surface, rake it up, pour new asphalt to mix with the newly softened patch, rake some more, and then--grand finale--steamroll it.  The steamroller comes so close, Landon shudders in that mix of fear-turned-happiness to be near.  He's grinning so huge and talking a mile a minute, alternating between asking questions and explaining the whole thing to me as though he were the narrator of a documentary we should be filming.

And I'm happy.  Happy just to sit on the grass with him and watch the world get built.  And those guys are happy.  We give each other that little chin-up nod that is acknowledgement without being too gushy.  And they wave and grin at a little boy so completely enthralled with their every move that his mother would let him sit and watch it as long as he wants.  It's hot, hard work.  I tell one of the guys so and he says, "Yeah, and I yove it," and his accent suggests that he is probably working harder than I can guess.

So before we leave, I follow an impulse and buy them all a drink at the drive through and we drop them off before we head on down the road.  And still I'm happy.  Happy all around.  Those guys, my little guy, me.  

But the teeter-totter stays on the move.  And the moment finds its counterpoint today when I try to take a walk with Landon and Bill to the local grocery store. Is it worth detailing all the ways my patience wore thin, my nerves frayed and I finally snapped?  Near the end, I felt like I could not endure one more moment of fussy, whiny, crying, inconsolable behavior.  I'd already said a number of regrettable things; I didn't want to keep adding to the list.  So I begged the house key from Bill and left him to get the trike and tike home, and hightailed it away from them as fast as I could before I had a meltdown as ugly as my toddler's.

I felt like such a meanie.  I tried to make up for it by making our dinner salads especially nice.  Lots of chopping.  By hand.  Folded napkins.  You know, little touches I'm sure would mean the world to a three-year-old and his harried dad.  I wished I could get off that simply.

Instead, we had to chalk it up as "not one of our better days" and hope the bump of these "totter" days doesn't negate the "wheee!" of the teeter ones.

Maybe I need to find a better parenting metaphor.

Thinking about it, this one really stinks. 

Larger than the National Debt

I spent hours doing dusty-basement, primary-source research.  Interviewing ladies well into their 80's.  (one even died shortly after I interviewed her, adding urgency to the task of capturing the memories)  I took notes. I made photocopies.  I compiled and cited sources.  It was a large project, and I chipped away, feeling responsible and mature.  But in the end, the project was larger than I could wrangle, and too much of the final writing got left to the final hour.  For reasons I can't remember, (maybe because this was high school before everyone carried a computer in their back pocket) the only computer on which I could type and print it up was at my dad's office in town.

So I typed.  On and on.  All afternoon.  Past the evening and well into the night.  The office took on the quiet hum of a burbling water cooler and a buzzy florescent. And still I typed.  All thoughts converging to support a thesis, to tell the story.  But I couldn't be in that business space alone, so my mom stayed with me.  All through the night.  Into the wee hours of the morning.  I can still picture her dozing on the hard office floor, a hostage to my lack of time management skills.

The sun rose.  I began editing.  Printing drafts to "see" the mistakes that eluded me on the screen.  (I still must do this.)  My mom awoke bleary and sore to the sound of me still tapping away, working feverishly to get the paper done.  No one collated and stapled a research project together with more tired satisfaction, to be sure.  The night labor was done.  The baby born.

She drove me to school.  (Which had already started a couple hours before) and I went straight to my English class.  I handed in the paper on time, and then handily walked out the door, back into her waiting car, and straight home and into bed.

We slept.  Sound and sweet.  It was done.  She had endured the travail without complaint or criticism (though I deserved both) and that was that.

Weeks later, in front of peers, parents and teachers, when I received money and award for the research paper, I shook my teacher's hand and felt nothing but gratitude to my mom.  In my tunneled-teen-vision, it never occurred to me to hand the entire check over to her--she being the more deserving of the two of us who earned it. I was aware enough to realize that she never held that occasion against me, ever.  She never brought it up as a sacrifice, or a reminder of what can happen to graduating students whose "senioritis" flares up too soon before the end.

She clapped in kind support and never made mention of the long-prisoner-night when she surely must have wondered how so much prior work still required such sleeplessness at the end.  Her sleep.  And comfort. Sacrificed to let me own a success we really shared.

She let me own it.  And has never once mentioned that I owe her a thing.

Since I owe my mom my very life, perhaps she threw out the ledger entirely when she told me years ago, "Pay it forward."

Fork, Spoon, Spork

I recently read a blog post that got me thinking about identity--how it changes, sometimes immutably.   We go into marriage half expecting that our individual selves will remain intact.  We expect to blend our life with another with salad metaphors in mind, keeping all the unique parts of our personality fresh and unchanged.

But it is alchemy. Mysterious and transcendant, inexplicable alchemy.  The dross most certainly does rise.  But even in that painful process, something else happens, too.  Your life becomes so completely engaged with someone else's: their pain and joy is your own.  Some freedom goes away, some responsibilities get added, but so do new pleasures, and some burdens are lightened.
Sara Groves says it beautifully with, "Life with you is half as hard and twice as good."

I am eternally changed for having married Bill.  If we were a fork and spoon before, we've each changed into something else--a spork, perhaps, or maybe even a pair of chopsticks.  There's no going back to our old roles and routines.  We have formed something new here, and even if it all fell apart, I would never fit back into the same single-girl-spoon slot I originally comfortably occupied.

We do not blend like salads, easily extracted from each other.  Alchemists sought it in metallurgy, but it happens with us: our base selves are transformed into something improbable and beautiful: one solid team, a golden pair.


I have all the more compassion for anyone who has found themselves not just missing a person in their life, but finds their very soul severed from a loss of such magnitude.  Reinvention is no small task.   

Grateful Without the Mess

The kitchen: complete disarray from cooking soup--from scratch.  (I can't seem to use the food processor without making a big mess...you'd think the thing had no lid and splattered like a toddler)

Me: working as quickly as I know how to clean it up

My thoughts: fixated on wanting to leave it exactly in its post-processor glory, as a tribute to the rare heights of domesticity I had achieved in this kitchen

Because here's the deal: I'm just immature enough to think that if I make soup from scratch, I want all the eaters in my household to be keenly aware of the labor and love and work and clean-up that the project entails.  I want them (him) to look at it and think (say), "Wow, you really put a lot of love and effort into this.  Thanks."

So I cleaned it up.  I am trusting my eaters to have imagination (recollection) enough to be able to picture the kitchen totally trashed and myself dragging away from the table with regrets that I couldn't do another thing...

Maybe this new scene will leave a better aftertaste in all our mouths and a better memory in our minds:

The food appears plated on our table; the sink is empty as we eat.

(Only here, in the wild blue of my yonder-blog, do you know that I would actually think that a messy kitchen would somehow make a good meal more endearing.)

Dot-to-dot(ish)

I live with a boy who is always making connections.  He takes new information and tries to connect it to something he already knows.  He tries to find a category, to classify and sort.  Sometimes I can follow his thinking and see the picture he is making.  Other times, his dots connect in ways I can't follow.

Today the hairdresser gave him a Dum-Dum.  Just for being a good boy.  (Thank you, sweet lady, for making this easier for us next time.)  When I handed the unwrapped candy to him he said, "It's Earth," and I admitted to seeing the likeness.  I would have picked Saturn, with its fat ring in the middle, but still, how does a person tottering on the edge of three even know how to make comparisons to something as abstract as our planet?!

We bought a book detailing everything you'd ever want to know about sharks for Bill's fifth graders.  It turned out to be the book Landon desperately wanted dad to read to him as a bedtime story.  It is a fat book, with lots of text, and I could tell Bill was wondering how to wrap it up without it feeling too abrupt to a little boy who would've preferred to read that book all night.  He read something about the shark's prey.

"What's prey?" Landon asks.
"Yes, let's pray.  Good idea, buddy."
The dot just went off his page, but I think Landon will overlook it this time.
He's probably gotten used to these little misunderstandings now and again.

I live with a boy whose curiosity leads me to learn things, too.
"What's that man doing?" he asked me of a trucker who was parked in the same lot as us.
"He's writing on his clipboard,"
"What's that on his truck?"
"What's what?"
"What are those cords on his truck for?"
I don't really know.
And I say that a lot around this guy, because he has a lot of dots he'd like to connect.

So I'm out of the car, calling up to trucker man,
"Sir, hi, sorry to disturb you but I have a little boy over there who is really curious about you and your truck and is wondering what the cords coming out of your cab are for...?"

And this kind man hops down and tells me, one is electrical, and one is air.
"What do you need air for?" (and this time I'm the one whose curiosity has been stirred)
For the brakes.  They're air brakes.
Air brakes...that have a cord pumping air to them? How does this work?  I wish I could hear more, but I don't want to push it.

I report back to Landon, whose interest is rewarded with loud horn blasts that make us both kinda jump, and then laugh.  (Thank you, trucker man, for showing my little man that his curiosity can be satisfied.)

Now Landon asks me every few days, "Where is that trucker man?  What he doing today?"  and I make up stories of his deliveries to Kansas, or coming home to eat dinner with his family or washing the truck.  When he sees trucks with cords connecting the cab to the freight he calls it out, "Three cords!" or "Two cords!" and I sit in wonder that I could go my whole life and never notice that all these huge trucks have those cords connecting their parts.  I've certainly never wondered about them, and what they might do.

Landon drew that dot in for us.
I connected it with him.
And the picture of our world gets a little more detail.


 

Let's Go Fly (or watch) a Kite

"This is going to be awesome!"

He says it so loudly, and with such conviction, I think everyone on the shuttle bus is inclined to believe him.

For my part, I'm just thrilled to be on another family adventure--a serendipitous one because a day before, a stranger told me about Arvada's 10th Annual Kite Festival. Now we find ourselves shuttling over to the park, eagerly awaiting a sky full of kites.

We were not disappointed (though the picture doesn't show it well)

touring a fire truck and learning what a spanner is and how it is used

sweet Bill to indulge this whim of Landon's

the adventure continues at IKEA

We ended with homemade Boboli pizza (a slice of my own childhood), and a movie from the library.  

A great day, from start to finish, top to bottom.

Unprecedented Vulnerability from the Pulpit

I have never heard a pastor confess to having struggled with porn.
Until today.

Today was one of the most refreshing declarations of truth I have ever heard.
For why seek a God who cannot free you from everything that deadens your spirit and keeps you from enjoying true fulfillment and joy?

And yet, so few pastors I've ever met have pointed to anything in their lives that suggest real struggle, real sin.  Sure, they tell a few self-deprecating stories about being impatient with their wives or worried about this or that.  But it's not like you ever hear about their problem with rage or terror in the night.  You never hear of anything that they would be truly ashamed of.

Maybe most of the time, we like it like this.  We like to pretend that the sainted among us have found heights of holiness that surpass our human frailty: and by putting the clergy on pedestals we stay justified to scuff around in the mud below. 

So when my trustworthy pastor describes, without drama and without self-loathing,  a chapter in his life when he was mired in a dark and ugly trap, it was a beautiful testimony of God's restoration and freedom from shame and guilt.

I cried on the way home. I realized that though I know I'm forgiven for sin in my past, I'm not truly free from it. Every so often I wander down that prison corridor of old memories and end up in another  cell of shame, guilt, regret, and pretense. When I felt myself exhale just to hear someone trustworthy claim a life without a limp from past sin, I realized that there are old hurts in me yet to be fully healed.
I know there is no magic bullet, but hearing a testimony to God's freeing work in someone's life was one of the most hopeful and challenging messages I have heard in a long, long time.

As publicly as my pastor was willing to share is as publicly as I wish to thank him: 
Thank you for allowing your journey to be an inspiration for those of us also on this path toward freedom in Christ. Your beautiful marriage, your humble and matter-of-fact honesty, and God's transforming power in your life is like a huge and brightly lit light shining dimly into the prison I wander. I see it and realize there is more.
Much, much more.
It is for freedom that Christ sets us Free.
I look forward to finding what lies beyond the squeak of these cell doors.

Truly, thank you so much for putting aside any kind of ego or concern what others would think, or fear of being judged to speak truth today.

Thank you for being willing to say, "Come on, friends!  This way toward more light!"


Sincerely,

A fellow traveler along this beautiful path

The World According to Landon

Landon's prayer over dinner:

Dear God,
Thank you for God
And thank you for the movie we're watching after dinner.
Aww-men.

"Did you say anything about a movie after dinner?"
"Me neither."

Let the record show that no prior mention of movies was made before this prayer.
He's a funny one, my preemptively grateful optimist.

~ ~ ~

And also pretty easily diverted, too.  As we got ready to follow my after dinner plans for him (a bath), Landon asked me, "Where's the Coke?  Please I make a soda?"

"Do you want to play with the funnels in the bath?" I asked, confused.

"No, you said we could make a soda in the bath."

Ahhh...yes.  I had said we needed to put baking soda in the bath.

Now I get why bath time had seemed a more intriguing option than a movie.

~~~

Remember Three Ways to Unravel in which I mentioned the tribulation we also call bedtime?
I caught a glimpse of light at the end of that tunnel.
Tonight, in the middle of a game he was playing, Landon abruptly stopped and said, "Please I go to bed now?" and grabbed his bear and snuggled into bed.

And that was that.

I sure am crazy about that kid.

It's the Little Things

If I am to stay true to one of the original reasons I started this blog, it's only proper that I write about the little moments in my little family that I'd like to remember.  Not because I think that the world will think them priceless, (although there is something unifying in our shared experiences) but because down the road, I know I will.  Why I capture them here instead of a spiral bound notebook somewhere is a mystery for another time.

Milestone reached (yesterday): Landon's first pee in the toilet.  It was epic.  At least, for Landon.  The look of sheer amazed delight when he looked up at me was the part I want to remember.  And then he was off to the races as he ran his little naked butt all around the upstairs declaring his accomplishment.  He was so excited, I think it took an extra hour to go to bed tonight.  "I'm ready for my pull-ups!" he announced.  I'm not sure how he gained this insight, seeing as we don't have any pull-ups in the house and haven't been talking about them.

All in all, on a day I spent mostly in bed, still recovering from wisdom-teeth extraction and random liver problems, it was really nice to end on such a good note.

My True Colors While on Drugs

I was a little nervous about what I might say when coming out of anesthesia after the wisdom teeth extraction.  Something embarrassing, perhaps?

The surgery went well, but my mom was beginning to wonder why it was taking so long.  Finally a nurse came out and told her, "She is doing well, but everytime we ask her if she is ready to go she asks, 'Can I just have five more minutes?'"

A sleep that deep, is it any wonder my standard line would rise to the surface?  

When Bill heard that, all he could say was, "That's my Jode." 

At least I had no deep dark secret to reveal in my semi-coherent state.

Unless you didn't already know that I am decidedly not a morning person.

How I Became a Pirate

This may not make sense,  but sometimes thinking about what something is like is more illuminating to me than thinking about it directly.

So I'm a huge fan of figurative language.  Metaphors and Similes, you run around with flashlights in my head and help me see things for what they are....by using pictures of what they are not.


I work for a start-up.  Sure, the library as a district has been around for years, but it launched on a remarkable trajectory of change just a few years ago to reinvent itself.  Seismic paradigm shifts...and so the reinvention process feels no different than if we had started from scratch.

Here is a metaphor that sheds light on what it is like to work for a start-up:

We are crew sailing a ship....

that is still being built.
So while some frantically row, others feverishly build, still others frenetically bail.

Sometimes below deck, we can get frustrated with the captain.  She seems so calm, so steady.  We may wonder if she is aware of just how hard we're working to make this all work.
But somebody has to keep an eye on the map, the stars, the horizon.  Somebody has to  have vision for where we're going and how we're going to get there.
Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels.
Or our oars, in this case.
But there's treasure to be had in this wild blue beyond: the love and loyalty of a community made better for having a library.  A hundred human connections that build, bridge, and nourish our souls.   The opportunity to contribute to the lives of countless people in meaningful and memorable ways. Not to mention the tangible parts of our library collection that bring the treasure of the world into the hands of  anyone who enters.  For free.  No buried booty at a library.  It lines every shelf.


So we sail.  Tweaking and repairing and scrambling all the way.  And when we get to the end of this map, we'll sail off the edge and come back and tell you what we found. 

Who knew I would be up for a journey that pushes and pulls and asks me to grow or grow weary, but so it is. 

I signed up to be a librarian.
And found out I might really be a seafaring maverick instead.

As it turns out, we all work for start-ups. Our very lives are an invention and reinvention of ourselves-sometimes from scratch. We all make paradigm shifts of epic proportions, live without all the answers, make repairs and improvements and sail ever on.

Let's go up on deck for a moment; let the evening crew take over the oars.  I want us to feel the winds of change in our faces and dream of what is just beyond.

Underwear

We three were lying in bed with Landon in the middle.  I was reading a joke book that was making me laugh every so often.  Eventually, Landon poked his nose in it to see what was so funny.  Wanting so much to be a part of things, he pretended to read, "Underwear. Underwear. Underwear," and then glanced at me sideways to see if his funniest word would have the desired effect.

I can hear Captain Underpants giggling in the distant future.  He knows he's got another reader coming his way.

But who am I to complain?  Am I not the mom who just let him run around with a diaper on his head a few weeks ago?

Yep, that's my child.