Congratulations to the Giants: Both Big (oh, so big) and Small

Congratulations are extended to giants of many sorts and sizes today:

To the New York Giants -- Yes, I watched the Super Bowl. I can't remember the last time I watched it, but as I watched I couldn't remember the reason why I don't watch football. It really is quite an exciting game. Last night's squabble over a ball was fairly slow-moving at first but that fourth quarter ... wow, what a show. It was fun, watching that clock tick down from 2 minutes, to 1 minute, to mere seconds ... an unexpected touchdown, a mad rush by the Patriots to move back up the field, 10 seconds ... a few incomplete throws, some great defense, 1 second, a stopped clock ... ( at one second?) ... a few minutes of bizarre confusion, a losing couch storming off the field ...

Very, very fun.
Congratulations, New York.

And now on to another field, with another (tiny) giant:
Grace tackling her own situation ...
Trying to sleep in a big girl bed.

I should really give this up, this believing in myself, this crazy thinking that I know my kids. I was so sure it was THE right time to move her from the crib. I obsessed about it, I blogged about it, I talked to a few friends with kids this age. And when I get something in my craw I just do it. And it's great.

Well ... so much for that.

We dismantled the crib (thankfully I kept my emotions in check -- I think if it wasn't such a pain in the neck, working in such a cramped, small room, I would have been a blubbering mess), and then set to work putting the bunk bed back together. It looked great -- it really did. The room feels much more open, less cluttered. The kids had a blast climbing in and out of it, and we outdid ourselves trying to "talk it up," trying to get her excited about the prospect. She seemed OK ...

We let the kids stay up a bit longer last night, in part because Aidan was really into the game, and we also wanted to get Grace good and tired so she would just crash and not give us a hard time in her new bed. As the clock neared 8, we got the kids ready for bed. We did our usual nighttime routine (story, prayer, songs) in their room, I sitting on a chair and the kids cuddled in Grace's bed. They jumped out to kiss Daddy good-night and then ran back into their room. Grace climbed in her bed ...

... and said to me sadly, "I don't want this."

Oh, man. This is going to be fun.

Lots of tears from my sweet girl. She didn't know what to do with herself. She didn't like the pillow, having never used one before. She's a big-time cuddler, and there was too much space. She felt lost. The smart cookie remedied that, however, by climbing out of her bed (unbeknownst to me) and gathering some of her larger stuffed animals to fill in the empty spaces. But she cried. She protested. She sat in that little escape hole, between the protective side rail and the bunk bed's ladder, her legs hanging down off the side, her thumb in her mouth. "I can't," she said, tears streaming down her face.

My darling boy was a dream. He tried valiantly to help his sister, talking her through the experience, sharing stories of his own transition from crib to bed (this boy's memory is spooky). He even climbed down from the heights to stand by her side, rubbed her back, and sang a sweet lullaby to her, making up his own words as he went along to address the specific situation. He tried so hard. At last, 45 minutes later we heard an exasperated Aidan calling from the room, "I just do not know what to do with her anymore!"

Finally ... finally ... almost an hour and a half later Don went in to check on her.
"She's asleep," he told me, smiling.

Before I went to bed myself, I checked on the kids as I always do. I fixed Aidan's covers, I straightened him out (he's quite the thrasher). Then I saw my sweet girl, sleeping on her side, legs curled under her, surrounded by stuffed animals ... way down at the foot of the bed, where she would have been in her crib.

I guess I wasn't so sure after all. I was confident that the transition would be one of great ease, with no difficulty at all. She is one of the most laid-back kids I have ever encountered, and I did not anticipate her having a problem with this. I was wrong. I guess it could have been worse -- indeed, our endeavor to do this with Aidan at the age of two resulted in a week of absolute torture -- but it was hard for her, harder than I anticipated. Yet she did it. She slept. And she didn't wake up until 8:00 a.m.

So today is a new day, with its new challenges. I am dreading nap time this afternoon and I will keep my expectations basement-level-low so as not to be disappointed with how the day turns out. And I will keep telling myself that it will get better in time. So here we go ...

Congratulations to the big Giants (oh, so ridiculously big) for their even bigger win last night ...
and to little Gracie who battled her own giant last night and, finally, won.

A Milestone (pray for us!)

Tonight's the night.

Grace is now going to sleep in a "big girl bed."
No more crib.
No more security.

Hopefully ... this doesn't mean no more sleep.
If you're a "praying sort" ... tonight's the night!

Dessert of Choice: Classic Crow or Humble Pie (or a little slice of both)

A very interesting parenting situation arose the other day, one in which made me the one to do some back-pedaling ... and again, just proves to me that 1) parenting is the toughest job on the planet, and b) I can survive some serious chowing down of Humble Pie when the situation arises.

Every once in the bluest of blue moons we have what Don and Aidan have dubbed a "Family Movie Night." This so very rarely happens, primarily because my kids' bedtime is at 7:30 p.m. -- not a time conducive to movie-watching. I'm also quite lacking in indulgence when it comes to letting them stay up, for history proves that it's just not worth it. Cranky kids on the following day do not justify staying up for a movie. And thirdly, while I'm (kind of) counting here, I am a selfish human being. I am a miser of my time. All day I am clothed in children. When evening rolls around, it's mine ... mine ... mine ... !

Don, however, doesn't feel the same way. And I get it -- I really do. Now that he's a regular working guy and not a pastor, he doesn't see much of the kids. He comes home around 6:00 p.m., we eat dinner, and we have a short play time afterward before the kids hit the sack and I finally get a chance to exhale. So we compromised a bit, starting the movie early, which includes a picnic in the living room before the tube, and giving us enough time to finish the movie in time for bed. We're all happy. And like I said, this is so rare an occasion that I'm OK with giving in a bit.

Recently Don (interestingly) asked for a Family Movie Night, and I in my queenliness granted his boon with my sovereign beneficence. He'd worked a tremendous amount of overtime during the week, and he hardly saw the kids at all other than a quick hello/off-to-work morning hug. Exhibiting as much excitement as a five-year-old, he said he couldn't wait to tell Aidan of the plan.

Don't! I commanded.

He's not around Aidan much. He doesn't know what I deal with each day - the attitude, the irrationality, the little boy being a little boy. I felt in my motherly gut the threat of something back-firing. Just wait, just wait ... Don't tell him until the 11th hour so he won't do something to blow it.

So Friday was the night. Having felt that we waited long enough, I decided to tell Aidan on the way home from school of this good news. It was 3:00 p.m. and Don would be home around 5:30 p.m. Just two and a half hours to get through ... what could happen? He can't blow it.

I warmed up my audience. I built suspense. I played it up. His smile grew bigger with each word, his giggles became bubblier with each sentence. Finally the climax -- I told him what we planned. He was ecstatic. I was overjoyed at his cuteness. But then ... I asked a simple question.

"Isn't this great?"

His response turned the joyful atmosphere to ice. Darkness descended upon the car.

"NO!" he screamed at me.

I was sucker-punched ... and I lost it. I had had an excruciatingly long week. I had had my fill of this Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde phenomena. I couldn't take any more. I was sick of this crappy attitude. I was sick of a mere child thinking he can call the shots. I was sick of trying to do something nice for my kid, only to be met with a bad attitude ... again. I was sick of the whole thing. I unleashed all that pent-up frustration, all that fury. I don't get it. I don't get why kids have to be brats. I don't get why kids can't simply enjoy something good that comes their way. I don't get why kids have to talk back for no reason. I don't get why kids feel the need to fight all the time.

His attitude really was bad. And he was duly disciplined. I took away what I just offered: the Family Movie Night.

He was stunned into silence. For the rest of the ride home his head was buried in his lap (he's one flexible little mourner). Not a peep. An angry silence filled that car's interior. When we got home, the tears came. He was so hurt, but I was too angry to really care. Every Super Nanny tells you, "Take away something that's important to him." I wanted him to feel it. I wanted him to see what happens when he pulls that kind of attitude.

We went inside. Everything felt horrible. After about 20 minutes or so, I sat down next to him on the couch. I asked him if he had anything to say.

"Sorry," he mumbled.
"For what?" I asked.
"For saying what I said to you."

I asked him if he knew why it made me so angry. He paused for a minute. Then he looked a little puzzled. I asked him again. Why would you scream "NO!" at me like that? What makes you think that's OK?

His answer for me was not what I expected.

"When you said we could watch a movie tonight, I thought you meant you were going to take us all to the movie theater. I didn't want to watch something at home. I thought we were all going out together. I thought that would be nice."

Ooohhhhhh .... Boy, did I feel like a piece of dirt.

All of that was in his head, in his little heart. Unfortunately what came out -- that one obnoxious word -- was something very different.

My boy wasn't pulling an obnoxious attitude. He wasn't being a brat. He was disappointed, that's all. He misunderstood what I said, when he was hoping for something else. Except the problem is this: he's 5. He's an incredibly articulate little boy, but in that moment of great disappointment he wasn't sure what to say. And what he did manage to say came out so wrong. And I so horribly misunderstood him.

I pulled my boy onto my lap. He started to cry -- really cry -- as I wrapped my arms around him. I then took his sweet face in my hands and I apologized to him. I explained why I was the one who needed to say I was sorry -- that even though his response wasn't the best choice (he said he was sorry for that), I didn't know he was just trying to convey to me what he was feeling. I apologized for my temper and for quickly reacting instead of taking the time to hear him. Now I understood.

He smiled at me through his tears -- the most beautiful smile in the world. I asked him for his forgiveness, and he threw his arms around my neck. "I love you, Mommy," he said in a gush. I can't tell you how good it felt ... to be honest with him, to talk it out. This was not an easy situation, but even Mommy makes mistakes ... quite a few of them, actually. But there's something about owning up to your part of it, to not taking the road of "Mother Knows Best" all the time, to admitting that I am fallible, I make mistakes, I misjudged something in a big way. Those forkfuls of Humble Pie were tough to chew; that Classic Crow got stuck in my throat on the way down. But once it got down ... it wasn't so bad.

I'm feeling better. My precious boy was happy, sitting on the living room floor reading a book, humming Beethoven's 9th Symphony (I'm not kidding), waiting for Daddy to come home. As crazy as it sounds, this was a good experience, overall. Easy? No way. I'd much rather eat cheesecake. But it was good.

Journey Nudges

Days and weeks go by -- maybe even months -- and we sometimes feel stalled, taking a break, finding a nice mossy rock by the side of our journey's path to sit upon for a while. But then a nudge comes -- a soft poke in the side, a gentle hand on the shoulder, encouraging us to get up and start walking again.

We were nudged this weekend again. Something's stirring. Today -- Saturday -- Don is a priest again.

I spent a portion of my day yesterday in preparation mode. I went into the basement in search of a very specific bag -- a white plastic bag forgotten, shoved forlornly on a storage shelf. A bag full of rumpled, now-unused clergy shirts. I found the bag and pulled out the shirts one by one, lacking their collars, the shirts that I used to see almost every day, the shirts that I washed and (sometimes) ironed. The shirts of a priest.

Today is the day of the wedding in PA of which Don is officiating. We had a leisurely morning and had a chance to talk over breakfast. He told me of some bizarre church dreams he was having again -- some good, some not-so-good -- and I shared my own odd dream of last night, one which I thought he would find interesting. I dreamed we were having another baby, but this time he was pregnant (man, what weird sight). It didn't seem odd at all, however -- those things so rarely do in dreams -- and the time had come for the birth. We were not in a hospital, however, but in some room that resembled more of a retreat center, with huge windows all around, looking out onto a beautiful forest. The whole feeling was peaceful and there was no sound -- it was absolutely hushed. Then suddenly, simply, there was a baby. A huge baby, gigantic (that part was weird) ... and it was a boy. We named him Owen Garrett. I can't tell you how peaceful the whole scene was -- not a single sound was heard.

OK, maybe I had dessert too close to my bedtime. But Don's "punny" response to my dream was, "Well, that sure was pregnant with meaning." He went on to say that maybe there's no coincidence; it represents new life. He's officiating a wedding -- the start of a couple's life together -- and he's donning the mantle of a priest to do so, a new beginning of sorts for him. Nothing is as it was for us anymore, that's for sure. But maybe all of this is a bit of that nudging. It's time to get up and start walking again.

A few minutes ago I saw the "old" Don -- dress pants, shined shoes, sport coat, blue clergy shirt, and that gleaming white collar encircling his neck. A priest was standing in the living room. But did that priest ever leave, really? He's been battered and beaten by others but he's still here.

And now he's walking again, collar and all.

Laugh Lines for the Week

Once again, my kids have provided great moments of entertainment (as well as trying moments requiring extreme -- and nonexistent -- patience, but we won't go there). Here are a few snippets that sent my sides to crackin' ...

- Aidan was dealing with some congestion, so he went into the medicine cabinet and grabbed the Nasonex. He brought it to me, asking if I would administer it so it would "clear up the snotties." Sure, I said, taking the cap off. Then he gave me further instruction: "I only need one squirt, Mommy, because it's only in one nozzle."

- In the car on the way home from school, Aidan was talking about Valentine's Day and describing some of the related crafts he was working on in school. "We need decorations for our house," he decided. I agreed, throwing out creative suggestions such as cutting out hearts from construction paper, drawing hearts and coloring them, and so on. He liked the idea of coloring and proceeded to list all of the colors he would like to use in his upcoming project: "Red, pink, purple, yellow, abednigo ..."

Abednigo?!

I think he meant "indigo."
Time to move on to another Bible story -- clearly the three dudes in the fiery furnace made quite an impression.

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We've all had experiences with doctors who exhibited less-than-ideal bedside manners. But nothing beats this ...

While playing with the toy doctor kit, Dr. Aidan decided Patient Grace wasn't well. He rummaged through the various instruments until he settled on a favorite: the needle. His expert skill clearly showed he knew what he was doing. His bedside manner, however, did not.

"Patient Grace," he said, "Here's your shot. It's going to hurt ... a lot!"

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Attitudes abound in our house as of late -- big attitudes housed in small creatures. Even though these displays can be exasperating and patient-building (on a good day), I have also found that there's a great deal of humor in it all ... a saving grace of sorts, I guess. Aidan's 'tude stems from pure five-year-old defiance, but Grace is 2 and she's a little mimic. What comes out of her mouth is often a combination of Aidan's snits and my responses, resulting in hilarity.

Yesterday was no exception. When I returned home after dropping Aidan off at school, I went upstairs to gather my daughter who, as usual, refused to go downstairs with me. Even though she's very big for a 2-year-old (starting to wear a size 4T comfortably ... yikes), she's still small enough for me to scoop her up in my jailer-arms and carry her downstairs to her awaiting fate of a clean diaper, a story, and a long nap. She's usually fine about it all, turning the whole thing into a giggle-fest. She's not a fighter ... but she is two, so you never know quite what to expect.

I plopped her down on the changing pad on my bed, and as I did so she let loose a torrent of protests. She threw her whole being into chewing me out, her arms crossed tightly across her chest, her sweet forehead deeply furrowed, and her tirade was something to behold:

"Mommy (pause for effect) ... we (pause again) ... never, ever ... all togedder ... today ... ever ... five minutes ... or else!"

There was silence for a moment. I burst out laughing and couldn't stop. Instantly her furrowed brow disappeared, her stern face melted into smiles. We both got a good laugh over that one.

Welcome to my Rainy Day

Outside: gray, cold, rainy, miserable, gross.

Inside: well ... I'm not sure what kinds of words could explain this kind of day:

Our project for either this weekend or next: move Grace from the (overcrowded) crib to a regular bed. Just in the nick of time, too.

Unexpected Clarity (of another sort)

Over the past week or so, I've stumbled upon a random assortment of bits and pieces -- whether it be music, blogs, books, comments -- that remind me of the sovereignty of God. On my journey, one thing I have noticed is that when God wants me to really focus on something, He makes it pretty clear. Not always, but very often. When I really needed to address the issue of forgiving my enemies, for example -- those individuals who have hurt me and my family -- I was bombarded for over a week with thoughts, words, emails, blogs, phone calls, books, etc. all seemingly disconnected, all pertaining to the "Art of Forgiving." It was almost creepy-cool how it came about, this obstacle on my path that I needed to think and pray about -- not necessarily for the sakes of those individuals, but for my own sake and my own freedom.

Like the idea of forgiveness, this latest bombardment has rained down on me, reminding me of God's sovereignty. There have been blogs I've discovered that I never saw before, passages in books that have leaped off the page, random conversations which made my antenna buzz. Very interesting stuff. But the biggest revelation was a very unexpected bombshell, an answer to an old "what if," an answer that we weren't sure we would ever receive.

Two years ago, as our time at our second church was clearly ticking away, we began a lengthy, intensive discernment process to see where our next pit-stop would be. We had needs and we felt confident that we could go to God with them -- one of which, being at the top of our list, was the need to be close to our families. We looked at churches in PA, NJ, and other states in the torso of the East Coast, but the pickings were slim. At last God lead us to a church in New England and it looked almost perfect.

For six months we prayed, we talked, we discerned, we prayed more -- everything short of fasting, really, since that is not a realistic option. :) For six very long months we corresponded with the leaders of this church, we emailed, prayed with them, met with them, accepted the call, and were "this close" to buying a house ... when suddenly it all collapsed. We don't know what happened, really. One day things were sailing along smoothly and the next ... it came crashing down. They withdrew the call at the blink of an eye and we were left standing at the side of the road, mouths gaping open, shoulders slumped, wondering what just happened. Right away we turned our cries toward heaven.

Why, God? Why would you do something like this? Why would you allow us to get our hopes up, having sought Your direction, felt Your guidance, knew in the very marrow of our faithful bones that this was the path You wanted us to journey down ... and now this? It makes no sense! We feel hurt, betrayed, scrambled, deflated, kicked in the gut ... why?!

We had a decision to make, a crossroads to face: either wallow in the not knowing, feel resentment about God's leading, or we could choose to move on ... to say that, for some reason, this is what we were supposed to do, something we had to experience, and for some reason this is as far as it goes. God knows why, but we don't -- and we have to be OK with that. There's a bigger picture here that we can't see ... we just played a small part in it, and even though we can't see beyond the "now," we have to trust that God knows what He's doing.

We chose the latter path, the path of trusting in God's sovereignty. It hurt, sure -- we were emotionally drained from spending six long, grueling months in that process. But we knew we had to let it go, and we did. Would we ever get an answer to all of those "why?" questions? Would we ever see more of that Big Picture? Maybe ... but maybe not. We had to just let it go. That was two years ago.

We haven't thought much about it since, really. Yes, we feel some disappointment occasionally (the house we almost bought was a dream!) but there was ultimately a great deal of peace in just moving on. Granted, a lot has happened over the course of these past two years since that situation, and these more recent events have usurped anything else, but then ... but then ... God stepped in.

Don was surfing the internet, checking out various theological sites and blogs, when he suddenly came across an article that knocked him over the head. He showed it to me, and I too was blown away ... for there before me on the screen was an answer to the "why?" questions of two years earlier, a great glimpse of that bigger picture that only God knew of.

The article was about this same church, who in the course of these past two years had been embroiled in an ugly, tooth-and-nail fight with their bishop. We had known there was tension, but over the years it had escalated. Now it was announced that this church had picked up and left the denomination, joining another segment of the larger Anglican Communion. The fighting is bitter, the legality of it all is ugly and messy, with property and buildings and money all tied up in the squabble.

Don said to me, "Can you just imagine what our lives would have been like if we had gotten that job and were there now?" I shudder to think about it. In the middle of the fighting, all the uncertainty, all the ugliness, a purchased home, a big mortgage in the midst of financial questions (and now a horrific housing market!), no family or friends for support ... the list goes on. Life would have been unimaginably horrible.

"Wow," said Don breathlessly. "Thank God He saw the bigger picture and spared us from that."

Indeed.

So where am I going with this? God is sovereign. He knows. Two years later, we were finally able to see the answer to why we went through all of that stuff that we did. It feels good, this kind of closure, this answer, this knowing. Now fast forward since that time, God certainly didn't spare us the hell of our last church, that's for sure. Why would he spare us from that experience two years ago, only to have us face a future torture that was far, far worse? I don't know ... but stumbling across this article helps me to trust a little bit more, to know that our experiences in that last church -- while a million times more horrible -- are also part of a "bigger picture," one which we cannot see. We have to trust. We learned to be OK with what we went through two years ago -- it took a little time, but we got there. And in the getting there, in the trusting and in the letting go, we very unexpectedly received an answer. And maybe ... just maybe ... a few years down the road from now we'll stumble across another article, or hear some news, or whatever, giving us an answer to all of the "why" questions on this part of the journey.

Or ... maybe not. Answers are not guaranteed, are they.

But the point is this: regardless of whether or not we ever find out, we have no choice but to trust in God's sovereignty. He knows ... and that needs to be enough. By trusting in that, we can move on.

Thank you, God, for this clarity, this very unexpected answer. It did my soul some good.