The max

I was sitting on the couch beside a sick kid today although I was supposed to be on a field trip to a helicopter engineering firm and I tipped face forward into a couch cushion and sank into oblivion. I'm not sure what was the final straw. Was it the moment I stood in the school foyer asking for a grocery bag just in case she puked... that she then immediately puked in? I'm going with yes. I did not emerge from that coma until one of my kids called me to discuss their illness. My life has been legit busy. I realize I used to be the person who complained if there was something on my calendar every single day of a week. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm operating at max capacity, making two thermoses of tea before I leave the house for that ding bat job starting at 4AM every day, then going  straight to Fort Collins for school twice a week peeling off layers of work clothes while I'm driving, showing up at the middle school three mornings a week to help Nick, apparently working a funeral circuit and yes I'm still going to the doctor all the time for the computer that fell on my head. Lets not forget dance classes, the voice lessons, the library activities, the youth group and on and on and on.
I have anxiety. You know the people who freak out in movies and start gasping? Yes, I do that... then I start doing yoga. The cat cow routine is the only thing that helps me breathe. I should do it at work when my all time worst boss, Thomas starts being an idiot. Can't you picture me trying to have a rational conversation and then just throwing in the towel and dropping to my hands and knees doing deep breathing while arching my back and spreading my chest? Solid plan. I'm adding it to my list.
Anyway, I love my life. I am not complaining. I'm just making sure I remember this nonsense whenever I want to complain about anything at any time ever in the future. Just like I remember when my kids were all little and I was making pots of hot tea and arranging painting supplies and catching them cut their shirts with scissors and grinding my teeth because they spread dog food and cereal and kleenexes and lipstick and paper mâché paste and chocolate syrup and maple syrup and orange juice and crumbs, we are talking enough crumbs to feed a herd of cattle... all over the house. I remember Jody going grocery shopping with me and making all of the money for me to go shopping. I remember nursing babies in every conceivable location on earth with milk spraying the world like a spigot. I remember being awake all night when they were sick and sleeping in all morning with them in my bed when they weren't. I'm so thankful for the life I've already lived. I could call it quits today and say it completely fulfilled me. And yet here I am peeking through the curtains to the next act and I'm like "cool, that will be fun." This little middle spot of transition is definitely crazy but I'm ok with crazy.

This I Believe Essay

Hey Friends, here's my essay! Hope you like it and feel empowered to parent your own way! God gave you special unique kids and they need you to tune in and do it however God tells you to.

She rode in silence turned away with her forehead resting on the window so I wouldn’t see her tears. We were ten minutes late for school again and I felt the same old internal battle between rage and despair. “I’m not made for this” my heart cried. Somehow life had hurdled me past important milestones at speeds not conducive to careful contemplation. Now here I was, parenting a middle schooler who was trying to survive a crisis I knew nothing of. With failing grades, no friends, concerned teachers, and several suicide threats behind us already, I knew our life was at a desperate pivotal moment yet again and frankly I was so tired it made me angry. On top of that was the overwhelming guilt. Guilt that I must have done this and guilt that I was a living breathing hypocrite. My mind flashed to my own middle school years of blissful freedom. Home-schooled and riding Penny bareback through acres of hayfields at a hard gallop with the wind ripping tears from my eyes while my legs trembled with the effort of clinging to an animal pushed to it's limits. The click of the car door handle brought me back to the present and I stared numbly as she mumbled a few words without glancing my way and slammed the door. I made myself watch her shining golden hair falling over a slumped defeated back as she walked toward her school, the very school that made my own stomach quiver with fear. 

Explaining how we got to that point four years ago, would be like peeling off layer after layer of paint and every layer would hurt. I will say that I was in fresh grief from losing my dad and coping by hard assing my way through parenting four kids just like “everyone” had told me to. I was depending on a set of rules because my unconventional childhood had given me little to go on… or so I thought. I was grounding, bedtiming, giving consequences, raising my eyebrows to my hairline, impatiently honking horns, refusing to drop off forgotten items at the school and gritting my teeth the whole time. Then, that day, staring at the closing door of the middle school, it all came to a screeching halt. My firstborn, Eden desperately needed me to pull it together. Familiar tears coursed down my cheeks and I wordlessly asked God what to do. I was suddenly 12 years old again myself, staring into my dad’s beautiful gray green eyes; burning with intensity and for the millionth time, in the exact same tone and meter he said to me “Boogle, I love you very much.” I felt the familiar warmth of being completely loved and accepted wash over me. I leaned back into the car seat and closed my eyes. My mis-step hadn’t been in “not pushing hard enough,” but in missing the boat entirely. As moments of my childhood like my my mom making biscuits while my dad delivered a hot cup of tea to my bed came back to me, my own parenting plan began to cement in my mind. I decided to love that baby so hard she didn’t know what hit her. I decided to wake her mopey head up with a cup of tea and a smile.  I decided to be the mom who these kids knew would be there for them no matter what and show them that they mattered enough to rattle some cages at that regimented school. I was done trying to please school secretaries. I was suddenly empowered to walk in there like a freaking Wonder Woman with a forgotten iPad or thermos of tea or lunch or notebook or whatever MY PEOPLE needed if I felt like it. I felt a steel resolve and we became the A-Team. And that was how God saved her. 

I can’t really think of anyone who approves and I won’t lie and say I care. As far as I can tell, they aren’t doing a whole lot better at this brutal parenting gig than I am anyway. I’ve always been a boat rocker but now I’m one step further, I have arrived at that blissful stage of parenting when I own who I am and I rock my philosophy with pride. I’d rather raise a kid who can’t find their keys than a kid who doesn’t know how to love well. So that’s why I show them that love has many forms. Sometimes love thinks of you at the grocery store and brings home someones favorite salsa or dairy free ice cream. Sometimes love cancels your phone service for making a terrible choice. One thing is true, love always always rescues you when you need it most. Although my days are very busy, if I can help, I will help, not because I need to be needed but because they need to be reminded that they have backup and their imperfection is perfectly lovable. I’ll be there for my kids just like my husband is there for me when I let my car run out of gas. Just like I’m there for my husband when he calls from work to ask if I can bring him his wallet. I now breezily call myself “the rescue mom” with pride which leaves my children in a mixed state of embarrassment and total security. This I believe, Loving like my father, both heavenly and earthly is all I have to get right with parenting. 

Here's the paragraph I edited out for the sake of brevity. 

The other day I was busily rattling off an email to a middle school teacher when my second daughter Kait interrupted my train of thought. 

She noisily cleared her throat and bugged her eyes and said “Are you sending my teacher an email about what I just said?!” 

I cocked a brow and said “of course, just call me Bev.” 

I saw a smirk hover on her lips which was all I needed. My girl knows she’s got a smother. 

So I finished dashing off that email to Ms. Baldivia (with a chuckle I have to admit) letting her know that she’s punishing herself more than Kait by demanding a hand written essay when Kait struggles with what I have expertly google diagnosed as dysgraphia. I hit send with a self assurance that I wish I could give every mother in the world. I’ve always admired Kait’s grit. She would have totally muddled along painstakingly hand writing things for Ms. Baldivia. As a matter of fact, she had already churned out 2 1/2 pages to the dismay of her classmates who could barely summon one, but seriously, my letter was a mercy to them both. I believe this connected level of parenting will impact who my children become and how they treat others in the world. Kait knows I’m in her corner and I’ll listen when she vents and I’ll speak up for her when I should. And in turn, Kait will be a better listener and a stronger voice herself.  And that is why I believe the world needs rescuers like the A-team.