No Whining

Kids fall down and get hurt, they will cry but they need to figure out how to get back up and get on with life. Life is messy and sometimes sucks. I can't crawl under a rock and give up when things get tough and I don't expect my children to do so either.

I'm not a bitch. I don't just ignore them if they are hurt, but I will walk away from a tantrum. 

I bandage boo-boos, dry tears and give kisses. I love hugs and snuggles and a good tickle fight! I hate to see my kids hurt or struggling but I know that those struggles are what will make them stronger. 

I also love playing games with the kids but I don't let them win on purpose. When they beat me at Uno, it's fair and square!

I am not the type of person who over-mother's my kids. I am not a helicopter parent and don't deal well with people who manufacture reasons to worry. 

I've always known that when I had children, I was going to raise them to be independent, self-sufficient respectful, productive members of society. 

It's the way I was raised and couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

But...once I became a boy mom it became even more important to raise good future husbands.

Seriously, I hope to have daughters-in-law someday and I don't want them to hate me because I raised a couple of momma's boys who couldn't do anything for themselves! 

Besides, I'm not a coddler. I despise whiney anything. I don't care if it's a cat, dog, fish or child. Whine and I don't want to be anywhere near you.

Both Glenn and I have encouraged the boys to do things for themselves at very early ages as well as have them help with tasks around the house. These could include anything from scrubbing toilets to helping put the mulch in the gardens.

They are in third grade now but have been getting dressed, getting their breakfast and brushing their teeth on their own since first grade. Initially I would assist but they handle the bulk of it.

I will give time prompts like, "30 minutes to bus!" but they handle the rest.

After the pandemic hit and we were forced into quarantine, I bought Uncrustables, snacks, juice packs, etc. and showed them where everything in the fridge was. At lunchtime, they'd grab their stuff and either sit inside if it was cold or rainy or outside in the sun to eat lunch.

Raising self-sufficient kids isn't hard. It just takes commitment to let them do things on their own and resist the urge to micromanage. Most of the time they do not do things the way I would, (they are, afterall only 9) but, in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really matter if the job gets finished. 

I want them to make their own way in the world and that requires them to figure stuff out on their own. 

We believe in chores.

They help with the laundry, empty and reload the dishwasher, help with the trash and recycling, vacuum, mop, dust and scrub toilets.

If I have a crazy week and life gets ahead of me, they can, and do, pitch in.

Having independent kids paid off in spades while I was going through chemo. There were days that I literally, could not lift my head off the pillow.

During the summer it wasn't a really big deal but once school started, they had to fend for themselves in the mornings. They would get breakfast, brush their teeth, pack their snacks and get dressed by themselves. I would give my usual time prompts but they handled everything else.  I would message a neighbor asking her to let me know that they got on the bus safely but that was about all I could handle. 

Chemo ended in September and our busy lives continued with gymnastics, karate, business, etc. 

Then Glenn and I caught Covid at Christmas. 

Not a style of holiday celebration I recommend for anyone...by the way. 

We didn't get the easy, get over it in a few days’ variant. We got nailed!

The boys were fine but Glenn and I were down for the count...for days. More than a week really.

Once again having independent children who could fend for themselves paid off.

Neither Glenn nor I were able to get up. We had lots of leftovers in the fridge that the kids could eat and I would order food to be delivered so that they weren't always scrounging to find something.

Hubby and I joke about the kid’s week of "self-parenting" but they really did. With covid in the house no one could go anywhere anyway so iPads, pillows and forts were the tools of choice.

I got better, Glenn did not.

We got him to the hospital where he stayed for 19 days.

I did my best to keep life as usual for the kids. Thanks to some wonderful friends we were able to maintain the status quo. But I am thankful that my kids can and do the chores we taught them. 

Glenn was discharged on Saturday, January 29...in a snow storm because, why not?

It was great to have him home.

He was still exhausted, and we had soooooo much to learn about the diabetes but we have wonderful friends who have jumped in to share their knowledge and experience that we also had peace of mind knowing that we had back up if we needed it.

The kids were just happy to have him back in the house.

They were pretty chill through the whole hospital stay but dad's return was an obvious relief.

Glenn is doing much better. Unfortunately, we recently had a major scare that sent Glenn to the ER via ambulance.

To say that it was terrifying for me was an understatement. Blowing a kiss goodbye to the man I love as the ambulance doors closed will forever be one of the toughest moments of my life.

Sending him off with a major pain in his chest and still filled with blood clots was terrifying because I had no idea if I was going to see him alive again. 

The cause of the pain was never diagnosed but all the things that could have killed him were ruled out. So that was good-ish. I try to focus on the positive but it's so difficult sometimes. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop...thank goodness I'm not a centipede! 

I struggle with the unknown.

Even when something is bad I can usually deal with it as long as I know what it is. Trying to maintain my faith when I have no clue what is happening (like mystery chest pain) is something that I struggle with.

My friends know this about me. Three different people sent this to me in the past 48 hours. 

“And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Philippians 4:7

All it takes is faith and really cool kids. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saying Goodbye

I cannot believe that we are almost in July! Between work, the children's programs of Karate and Tumbling and endless loads of laundry, this year is flying by. 

Not all of it has been the chaos that we encounter on a daily basis. 

There has been deep, cutting sadness that I am still attempting to deal with. 

The day after Easter I received a text message from a friend on mine asking if I had seen Facebook. I hadn't as I had been attempting to snooze on the sofa trying to recover from hosting a huge gathering for the Holiday. 

After receiving the text I jumped up and ran to my computer to see what was going on and was horrified to read that our friend had passed away at the age of 31. 

Tears sprang from my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks. 

How? How does this happen? 

I sat and prayed for understanding and acceptance but the pain was deep. 

Knowing that I would never talk to Jessie again nearly crippled me. 

Weeks passed and I found myself unable to move on. Not that I thought I should just be able to accept this, toss it aside and go on with my life but that there was an emptiness or hole that I couldn't seem to fill. 

I reached out on the very page that delivered the bad news and asked if there was a way to hold a service for her in Virginia. The pastor of the church that she had attended contacted me and her father and together we picked a date and got to work. 

Phone calls, emails and writing gave my life purpose and direction. I was no longer struggling through a quagmire of numbness that seemed to anchor my feet to the floor. 

I still miss her. I always will but that day I was able to release some of my sadness and say goodbye. 

I wanted to share my eulogy with you to have you know her the way I did.  

I met Jessie in the spring of 2008 at the NRA Annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. This sweet, shy, quiet (little did I know) young lady had my heart from the beginning. Always ready with a smile and a funny story she could turn almost any situation into one filled with laughter.

After we began working together I quickly learned that Jessie was neither shy nor quiet and, aside from saying things like Sir, Ma’am, y’all and “Bless her heart” she blew just about every stereotype of a southern girl out of the water. Being from NH I had mistakenly believed that all southern girls were born knowing how to two-step and spent their Saturday nights in bars listening to country music and learning to line dance. 

That was not the case with Jessie…At all. She was a free spirit who was moved by the things that she loved which could include anything from competitive shooting to knitting and if she could combine the two while listening to Ludacris she would! 

Jessie had a wicked sense of humor that ranged from silly to completely sarcastic and had the ability to make me laugh to the point that I’d have tears streaming down my face and my stomach muscles would hurt for days. She was a fierce competitor who gave it her all whether she was competing with a rifle or in the annual Spoons Tournament at the NRA. 

Jess was just amazing! She truly never met a stranger. Her love of others transcended age, race, religion, marital status and politics. She never let her personal opinions get in the way of being a friend. No matter what, she saw the good in people and there was no gap too wide to bridge. 

She had a deep and abiding love of Christ. Jessie was a living example of unconditional love and was always available to help others regardless of their need. Her devotion helped lead me back to church. She never said, “You should go.” Or “you’re going to rot in hell.” She simply lived her life in a way that made me want to emulate her love of others, as Christ loves us. 

So what is this love? Merriam-Webster defines love as: 

·     a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person


·     attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship
 a person you love in a romantic way 

How’s that for not even coming close?! 

When thinking about Jess, the impact she had on me and on those around her the one passage that keeps coming to mind was First Corinthians, Chapter 13: 4-8 The gift of love. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. 

My father’s side of the family is Quaker. In a Quaker funeral everyone sits in silent prayer and then, if they feel moved to do so, can stand and talk about the deceased. At my grandmother’s funeral back in the 90s some people read bible verses and others shared stories. 

As the service neared the end a gentleman, that no one recognized stood up, introduced himself and said that he’d been having breakfast with my grandmother every Sunday after church for the past three years. He went on to say that he was sorry that he’d only known my grandmother for three years but after listening to everyone that day he felt blessed to have known her for three years. 

This is how I feel about my friendship with Jessie. I’d only known Jessie for 8 years but am blessed to have known her for that long. I am very proud to call her friend but I do not believe that our friendship happened by chance. CS Lewis summed up friendship the best in The Four Loves:  “In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” 

Jessie’s beauty was Love. 

To know Jessie was simply to know love.