Friesencold

I have had three different friends ask me unrelated questions recently and after typing out some fairly substantial responses, I figured maybe I’d get a little more bang for my buck and post them on the blog for others to see and share in, if you happen to be interested.

Friend 1 Question 1: Do you have a schedule you follow during the time TJ’s at work? You know, like a routine for the day?

Answer: To answer your question, parts of my day during the week are scheduled. Cash always goes in his crib for an hour of rest/play time each morning from about 9-10am. I love that break I get so I can spend the time with Bauer and/or do other things I need to, like take a shower or send an email or two. Usually I spend the first 20-30 min doing some sort of activity/craft/reading/etc with Bauer and the rest of the hour I take a shower and get ready for the day while Bauer watches TV. He usually watches 30-45 min in the morning and that’s it for the day. Once in a while I may let him watch 15-30 more min in the afternoon if I need the time to do something. But now that it’s nice and the kids can be outside more, I feel like we don’t need the TV as much for entertainment.

After Cash’s rest time – which by the way, is not a nap…I just put toys and books in his crib and he is very happy to play by himself for that hour. I never did that with Bauer but when Cash started to give up his morning nap, I never stopped putting him in his crib, except I just started giving him toys and leaving the light on and the curtain open so he can see outside. He doesn’t know any different and it’s the bomb to have him trained like that to be back there for an hour each morning. I definitely plan to do this with any other kids we may have – so anyway, after Cash’s rest time, we often will go and do one errand, sometimes in the van, sometimes walking. Today we drove to Costco, some days we may walk to the library or the post office, and 2x a week it is a trip to the chiropractor. We get home by about 11:30 from whatever little outing we take and then the kids play outside in the backyard while I fix lunch. We eat out there too now that the weather is nice and by 1, I have them back inside and getting ready for naps. Cash goes down by 1:15 or 1:30 and sleeps till 3:30 or 4. Bauer naps probably every 3 days, not as often as every other day but sometimes it works like that. If he naps, it’s for about 2 hours so he’s usually up just before Cash wakes up. If Bauer doesn’t nap, I make him have Quiet Reading Time in our bedroom, which is an hour of him being on our bed either reading, coloring, drawing, or doing activity books (but no toys). After his hour is up, I let him come out and play something quietly like Legos or puzzles. After about a half hour of that kind of quiet play, I will usually do something with him for a little bit until Cash wakes up or Bauer will help me get started in the kitchen on dinner prep. After they are both awake, we usually do something outside before I have to start really cooking dinner. Bauer still loves to go to the train station so sometimes we go over there to watch the trains….Bauer rides his bike and I push Cash in the stroller. Or we walk to the post office. Or play in the backyard. If we end up staying inside, Bauer might keep helping me in the kitchen while Cash has a snack or wanders around getting into trouble. Or Bauer and I may do an additional alphabet activity for his ABC book. Another favorite thing to do is listen to music, sometimes inside, sometimes in the backyard, but my favorite is on the front porch. Bauer takes his CD player out there and we sit in beach chairs on the porch and listen to his music CDs and watch the cars go by. Or the boys might be out there listening to music and having a snack on the porch while I’m inside getting more stuff done in the kitchen so when it’s time for dinner, it will go a lot quicker. Once about 5 pm rolls around, I send the kids outside to play while I fix dinner. I keep checking on them of course and they keep coming to the door for something or other anyway, so it’s not uninterrupted cooking by any means. TJ gets home by about 5:30 most of the time, so he plays with them while I finish getting dinner ready and then we eat by 5:45 or 6.

Not sure if this helps you in any way, but it does show you that we have a bit of a routine. While the boys nap, I try to sit down and do some sort of Scripture reading / praying / journaling. That is often no more than 20 minutes and not even every day. I also send emails, go through mail, fold clothes, clean up the kitchen, do research on the internet about whatever I need to figure out, make phone calls, reply to MealBaby emails, etc etc. I don’t do all of this every day obviously but that is just a sampling of the kind of stuff I do. I want to spend more time just reading for fun during their naps but it seems like I stay busy with everything but that.

I work out in the mornings, either before TJ goes to work or I’ll take the kids for a walk in the stroller first thing. I bring something easy for them to eat in the stroller and then I’ll fix smoothies when we get home. I probably work out 5 days a week and I try to do free weights every 4-5 days or so. That is something I’d do in the afternoon during their nap time or if Bauer wakes up, I’d perhaps let him watch a little more TV while I finish.

Friend 2 Question 1: We travel a lot, and it is almost impossible to find fruits and vegetables on the road. What do you guys do when you have to travel?

Answer: When we travel, I bring along a lot of our own stuff, especially for the kids, but also for myself. When we fly, I pack almond butter or sunflower seed butter  sandwiches for all of us and I bring along steamed sweet potato, cut into chunks, for the kids. I always have bags of veggies, like sugar snap peas, carrots, cucumbers and celery, all cut up and ready to eat. I cut up a few apples and slice them and have them in bags for the kids to eat. I bring bananas, almonds, raisins, dates, little cups of applesauce (organic, no sugar added), little cups of diced pears or peaches in their own juice…..you get the picture. When we get where we are going, I try to buy similar things that we eat at home. I’ll usually go to a grocery store and try to buy things that are healthy and not too difficult to prepare when we’re traveling. The kids really enjoy vegetarian baked beans (I drain and rinse them from the can and they eat them unheated), avocado chunks, Ezekiel 4:9 cinnamon raisin bread, and of course more fruits and veggies. I haven’t found it to be too challenging to travel and have plenty of healthy stuff to eat, but as Bauer has gotten older, I have become a little (not a lot) more flexible as far as letting him eat some junk when the occasion calls for it.

We don’t do much fast food at all, even when we travel. If we ever make it somewhere where there is a Chick-fil-A, we’ll eat there with excitement and Bauer gets the nuggets and fries and an apple juice. I still usually have food for Cash to eat, but let him have a few fries. I also make sure Bauer is eating some veggies along with his nuggets and fries and he’s pretty good about it, but even if he doesn’t want any, I know he eats so well the rest of the time, that it’s not such a big deal. We eat at Chipotle when we can because it is a healthy “fast-food-type” place. Do you have Chipotle there? All Bauer knows about McDonald’s and Burger King is that they have fish sandwiches and he thinks that sounds gross. I’m glad that’s his perception of those two joints

Friend 2 Question 2: My son has become pretty picky with food … I made all of his food when he was a baby, and he ate anything I gave him. Now that he is a toddler, he has done a 180. He still eats mostly organic fruits and vegetables, but he has his favorites and doesn’t like to try new things anymore. I know that he and Cash are pretty close in age … have you had any issues with Cash not eating some of the meals that you make? I’m a little nervous about what I am going to do if and when my son refuses to eat some of the new things.

Answer: I do feel blessed as far as Cash’s willingness to try new things. Bauer wasn’t as willing as Cash, but even so, I think my overall philosophy has been to only offer them healthy things, and even if they eat a lot of the same things, it is way better than eating a variety of junk. Bauer ate a lot of steamed sweet potato and raw cucumber when he was younger, and he still does. I think his nose even started looking orange-ish at one point (TJ remembers that, but I don’t). Some things I just don’t buy, such as yogurt or cheese sticks. Bauer knows he likes yogurt because we have bought it occasionally and his friends have it sometimes, but I just tell him that we don’t have yogurt at our house, and he really has no concept of eating cheese. I buy shredded cheese for 1 recipe I make a couple times a month and that’s all the cheese he gets (other than our occasional splurge on pizza).

So what would I do if they refused to eat what I cooked? Well, I guess I would try and see if they have a true aversion to it…..like Bauer really dislikes the texture of potatoes in this corn chowder I make, although it’s one of Cash’s favorite meals. I have learned that Bauer isn’t just saying he doesn’t like it to get out of eating it, and every time I make it, I still make him eat one good bite. I figure he may eventually learn to like it. I always plan to fix him something else when we are having corn chowder, or just let him eat the other stuff we are having at that meal. He is pretty content eating the same stuff over and over though. Every day for lunch lately, he wants an almond butter and honey sandwich, and besides that, he will often eat steamed sweet potato chunks (cold, by the way) and veggies from the veggie tray that I keep in the fridge at all times. He likes eating them plain, or dipping them in hummus, or even dipping them in ketchup (Cash, too!).

If your son were to start refusing to eat what you make, especially as you try new recipes, I think my advice would be to have other healthy options you know he likes, such as the veggies he likes or some other sides you have prepared that he likes, and let him just eat more of that, and just do your best to get him to try a bite or two of the new stuff. I wouldn’t deprive him of food altogether just because he doesn’t want the main thing you are preparing, but at the same time, I wouldn’t prepare a whole different meal for him or  just give him grilled cheese all the time because he likes it (not saying you do this, but I’ve heard of moms who just always fix their kids grilled cheese or something similar because their kids don’t like the meal the rest of the family is eating).

Friend 2 Question 3: Do you buy all organic? I was wondering what things you tend to buy organic and the things that you let go. It’s hard for me to buy anything conventional anymore, but I am not a millionaire, so I have to.

Answer: As far as organic goes, I always buy organic spinach, organic strawberries (fresh and frozen), and organic applesauce. I buy organic potatoes 9 times out of 10, and I used to always buy organic sweet potatoes considering how many of those the kids eat (but it became too much trouble to make special trips to Whole Foods for them and they are more than double the price usually). So now I just scrub the conventional sweet potatoes extra well and I always peel them before steaming.

I would like to buy organic grapes and apples and celery all the time as well, but have not been able to find good quality, reasonably priced organic options for those. So I always peel our apples, wash and rinse the grapes in a big bowl of water SIX times, and I wash and peel the celery. Oh yeah, I also usually buy organic carrots, not so much because I worry about the pesticides on those, but because they aren’t much more expensive and I really think they taste better.

I have recently starting buying more greens (mainly Swiss chard and kale) and if the organic selection on those looks good, I will buy those and if not, I’ll go conventional. Dr. Furhman’s newest book, Eat for Health, really inspired me to get serious about adding greens to our diet much more consistently.

Friend 3 Question 1: How is house hunting going?

Answer: We actually went through a 4-month process of trying to buy a house that was a “short sale” from Jan-April, only to find out after about 100 days that the bank said no to our offer. We went up some on our offer at that point and they were hemming and hawing (basically giving us the runaround) until they finally came back and said we could have it if we brought an extra $1,000 to the closing, as well as having the seller bring $1,000 and both realtors taking a lesser percentage than their usual cut. It all seemed a bit sketchy to us, plus we had started to feel like maybe we were trying to force something to happen that basically wasn’t going to happen on its own. We had been in prayer a lot through the whole process and it just seemed like God wasn’t giving a certain YES. Even though there wasn’t a certain NO either, we made the decision, after taking advice from some people we trust to the core, to back out of the whole process with that particular house we had been trying to get for the previous few months. TJ and I both felt very comfortable with our decision and are looking forward to spending another summer here in the house we are renting in downtown Naperville. We love the location and we especially love our backyard with our new (used) Rainbow swing set some friends passed on to us when their kids outgrew it. Tonight was our first weekly backyard BBQ of the summer with some friends and it was a joy to host them in such a pleasant setting in such pleasant late-spring weather. I definitely don’t miss Orlando this time of year! So, we are not house hunting at the moment, just trying to focus on other things that are moving forward for us (MealBaby being one of those – yay!).

Friend 3 Question 2: Any great reads?

Answer: As far as what I’m reading, well, Little Bee by Chris Cleave was my most recent read and I loved it to pieces. You may have seen this on my blog already. I have been trying to get into Cleave’s other, earlier novel called Incendiary, but I have not found it nearly as appealing. I think I may take a pass on it. My mom lent me a book called Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay and I was hoping to read that next. But I haven’t given much time to reading at all lately. I did decide to re-read Todd Cartmell’s book Respectful Kids during the month of June, and then another parenting book during July. I am excited about Respectful Kids and starting to implement some of the practical training tools. Bauer has responded quite well so far. It is so cool when you realize you can train your kids to make good choices (such as fast listening, flexible thinking, or even sitting still in the chiropractor’s waiting room) if you take the time to be intentional and to set out your expectations for them before you are in the upcoming situation. That’s something I learned from Dani Johnson’s book Grooming the Next Generation for Success. That might be my July re-read. Or the book by John Gottman called Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. I figure I have found these few books that are full of wisdom and rather than keep trying to read new books on parenting, I should just re-read these few good ones and put them into practice, so help me God.

In no particular order, thank you to my friends Maggie, Lindsey, and Beth for the questions you asked and the blog material you provided.

These are some pictures from almost two weeks ago. TJ and Bauer built a snowman after lunch on a Saturday. Bauer finally got to use the snowman accessories that Gigi gave him for Christmas.

Our snowman is still standing, even though it’s 47 degrees out today. All of the accessories had fallen off, save the hat, but Bauer remedied that today when he came from from Parents Day Out.

Now on to other truly random stuff from lately….

I finished copying down all the parts of Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that I had underlined. Now TJ says he wants to read the book again. It’s that good.

My first attempt at homemade bread was less than stellar. I made the “Almost No-Work Whole Grain Bread” from Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters. It truly was almost no work, but I think I shouldn’t have added quinoa to the dough. It just made the bread a little too crunchy. Also I should have oiled the loaf pan even more; I thought I was using plenty of oil, but half of the bottom crust stayed in the pan when I turned the loaf out. Rather than use the bread for sandwiches as I had hoped, we’ll probably have it on the side with our dinner tonight. I will try again soon.

TJ and I celebrated his birthday recently with a trip to downtown Chicago. We left our kids with some good friends and made the long trek on a Friday evening to our favorite restaurant in these parts. Bandera! We got our usual fare of house veggie burgers and TJ used his iPhone to take pictures of our meals.

TJ got his burger with mashed potatoes.

And I had the amazing peanut coleslaw.

After dinner, we went shopping at The North Face Store on Michigan Avenue, so that TJ could pick out and purchase a winter jacket. I had secretly emailed some of our family members, asking if anyone who was planning to give TJ money for his birthday would be willing to give toward the purchase of the jacket. I heard back from several people and was able to surprise TJ over dinner by telling him we could go buy a jacket for him. It was fun going into the store that night, knowing we were there to buy. TJ found just what he was looking for but I have no picture to show you. Later that night, we watched the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which I had rented from the library for $1 and which after seeing the movie, I would paid $20 for a story that good. It was nice having a night without the kids, but knowing they were in such good hands with our friends. Bauer was asking this morning (a week later) when he can go back to their house. The reason he was asking is because we were having waffles for breakfast and Bauer loves the Aunt Jemima syrup that he got to have at Branton’s house.

I got an iPhone yesterday. That’s pretty exciting. I am liking plenty about it, but haven’t yet figured out to use it with one hand like I could with my other phone. The church where TJ works recently switched cell phone providers and when AT&T was decided upon, the iPhone for TJ was also decided upon. I’m an add-on to TJ’s plan so I  could have gotten the iPhone too. But I decided to go with the Samsung Magnet because it was cheaper and I didn’t really think I needed all the extra capabilities, but after a month of TJ seeing me text on that little thing, he decided enough was enough. He really wanted me to enjoy the greatness of the freakin-awesome iPhone, as he would say, and now I thank him for it. So that’s that.

I got some godly sorrow this week too. It was good how God led me to that through a number of things all on the same day. I have been reading a book called Grooming the Next Generation for Success. I have some mixed feelings about the book so far, but I have definitely been convicted to be more intentional about what we are or are not doing as we train Bauer and Cash for the future. Then there was a phone call I had with my friend Jaime about some of our children’s behavior recently, coupled with a long email I received from my friend Gretchen about things they are doing to groom their children for success, that made me realize how short I have fallen from being the kind of parent God wants me to be and that I know I want to be. I found myself that day and night telling God how sorry I was for not being better, but there was also a lot of hope in my prayer, knowing that God is going to help me remember and help me change. I have noticed a difference in myself in the past two days in the way I interact with Bauer on the little things and I am truly grateful for God being at work in my life.

I am also kinda grateful the Olympics are over. We enjoyed them, don’t get me wrong. We had the TV on probably every night but two. But the Olympics were totally cramping my style with Arts Hour. I couldn’t focus on reading when we had the excitement of the Olympics to watch all the time. But now that it’s over, I want to get back to some good old-fashioned reading. Anybody wanna recommend a great story?

Last but not least, it seems to me that MealBaby is picking up some momentum. We have a new developer and are in the process of making some updates and changes to the site. Please recommend the site to anyone you know who needs meals delivered. We might even see about getting a MealBaby app for the iPhone. How cool would that be?

I loved these lines from La’s Orchestra Saves the World (by Alexander McCall Smith, which don’t we all know that by now?):

He looked out of the restaurant, at the passers-by in the street outside. Some of them looked worn-out, ground down by what he called general conditions. “General conditions are so…” he said.

Okay, so you wanna see something scary?

This is me first thing in the morning with a bunch of cold sores (yes, plural!) on my lips. I haven’t ever had this many cold sores at once. I think it must have something to do with my exposure to the chicken pox because I read online and have heard from two people that they are both in the herpes family. Anyway, I hope there is a good explanation for all this discomfort.

I posted a new recipe on the blog today, so after you read this, you can read that! I felt like I hadn’t put up any recipes in so long, and the one I put up isn’t even really a new one, just a variation on an old one.

I spent a good while today writing in my journal while the kids did not nap but were supposed to be. I wrote about my day with Bauer up to that point, and it was therapeutic though difficult to reflect on some goings-on. I am going to type out the 5 pages from my journal in a minute, but I just want to preface by saying I know it seems I only write serious stuff on here when things go sour but I guess those are the times I need to write more and that I need to be known in all my messed-up-ness.

I do have good moments with Bauer, some that I have written about, like doing the fun art projects we did a lot around Christmastime. And some that I haven’t write about, like yesterday when I was so hungry that I could hear my stomach growling but instead of rushing out of Bauer’s room the minute I got him settled for his nap so that I could go eat lunch, I decided to go back to him as I was walking away. I asked him if he wanted me to sing him his favorite song, which is a hymn called “The Love of God” that I learned because I always used to ask TJ to sing it to me, and now it’s mine and Bauer’s special song. I knew Bauer wasn’t feeling that well yesterday and that it would probably be comforting to him to have me lay down beside him and sing to him for a few minutes before going out of his room. So I did that, and it was good and then he was able to go to sleep, stuffy nose and all.

I even have good moments on the same days with the bad moments in them. So it’s not necessarily that I’m letting the bad moments define my days. I just feel like the bad moments are really good chances for me to stop (if I will take the time to stop) and think about why things are turning out the way they are and why Bauer must be feeling/acting the way he is and why I am feeling/acting the way I am. I feel like God is letting me use writing to figure myself out more, which gives me good reason and inner strength to hope for more from myself. I am happy to be living, I am happy to be changing, and even when I’m sad, I’m happy. Life is weird like that. But it’s the best thing ever.

Here’s what I wrote today. It is long.

“I worry about the message I’m sending to Bauer on a daily basis with my responses to things he does. This morning we were practicing some of his ABC Bible verses at breakfast and he was having quite a bit of trouble remembering what we call the “end parts” (Scripture references) to verses he used to know without a glitch. I kept having him repeat things and try again, and there were moments I could tell he was frustrated. I was getting frustrated too, and I could feel it coming out. It was like I wanted to make him feel bad for not doing better, which I think would be a good definition for shame. I was circling the letters of the verses I felt he needed more practice on, and I told him at lunch we would just work on one of those letters, the B verse. I quickly ended our practicing with the words We’re not going to do the last two verses because you don’t know those, even though I knew he knew the verses, just not the end parts.

Fast forward to lunch: Though I so didn’t want to, I reminded Bauer that we needed to work on the B verse. His memory seemed to be working much better because after just a few minutes of practice he had it down pat and wanted to go on to the C verse, then D, and even E. I wasn’t pushing him at this point to do more, but I think he could see how happy it was making me as he got them right and was relishing the praise I was giving, so he just wanted to keep that up. The whole time both the breakfast and the lunch scenarios were taking place, I was thinking this isn’t a picture of God’s love. God isn’t quick to frustration and definitely doesn’t try to shame us into doing better. I hate for Bauer to think my love for him, my excitement over him, my praise for the things he does, are so conditional.

Last night on American Idol, they showed the story of a girl with amazing talent who grew up in a strict religious home where she wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music. I wasn’t as worried about that as the fact that not only were her parents not there to support her and see her succeed (or be there for her should she fall) but that when she called her dad after making it to the next round, she asked her dad “Are you proud of me?” The fact that she felt she had to ask that made me think she didn’t grow up feeling unconditional love and acceptance. And I don’t think Bauer is getting that vibe from me either a lot of times. It’s like I have these standards I hold myself and others to, and how in the world do I stop the madness?

What else is mad is how I know I’ve hindered Bauer’s creativity in the past, but I had a moment of enlightenment on that yesterday and vowed to change. In the book I’m reading (see Books page), Madeleine L’Engle quotes Finley Eversole as saying,

In our society, at the age of five, 90 percent of the population measures “high creativity.” By the age of seven, the figure has dropped to 10 percent. And the percentage of adults with high creativity is only two percent! Our creativity is destroyed not through the use of outside force, but through criticism, innuendo…

I had to read that to TJ last night and tell him that it made me think of all the times Bauer wants to build a “house” or a “stage” (the latest development in his building career) out of all kinds of toys, books, and other stuff from around the house, and I barely let him before I’m all over him about cleaning this up and saying stuff like don’t ever dump all the library books in the corner behind this chair again. I realized the error of my ways not only by reading this quote but also when Bauer and Cash were having a scuffle of some sort yesterday morning while I was in the bathroom drying my hair. I came out to see what was wrong, why Cash was upset, and it turns out Bauer was upset that Cash wanted to dump all the blocks out of their bin because Bauer didn’t want to have to clean them up. Or was it because he didn’t want to hear me telling him to clean up this mess?

Why does God give us the power to create (as in, give our children life) and to keep creating (as in, teach them how to live) when we fail so miserably at times? It’s like our kids come from him all innocent and untouched and built up in their souls inside for having just been knit together by God, and then they are given to us human parents who barely know how to love ourselves, much less someone else who requires so much tending to and engaging with. And over time, we break them down little by little, we reduce their capability for high creativity by imposing our fastidious state of mind over everything they touch, we focus more on externals for eliciting praise, and we do our God a huge disservice by not letting go and learning from our children.

My friend Lisa recently told me that each morning at the start of the day, she reminds her 4-year old daughter what each of their jobs are. She says it’s her (the mommy’s) job to take care of her two girls, to love and protect them. And it’s her daughter’s job to listen and obey, to play and have fun. I loved that idea when she shared it with me and have been thinking lately of how to make it my own based on what God is telling me my job is. I like the idea of Bauer’s job being to listen and obey, to play and have fun. You can’t help but smile when you say the have fun part together. I think my job description for now could go something like this.

Bauer, my job is to take care of you and Cash,
To love you boys and to learn from you,
To read to you and to teach you about God.

Our small group was cancelled this past Tuesday night but TJ and I kept our babysitter anyway. We decided we needed the break from the kids together, and Bauer seemed to need a break from us too. You should have seen what a good mood he woke up in the next morning!

TJ and I decided to do some errands in the couple hours we had to ourselves. First TJ had a return at Menard’s, where I sat in the car and read the book I was about to return to Borders.

Borders was third, so I’m going a little out of order. I had received two copies of the Elizabeth Berg book Home Safe for my birthday, one from Dena and one from Meghan. I got Dena’s first, and Meghan had included a gift receipt with hers, so it worked out perfectly for me to go there to return it and look for something else. I was wanting to get Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s new 2-book set called Eat for Health, but unfortunately the store didn’t have it in stock. I had a 30% off coupon to use too. Oh well. It ended up that I placed my order on Borders.com and found a 10% off online coupon to use and only had to pay just over a buck. Thanks, in a roundabout way, to Meghan.

TJ and I did get to enjoy browsing through a few other books at Borders, though. TJ looked at Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, and I looked at a book on eating more mindfully and another book on fasting for health. The Food Matters tidbits that TJ read sparked some good conversation for us on our ride home and for like an hour after we got home. That was the best part of the evening, talking about things like why eating healthy shouldn’t be just about us and the health of our own bodies but for the good of the world (like if we don’t eat as much meat, more crops can be grown on that land that will go further to feed more people, which I know it’s not quite that simple, but that was one of the premises Bittman was making).

Before Borders, we went to DSW to look for some new shoes for TJ. I’ve also been thinking of getting some new shoes ever since the spring, but haven’t really been motivated to go shoe-hunting or to spend the extra money. I thought I didn’t want to wear my black Privos all summer, but now I sort of like the black look with shorts.

At the shoestore, I realized how much I like the feeling of putting my old shoes back on after trying on new ones. Even if I like the look and feel of the new ones, they are not my old ones that feel so familiar and friendly to my feet. I could feel fancy and prancy, or fuddy and duddy, in whatever new pair I happened to pick, but the second I put my old black worn-out Privos back on, I am myself again. I just slip ‘em back on and off we go. Not a second thought, unlike when you’re wearing new shoes and you keep wondering how they look and you’re checking out to yourself how they feel, like Did I buy the right size? I hope I bought the right size. Is the lace on the right foot too tight? Am I getting a blister? I better not be getting a blister, these shoes cost me an arm and a leg and I sure don’t think I was paying for a blister too.

Well, taking the shoe thing a bit further, what occurred to me next is that I want my relationship with Bauer to be like my old shoes. I want it to fit the way old shoes do, like where I’m not always having to think so hard about being a nice, kind, patient mommy, but where niceness, kindness, and patience come naturally based on the relationship I have with Bauer, which is pretty much not in the same ballpark as me trying to control Bauer all the time. I find it hard on a regular basis to be the emotion coach for Bauer that he needs me to be, but I also find that I’m noticing the error of my ways a lot more quickly and I’m wanting to change a lot more badly than I used to. God keeps giving me lots of second chances, which helps too.

The new shoes in my life can be something else, like, I don’t know, cleaning the bathroom more than once a month, or making our bed everyday. If I did either of those, it would feel a bit strange and unfamiliar like new shoes might feel. But then I’d get used to those and I’m sure I’d find another pair of new shoes as I seem to be always working on some kind of self-improvement or another. (I’m not really planning to clean the bathroom or make our bed any more regularly at the moment, though.)

Or at the least, the new shoes can be those occasional moments when I lose my temper or blow a fuse or whatever anger-management term you want to give what is probably better defined as trying to do too many things at once instead of letting the little person who is my son have a well-deserved right to my time. Those moments of meanness could be the new shoes that just don’t feel right. And the old shoes that I quick go back to and feel most like myself in and can go for miles and miles in without a second thought or a blister will be the gift God gives me of relating to my son well and for keeps.

P.S. TJ got shoes. I didn’t.