Journal Gems

In my last post, I introduced you to the journal I’ve been keeping since my children were quite young. Today I want to share some of the shiniest gems in there.

Luke (age 3) decided that he didn’t want to go to preschool one particular day.

“How about if I go to your preschool today and you go to my office?” asked his dad.

“OK,” Luke replied. Then he thought about it for a minute and added, “I can’t. I don’t know how to drive.”

Yup, that’s the only problem with that plan.

Here’s a perfect example of how children see everything literally. Taking a walk around the neighborhood after dinner one night, Luke (5) was pulling Jake (3) in a Radio Flyer wagon. He was moving a bit too slowly for Dad’s liking.

“Pick up the pace, Luke,” said Dad.

“What’s a pace?” asked Jake quizzically. Looking over the sides of the wagon onto the ground, he asserted, “I don’t see any pace. Where is the pace?”

Jake (4) slept in his clothes one night because he fell asleep during an early-evening time-out. The next morning, I told him to put on clean clothes.

“I’m tired of looking at you in those grungy clothes,” I explained.

“Then stop looking at me!” he retorted.

Jake (4) was singing the alphabet song one day and somehow convinced himself that O had managed to secede from the long-standing union of letters. Wanting to impart this newfound wisdom, he asked, “Mommy, did you know that O is not in the alphabet?”

Jake (5) asked me one night, “Mom, did you know that everything in the world is made of atoms? Not my friend Adam. A different atom.”

One night during dinner, I asked Jake (6) if he liked his art teacher.

“I like my teacher, but I don’t like doing bossy art,” he replied.

“What’s ‘bossy art’?”

“It’s art you have to do because the teacher tells you to. That’s what I call it.”

While Luke (8) and Jake (6) were playing Hangman, Jake said, “Let’s do an eight-letter word.” After a few seconds, he added, “Actually, I don’t know any eight-letter words.”

One day, Jake (age 8) and I sat waiting for a swing bridge to open and close to allow a boat to pass below. I told him I thought it was ingenious for someone to design a bridge that’s connected to a permanent road and that can also pivot.

“You know who I think is a genius, Mom?” Jake asked.

“Who?”

“The guy who invented donuts!”

 

Luke (11) and Jake (9) were roughhousing at bedtime.

“Is anyone going to bed tonight?” I asked, exasperated.

“That’s so last night!” Jake exclaimed.

My neighbor had given me a book called Three Steps to a Strong Family. Luke (11) noticed the title and remarked, “You’re going to need a lot more steps.”

One day, while picking strawberries at a pick-your-own farm, Jake (11) noted all of the squashed berries on the ground and wailed, “Oh, the straw-manity!”

In the checkout at Walmart one evening, I pulled the cap off a deodorant stick that Luke (16) was buying so I could smell it. When I replaced the cap, it pinched my finger.

“That’s dangerous,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s right up there with bears and alligators on the danger scale,” Luke quipped.

After peering intently into the side-view mirror outside his passenger seat window in the car one day, Luke (16) exclaimed, “Hey, I am closer than I appear!”

One evening, I received an email from my sons’ high school about the early-release schedule the following day. A few minutes later, I received a recorded phone call reiterating the same information.

“I already got the email about this. Why are you calling me too?” I asked my phone in exasperation.

“Where’s the carrier pigeon?” Luke (17) said nonchalantly.

Finally, while Jake (15) and I were shopping for school supplies at Walmart recently, I spotted a pencil holder that looked just like a miniature recycling bin. It even had a working lid and tiny wheels. I oohed and aahed over it for a few minutes, rolling it along the shelf and gushing about how adorable it was.

“You’re such a goober, Mom,” Jake remarked.

“I know,” I agreed.

“But you’re the good kind of goober,” he added.

Aww.

 

 

 

The Journal

Hypothetical question of the day: Suppose your house was on fire and you had time to save only one thing. What would it be? (Assume your family and other assorted pets are already safe and secure outside the raging inferno.) For some reason, I’ve thought about this many times. And I know exactly what I would risk life and limb to retrieve: an irreplaceable journal in which I’ve written the funniest, most adorable things my children have said and done since they could, well, say and do things.

If you’re in the season of parenting young children, I urge you to write everything down. Make time for it. It takes just a few minutes now and then. You will forget all the things you swore you’d remember, because there’s too much to remember and your brain-on-small-children is operating—just barely—on things like drool, stains that will never come out in the wash, and sleep deprivation that could pass for torture.

Your journal doesn’t have to be perfect or pretty. Mine is page after page of scribbling, crossed-out words, and commentary added after the fact. It’s literally coming apart at the seams and has stray bits of paper falling out at the corners. I tell myself that someday I’m going to type all of those handwritten notes into a tidy Word document. Yup. Someday.

I’m so grateful that I have this precious journal. Every so often, I reread the entire thing. The best part is that my poor, fried brain still recalls the details of each situation: the sparkle in my boys’ eyes when they smiled, the sound of their tiny voices, the look of surprise when they encountered something new and fascinating.

When your children are no longer babies or toddlers, and you’re feeling overwhelmed by bigger kids with bigger problems, you’ll thank your younger-mom self for recording the slices of sweet memories that still have the power to make you feel blessed to be someone’s mom.

Teen Speak

Most teenagers spend an alarming amount of time on social media. And most parents of teenagers know that the sly little devils have a language all their own, which consists mostly of acronyms used to camouflage the true meaning of their conversations should a wary parent stumble across something no parent is meant to see. Case in point: “PIR” means “parent in room,” and “MPTIABIROWMBRN” translates to “My parents think I’m asleep but I’m really out with my boyfriend right now.” (Not really. I made that one up.)

Even when your teens are speaking directly to you—meaning you can see their lips moving and you hear what could be described as actual words emerging from those lips—they’re still using code. Let me help you, hapless parents, decode this insidious foreign language so you’ll be only eight steps behind them instead of the usual eight bazillion.

Uttered: “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

Translation: “Even though it’s only 7:30 p.m. and it’s still light outside, I’m going into my room to lie in my warm, cozy bed to Skype, Facetime, IM, text, tweet, and/or maybe even actually talk on my phone to all of the friends I just spent all day with at school and will see as soon as I get there tomorrow morning.”

Uttered: “Is it OK if I’m home by 10 p.m.?

Translation: “At 9:45, I’ll text you and ask if I can be home by 10:15. Then I’ll text again at 10:00 and ask if you’ll extend my curfew to 10:30. At precisely 10:43 p.m., I’ll careen into the driveway on two tires and waltz through the front door as if I’ve arrived home at exactly the time I said I would. When you mention that I’m actually late and should have called or texted, I’ll remind you that I’m not supposed to talk on the phone or text while I’m driving (your rule). When you say I should have called or texted before I left wherever I was to let you know I was on my way, I’ll say something completely inane such as, ‘But I knew I’d be home in, like, five minutes.’ Then—and only then—will I acknowledge that I was indeed late and mutter several words that sound remotely like an apology.”

Uttered: “I have something going on after school today.”

Translation: “Although I’m making it sound like I have something incredibly important to do this afternoon—saving someone’s life or contributing in some small way to world peace perhaps—what I’ll actually be doing is meeting my friends at Starbucks to imbibe large quantities of caffeinated beverages, take photos of one another to share instantly on Snapchat, and poke fun at old people, which is pretty much everyone except us.”

Uttered: “I’d like four pieces of bacon, six eggs, and five pieces of toast for breakfast, please.”

Translation: “Even though I look very hungry and you honestly believe I’m going to eat all of the food I’ve asked you to prepare for me, here’s what’s really going to happen. First, I’m going to eat the bacon because, well, it’s bacon. Then I’ll inhale the eggs as if I haven’t eaten in seven years instead of the seven hours while I slept last night. About one-fifth of my way through the toast, I’ll sit back in my chair, feeling very full and distressed from eating too much too fast, and declare that I can’t even look at any more food (at least until lunchtime). I will note that your face sports a decidedly disdainful look as you flush untouched toast down the garbage disposal.”

Uttered: “I’ll tell you about that later.”

Translation: “I’m close to 100 percent certain that with all of the forces fighting against your memory—your rapidly advancing age, innumerable job responsibilities, and extensive grocery shopping lists, not to mention all of the inconsequential minutiae I expect you to remember for me on any given day—you will forget within the next three seconds what you just asked me to explain to you and I’ll never have to ‘tell you about that later.’”

Better Late Than, You Know, Never

By some standards, I arrived at the motherhood party rather late. My first son was born when I was 35; my second, exactly 2 years and 18 days later. I’m now 52. Most women my age have grown children and an empty nest. I have teenagers.

There’s a reason God didn’t bless me with children in my 20s. Back then, I didn’t know who I was, but I do know what I was: selfish, impatient, and angry. With age comes wisdom, maturity, enlightenment, grace, and forgiveness—all things you need a lot of when you’re raising little people to become responsible, caring adults in a broken world.

It’s never too late to be what you might have been. —George Eliot

Come to think of it, my entire life has been a series of dreams delayed. After wasting the first decade after my college graduation at dead-end jobs—as a technical editor at a couple of government contractors—I landed my dream job as an editorial assistant at a book publisher when I was 32. This was the job that tapped into everything I loved to do: edit, proofread, and organize. I even went to the office on weekends to organize and label files! And the best part was that no two days were alike. I never got bored.

I got to work with talented, professional authors, artists, photographers, designers, and fellow editors, some of whom have remained friends and colleagues throughout the years. For me, it wasn’t about collecting connections that could forward my career in the future. It was about forging connections on a deeper level with people who invested their time and best work to make the dream of a book a reality. The sense of accomplishment and pride I felt from transforming a rough manuscript into a beautiful, bound finished product was priceless.

Fast-forward to age 46. After suffering through an acrimonious divorce and the pain and loneliness of being separated from my children, I accepted a friend’s invitation to attend her church. Until then, I had been a lifelong Catholic and never imagined I’d be anything else. But I stepped out in faith, and it changed everything. I was truly born again and began the exhilarating transformation that draws me closer to God day by precious day. Like the apostle Paul, I’m a true convert. I used to think born-again Christians were the loopiest people on the planet. Now I know what the hubbub is about.

Fast-forward again to right now. I thought my best skill was polishing other people’s words. But I’m being called to write. Among the countless gifts God has given me, He has endowed me with ideas, creativity, a deep love for the English language, and a voice. I don’t know where my calling will lead me, but I’m looking forward to the journey.

It doesn’t matter if you arrive at a party long after the other guests have left. Your own timing for your life is often irrelevant. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find that, more often than not, you’re in the right place at the right time, and everything falls into place. Call it serendipity. Call it fate. Call it the gracious hand of God. (I do.) We usually find exactly what we’re looking for when we stop looking.

Better late than never. —Mom