Love you Forever....Like you sometimes

I love love love my children. I can't imagine my life without them in it. I would give my life in a heartbeat for them. Well, if you ignore the time that we were at my oldest son's little league game and a baseball came flying over the fence towards the bleachers where we were all sitting. Instinctively, I raised my hands to cover my head while leaving my other three children exposed. But in my defense, they are young. Their teeth would have grown back.

Anyway, when I started this journey of parenthood, I never realized that even though I would always love my kids, I wouldn't necessarily always like them. I feel this battle most strongly with my youngest. On her good days, she is feisty, spirited, opinionated, and full of life. On her bad days, she is bossy, stubborn, unyielding, and full of fight. As much as I would like to say she gets it from my husband, I know it's me packaged in a little four year old's body. It's me unredeemed, unchanneled, untrained. She'll get there, but in the interim, we don't always get along.

I have to remind myself constantly that one day, she and I will get along famously. Most of my friends are feisty, spirited, opinionated, and full of life. Channeled in the right direction, these are the people who get things done, influence people, and change the world. It just kind of stinks to be the mom of one right now.

Yesterday was one of those moments. We left noodle night at our pool and she decided that it was unacceptable that her brothers dared to get in the car before her. She became inconsolable, screaming bloody murder on the car ride home. She pushed and provoked her brothers, trying to get them to lose their cool. She refused to put her pajamas on, which resulted in me running around the house after a naked little girl. She fought an epic battle until she was tucked in bed, at which point she sweetly looked up and said, "I love you forever mommy." I have whiplash keeping up with her moods.

I love love love my children. I may not always like them, or the choices they make, but I am committed to helping them become the best version of themselves. Training begins anew today.

Watch out, one day she's going to change the world.

Uprooting

We did some de-cluttering of our landscaping recently, and part of it entailed uprooting this unhealthy tree. It wasn't even a very big tree, barely taller than me, which if you know me isn't very tall. But it had some deep roots, and removing it was no easy feat. Well, that's what it looked like to me anyway as I was sipping my diet coke in my air conditioned house while watching my husband shave years off of his life removing it. But I digress. My point being that uprooting is often a messy, painful, painstaking process.

Our family uprooted last summer. We had basically been in the same area for 18 years. In that time, we had laid down some deep roots, and built an amazing network of awesome friends. When we moved, that awesome network of friends suddenly became miles away.

I had to re-learn how to make friends right along with my kids. One of the downfalls of having such a great group of friends before was that I never had to "make friends" anymore. I had plenty. There wasn't an aching need to add to my friendship circle, especially as I got older. But with the move, my circle disappeared and I was pushed back out into the unknown.

But I like a challenge. And I know the value of having great friendships, so I'm willing to put in the work and patiently rebuild that network. My friendship circle that had been so tight was forced open, but as a result, I realized my heart and life had room for way more people than I realized. People I'm supposed to meet and walk through life with here. People that are going to laugh with me, teach me things, share my sorrows, maybe even share my idiotic love of reality tv. People that I would have missed out on meeting if I hadn't moved. Maybe in a few years, I'll have built another tight friendship circle. But I hope that I'll have learned to treasure those friendships without being closed to inviting new ones in. 

So to friends old and new and yet to be met, I'm looking for you! (but not in a stalker freak way....really....)

Definition of Sexy

When I was a little girl, I thought Ricky Schroeder and Ralph Macchio were sexy. My room would be splattered with posters from tiger beat with their feathered back hair, polo shirts with the collars styled up, and acid wash jeans. Oh pony boy, nothing gold can stay.

When I was in high school and college, I officially became a broadway geek and thought guys like Hugh Panaro, Michael Ball, and Adam Pascal were sexy. The way they used their voices, the way they effortlessly belted out those notes, the way they hung on to a note till just the last moment before they let their vibrato close it out....hot. Hmmmm, I guess I still think that's sexy.

But I've had 10 years to observe John as my husband, and 9 of them as a father, and he has totally altered my definition of sexy. This is sexy....

Watching him bounce and sway as he tried to put a crying baby to sleep. Then watching him knock out on the couch with sleeping baby on his chest.

Asking him to run out to target to buy diapers and having him return instead with a girly, flowery lamp for our baby girl, just because he thought she would like it (she was 3 weeks old).

Seeing him play ball with the boys after a long long long day at work.

Watching him dance with Selah because she thinks he is her prince.

Knowing he wakes up early to make the kids pancakes and sausage because they love it (by the way, I am still sleeping since I think our kids will grow up just fine eating cereal).

The way he reads stories to the kids with made up voices and accents.

How he gives his last bite of food to the kids if they ask.

Seeing how much the kids light up when he walks through the door, and seeing him light up right back.

Ralph Macchio could never hold a candle to that. Or I guess in current times, Robert Pattinson, even with all his smoldering looks and trend setting hair, could even compare in my eyes.

Kids don't think he's sexy, but they do agree he's pretty awesome.

I like Gabriel's card the best. That is Daddy laying out as the 3 boys are floating away on shark infested waters. Maybe Daddy can't see them floating away since he has no eyes.

Props to all the dads out there, especially ours!

Death of the Home Party

Considering how big and sweaty and testosterone-filled Nathanael and his friends are getting, I decided to do my first non-home birthday party. At first, I had that guilt that I wasn't being all martha stewart like. Then I had guilt over all the money we would spend renting out a place.

But then we had the party and I have seen the light.

Nathanael wanted his party at an indoor sports place so he and his friends could do what they do best.....run, sweat, kick, sweat, throw, sweat, catch, sweat....

They played soccer, wiffle ball, and old school dodge ball. But the highlight of the party was the kids versus grown ups game. John definitely enjoyed re-living his childhood. It was a pretty awesome match. Kids prevailed.

But my personal highlight of the party....watching them eat snacks and pizza and drinks and cupcakes and not having to lift a finger. See that girl in the red shirt. Let's just say she earned her tip and then some.

As is our family tradition, we asked for guests to bring a small donation rather than a present for Nathanael to give to the charity of his choice. This year, he chose Food Fight (foodfightforhunger.com), an organization started by high school students in our community to empower youth to eradicate hunger in the world. Love their initiative. Love their vision. Love the hope it gives me for the future leaders of the world. Thanks to all of Nathanael's friends who contributed. We were able to raise $190!

Mama Bear Unleashed

I may be small, but when you trigger my mama bear instincts, I will attack.

At the pool today, that mama bear was unleashed. My number two had just discovered the joy of diving off the boards. I was enjoying watching him jump and run back in line over and over again. As I was watching him, I noticed that these older boys behind him in line were saying something to him. He turned away from them, but they kept tapping him on the shoulder and saying something again and laughing. Being his mother, even though he was not visibly upset, I could tell he was hurt under the surface of his tough face. After he jumped, I waved him over to where I was to ask him what was going on. Before I could finish my sentence, he burst into tears and told me that those boys were making fun of him because he had a mustache.

Now, John and I have poked fun at him from the day he was born about his seeming abundance of testosterone. When I first held him, I burst out laughing because he was so hairy. He had a mustache from the womb. Look carefully at this baby picture. That is not a shadow over his mouth. That is his magnum p.i. mustache.

But the thing is, we can laugh at him. We are his family. We love him. We know him. It's said with affection. It's part of the Lee family code that we can laugh and poke fun at each other. But it's not okay when it comes from someone who does not know him and love him. They may be the same words, and the same jokes, but not said with the same intent.

Usually, I want my kids to fight their own battles. But this situation felt different. He was outnumbered by kids clearly older and bigger than him. My mama bear got unleashed. I leapt out of my chair and went straight into the middle of that diving board crowd with Simeon. I calmly, but quite firmly told those boys that it was not cool to say those kinds of things because they were hurtful, and it better not happen again. I'm not sure what my face looked like, but it obviously was scary enough that it wiped the smirks off their faces as they nodded their heads in agreement.

Looking back, maybe I overreacted. But they hurt my baby. My cute, mustached baby. And I wanted him to know that I have his back always. As we walked back from the confrontation, I felt him squeeze my hand just a bit tighter. Being his mother, I know that meant thank you. You're welcome magnum, you're welcome.

You want my body to do what?!?!?!

So I decided to take this ballet barre inspired exercise class. Now considering that I do a lot of intense cardio classes, as well as running long distances, I went in thinking this would be a nice, relaxing change for me.

Boy was I wrong. Dead wrong.

From the get go, I knew I was in trouble. The instructor had to keep coming to me and correcting my moves or posture. During some of the stretching moves, my legs were shaking so badly it looked like I was having a seizure. Every time the instructor walked near me, she would say, "If anyone needs to take a break, do so and join us a bit later." I could only assume that "anyone" meant me since no one else was having spasms. At the end, we were supposed to sit under the ballet barre with our hands on the barre and our legs pointed forward. Then she said to pull ourselves up with our arms while holding that position, and if possible, let our legs come off the floor. I thought she was giving us a visual to help us keep our posture and position. I didn't really think she wanted us to lift our legs. But as I looked around the class, I realized I was the only one with my legs on the floor. Epic fail.

I was planning on leaving that class and never ever doing it again. But then, all the speeches I gave my kids came rushing back to me (see the previous post for an example of one). I tell them all the time that it's easy to try when you have success or it comes easy. The true test of character is when it's hard and discouraging and failure abounds, but you still try. How could I continue to preach that to them when I was so quick to disregard my own advice. And I do enjoy making speeches.

So I continue to go back. Four classes in and I'm still struggling my way through it. I want to stop. My pride is hurt. But I have four little eyes watching me.

So bring it you ballet people with your gumby legs and superhuman strength. I'm coming for you.

Done well you have, young jedi

So my number two has been playing soccer for the past three years. He got to a point where we felt like he was outgrowing the recreational league. He would look on with envy at his older brother who played in a more competitive league. So when some of his close friends decided to try out for a travel soccer team, we took the plunge and decided to let him go for it as well.



As we were driving to the tryout, this was our conversation.
"I really hope I make it."
"I really hope you make it too. I know how much you want to play with your friends. But all you have to do is try your best and we'll be proud of you no matter what."
Pause.
"If I don't make it, does it mean I'm bad?"

Something about what he said and the way he said it brought a big lump to my throat. It was a stark reminder that there would be disappointments and heartaches and failures that would come into the lives of my children. To try and protect them from such things would be futile and pointless. My job was to prepare them to be able to navigate through these inevitable potholes of life, and I tried my best in that car ride to do just that. I gave an epic speech about the value of failure, the importance of building character, the lesson of perseverance, the meaning of a true champion, and the worth we find not in what we do, but in who we are in Him. If I do say so myself, it was a darn good speech. But that lump still stayed in my throat.

Being new to the travel league tryout system, I was not quite prepared for how intense the evaluation process was. The field filled up fast with kids ready to show their stuff. I won't even mention some of the parents who scared me with their sideline intensity. Warm ups, drills, foot skills, one on one scrimmages, all while multiple coaches were furiously scribbling down notes on all the kids. There were times where I thought Simeon held his own. But then there were times where I felt like he was schooled by some of the other kids. At the end, they had all the kids line up one last time as they wrote a final note on their clipboards. Their fate was sealed. They would let us know in a few days. I didn't think it was possible, but that lump actually grew bigger in my throat. 

Funny how the speech I gave to Simeon really settled inside of him, but I, the author of that speech, was now a big mama mess. As we were driving home from the tryout, this was our conversation.
"I really hope I make it."
"I hope you make it too." (big lump in my throat prevents me from speaking further)
Pause.
"It's okay if I don't make it. I can just get better for next time. I'm glad I tried."

The student had become the teacher. My wise little jedi man.

Epilogue: I had an even more epic consolation speech prepared. It will come to use another time. He made the team.