Tag: communication

Mom’s The Word…

I have always prided myself on being a good mother. And by good mother I mean patient, kind, interested, nurturing, strong, forgiving and so on and so on. I may not always be firing on all cylinders at all times, but I hold up my end of the bargain pretty well. And then there was Carter…My surprise baby. #4!  The one I never saw coming and who could not have shown up at a more complicated time in my life.  We thought we were done having babies. Having had three boys, I had settled into the fact that I wouldn’t ever have the good fortune of having a daughter. I embraced that I have two God daughters and looked forward to granddaughters, and daughter in-laws etc.

We found out that we were have a Baby Girl and as if the shock of the pregnancy wasn’t enough, it was no easy ride either putting me in the hospital for a month and delivering weeks early. But… that is a post for another day. We made it through and I tried and still try hard to keep my head above water. I have felt defeated by life before, but I never felt more defeated as a Mom until we had number 4. I shared the post below with a Mom’s group that I belong to and I found the response to be overwhelming and supportive.

I also found that Social Media is really good at showing us the highlight reel of peoples lives. And why wouldn’t it be? No one wants their failures to play out publicly. So we only upload pictures and tell the stories that portray beauty and glee. I know there is a place for that too. But there is also a great place for truth and vulnerability. I promise to give that to you here. We don’t need anymore models to look at and wish we could be that pretty, or that skinny any more than we need pretend model families portraying only the perfect house with the white picket fence, the 2.5 kids and the family dog.

I love those photos too, but it is my job as the spectator to not get sucked into imagery so much that I discount my own life. Its my job to take that fake family’s photo out of the new picture frame I just bought, and replace it with memories of my own. That is your job too. So I found by sharing my frustrations and weaknesses I opened the door to greater connections with people who just needed me to say it first. I hope that more people will share the famous moments that has helped to make the thread of their families so strong, not because it has never been dirtied, but because it has managed to stay in tact even after several washes.

Capture

Viewer Discretion is Advised…

At the risk of offending some,  I am going to address what is going on in the world between the police and African-American men. I was very hesitant to do so because honestly, there is enough bad news going around on the television and social media, who needs my two cents? But the weight of this issue has tripled and so I want to dedicate a post to all those who have fallen.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, in the least! In fact…those people actually annoy me. I remember growing up listening to my Dad conjure up his Pelican Briefs. Pelican Briefs being what I called every conspiracy that he spoke out loud. If the phone clicked in his ear while he was in the midst of a conversation… that meant the FBI had been listening in. If the Lakers got too many bad calls on them in a row… then the refs were working with the other team. And if a plane went down for any reason at all…Well… that was the CIA of course. I used to laugh and shake my head at him for believing that everything was so calculated. Things have gotten a lot less funny as I have gotten older.

When my father dedicated his life to Christ, there were still conspiracies, but now the enemy was the devil. “The devil don’t sleep!” he’d say “So you better say your prayers.” I think back on that fondly now, and if he was still here today prayers would be plentiful and he would have a whole brief about the way things have been going down for decades, but most blatantly since Trayvon Martin was slain. 

Since then there appears to be a wave of bodacious violent behavior against Black men. George Zimmerman, claimed to be a concerned citizen, which in my opinion was a very sheer cover up to the evil heart behind his actions. But these officers of the law, who are sworn to protect and serve, are supposed to know better. Who are you protecting and serving by executing a man for a fix-it ticket violation? Who are you protecting or serving by choking a man out on the street who is in distress and telling you that he can not breathe? And who do we protect and serve by shooting down an unarmed boy who stole a pack of cigarillos?  How is society made better by sending the message to a culture of people that their lives have no value? To me this does not seem like an  epidemic…its a pandemic. Its not episodic…and it is being further perpetuated by failure of consequences and the message is LOUD. If we treat them like animals, we can provoke them to respond like one.

These are not coincidences. These feel like plotted attacks against a people…my people. And while I stay away from the TV and the news feeds my heart is very heavy. My heart is heavy for the mothers, wives, sisters and brothers, children and loved ones of these victims. My heart is heavy for a generation of young black children and adolescents who can be here today and gone tomorrow because of the color of their skin and a black hoodie. My heart is heavy and my breathing labored as I raise not one, not two, but THREE sons in a time where there is a debate between #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter…how about LIFE matters…Because it does, no matter the color, but one color is currently under attack.

To handicap a people in society by killing their men publicly and ferociously and then giving their murderers administrative leave to investigate when there is VIDEO and AUDIO footage is also so very LOUD. It not only compromises the lives of civilians, but also the faithful and just law enforcers who share a badge, but not a prejudice. The tension this evokes is terminal and intentional in my opinion. I see these cops who are taking these charges as I see the suicide bombers of terrorism groups. This is a movement and it can not be ignored. The alarm needs to be rang, the security rating needs to move to RED, and killing needs to end. I am praying for my people, I am praying for people who truly protect and serve EVERYONE, I am praying for my SONS, and I am praying for this nation. Thanks for reading.

This is gonna hurt me, More than its gonna hurt you…

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that one as a kid.  As a child my Mom and Dad would pull out this line like a belt and use it as the preface to my many dreaded punishments. I NEVER believed them when they said “This gonna hurt me, MORE than its gonna hurt you!” How is that even possible? I come from a childhood of spankings instead of timeouts, chores instead of “Think about what you have done”, and writing standards (who remembers those??) instead of having a repetitive conversation.So tell me…How exactly is this hurting you Mom????

Well then I grew up…. and had 4 kids of my own… Wanna know the first time I actually understood this statement? It was when I took my first born to get his shots. He was the most adorable, happy, drooling and gurgling baby boy and then… BAM! His little chubby legs, that he hadn’t fully gained control of yet, were assaulted with vaccinations that he never saw coming. The look of horror that hit his face after that first stick was heartbreaking! And while I comforted him and rocked him, apologizing profusely for my part in this betrayal, I found myself explaining that this was painful for me too!

Did I just do that? Did I just tell this screaming baby that I was in pain too?  I flashed back to every time my parents said that to me.  And FINALLY…I got it. The pain associated with seeing your child in pain was…is…Palpable.

Four kids later and these shots never get easier for me. I took my 4 month old to the doctor just the other day and while we played and celebrated her growth milestones, I was so deeply saddened knowing that she too was about to feel the sting of betrayal. I whispered in her ears, “Mommy is so sorry. I am only doing this because I love you.” As the nurses came into the room, tears filled my eyes as my baby girl smiled up at me with this trusting gaze. It wasn’t long before we were both crying and the nurses gave us the room to recover. I rocked and sang her songs that I had just made up about a Mommy’s Love and before long she had drifted off.

We made it to the car without disturbing her slumber and I had to sit there for a moment and gather myself. How does this never get easier? What was I in for as they got older? A Mom of 3 boys there have been cavities, scrapped knees, head stitches (numerous),  even sedated MRI’s etc…I had endured it. All under my belt.

But what about the heartbreak? How did my mother handle it the first time I cried about kids being mean to me, or a boy I liked that didn’t like me back? How did my Dad watch me cry about things in life he knew I would just have to go thru, things he couldn’t control? Things he could not fix, things I would just had to feel.

I knew I was getting ahead of myself as I pictured my oldest bringing home a girl to meet me for the first time and I felt my lip lift in a growl. (The Momma Bear in me severely protective.) I don’t even remember driving home, but by the time I got there you would have thought I had run a marathon. I was so emotionally spent. Funny how your mind can get away from you and take your heart with it.

I know there are a lot of things to come that I can not control, and a lot of pain that I can not predict. Some of it is just mandatory growing pains. But boy oh boy do I dread it! I dread the days when my kids don’t want to talk to me any more or begin only telling half truths.

When they think I’m just too old to understand and start to rely on their friends for guidance. I even dread the “I Told You So’s” That are sure to come that I will want to do anything but celebrate.

But… I will always been there every step of the way. No matter what. Likely drinking coffee for the late nights and wine for the long days. Sometimes it does feel like this is gonna hurt me more, than its gonna hurt them. God help us all. Cheers!

You are So Spoiled!

So the other day my husband and I were talking to our oldest son about wants versus needs. For example, Mommy needs van (but wasn’t quite ready to be that girl) so we bought the SUV that Mommy wanted instead. Which is why you and your brothers are climbing all over my seats with your dirty sneakers and having to exit haphazardly out of the back gate. Anyway, this conversation was prompted after receiving a more than stellar report card in the mail. We have a point system where you accrue a number of points due to academic excellence, and you can choose different levels of rewards based on how many points you have to spend. Well, it just so happened that his iPad had crashed. It is dead. It has raised the white flag. Dead on Arrival!

Now as a parent, I am not really ready to replace an iPad just 3 months before his birthday, but… as a parent whose kids are all out of school for the summer, there needed to be some room for compromise here. He would need an iPad regardless when school started back, but should we wait and endure a summer full of road trips without him having one? I am pretty confident the answer to that question is Hell no!

Anyway, we told him that he should really give up all his points that he had earned (which were not nearly enough for this recommendation by the way) and put them towards getting a new iPad. You would have thought we told him his dog had died the way his eyes welled up with tears. The horror of having to choose between a new game for his PlayStation or a new iPad. This is what we would call a no-brainer! *Please keep in mind that I am über aware that these are first world problems.*

Needless to say when his eyes filled with tears his father and I looked at each other and both said “Are you kidding me? You are so spoiled!”   He continued to mope and his dad pulled out this wheel of words that help to describe emotion. He asked him to describe what he was feeling. The way it works is one word leads to a group of other words and so on and so forth and by the end of it we had

Sad->Ashamed->Remorseful.

The word that struck a cord with us  was “Ashamed”. We asked, “Buddy what on earth do you have to be ashamed about?” His reply was because he was spoiled. At which point we began to explain that was more our fault than any fault of his own. So then I thought to ask him… what did he think the definition of spoiled was? His definition, and I quote was, “When something has gone bad!”  Well you can just about imagine that was like taking a bullet to the heart!

He explained that it was like when you leave milk out and it spoils. I can not tell you how hard that was to swallow and how grateful I am that I thought to ask! If my husband had never pulled out that wheel of words we would have never gotten to the core of what he was really feeling and why? We use phrases so flippantly, expecting our children to be able to process and understand exactly in which context we mean it, and they don’t. And I don’t think we can expect them too. As adults we misinterpret each other all the time, so just imagine the mind of a child trying to process it all and still have a good sense of self.

I am not sharing this to be all preachy, but to spark a gentle awareness of how we communicate with our children and each other for that matter. Once we explained to him what our true intention was behind that statement, that it was more about a lack of value for things instead a lack of value in the person, he had a sense of relief and understanding. And while he walked away feeling relieved, I on the other hand, felt weighed down just thinking about how many other times that I may not have thought to ask what HE was hearing when I said things. I know I can’t go back and fix all those moments, but I can move forward with intention and so can you if this applies. Magical Epiphany Number one! That was a conversation that ended Wine and not coffee! Have a great day!