I thought I was immune

There are many parts of parenting that cannot be described to non-parents.  The highs and the lows.  Before I had children I had friends tell me how they were so sick of being touched.  I figured, as with  all parts of life, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.  I assumed this would be a strength of mine.  I crave physical contact like a gasp of fresh air.  I want to be caressed, held, touched, rubbed, laid on, leaned against ... I mean it really doesn't matter much.  Sometimes it just feels good when my 80lb dog curls up in a ball on my legs while I am in bed.  So I thought I would be immune to the "too much touch" frustration.  (Let me insert here, I was fully aware I would have many, MANY, other weaknesses).

Tonight I was putting my son and daughter to bed.  Josh was out for the evening, so I was putting both children to bed, and we were switching up the routine some - which my son is not prone to handling well.  I was doing my best to keep my cool, explain to him rationally through his irrational tantrum outburst.  While he is screaming "no WAY! I don't want to! nu UH!" I'm trying to remember that what he is really saying, is, "this is new and different.  I don't like it.  I have frustrated expectations." It takes every ounce of will power I have to not scream back.  It's the end of the day, we are both exhausted, my daughter is sitting sweetly in my lap while I sit on the floor waiting for my son to calm down and sit with us so we can read together.  That sounds like an easy feat.  It is not.   Inside my body, my heart is racing, my brain is screaming and my adrenaline glands are secreting everything they've got.  He finally calms enough for me to start reading.  And here it is folks: he starts to sweetly, absent-mindedly rub my knee.

It is something that if my husband starting doing I might die of happiness.  If, in another moment of time, my son did it - I would feel the warmth of a special moment creep through me.  But in that moment, I tried to swipe his hand away.  He put it back, telling me "oh mom, I am just rubbing you softly".  So  I leave it there.  Shaking.  Literally.  Because my insides are so contorted. Frustration from a moment ago rips through me.  The literal sensory overload is rocking me to my core.  Yet his fingers feel soft and sweet.  I know it is important for him, so I leave his hand there.  Yet I feel like if he keeps rubbing I might crawl out of my skin.  I am not immune.  Not at all.



The most extraordinary part?  Just about 12 minutes later, with just he and I, my son chose a sweet, religious book on The House of the Lord, one he has never chosen before.  He chose it over 15 other books he loves and adores that were all sitting right there.  We had the sweetest moment reading peacefully together, my heart growing more than I can explain.  The Spirit surrounding us and the love of my son consuming me.

Sweating the small stuff.

Have you read the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, by Ph.D. Richard Carlson?  The truth is I haven't either.  My dad had it on his bedside table for years growing up.  Honestly, I always felt that the title gave the book away.  Why read it?  I get it.  I have many close friends that deal with anxiety, in a very real and stressed out way.  I am not prone to anxiety.  Depression? Over-excitment? Mood swings? Yes, yup, uhuh.  But stress and anxiety?  Rarely.  Not never, just rarely.  Like when a ten page paper was due the next day and I had written none of it?  Good time to start feeling stressed.  Sometimes I wish I felt a bit more stress.  It could motivate me.  Like the time I bought a $90 pair of jeans for my husband, found out they were too small the next day, had 30 days to return them, THREE MONTHS LATER called and got permission to return them later than normally allowed and one year later still had them sitting in my closet.  It would have been nice to feel some stress about that.  Maybe, just maybe, I would have done something about it!

But I digress.  This week has been full of Small Stuff.  Monday it was driving through tar, which turned my 45-minute trip into a three-hour-fiasco ending in the decision that the car cleaning gentlemen would need my car for two hours the following day.  Tuesday I spent $100 and missed my son's field trip to get the tar off my car.  Wednesday my sweet Lexington woke up covered in puke and spent the day sick in my lap.  Thursday I suffered from lack of sleep from Wednesday night which led to a pretty unproductive day.  Friday was all around pretty great but there was definitely a mess to clean-up after pumpkin carving.  And then Saturday, well it was my nine year wedding anniversary last week, and on Saturday my husband and I had a date planned.  I had been dreaming about the lobster mac'n cheese from Carrabba's Italian Grill.  (Can I just say something here.  For the most part I don't like lobster.  And I don't like fancy mac'n cheese.  But this meal ... it's something out of this world!)  So we drove 45 minutes to the closest Carrabba's.  THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE LOBSTER MAC'N CHEESE!!!  (To make it clear, it wasn't their fault.  What I hadn't realized is that it was never on their regular menu, just their seasonal one.  They are actually going to be getting it as a full time menu item in February.)  But back to how we drove 45 minutes, and by doing so canceled out our extra time to see a movie, for a meal that wasn't there!  I was so bugged, er, irritated even!  We ended up eating a delicious meal, (bacon and sauteed onions on flat bread?!) with Crème Brûlée for dessert.

So let's repeat.  Monday - drove through tar.  Tuesday - spent $100 to remove tar and missed Jace's field trip.  Wednesday - held my sick daughter and cleaned up the puke.  Thursday - exhausted from Wednesday and unproductive.  Friday went smoothly.  Saturday - missed a movie to drive to a restaurant that didn't have the meal I went there for.

Here is what I also know.  On Monday, my husband unexpectedly got home early from work.  So while I drove around trying to figure things out with my car, I did not have my 2 young children with me.  Though Tuesday was busy, my son did still get to go on his field trip, I did get to sneak the gym in, and my daughter got to go to therapy.  All blessings.  On Wednesday, I got to hold my sweet daughter more than she ever allows.  She even fell asleep on me for the first time in two years ... two years!  It was so so sweet to hold her sleeping, warm body.  Thursday was unproductive, but because of my wonderful parents support - Jace is in pre-school and therefore was able to still learn and grow.  Also, I was able to nap.  Friday my husband got home early (again) from work and we carved a pumpkin as a family.  It was tender to see my little Lexi really pulling out pumpkin guts.  And I had gratitude for a husband who involved Jace in every part of the carving that he could, from choosing the shapes for the face to even once letting him use the knife to cut.  (When Jace had to use so much of his strength to pull  out the knife that his little hand went flying back, knife in hand, we decided that it was a little too much).  And Saturday after the anniversary date fiasco, we got to enjoy an evening of trick-or-treating around our local park which our children enjoyed immensely.

We all focus our time, energy and emotions in many different areas.  We have to.  Life is a beautiful chaos.  And truth be told, there were moments this week I wanted to scream.  Or kick a trashcan.  But I so deeply know that where we focus most of our time, energy and emotions is what will shape our life.  If we choose to spend our emotions being angry because all this crap landed in our laps this week or if we choose to spend our emotions enjoying the sweet moments that happened with our family.  Therein lies our power.  We must choose to not "Sweat the Small Stuff".

I Danced With my Son

Today I danced with my son.  Ok truth is I dance almost every day with him, for approximately 20 seconds during the intro to Curious George.  (It has a great swing dancing rhythm)  But today, he has a buddy over, who, well, let's just say... those two are peas in a pod.  A very loud, full force, high energy, physically active pod.  They have been together most of the day, and they rile each other up, so it was time to take a break and put in a movie.  I made a deal with them, if we were going to watch a movie they had to actually sit and watch it.  As in stay seated, and calm down, or we turn off the movie.  They both agreed.  We turned it on, the first scene is a song, and they were up off their {adorable} bums and I said "wait! we made a deal! You have to sit to watch the movie!" and my beautiful, full of life son said to me "But Mom, we're dancing"!!!  And, well, there is no argument to that.  So we danced.