Every tree in the house...

“We were talking about Christmas trees in class yesterday and someone asked what our tree was like,” the kiddo stated this morning on the drive to school.  “When I said which one, they looked at me kind of funny.”

“Right,” I agreed.  “We have several.”

“Mom, we have nine!”  The kiddo corrected me.

“Are you sure? I thought it was like four or five,” I countered, truly uncertain of the actual number given several are seasonal/themed trees that stay up year round.

“Trust me, there are nine this year.  I counted as soon as you got done decorating last week.”

Of course he knows how many trees we have, I thought to myself.  After all, he’s the reason I have nine trees. 

When he was little, the kiddo was afraid of dark spaces, particularly the shadowy corners of rooms.  This was before we realized he would be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome a short year later, back in the days when we offered patented phrases like oh well, that’s just the way it is if there was something he didn’t like or understand.

That same year when I was taking down our Christmas decorations, I was on the last small tree when he commented that while he liked our big tree best, the smaller trees I put up throughout the house helped light up the corners.  Several days later it dawned on me, I usually put our smaller trees in dark corners because that’s where I have space.

So this morning I smiled and watched in the rearview mirror as the kiddo finished his statement and grinned at me before taking a sip of his coffee.  I’m in awe of the young man my son is becoming—my actually fifteen, looks likes he’s eighteen, forever stuck at four in my heart little boy.  Every tree in this house is for him.

Share Your Heart...

In less than twenty hours the calendar will flip to a month that brings more dread, and stress, and fear, and chaos, and hurt feelings, and bad memories, and financial strain, and heartbreak to some people than the other eleven months of the year combined. 

Christmas didn’t start that way and it doesn’t have to be that way for you and yours.  But it will sweep you away if you let it.

By now everyone has likely received at least a dozen advertisements stressing the urgency of the holiday season, right?   Time is running out!  Hurry in!  You might miss out on something incredible!  What are you waiting for?  Hurry!  Hurry!  Hurry!  Christmas is right around the corner, people! Where are you?  HURRY!  You’re going to miss it!

If you’re anything like me, by the time you get done reading an ad like the one above, your heart’s racing and you feel a building anxiety over the fact you might just miss something if you don’t indeed hurry.  Even if all was well in your world before you even knew that ad existed.  Even if you had things well in hand this holiday season, the ad most likely did its job.  Have you ever noticed how marketers play on emotions that sit way too close to the surface for many of us?  They unsettle you (Am I ready?).  They place doubt (Did I get the best deal?).  They might even play on fear (Is what I’ve done good enough?). 

I’m the first to admit I can easily get caught up in this hurry frenzy.  As the baby of five kids, I never wanted to miss out on anything growing up and I can proudly say in my forty-six years, nothing’s changed.  I still hate missing out.  I’m the first one up on Black Friday and I’ve been known to follow a certain big brown truck to a nearby game store on release day for a kiddo I happen to adore.  I can hear you laughing but don’t judge me.  My guess is you’ve probably done this same type of thing, especially if you have children.  Whether it happens to you during the holidays or at some other time of year, like a birthday or special occasion, it doesn’t matter.  Even though my kiddo is older now, I can still hear his pleas from past holidays ringing in my ears.  But mom, you have to hurry!  They open at 4am on Saturday but you only have an hour.  If you aren’t one of the first three in line, they’ll sell out and I’ll be the only kid without a copy of the game!  It’s a boatload of pressure, I’ll tell you.  Yet there I went, running around town in a panic, wondering if I was going fast enough, afraid I’d miss out.

The morning I shared the details of the delivery man stalking incident to a good friend over coffee was right about the time I had the good sense to hit the pause button and insert a little sanity check into my life.  I heard the words coming out of my mouth, my confession if you will, but honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was saying.  I did what?  Why?  And then it hit me.

There’s a truth out there advertisers don’t want us to know.  Save for one or two new electronic items you might not even want or need, there’s nothing new this season that you’re going to miss is if don’t hurry.  While it’s true you might save a few dollars here and there, research indicates that stores only deeply discount a small handful of items banking on the hope you’ll fill your cart with other regularly priced merchandise while waiting in line to grab one of only five Hero Princess figurines being sold in the next ten minutes for fifty cents.  They’re counting on your trip to snag Hero Princess for under a buck costing you closer to a hundred dollars before you leave their fine establishment.

Whether you’ll be spending a quiet evening curled up with a good book this Christmas or circulating a room filled with family and friends, my guess is what you most need to hear you won’t find in any advertisement set to hit your inbox in the coming days.  Friends, you don’t need to hurry.  In fact, if you can find a few hours, let yourself rest and try hard not to feel guilty about it.  Remind yourself that most likely, you’re ready.  And if you’re not, force yourself to make a sane to do list you actually have a shot at accomplishing rather than a manifesto that will leave you feeling inadequate when you fall short.  Trust that you got the best deal.  If you learn that Hero Princess is going to be on sale for a quarter for five minutes on Christmas Eve, say a prayer for the sucker that’s going to be standing in line rather than diving for your wallet and coat.

Is what you’ve done good enough?  I bet it is.  If you share your heart with someone this Christmas.  If you reach out and make vulnerable a bit of yourself you otherwise keep guarded, you’ll ace Christmas 2016.  And if you don’t find yourself chasing a delivery truck?  That’s some serious extra credit.

The Race is On...

Emails have been popping up here and there for a few weeks and I have to admit, I haven't given them much thought. But the kiddo received his first college letter via snail mail today and while he smiled and read about early admission and summers on campus and dual enrollment and all of the joys to be had once he flies the nest, it was all I could do to keep it together. 

There’s so much more I want to teach him. So many more things I want to show him. There are so many more heart to hearts to be had. I know there’s still plenty of time, yet I also know the race to snag my son’s heart has begun. And while I’m proud potential home-away-from-homes-to-be see impressive AP and SAT scores, when I look him I still see this…

Fifteen years ago...

Fifteen years ago I was in my kindergarten classroom reading a story to my children when my Principal stepped in and caught my eye.  I excused myself and went to her, only to hear her say she expected parents to start arriving shortly to gather their children. In a quiet voice she then conveyed that the U.S. was under attack and that the Twin Towers had been hit.  News was still coming in about the Pentagon and Pennsylvania and officials in many major cities, including ours, were on high alert.  It was not impossible to think Chicago could be a target.  We’d been in class less than an hour.  

I asked if she could finish the story with my children to which she said yes.  My infant son, then just 5 months old, was in the school nursery a building away.  I ran to his room and found him sleeping in a swing overlooking a window with a view of a bright Chicago day.  I cradled and kissed him and told him that I loved him while he slept, and I prayed over him before I left.

And then I went on with my day.  I had twenty-four children waiting on me, oblivious that anything in their otherwise sunny world was wrong.  We had snack while parents trickled in.  We played with Legos, practicing our counting to twenty and naming our colors.  We wrote our names and practiced our spelling.  Time passed, every second feeling more like an hour, until the school day finally ended.  It was somewhere along the drive home I realized the skies above the Windy City were silent.

When I arrived home, I ran to the television only to be bombarded with images of devastation.  Pain.  Anguish.  Loss.  Desperation.  It was too much to watch yet I couldn’t turn away.  Disbelief.  Doubt.  Anger—they swamped me.  I was safe.  My husband was safe.  My son was safe.  But our homeland, this country I adore, was anything but safe.

While it felt like time stood still on September 11, 2001, life was taking place all around us.  I love you’s were spoken for the last time.  Promises of I’ll call you later would be broken.  Harsh words were left hanging between loved ones that could never be resolved.  Goodbye kisses were shared without hint of being final. And scores of selfless men and women laid down their lives for others.  I believe the best and worst of humanity met that day and that the battle still rages.  It’s not a battle of race or religion or color or privilege or geography.  Rather it’s the classic good versus evil.  Darkness versus light.  

There are times I feel that same fear and anger I felt coursing through me fifteen years ago.  As the events taking place in our world unfold, I often find myself shaking my head, disappointed we haven’t come further.  Then I’m reminded that darkness can’t drive out darkness.  Only light can do that.

We have a purpose far greater than staying trapped under the weight of our fears.  We’re called to be the light of the world and now more than ever we really need to shine.

The Dark Days...

There's never been a thing in my life I’ve dedicated myself to more than being a mom. I wanted to be a mom.  I prayed to be a mom.  I planned to be a mom.  And I waited until I thought the time was just right for me to fully focus my time and energy into being a mom.  The majority of my days as a mom are pure joy.  But there a dark days, too.  Days I find my beautiful boy so deeply rooted in the quicksand at the middle of the Autism spectrum that I dare say a wrecking ball couldn’t shake him loose. 

The dark days..  I won’t lie; it’s not popular conversation.  But there are times I find myself pulled under, waving my fist at the God I adore and cursing fate.  I didn’t ask for this.  I didn’t want to have to start every conversation with a precursor.  I didn’t want my son to have some incredibly well defined condition in a medical book so he could be labeled the rest of his life and I could doubt every move I make as a mom.  Is this normal fifteen-year old boy stuff or is this because he has Asperger’s Syndrome?  Do all kids act like this or is this a new pattern of behavior he’s just now growing into?  Have we missed the diagnosis?  Are we being too hard (or too easy) on him because he has Autism?  Blah, blah, blah…  I could pave a road to China and back if I had a quarter for every time I’ve asked such questions.  Why me?  Why us?  My son didn’t ask for this.

The dark days call in to question every decision I’ve ever made as a mom.  The dark days test my stamina and make me doubt myself to the core of my being. They put my marriage in the crosshairs.  And they take my faith and put it in a mason jar and tape it to the underside of a teeter totter, tossing me up and down and shaking me until I’m barely hanging on, going too high and too fast for too long before I’m bottoming out and landing with a hard thud.  The dark days of parenting a child on the Autism spectrum take no prisoners.

The dark days make me wonder if I'm the right mom for this job.  And they cause an ache in my chest and bring a loneliness so gripping; I can’t put it into words.  Dark days bring a lot of tears.

I don’t feel like I know much right now about parenting my son and if you asked him, I’m sure he’d back me on this, putting my intelligence somewhere between that of a rock and your common variety garden slug.

It's true.  I don't always see a clear way forward. But I won’t stop trying to make the next right move no matter how dark the path.  I love my son with everything I am and I’ve never once questioned that he’s exactly the child God meant for me. No, I don’t always know what to do and I don’t always have an answer for the why.  But my belief is bigger than my fear and I love this kid.  And love is the answer.  I know that for sure.

The Marriage Challenge...

I was tagged to participate in a weeklong highlight your marriage game on Facebook and although I usually steer clear of too much Facebook "fun," I decided to play along.  I've been married almost twenty-three years and I'm proud of the life the hubster and I share.  And until I hit day seven, I was having fun.

As I started thinking about how I wanted to round out the week, my brain kept jumping to various conversations the hubster and I have had lately about what the future holds.  Almost every conversation now starts with the phrase "once we know where the kiddo is going to end up."  It's uncanny to think how many times I've uttered those words in the last several weeks.  Let me give you the back-story…

Summer brought with it SAT scores and the kiddo did well.  Very well.  While the hubster and I were pleasantly surprised, the kiddo was pretty gob smacked.  We had him take the test cold (no studying) and he hasn’t even taken the class where the majority of the math questions are taught.  Although he’s heard about the important of his grades, and studying, and testing well, and doing his best, I don’t think it all came together for him until he saw the actual results.  While it’s only four numbers, they have the power to open college doors.  After reviewing his score, the kiddo turned to me and it was as if all at once he realized what the hubster and I have been saying; that he has the power to give himself choices if he plays his cards right. 

So imagine the start of this new school year.  The kiddo is more motivated than ever to do his best, leaving the hubster and I to watch as he marches toward his college dreams with marked determination.  Everything is as it should be.  So why do I find myself wondering what happened to my shy guy that refused to let go of me and try new things?

This is my day seven post...

Day seven of the marriage challenge has the hubster and I thinking about the road ahead. It dawns on us that many of our current conversations oddly resemble those we had in the early days of our relationship. As the kiddo gets closer to leaving for college, we find ourselves talking about things that haven’t come up in years. Where do we want to live when we downsize (because there will come a day when the words “school district” won’t matter in relation to our neighborhood)? How do we want to redecorate the next house (so it doesn’t look like either a toy box or a frat house)? Where do we want to travel (you know, all those places the kiddo never wanted to go)? I remember how the kiddo held on to me during his first trip to the lake; how leery he was of taking that first step. Now it’s me who’s holding on with a death grip.

It’s funny how thoughts of closing one chapter are starting to feel so very similar to the beginning of the entire story…

600 Something...

600 is the total of my latest scrapbooking endeavor but before you judge me, I really wish you’d hear me out.

So what am I talking about...  Pictures?  Pages?  Types of albums?  Dollars?

part of my stash

Yes, I mean dollars.  The answer is definitely dollars.  600 of them.  And before you ask, I’ll just tell you how this whole debacle came to be…  I’m an avid scrapbooker who has always been up to date with my photos and albums.  ALWAYS.  I used to start scrapping an event before the hubster had all of the SD cards unloaded.  I’ve been caught up with our albums since before the kiddo was born and I’ve even gone back and worked on the eight years the hubster and I were married before our duo became a trio—that honeymoon time in our lives we refer to as b.k. (before kiddo).  Done.  I was always done.  And boy was I ever proud of myself as I scrapped my heart out and chronicled our lives and kept my photos out of tubs and totes and digital shoeboxes. 

Then one day I looked up and realized I was behind.  Way behind.  Like several months behind.  Somewhere between the time I’d worked my last page and the moment I realized I’d fallen off the pace, the entire scrapbook industry had changed.  Gone were simple pages that told a story and in were multi-layered works of art that barely left room for a picture on the page, let alone a double page spread featuring six to eight pictures.  Gone was the company (and the pages and albums) I’d always used.  My son had fourteen custom made, perfectly matched albums at this point.  How was I supposed to just run to the craft store and cobble something together? I’m a planner.  Things match in my world, especially when they decorate a shelf in my living room, which is where our albums live. 

Lo and behold my despair was quickly remedied when said company announced they were moving into digital scrapbooking and creating new software and albums for we loyal few.  So I migrated and learned a new way to create pages and albums and I loved it.  These weren’t your photos on paper bound books like you can create at Shutterfly or Snapfish.  While those make great gifts and I utilize that product every holiday season, they aren’t what I want to sit and sift through with my grandkids.  I want archival quality memory albums and digital scrapbooking met my need.  So I got caught up a bit and felt pretty good about the state of scrapbook affairs in my world.

our albums

Until I got behind again and the next time I looked up from life, I realized while I’d been looking through our pictures each year to make those grandparent albums, I hadn’t actually been doing much scrapbooking of my own.  It was then it hit me that I was farther behind with chronicling the story of our lives than I’d ever been and I was so mad at myself for falling off the pace, I carved out a few hours the next day to get caught up.  You can imagine my surprise when I plopped in front of my computer only to learn the company had gone bankrupt and taken their software with them.

At the start of 2016, I was thousands of pictures away from being able to catch up with my photo life.  There were more questions than answers and I couldn’t see a path forward.  What system would I use?  What albums would ever match what I already had?  How would I just pick up in the middle of a year in progress and blend in new pages?  How much was this going to cost?   How far behind was I really?  Was it even possible to get caught up?  Would the hard drive fail?  Would it still work?  Did I save all of the pics on my phone through numerous device upgrades?  What would I do with all of the phone pics the hubster takes?  The more I thought about the task at hand, the more I wanted to abort the mission.  Who needs these ridiculous creative goals, anyway?

more of our albums

But I stayed the course and found my answers.  Many of them I didn’t like, but they were there waiting for me and now I’m ready to share them with you.  It turned out I was seven years behind by the time I decided to do something about the problem.  I would try several systems before finally settling on Project Life only to learn I didn’t care for their traditional scrapbooking as much as I like the app driven digital Project Life version (LOVE is a better word).  My pages don’t blend like I wish they did.  They don’t match at all, actually, which is something that drives my OCD up the wall.  I did have a hard drive fail but I was able to get the photos I needed before it had to be trashed.  I’m pretty diligent about backing up my phone so those pics were present and accounted for.  I even managed to snag numerous pics from the hubster’s phone.  To date I’ve spent just over $600 between printing pictures, printing 12x12 digital pages, procuring albums and pages, and other needed supplies, like Project Life kits and the Project Life app (LOVE this app)!  

Now before you freak out—yes, I know $600 is a lot of money.  But that’s truly only $86 a year to preserve our family memories had I been keeping up with things.  Some might ask if it’s worth it and the only way I can answer that is to say this…

today's bone pile

Just this afternoon as I was putting the finishing touches on the last album, our 2016 album, the kiddo came in and grabbed the newly minted 2012 album.  “I remember that haircut,” he said with a huge grin on his face as he stared at a picture of himself taken during his long-haired, aka Bieber, days.  “What in the world was I thinking?”  We had a good laugh and as I hugged his shoulders and watched as he walked down memory lane, I think I landed on the biggest answer of all.  It is entirely possible to get caught up with that thing you’ve been putting off and as of three hours ago—I’m caught up with my scrapbooking. 

Seven years worth of photo memories in seven months of catch up isn’t for the faint of heart and it isn’t easy on the checkbook.  But is it worth it?  It only takes seeing the smile on my son’s face to know that answer.  Absolutely.