Frontloaded...

Seniors--Morse, June 2018

When the kiddo came to us with his junior schedule, the hubster and I weren’t a hundred percent on board with the workload he planned to tackle. When he added a couple of online classes to that load the last trimester of the school year, the hubster and I had a full conversation in glances and raised eyebrows. And while I never doubted the kiddo, I did question the load. Truth is, given what I know about my son, I guess I should’ve known better. 

“It was all part of the plan,” he offered from his perch in the bow of our boat this past weekend, flashing me that thousand watt smile while I stared back at myself in his mirrored sunglasses. “I frontloaded summer.” And that he did. Junior year is in the books and I'll always look back on the growth he gained and the achievements he earned with a grin.  It was an amazing ride.

So here we are... We have no real schedule to keep this summer other than a few planned excursions. We have no deadlines to note, no testing center hours to memorize, and no study guides to label, which means that for the first time in my life I’m not running a daily checklist where he’s concerned. And it means he has a chance to breathe for a moment, a chance to stare at the stars a bit if he chooses, and a chance to be a kiddo for just a while longer. 

29 Days...

It's been a month of crushing loss. A month of not enough words to express sorrow. A month of juggling schedules to keep the bases covered while praying for time to simultaneously stop and fast forward itself. We've lost a precious cousin we were really just getting to know again after years of losing touch. Paul was the master of corny jokes and had a huge heart. He was our friend and we miss him. We lost my Uncle Bill, a gentle, patient man we all adored. He was like a father to my dad given their age difference and I physically felt my heart crack when my dad looked at me through tear stained eyes and said that he understood what it felt like to be an orphan now. "I'm the last one left," he sighed. And today we buried my Aunt Linda, a sweet soul who turned the title of being a sister-in-law to my mom into a best friendship. 

The past twenty nine days have come with a steep learning curve and they've reminded me that family reunions are best when held in parks near the barbecue versus the inside of solemn chapels. These days have also highlighted a few things it dawns on me we're often quick to say but slow to do. Take the risk. Mend the fence. Have the hard conversation. Spend the time. Pray for those that come against you. Take the first step. Make the call. And please, if you do nothing else, tell someone you love them. #LoveWins

One Little Word...

Instead of resolutions, I decided to focus on a single word this year.  While I sat with simplify and discipline for a bit, in the end the word that resonated most strongly with me was Embrace.

One of the things I've decided to Embrace this year is my weight loss journey.  While there's a 'before' pic, there's not going to be a definitive 'after' pic.  I'm focusing on where I'm at and how I'm doing and Embracing right now versus worrying about an 'after.' As such, I'm choosing to call these pics 'before' and 'first third.' #24.2  

And The Award Goes To...

Since our duo became a trio almost seventeen years ago, we’ve had a running joke around here about the Mother of the Year award.  Thing is, I’m prone to pulling some doozies as my mom would say, which is how the notion of the award came about.  While I don’t remember now what I did that caused us to coin the phrase all those years ago, I’m sure it was either shockingly impressive or completely ridiculous.  Brilliance or incompetence.  There’s rarely anything in between with me. 

The kiddo received his first speeding ticket today, which is to say he’s grounded and his truck is parked indefinitely, which means I’m headed back to the carpool line…

It’s also how I found myself sitting on the side of the road shouting “Let me tell you something, mister.  I don’t offer fifteen million chances.  I’m not Jesus!” at the top of my lungs at 415pm on an otherwise quiet Tuesday afternoon.  #MOTY2018

Thoughts on a security alert...

When I received the message through our school notification system that something had hit the airwaves causing "school administrators and local police authorities to not only be aware but diligent in investigating any and all safety situations,” needless to say, it got my attention.  But you know what it didn’t do?  It didn’t make me want tougher gun laws.

So how can I say such a thing, right?  How cold and insensitive of me?  Stay with me for a minute (or go ahead and unfriend me-it’s your call) and I’ll walk you through my thought process in regard to the facts and the truth (as I see it)…  

Fact:  Until you get a safety related message from a place where your child spends eight hour a day, you have no idea how you might respond so if you haven’t been there, do the rest of us a favor and stop pretending like you have.  It's NOT funny.

Fact:  There was no mention of the real issue in the email I received, only vaguely worded mention that some safety issue was being investigated.  Yet it didn’t take my mind more than an instant to focus on recent events.

Truth:  There’s another broken person in our midst.

Truth:  People that are hurting hurt others.

Truth:  If mental illness were visible there would be a line of people waiting for help wrapped around the earth twice over. 

Truth:  When I received that email this afternoon, thoughts about tougher gun laws didn’t cross my mind because I’m smart enough to know that broken people will find a way around whatever the obstacle be it a wall or a fine or a law. I went the direct opposite and my first thought was that I need to rally an Army to protect my kid, and his friends, and kids I remember buttoning coats and tying shoes for when I taught kindergarten, and my friends’ kids, and the wonderful teachers and staff in our district that have become like family over the years.

Truth:  What we need is better access to mental health care, and early intervention, and more accessible social work, and we also need more involved parents…  Sadly those buzz words don’t win elections.

We guard our money, and our artwork, and our airports.  The local mall has armed security in place for the designer handbags.  There are more security measures in place at a rock concert than a school.  Fact is, there are more security measures in place in the DVD section at Barnes and Noble than we afford our kids. 

The events of today strengthen my resolve that our schools should be the SAFEST PLACES ON EARTH for our children and I honestly don't believe waiting for some overreaching power to develop a plan to rescue our kids when trouble comes is getting the job done. Instead, I think it’s time that the resolve of reasonable people swing the other way.  Rather than sitting around waiting for something bad to happen, shouldn’t we be taking the fight to the threat?  Shouldn’t we be going to any length to put the right tools in the hands of the right people to help protect our kids?

Who Will Hold My Cards?

Instead of New Years resolutions, I pick a word to focus on each year.  If you’d have asked me over Christmas break, I would have told you Simplify and Discipline where frontrunners for 2018.  Then EMBRACE found me and with it came the understanding that I need to foster new attitudes and a willingness to wrap my arms around certain things I’ve been able to push aside heretofore.  A simple example is cooking.  If you know me well, you know the boys and I used to eat out 5 nights a week.  Eating out is fun and easy and social and I take the task of finding new restaurants as a welcome challenge.  Short and sweet--eating out pushes all the good buttons for me.  But that’s not the case for my boys.  The hubster and the kiddo grew so sick of eating out last year that dinner became a source of contention for us.  As such, one of the areas in my life I’m embracing this year is cooking dinner.  The new rule in Buehlerland is that we’ll eat at home Monday through Saturday (when possible to do so).  Whew!  Talk about in for a penny, in for a pound, huh?

I’m nineteen days into embracing dinner (that’s seventeen home cooked meals if you’re counting) and one of the things I’ve grown to love most about my time in the kitchen is pulling out old recipes and seeing the handwriting of friends as well as that of my mom, my mother-in-law, and my grandma.  These cards are precious to me and they make me wonder--who will hold my cards one day?  My daughter-in-law?  My grandchildren?  And then it dawned on me that unless I start writing down my recipes, all I’ll be able to share with the next generation is a flash drive and my Pinterest password.

It took me ten minutes and twelve dollars to create my recipe cards and you can bet I’ll be filling them out as the boys and I decide on our ‘keepers' in the coming year.

34 percent...

When I got the phone call this morning, my first thought was that the kiddo had been in an accident. He's only been driving a month and while he always texts to tell me he's safe at school once he gets parked, he's never called.  As a result, it was several words past hearing he was safe that I really started listening.  Five police cars.  Two fire trucks.  An ambulance.  As it turns out, the kiddo rolled up to a four way stop in a neighborhood at the same time local authorities were arriving on the scene of an accident at the house on the corner.  So it was there, on his way to school down a path we’ve driven a thousand times, that the kiddo witnessed his first fatality complete with the all of the sounds and activity and gore that accompanies such a thing.  I just sat there, mom.  There was so much equipment coming from every direction...  I didn’t want to get in the way.

On Wednesday our community learned we’d lost yet another teen to suicide and it was the kiddo that reminded me that not a year has passed since he started 7^th grade that we’ve made it from start to finish without a fatality.  Five years in a row, mom.  Five years!  When do people get a clue and starting fixing this mess?  It’s been a tough week.

I don't know what you think but I'm going tell you the reality: whatever your kids are talking about is likely only a third of what’s really happening with any given situation.  Leading psychologists and child welfare experts that have studied teenage behavioral patterns and bullying and suicide and mental health disorders and self harm behaviors all report that when your kiddo shares a situation, it’s highly probable you’re only getting about 34% of the whole story.  It’s not that your kiddo is necessarily lying to you, which could be the case for some.  Rather, it’s that between a lack of experience in sharing how they feel, “flooding”, which is a teen brain phenomenon that happens when kids become emotionally charged, distraction, and distance (time) from the event, you’re lucky if you get 34%.

As parents we need to hit our knees and pray for guidance so we can find better ways to connect with our kids because we’re losing children in communities all over this country at an alarming rate.  They’re running and they’re making harmful choices and they’re hurting themselves and we don’t know until it’s too late because we’re working on 34% fact.  It’s not enough.  What we’re doing isn’t enough.

I taped CMT CrossRoads this week because I like Florida Georgia Line and the Backstreet Boys.  While I know the kiddo likes FGL, I didn’t expect him to come upstairs while I was busting moves and singing at the top of my lungs to I Want It That Way.  Sure, he laughed at me for second, then he kicked off his shoes so I followed his lead.  Which is how we ended up breaking out our cheesy 90’s dance moves and jamming right alongside the music until the band broke into a ballad.  And then suddenly it wasn’t about the music at all.  It only took a few moments before we were both misty eyed, slow dancing in the kitchen in our bare feet, him pouring out his heart and processing a traumatic week and me reassuring him that we’ll always find a way.

Our kids may only be giving us 34% but they need to know we’re giving 100%.  They need to hear that there’s always a way to handle a problem differently than the obvious.  They need to hear that it’s never wise to make a permanent decision regarding a temporary situation.  And they need to be reassured that we won’t stop trying to find ways to connect.