A Day In My House

A + B = C

A) I lost weight + B) I’m starting a new job = C) I had to get a new wardrobe

One might think shopping for a new wardrobe would be fun, exciting, invigorating even. But, it’s not and here’s why.

• the fashion folks make so many different varieties of cuts and styles that navigating your local retailer is a daunting and tiring task; try on “sits just below the waist” in boot cut, straight leg (which is never truly completely straight leg), trouser, flare like it came off the set of Grease (sure, they don’t call it that), classic fit, natural fit, modern fit, traditional fit, and so on
• after 5.5 years of your closet staple being comprised of $8 to 10 dollar Target t-shirts (which there is nothing wrong with, mind you), the sticker shock that comes from investing in a more substantial wardrobe is… as you would expect, shocking; so after your initial perusal through your local department store, trying a few lower priced options on, and leaving empty-handed, you then end up returning for round two after realizing you need to increase your shopping budget
• after moderate success, you realize you have all tops and no bottoms, requiring more trips to more stores to try on more styles/cuts/fits of pants – your worst nightmare. On the bright side, you repeatedly try on the size you think you wear, only to find you actually wear one-size down. It’s about time there is a silver lining in this process.
• Now, to focus on shoes. Your friends tell you to branch out and try different styles. Flats? those are so yesterday. Try a wedge! (I’m thinking, “wedge”? Isn’t that a salad?) Nevertheless, shoes found. A wedge pair, even. Wore them today and the verdict: I LOVE THEM.
• Now, to focus on the pile of new clothes, still with tags on them, piled up on your always-up ironing board. Sort and read labels. Some are easy to care for, but some are fussy. I don’t like fussy laundry. Alas, I wash, partly dry and hang. Sweaters? Delicate cycle? Lay flat to dry? We’ll just bypass wash-before-you-wear altogether for these so I can delay their fussy nature.
• Tags removed, laundry done, clothes ironed and hung…where? Oh, there’s the closet half-filled with clothes I don’t wear or haven’t worn in years. Literally. (Sigh) Remove, examine, sometimes try on, fold, form another new pile which will take up real estate on the always-up ironing board.
• First day of work? What to wear? Not the hum-drum decision you’d normally anticipate. Instead, the wow, look at all these new clothes. Which of them am I going to wear!

I don’t think I can pack my days any fuller now that kids are back in school. I’ve been squeezing every last minute out of my time while they are both at school, trying to fit everything in now before I return to work next week.

We were out of town over the weekend visiting Bob’s family. But back to the week we go with Monday morning (I hit snooze a few too many times). Shopping plus lunch with a friend, and repeat tomorrow, different friend.

I admit my anxiety level was higher today than it was on Josh’s first day of school (today was his second day due to staggered start for kindergarteners). The fact that while in line for the bus, he stepped one step over to me to hug my leg, only amplified my feelings. While sadness overlooked my morning, I have to remind myself the same advice I would give him were we having an actual conversation about his adjustment to kindergarten: Let’s just take it one day, or even one hour at a time.

They will be home in a few short minutes.

Although it is still early, and I’ve not had coffee yet, and I’m still rubbing my eyes, I can still get a sense for the day. I feel happy, content, excited, grounded, loved, thankful, blessed beyond measure, grateful, and enriched.

Big changes are happening in the next few weeks. The kids return to school in two days! I’m excited for them, and the new experiences they’ll have and all that they will learn. Josh will be learning to read. Andrew will be learning cursive writing, and that’s just the tip of the iceburg.

In two weeks, I’ll be starting a new job. A job. Yikes. I’ve not worked in 5 1/2 years. That is a long hiatus. As a software developer, I’m more than a little rusty. So I’ve been trying to brush up on my skills in order to not feel so ill-prepared day 1 that I feel like I just stepped out of college. (No offense if you have just stepped out of college… it’s a fun, exciting time, too. Really!)

While all of these changes will bring adjustments to our home and house management, they are exciting changes, which brings me full circle to… I feel blessed, content, thankful, grounded, and loved.

Each day starts with high hopes. Well-rested. Coffee. Smiles and Hugs from my kids. The day creeps on. Chores creep in. Guiding the kids in their day. “Don’t forget to brush.” “Pick up your room.” Chores. This and That. “Josh, did you pick up your room? You haven’t even brushed yet!?”

Appointments to keep. Errands to Run. Two kids in tow. “Don’t get loud in the back seat. It distracts me and I’m trying to drive.” (Repeat a few times.) “I SAID, DON”T BE LOUD!” Then I ramble something about safety and don’t want to wreck, and blah blah blah. I’m not sure they heard me. I mean, oh they HEARD me. But I’m not sure they listened to the words as much as my volume.

This seems to be how yesterday went. It was ok enough, and yes, I’m focusing on the negative. Because I just wish I could have one day (okay, several days once in a while) where I feel I can relax and enjoy my kids, not having to wear the mom hat as much, but just wear the family hat and be together.

This week, I’m trying to focus on making changes that will afford the kids more independence in all things school-related.

Like,…

• allocating space for their homework to be “parked” somewhere visible but not on the kitchen table. I cleared the top shelf of their art shelf and made a pile for each of them.
• hanging a strip of hooks at their level to hold their book bags. This way they don’t need my help unzipping, filling, and zipping.

Ok, that’s all I have done so far, but the idea is a pleasing one, and has me seeking out other ways to put them in more control of their school lives. We can still instruct and coach, but don’t have to be as hands on.

This year’s start of school is going to be doubly challening, because not only am I getting both kids up and ready for school, I’m also returning to work, part-time (more about this soon). While my hours will truly be part-time, and while I’ll still be getting them on and off the bus, my planning of meals and other home duties are going to need a little revamping. So any way I can free myself up, turning their responsiblities more and more over to them, the better.

• In the past two days I found that Andrew & Josh got along much better when they were pretending Josh was a dog.
• Josh, after losing a dime from spare change I gave him yesterday, not only asked if I would give him another one, but if I would make it a $10 dollar bill, instead of 10 cents. I almost feel compelled to honor his request for his sheer audacity in asking. But, no.
• Andrew stops in his tracks for car commercials. Josh stops in his tracks for Scotch tape commercials, the pop-up dispenser ones.
• I’ve recently found myself telling friends that I could easily see Josh becoming a rocker when he grows up. He loves to listen to music loud. (Recently, Bob told a story of when Josh was in my car with him, the two of them alone.  Bob was cranking up my sound system, as he can only do when I’m not in the car. So the music is already loud, and Josh hollers from the back seat, “Turn it up!” [Although what Bob heard, was "Come on old man, turn it up louder!])
• I’ve also recently found myself following up the “he could be a rocker” comment with, he could also grow up to be a preacher. He has no qualms with telling Andrew, flat out, “You’re Wrong!” I suspect he feels like telling us the same thing at times, but he also (rightly) feels he can’t talk to us that way. He retells Bible stories frequently. He seems to ponder God a lot, and not in the quesitoning way, rather in the matter-of-fact way.
• Andrew’s brain functions in a way that he has to comment on immaterial things, all the time. Especially if the normal routine is changed, he seems to analyze it out loud as his way of adjusting to the change. If only I could give you examples, but to do so would require me to carry around a tape recorder because no amount of recollection from my brain can do this justice. Yesterday, after just one such scenario, I commented to Bob that Andrew couldn’t help himself. And that he would make an excellent sportscaster some day. Bob replied with the thought that, yes, Andrew could fill dead air with the best of them.
• I can see a maturing independence in Andrew’s 7-year-old self. It brings me both pride and reflective poubtyness.

Yesterday, I made Apple Cider. Why? Because you can’t find cider in Ohio in early August. And I needed (yes, needed) to test a recipe that our church’s cooking ministry might potentially be making in October for a special lunch for which we are cooking. The sauce for the dish requires apple cider, and well, I had to make my own. I also made cinnamon-maple butter (yum) and pumpkin bread, all for the same reason – recipe testing for this October lunch. So while it was 90 degrees outside, the kids and I enjoyed the flavors of fall wafting through our house.

The kids enjoyed their first night of VBS. And since I took this year off from volunteering, my husband and I also enjoyed their first night of VBS. We went out for a late dinner and then to a sporting goods store to buy my husband a bicycle.

I learned more than I ever knew existed about pumpkin vines as I researched their pollination to determine if ours was normal or abnormal. I had thought something was eating our blossoms, but as it turns out, they (the male flowers) fall off after a day of blooming. These male flowers continue for a couple of weeks before any female flowers appear. So we are on course for some female flowers to show up soon as this pumpkin vine spreads itself across the back of our yard.

On tap for today, absolutely nothing. Slow morning, loose schedule and a welcome sight to wake up to: rain!

While my youngest will start all-day kindergarten in a month, I’m already anticipating this new stage of our lives… parenting school-aged children. Granted Andrew is entering second grade and I’ve already been parenting one school-aged child, but ramping up to have both of them in school, all day, is clearly a new phase. I will no longer have one foot in the young-child-at-home door.

With a young child at home, you still run errands with a child in tow. You are called upon to help entertain them when their boredom seems insurmountable. You snuggle. You lunch together. You have a young companion for most of your day.

Gears will shift once school starts and the youngest joins the ranks of the older brother. (I won’t even go into the challenges this all-day schedule will have on my non-morning-person child.) But my day will be profoundly changed. I will have two children to wake and ready for school which will equate to a morning bustle of activity. I will then have solitude and quiet for about six and a half hours. Then I will have two children to anxiously await getting off the bus to tell about their school day. I will have two snacks ready when they come in the door. I will have two book bags full of folders and papers to sort through. Two schedules and due dates and projects to manage.

It seems like not such a big deal. That span of time in between sending them off to school and welcoming them home in the afternoon. But it will, in fact, be a big deal. For their 5 years leading to kindergarten, my husband and I have been their  major influence. A few hours at church each week and even a few hours a week for two years of preschool pale in comparison to all-day school, five days a week.

They will have teachers and friends and peers surrounding them for 6.5 hours instead of me. They will encounter new situations and emotions which they will learn how to manage, on their own, or with those around them, instead of me.

For these children whom I carried in my womb, who have been the focus of the past 7 years, whom I’m the expert in (along with my husband)… For my precious children, that imaginary umbilical cord will grow a little longer as they step out into school. I will still oversee their lives, still nurture and coach and teach and guide, all while allowing them a little more wiggle room.

I love the quietness of a Saturday morning, just during and after breakfast, when the family (who eats in shifts due to waking at different times) is still ramping up for the day ahead. Like the propeller of an airplane that takes a few moments to accellerate to full speed, so are Saturday mornings.

Once accellerated, showers, chores and grocery shopping ensue. Followed by outside work and play and meals in between.

But the morning of Saturdays is just as it should be, peaceful, serene and “home”.

Ok, I’m probably the only other person thinking ahead to Christmas while it is July. I understand that it is probably offensive to you and I will accept your due judgement.

But, hear me out.

What I’m actually thinking of is not “what are all the goodies we can amass for our offspring” (not that I ever think like that)? I’m also not thinking of list-making or mental-note-taking of things they mention they want or that I foresee them growing into.

What I’m actually thinking is, how can we, this year, scale down? How can we (and by we, I mean me) not buy into the catalog craze and the sales and the sparkle and the wish list making? How can we just look around at the wealth of toys we have already amassed, and wisely choose not to enlarge that mountain?

This challenge is more than skin deep. It goes beyond recallibrating my own thinking/shopping/buying habits, but also requires expectation setting of their precious little hearts. Skewing them towards less and away from more, and at Christmastime! It almost seems illegal or mean or….

Or does it? While every bone in my body wants to bless my children with the desires of their hearts, common-sense tells me they have so much already. Too much. More than they use. More than they need. More than most children (think 3rd world countries) will have in a lifetime. And that is not an exaggeration.

Beyond common sense, Biblical-sense tells that we are to train them in the way they should go and that it is better to give than to receive and to lay up for ourselves treasures in Heaven not on earth. What happens if we stock pile while neglecting those in need around us? It will be taken away.

Can I really buy-buy-buy for them again this year with a clear conscience? I don’t think that I can.  And don’t misunderstand. I don’t go nuts at Christmastime. I really don’t, But if you look at what they have and then look at the more they think they want, it just doesn’t add up.

And so, you see why I am thinking about this in July. It just might take me six months to figure out the “how”.