Mom Fail

Why is it that I fully understand that it is the difficulties in life that contribute to all the best things that make up who I am, yet, when faced with the thought of my children encountering difficulties, my first reaction is to rescue and shield them. Maybe I believe that until I came through and learned from my struggles, I was not a valuable person. My children are already valuable and wonderful and I am of the opinion that since they are already wonderful, God should spare them difficulties.
My teenage daughter is beginning to experience some of those hard facts about people and relationships that don't seem right or fair. Can't she just learn what she needs to from some ABC Family movie of the week? There are so many more academic and future success preparation pressures for kids than there used to be. When you add all the teen angst crap into the mix, things often seem overwhelming and unmanuverable. I can identify somewhat with those struggles, having navigated being fourteen myself (though, far less successfully), but I don't know what it's like to walk in her shoes. I just know a lot of what she has to deal with is lame.
My son is something else entirely. Being a ten-year-old boy is something I can never remotely begin to identify with, and he being an individual with autism makes the chasm even wider. I ask him ridiculous questions about his behavior like he was a three year old: "Now, Son, do we crumple up our paper and throw it at our teacher?" He's not an idiot! He knows he's not supposed to do stuff like that, but his frustration overrides his ability to communicate and throwing the assignment is the best way he knows how to communicate what he is feeling. Since he was two years old, we have made sure he's had therapies and gone through exercises to get him to use language to express his wants needs and feelings, and now half the time it seems everyone is telling him what he is saying and how he is saying it is disrespectful and inappropriate.
"Come on, use your words. (gasp)YOU CAN'T speak to me that way! I'm your mother!!!" How frustrating! It's no wonder the characters he identifies most with is Calvin and Charlie Brown. We encourage him to be himself then bombard him with messages that he needs to change.
I feel so caught between what I think is best for , for my children, what They think is best for them, and what the rest of the world thinks is best for them. I tend to have these big aspirations for my children and tell them how special they are, then turn around and tell them not to make waves and keep their heads down because it's safer.
I not only love my kids, I genuinely LIKE them and want them to be themselves, but how to do that in those times when who they are seems to conflict with life in general? And if they do conform to one thing, something else comes along and requires them to conform to another. It's a big, confusing, insecure mess!
But then, it sort of hit me. What truly is BEST for them, isn't to simply fall in line with the pack. It may be the most comfortable and the easiest option. Romans 12:2 says "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Who knows those children better than their Creator, who wired them and gifted them specifically for His purpose? My job as their mom isn't to try to figure out which road they should be on, but give them tools to navigate the road God has already placed them on. That road can be expected to have many obstacles, and in shepherding them to make decisions consistent with who they are, which is compassionate, loving, creative and resourceful people, and what God instructs and demonstrates for us in His word, those obstacles are manageable.
I give myself pretty good advice sometimes. I just hope I have the courage to follow some of it.

Happy Birthday, Grandad

My Grandparents have never qualified as what you would call “Empty Nesters”. They helped raise five sets of children. With grandchildren from age six to forty-something, each set of us came in a different decade. There were lessons each of us gleaned from their example that would serve us our whole lives.
Grandma taught me how to make a bed and that brown and serve rolls were every bit as good as any made from scratch. Grandad taught me how to cheat at tic tac toe and how to run a log splitter. He was a successful businessman, in spite of his terrible memory for numbers (he never could keep count of all of my ribs; he would always lose his place and have to start over).
Spending the night at Grandma’s was never as fun as Friday night when Grandad came home from "the woods" where he worked. When he came through the door in his green coveralls, he would give us each a hug and rub our faces with his whiskers. We could always count on Dr Pepper with Rocky Road Ice Cream before bed. On Saturday mornings, he would cook Bugs Bunny Pancakes and the most perfectly cooked bacon you’ve ever tasted- not too bendy, not too crispy. And he always made sure I had a black fork. After breakfast, he would let us drive the riding mower or tag along after him doing some other chore outside.
But, their biggest legacy is one of great love and deep faith.
I would sit between them during church and Grandad would keep me supplied with a steady stream of tic tacs to keep me quiet. One precious gift he gave me was his passion and joyous expression in his singing. I loved watching him lead the congregation on Sunday nights. I can still see him conducting a chorus “Heavenly Sunlight” with my Uncle Mark on piano and mother playing organ. He infused such joy into each song. As I got older, I never understood it when people would comment how boring the old hymns were.
When I was nineteen years old, I was visiting Grandma and Grandad at the Santa Ana house one afternoon. We sat and visited at the kitchen table. Grandad was playfully aggravating Grandma, as usual, while she stood at the sink to wash dishes. He stood in the doorway, his face full of mischief, when she gasped in frustration and rounded on him with an exasperating, “Dad!”
He then looked at her with such intensity, as though he had never beheld anything as beautiful or amazing as she was right in that moment. His smile spoke a language only she could understand. Her expression softened as she first furrowed her brow, then returned a bashful grin reminiscent of her seventeen-year-old self. No one else existed.
I knew right then and there what true love looked like. No book or movie could ever duplicate it. I could never give it a just description. I also knew, that was how I wanted to be looked at one day, for the rest of my life.
Over a year later, I had met and struck up a special friendship with a certain guitar player. We were working at Jenness Park in the Sierras for the summer. We were crowded in a car full of students on the way to Lodi to see a Continentals concert. We were all laughing and having a good time, when my guitar player friend looked down at me with a look similar to one I had only ever seen once. This look didn't have the weight that comes with 70 years, but the same look with a freshness and limitless possibilities. It was surreal. I felt my heart beat in my throat. He then kissed me on the forehead, as though I were a precious treasure. I could only gawk at him. I had to remind myself to breathe. He was doomed from that moment. We were married thirteen months later.
My husband would later tell me that he knew the moment he saw me I was the one for him, but any doubts he may have had were eradicated the first time he saw me run a log splitter.