August 27, 2014

There are No Do-Overs

August 27, 2014/ Elizabeth Foss

The day started off well enough, if a little early. Ten or so teenaged girls had slept in tents in the backyard, a noisy gaggle that kept me wondering all night long if our neighbors were fuming. But with the coming dawn, it didn’t seem to matter so much. They were quiet at last. My husband got up for an early flight, and I laced running shoes and went out into the still-dark morning to get in 5 miles as the sun rose. Since I was ahead of schedule, five miles stretched to eight, and I arrived home just as the girls were stirring in the backyard. I was peaceful and ready to seize the summer day.

But that's not how the day played out.

His dark eyes met mine over his laptop. Storm clouds were brewing in those eyes; I was all too familiar with the storms.

“What’s wrong?” I chirped cheerfully, trying desperately to hold on to the morning calm.

“It’s stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. No one is listening at either school. These credits won’t transfer, and I am going to be in college forever.”

They say mothers are only as happy as their unhappiest child.

“Don’t mope. We’ll figure it out. Just don’t mope.” I cannot stand one more tense conversation about academic advising and college transferring, I thought. I’ve devoted more than a lifetime’s share of time to this transfer and this pair of schools. Enough. Just stop talking about it. And quit moping.

“Please can we cut the watermelon? Puhleeze?”

Blue eyes this time, begging cheerfully but begging just the same, my little girl interrupting my internal rant to the academic advisors of two institutions of higher learning.

“No!” I snapped, trying not to notice the shock in her eyes or the tears pooling there. “No, watermelon. For the tenth time this morning, no watermelon and no moping.”

I gathered keys and my youngest son and headed to the gym. My cellphone tucked into a locker, Nick and I went about our gym routine. I didn’t need to be there; I’d already exceeded my workout goals for the day, but I’d promised Nick we’d go, and I was trying to be kind, despite my cranky beginning. After a couple hours, I retrieved my phone and saw that I’d missed 12 text messages.

The first one I read was from my friend and neighbor, “Really bad accident out in front near your house. Silver car and a minivan. Tell me you are all OK.”

I have both a silver car and a minivan. And those kids I left at home after my snappish outburst? My heart raced. They had plans to go to the pool in the silver car by way of that intersection.

I thought about the sharp words.

Please don’t let those words hang heavy forever …

Thankfully, the next few texts were from my daughter. She told me about the accident, said they’d been delayed leaving the house because she’d sent Katie back inside to empty the dishwasher, and they arrived immediately after the crash. She was worried that the little girls had seen way too much. And then she texted again to let me know the road was still closed and to go home the back way because a helicopter had landed across the street.

A do-over, I thought. I get a do-over. I can go home and be kind and gentle. I can erase the ugliness of the morning and begin again. Better this time.

And then I can write a column about how sometimes we see how precious life is and we are lucky enough to get a do-over. That was how I thought this essay would end. But that’s not how it happened.

I returned home to find a very somber group gathered in my kitchen. Lots of kids trying to make sense of the senseless. Names had been assigned to once nameless accident victims. Four teenaged boys. People they all knew. Somebody’s son. News came quickly, the way it is wont to do in a small town. Some rumors, some facts. Some tales ahead of their time. Four boys in very serious condition. Life in the balance.

There is no do-over. Not really. Not ever. That morning was set in stone. Some lives forever changed.

My 7-year-old talked for what seemed like hours that day and the next about the sounds. “There was a crash. A really loud crash and then a boom and another boom. I think that was the van flipping over onto its roof. And then there were sirens; for probably hours there were sirens. And then the helicopter. So many noises. So many scary noises.” You can’t un-hear the noises. And you can’t un-live the moments, any moments.

The sounds. The sights. The sorrow of the people involved and the people who love them. There’s no do-over.

We get one chance to live any given moment. One chance to bless. One chance to choose the better. One chance to love. And then that moment is gone.

There is redemption. There is grace. There is a God in heaven offering hope.

But there are no do-overs. Not really. There is only a choice to make in each moment.

Will we wish we had the moment back?

August 26, 2014

Settling In & Making It Home

August 26, 2014/ Elizabeth Foss

The last time we moved our household, I had six children and a dog. The baby was a little less than a year old. We were only moving a mile away from our old house. We were young and strong and we did all the packing and moving ourselves—with a lot of help from friends, who were also young and strong. We all quickly recognized that we were neither as young nor as strong as initially estimated; we’d never attempt that feat again.

On the first trip over to the new house, I stepped out of our van and into a hole in the construction site that was our neighborhood. My ankle swelled into a balloon before I got to the front steps. The next day, I had pneumonia, though it wouldn’t be officially diagnosed for about a week because I staunchly refused to take time to go to the doctor. Did I mention that this was 10 days before Christmas? With six kids? I was very well organized and pretty much unable to do anything I’d planned. I just hobbled and wheezed.

I remember my friends Bonnie and Wendy, taking turns standing on the counters and unpacking my kitchen into cabinets and pantry. I remember that the first morning of our first day in the new house, my friend Karen appeared with muffins and orange juice for breakfast. Then, despite a million other boxes, she found the Christmas tree and all the decorations and she quickly and efficiently organized all those children into a team of little elves and made “Christmas at home” come to life in that new house that still smelled of stiff carpet and fresh paint. It was all her idea. I thought perhaps we should unpack the china cabinet. Or the office. But she chose homemaking. Christmas was first priority. More than anything else we did that day, those three women made our house into our home.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard bloggers who are mothers say that one of the things they appreciate most about blogging is that a blog is a creative outlet that stays ”done.” With words and pictures and design features, women can create beautiful havens online and no one will mess them up. Unlike the laundry that, once folded, gets worn and dirtied, or the meal, lovingly crafted, that is quickly reduced to a pile of dirty dishes, blog posts just build one upon another, each adding more depth and creative expression, not one messing up another, nothing coming undone.

Until it does.

My friends, it is impossible to move house online when one’s house has been well-established at Typepad. No matter how strong and smart one’s friends are, it cannot be done neatly. I know this to be a fact because I have invested three months in the process and a lot of very smart people have helped me. And here I am in this new space.

We’ve moved. Oh, yes, by golly and the grace of God, we have moved. I’m especially grateful to Lauren Gulde, who carefully packed away all our priceless family heirlooms and ensured that they weren’t damaged in the move. And God bless Joy Messimer, who is always willing to climb on virtual counters and jump over stacks of packing material and to see the vision of the house that is to become the home and suggest a better way. And then there is my Mary Beth, who was tiny when we moved in real life. She’s a young woman now, and she knows her way around this new virtual house much better than I do. Expect to see her here in this new home quite frequently.

But there is a great deal of unpacking and picture hanging to do in the “new house.” I need your help.

First, if you usually click over here from Facebook, go like this page. My personal Facebook page is going to become more personal, more private, and quieter. As we move in here, there will be more frequent blog updates and I don’t want you to miss them, but they won’t all appear on my personal Facebook page. The blog page is going to get hopping. So, go like and follow the blog page!

You might need to update your subscription. If you saw this post in your reader this morning, you're just fine. If you've been a reader for a long time and subscribed to ebeth.typepad.com you'll need to re-subscribe. We put a handy link in the top bar if you'd like to have posts appear in your mailbox every day. Or you can subscribe on Feedly or Bloglovin’ or another feed reader. Go check yours! You might be subscribed under the old RSS and you won’t get updates.

You can still access learning ideas and lesson plans at Serendipity. We are working on a plan to move all of those over here very soon.

Now, to unpack the boxes. It's likely that there are plenty of broken links here. And there are more broken links “out there.” If you’ve pinned something or linked to me, chances are good the link is broken. I’m happy to help you fix it. First, look at the URL of the link that is broken. If it is ebeth.typepad.com, try replacing with elizabethfoss.com. The correct post should come right up; simply re-pin or re-bookmark with the correct one. It may not even be the link that is broken, but the picture- use the same process. If that still doesn't work, email us!

If it’s a link within my blog, please let me know. Mary Beth and I are going to work as hard as we can to fix those links. If it’s a favorite post you can’t find, send me an email and tell me about it. I’m good at finding things here.

I can’t unpack the boxes without my friends. And I can’t make it feel like home without your help. If you have linked or pinned before, please link again with the new URL . If you haven’t, please consider helping folks find me again. Re-establising an online presence is daunting. Believe me, the broken links and their effect have kept me awake at night.

Above all, if you're here today, I'm so grateful for your friendship. Thanks so much for hanging with me. I promise; I’m never moving again.

July 31, 2014

...and when they are OLD they will not depart from it.

July 31, 2014/ Elizabeth Foss

I am in the orthodontist’s office as I write this morning. Katie, my 11-year-old, is a frequent visitor here. She has a knack for popping the brackets off her teeth. My orthodontist is the most patient of medical men. He sees her coming, flashes a wide (and nearly perfect) grin, and assures her that whatever has gone astray can be pushed back into place. It’s a process, he contends, and he’s in it for the long haul.

The brackets and braces are adjusted once again, everything is glued in place, and she leaves confident that all will be well (and sometimes more than a little sore). All will be well. Her teeth, once growing every which way in her mouth, are being trained to be straight. They want to fight the new posture, to go with the natural bent, but again and again, they are brought back into line and held there. Most of the hard work will be finished by the time Katie is in her mid-teens. Then, according to the plan, a retainer will hold them in place, and when she is old they will not depart from the straight and narrow path.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”

(Proverbs 22:6).

Parents are assured that the careful, patient training of a child when he is young will mean that when he is old he will not depart from it. It’s not the simplistic, formulaic promise that some would have a new mom believe. I will never tell you that if you just raise them a certain way, they’ll never stray from what is good and noble and true. But God does promise that when they are old, they will not depart from the way they should go.

It’s still a little hazy when “old” is, but my hunch is that some children take longer than others to get there. The other day, I saw a young man leaving the orthodontist with a full set of braces — for the second time. Things didn’t go according to plan the first time — mostly because of patient noncompliance — so the process was begun again. He’ll get there. He’s just taking the circuitous route. He’s slow to grow old.

This training business is continuous work. When our children are young, we are called to imprint the good upon their hearts, to make an impression so lasting that it is indelibly written into the story of their lives. We hold them close, we meet their needs, we let them know that they are loved and valued. We respond again and again, and they grow to know what love is.

Such responsive parenting requires sacrifice on the part of parents. It might be the first time they’ve had to lay down their lives. First and foremost, parents have to live the life of virtue to which we want children to aspire. It begins when we answer the cry of an infant, and I’m pretty sure it lasts until we draw our last breath. It’s easier said then done. So, when we falter and fail, we model for them seeking and receiving the grace of forgiveness and the amendment of our ways. This raising children gig makes grown-ups of the parents.

Children need clear expectations. We train them in the way they should go a little at a time. With every small event — a trip to the store, a family dinner, a play date with a friend — we offer clear expectations and the reasoning behind excellent behavior. And we follow through on the expectation; a disciplined parent is the key to a disciplined child.

Training children well in the way they should go requires a quantity of quality time. Both are essential. Quantity: We have to be with our children in order to coach them. We can’t correct and advise if we aren’t there. That means we drive the carpool, stand on the sidelines, invite the friends into our homes. Such engagement requires a quality of time, too. It isn’t enough to be there if we are glued to a smartphone or disengaged from the conversation when we are sharing space with a child. We have to be fully present in order to effectively train fully engaged, wholehearted excellent behavior.

We train children to be virtuous when we talk to them about our world, when we share our insights and seek their observations and concerns. An intimate relationship with a child means that they become more aware as they grow older. They see the challenges their parents face, and they watch them respond with strength of character. Sure, the children are being trained, but we are being trained also; being a good parent is a call to a higher standard. Some of us aren’t quite “old” yet ourselves. There are moments— maybe even days or whole seasons — when mothers and fathers have to dig deep and discipline ourselves to meet the real needs of our children. They want connection — encouragement, affirmation, security, warmth and, yes, consistent grace-filled correction. It is as essential to a soul that a child receive those things from her parents as it is to her body to receive food and shelter.

With careful attention, plenty of fine tuning, and maybe a little discomfort, children will learn the way they should go. And when they are old, they will smile broadly the confident grin of a virtuous soul.