McDonalds, Hands and Courage

It’s been a while since I’ve written an installment in my 2010-2011 theme word series on Courage. It’s a topic I’m trying to explore and an attribute I’m trying to cultivate in myself and in my children. One of the biggest questions of courage to me is where to find it. Are we born with it? If so, then what’s the use in trying to cultivate it. And, it’s not like you can bid on it on ebay or throw it in the buggy at the dollar store. So, where does it come from? As usual, my three gifts are teaching me a lot of lessons without even realizing it, and they recently showed me something: Confidence begets courage. The assurance and acknowledgement that we are, in fact, growing or learning those things we think we are and embracing that person we want to become somehow “encourages” us to step forward in those new skills or the new identity we’ve cultivated. It puts courage into us, as that often-used term, “encourage”, implies.

One of my favorite parts of early Spring is seeing tiny new shoots of growth emerge from what looks like completely dormant branches and earth. And, it seems to happen overnight! Where one day there is nothing but the same old brown or gray we’ve been accustomed to, the next appears a tiny spark of green, a new leaf or bloom that lets us know the season is changing.

I love when I see that in my children as well. Although I’ve seen the emerging signs of growth countless times in each of my gifts, it somehow still takes me by surprise each time. Even though their young lives have been a constant stream of changing and growing and learning new things, that moment when I notice it–or when THEY notice it–never ceases to amaze me.

It was Spring Break recently here, and the time (and weather) were ripe for some fun. Little Drummer Boy spent his first official “big school” Spring Break with special days at the daycare with his friends filled with bowling, skating and all the other fun they had planned. We weren’t able to take a full week to go somewhere, but I wanted to give them all at least a little outing and change of scenery. On Friday, we decided to skip daycare and work and take off on an adventure to see a museum in another city.

We started the day with much excitement (and energy) about our anticipated trip, so in my limited Mommy-wisdom, I decided that a trip to McDonald’s for breakfast and a stint in the “play place” were in order before settling into the minivan for an hour. One thing about our little adventures that I’ve come to predict is that one mommy plus three youngsters usually equals hands full, and a few accoutrements are required — namely extra juice, extra pull-ups, extra gummies, extra goldfish, extra chapstick and some well-placed extra instructions.

On this morning, those well-placed instructions were directed to Little Drummer Boy. He’s filled with excitement at being the “big brother,” emphasis on big, and it’s certainly a point of pride that he is the only one attending “big school.” When we walked into McDonald’s needing to order food, but ready to play, my hands were indeed full and I decided it was a good time to hand off some of those “big brother” duties. I asked LDB if he would take two-year-old Baby Girl’s hand and take her to the playground for me while I ordered. Bug was already half-way to the play place door because his sphere doesn’t quite include “big” duties. Little Drummer Boy on the other hand, seems to relish the reminders that he is growing stronger and smarter every day.

And, relish he did! When he heard my proposition, his face took on a new expression of “big-ness”, the countenance of responsibility. He had a job to do to take care of his little sister, and he took it seriously. It was an acknowledgement from Mommy that he was big enough to handle it, that he WAS the big brother, and that he was a good one. I could see his little heart fill with pride right there by the super hero prize display. A new courage to take on a fledgling leadership role was born. New shoots of growth popped out of the five-year-old earth before my eyes.

The wild card in the scenario was Baby Girl. Would she cling to Mama? Would she agree to the out-stretched hand of her newly minted “BIG” brother? It’s funny how confidence spreads. Once Little Drummer Boy adopted the confidence of “big brother” status and the responsibility that goes with it, Baby Girl adopted a new confidence that she had a big brother looking out for her.  And, she had the courage to take his hand and walk (not run) to the play area. Now, each time we’re at McDonald’s she wants to hold her brother’s hand instead of mine.

As I’ve been thinking about this simple experience from a few weeks ago, I’m so thankful for the little expressions of confidence I’ve received over the last year that have boosted my courage to step into new responsibilities and to embrace anew or reclaim areas of my time and space and efforts that reflect how I really want life to be. Thinking on the blossoming pride I saw in Little Drummer Boy reminds me that it’s important to acknowledge for myself the small, everyday milemarkers that reflect my progress. And it gave me a new commitment to give that inexpensive but invaluable gift to each of my children as well.

Sugar and Spice

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of having Baby Girl help me cook dinner. It was a rare boy-free few moments when her brothers were engrossed in a movie in the living room, and she only had to share the counter with her juice cup and a pile of potatoes. She talked to me the whole time with brand new sentences and words and questions. She examined several of the spices with only a few spills. She offered suggestions on preparing the french fries. She counted the slices of cheese as we added them to the cheesy dogs. She giggled. She made faces. She “cooked.” It wasn’t the McCormick jars that made this a sugar and spice moment. With all the bittersweet and savory it entails, she’s becoming a little girl.

If you ask Baby Girl what she got for Christmas, she’ll say “truck.”  Go figure. I’d like to go on record that no, Baby Girl did NOT get a truck for Christmas. She got a baby doll cradle with a baby doll to lie in it. She got puzzles–Mary Had a Little Lamb-themed, no less. She got a PINK tricycle with a flowery basket to go on it. But, no, not a truck.

It’s funny. Even at almost 2 1/2 years now, the “girl” part of Baby Girl still eludes me sometimes. And, sorry to state the obvious, but I’m a girl. I’m an only child, so I grew up just being a girl. But, admittedly, I’m not that much of a typical girl. I like feminine details on my clothes, I enjoy wearing makeup and perfume and bracelets and earrings, but I’m no fashionista. I love pretty dishes and setting a table with placemats. I like preparing dinner and special things for my kids, but I’m no Martha Stewart. My point, is that sometimes I’m a little challenged in the whole “girl” thing. At least the “girl” thing I see on the princess aisle of Walmart. So I guess Baby Girl gets it honestly.

When I see Baby Girl playing with her brothers, holding her own with the trains and car chases, I joke that “I need to get this girl some bows.” But seriously folks, maybe I need to get this girl some bows. I realize that I could quite possibly be the only woman in America whose 2 1/2 year old daughter has never worn a bow. Well, once.  For daycare pictures last fall, her teachers saw a bow mistakenly placed in her cubby and put it in her hair for photos. When I first glanced at the proofs, my first thought wasn’t “Awww,” it was “Who is this child in the bow?” Sigh. “Girl” challenged, I tell you.

The cards are stacked against me in this whole girl thing with Baby Girl. After all, she IS the youngest with two older brothers who probably define the term “boy.” And, being the youngest, she is more than eager to do whatever they are doing as if she somehow needs to catch up. “Whatever they’re doing” usually means some form of banging, car chasing or super hero shenanigans. Outside it means jumping, climbing, digging in the dirt and other lady-like stuff. And it’s not just at home. At “school” she’s been the one girl in a class of nine for quite a while now. Trucks are her life.

Still, Baby Girl is my kind of girl–more so every day. For all the trucks in her life, I see her hands drawn to the beads on my necklace. I see her eyes light up with her baby dolls. I see her tiny arms cradle them and mimic reading bedtime stories to them.  I see her putting on her dressy shoes and running in them. I see her examining my jewelry box. I see her sorting spice boxes with that magical blend of sweet and tomboy I love. I see her becoming sugar and spice right before my eyes.

When I wonder about what a little girl should be, when I worry about showing her what little girls do, I see her full of joy and energy. I see her uninhibited by the constraints of what girls wear or play. I see her shout as loud as she can. I see her whisper playfully. I see her comfortable with train tracks or baby blankets. I see her running with the boys as if she can. Because she can. I see her sneaking into my makeup drawer, with eyeliner on her face. And I think, “that’s my girl.”

Moments of Wonder

A few nights ago I was giving Baby Girl a bath. I do it every night before reading to her and rocking her to sleep. And although sometimes I can’t help but view bathtime as a chore, every night I’m more keenly aware that these moments are fleeting. I already have phenomenally fewer of them with Little Drummer Boy and Bug. There was nothing particularly special about this night, a Tuesday like any other one. But somehow, this bathtime inspired all-too-common questions. As I sat beside the tub, responding to her squeals, I could feel it rising.

Baby Girl is most often filled with giggles and energy for her bath. When I’m not distracted by the rush of the day and the task list of bedtime routines, I watch her. I see her carefree little body standing there too busy to sit in the bath water. Her pudgy tummy and pudgy cheeks, her hands all in motion and eyes full of light, she laughingly fills a cup with the water’s flow and pours it back into the tub for the simple pleasure of seeing the bubbles. I can’t help but enjoy the simple pleasure of her wonderment myself.

On this Tuesday, she accompanied her water play with talk of Frosty the Snowman. I guess she’s been reading (or singing) about him at daycare and her new snowman washcloth inspired the recollection. For Baby Girl, all snowmen are Frosty. All baths are for bubbling water. In these moments, I’m amazed at the simplicity life boils down to in a two-year-old world.  Her splashing and squeals pierced the sounds of brother car chases and computer clicks just a room away. Their own imaginations hard at work awaiting their turn with the suds. Sitting on my heels beside the tub, I matched her height, and I could look straight into her uncontained eyes. They were completely oblivious to me, and yet they gripped me. With a soapy washcloth in hand I could feel the pull of that required moment of whisking her away from her water experiment and on to more practical cleanliness. But even though the night was getting away from me, I just sat and watched her.

In that tug between my own time constraints and her wonder-full display, that’s when I felt it rising. That’s when the tears began to well. I felt it overtaking me. That odd mixture of overwhelming love and wonder mixed with second-guessing and fear. This little child before me in her innocent playfulness. This precious one who without even realizing it had placed her whole world on my shoulders. And thereby captured my lifelong gaze.

And so the fear and self-doubt rise in proportion to the love.
Can I do it? I ask myself.
Can I give them what they need? What they deserve?
Can I hold their hearts? Until they grow the passion to do it themselves.
Can I mold their whims and nurture their gifts?
Can I provide for them?
Will I be able to fund their warmth and their table and their opportunity?
What if I can’t?
What if I mess up?
What if I get side-tracked and miss something?
Something important?
Can I really do this?

I sat beside the tub and watched her. And cried. I can do that with Baby Girl. She’s so young that my tears are blissfully invisible to her, unlike the array of questions they would produce with her brothers. I took it all in. The carefree spirit. The joyful eyes. The concentrated movements. Filling the cup. Pouring it out. Squealing. Giggling.

The more I sat, the more I wondered. How can I shield them from the worries of living and providing? How do I keep it from creeping in when their only concerns are whose turn it is to choose a movie and how long they get to make bubbles in the bath water? How can I give them that privilege of childhood and ignorance? That sweet and oblivious face standing there by the faucet where the whole world is filling the cup and pouring it out. How can I give them everything I want them to have? How can I make their worlds safe and full and at peace all at the same time?

It’s in moments like this one that I realize what she’s teaching me. That moments of wondering find their rest in moments of wonder. The carefree attention that simplicity provides. The place of wonder she shows me in filling the cup and pouring it out. The sheer amazement of something as basic as a bathtub full of water seen through the clear blue depth of a two-year-old’s eyes. When I stop myself and my rampant thinking–when I let go–in that place of wonder, I am master rather than slave to the onslaught of worry and concern and self-doubt.

So, I look at her. I look at them. Their beauty. Their exuberance. Their joy. Their wonder. And I know.

If I can just keep my eyes here.
If I can just focus here.
And see.
We’ll be ok.

Gift Tag: Being Heard

My 2yo, Baby Girl, likes books. And, she’s finally begun to like them for their value beyond paper needing to be torn and/or eaten. I can’t tell you how many pages and covers I’ve taped back together during the continuing saga of our love affair with books. I (and the boys) are thankful Baby Girl has moved into wanting to read the books now.

For a while, reading constituted simply turning the pages to follow her whims. Forward, backward, starting at the beginning or the end or the middle–it didn’t really matter. We were “reading.” By herself or with a captive audience, she mastered the mechanics of flipping through books. From there, she moved into the point-and-question phase with a perpetual “that?” attached to each touch of her sweet finger. Of late, her version of “read book” has finally reached some semblance of actual reading. She wants to listen to the words on the page, usually (though not always) in chronological order. Don’t get me wrong, listening to the words still evokes commentary. Her ever-present curiosity combined with pride at learning to speak new words prompts many questions and declarations relevant to the illustrations on the page.

Boots. Boots. BOOTS.

You may not recognize that phrase from any of the children’s books you have read recently. In keeping with her brothers and about a million other youngsters over the last fifty years, Baby Girl loves Good Night Moon, the classic by Margaret Wise Brown. No, there aren’t any boots mentioned among the “bears sitting in chairs” and the “old lady whispering hush.” Still, the other night her emphatic “Boots. Boots. BOOTS.” became more than parenthetical during bedtime. I tried to move on through the “good nights.” I tried to turn pages and continue with the “mittens” and “kittens.” To no avail. Baby Girl was insistent on “boots,” and as each utterance grew louder, I realized that we weren’t moving on until we addressed footwear.

The “boots” were actually bedroom slippers beside the bed of the sleeping bunny. Only now they ARE boots because Baby Girl won’t be swayed from her assessment. And by her insistence, she gave me a reminder about being heard and brought to light some things I hope for her future.

You see, Baby Girl has a way of repeating her tiny phrases until they’re acknowledged. And, she’s not afraid to get loud about it. Her brothers did too at her age, but somehow hers seems more definitive, more insistent. And, although interrupting is a no-no and a gentle, quiet spirit is admirable, I don’t want to break that in her. I don’t want to shush it out of her. I don’t want to squelch her own understanding that what she has to say is important. No, I want her to learn some things about her voice, things born from my own pitfalls. I want to tell her this…

Keep. On. Speaking.
Keep on repeating.
It’s ok to want to be heard.
Believe in yourself enough to make sure you ARE heard.
Don’t give up.
Don’t give in to the idea that your thoughts don’t matter.
That your opinions can be overlooked.
Say it again.
And again.
Even if it’s never heard.
Keep saying it.
Don’t acquiesce.
Don’t say it’s ok.
Don’t gloss over your feelings or opinions.
Say it.
SAY IT.
Because you are worth it.
You are worth being heard.

When you’re hurt, don’t suck it up. Say it.
When you’re successful, don’t celebrate in silence. Say it.
When you need something, don’t put yourself last. Say it.

By wielding a deaf ear, don’t ever let anyone back you into invisibility.
Don’t ever let anyone silence you into less than the beautiful creature you really are.

Gift Tags are the tiny messages God continues to include with my gifts — 2 little joys of boys and 1 little jewel of a girl, each with open eyes, open ears, open hearts, and much to teach. “Behold children are a gift of the Lord…” (psalm 127:1)

12 Days of Thanksgiving: A

Art.

I’ve been looking at pictures this morning. Little Drummer Boy, Bug and Baby Girl are fond of creating pictures and selecting prime locations to place them in my office. They each have a unique way of expressing themselves through lines and colors and pictures. Their varied creations are such a tangible reminder of the blessing they add to my life at every turn. And they are a reminder of the precious value of their own imaginations that I hope to instill in each of their hearts.

Little Drummer Boy is the storyteller. His pictures are illustrations. They record whatever seemingly random series of events playing out in his mind. He has recently been much more interested in recording these images in shapes and density, a penchant I credit to his kindergarten class where each day they “write” in their jourals, even if “writing” is really drawing. It’s communicating in written form.

Bug is the free spirit. His pictures are a symphony of line and color chosen with deliberation–the exuberance of his spirit unsquelched by the limitations of a crayola box. He makes much less of a production about presenting his work. I often find Bug’s creations scattered about in unexpected places–little slips of paper inside my desk, propped on the piano, inside his pocket, on stickies attached to various furniture surfaces, occasionally embellishing the furniture itself. He sees no need for a “finished” product. It’s not uncommon for him to add lines and colors to the same piece of paper for weeks. The act of making the lines just seems more important to him.

Baby Girl is the newbie. She’s more interested in the tools themselves. While she’s moved beyond wanting to eat the crayons and the paper, she would still rather make her creations with a crayon unencumbered by it’s paper wrapping. So her preparation time is filled with peeling it away to explose more color. Still, fueled by her brothers’ examples, she has begun making her own haphazard scribbles.

I find myself in each of their creative tendencies.

Since I began working from home in July, my office (and it’s many surfaces for artwork display) has become a center of excitement for my children. I suppose they feel that they are getting to do something special when they can hang out in Mommy’s office. I’ve tried to cultivate an office space that is inspiring for me, since I spend most of my time here creating and designing. But, I also wanted it to be a place where they feel comfortable and welcomed. It has been a wonderland for them to visit because they have never seen so many of the things that exist in the Small Pond Graphics hub.

Oddly, that’s one of the biggest blessings of this year. Before I started my business this summer, all they knew of Mommy’s work was that she did it. She dropped them off at daycare and went to that place in town they sometimes visited to do whatever Mommys do when they work. That was the extent of their exposure to the creative life that fills so much of my time. I’m so thankful that now they know more. Of course, they don’t understand it. They don’t know what the computers do beyond providing photo slide shows and access to Sesame Street games. They don’t know what all the books are besides colorful spines and strange pictures. They don’t know what the shelves house except the ready crayons and construction paper. But, they know something interesting happens here. And they know Mommy does it.

We are born creative. Of that I am convinced. There is much debate over whether humans are born good or bad, perfect or flawed, natured or nurtured. But, when I read that we are created in the image of God, the core common element I see is creativity. Of all His glorious and inexplicable actions, creating was the first act recorded for the Almighty. In His benevolence, he chose to imbue OUR existence with that same tendency. The opportunity to show my children that reality about themselves has become very important to me. However that creativity manifests itself, I want them to see how it shows up in me and to explore their own creative bents.

Several years ago when I started this blog, part of my motivation was to find a personal creative outlet that wouldn’t disrupt my time with the children or provide any hazard to them (in the way so many art supplies can). But, I had also come to the realization that there was this whole part of me that my children had never known beyond crazy cupcake and party decorations. I’m an “artsy type.” It was quite a jolt to realize that my children might not really KNOW me and the pursuits that matter to me. EyeJunkie provided a way for them to watch me, to see me writing, to see me thinking, to see me making pictures on the screen. Small Pond Graphics and its downstairs home has been another catalyst for them to know their Mommy in a new way.

Art in one form or another has been a large part of my life for a very long time. From my youngster days watching my mother use her creativity in various ways, to my years studying Architecture, to my day-to-day work life, “the arts” have impacted me. Because I work as a graphic designer, I’ve spent my adult life “doing” art every weekday. And although I would probably more accurately classify my work as “communication” rather than “art,” it’s been part of my job to expose myself to many vehicles of inspiration and to immerse myself in the work of other creative types.

With the launch of a new venture, I’ve had the opportunity to explore that creative inspiration with fresher eyes. It’s allowed me to focus more on the sheer act of creating. Given the freedom to set my own schedules and parameters, it’s allowed me to examine my best creative habits and tendencies more carefully. It’s given me the opportunity to get back to the basics of my own creativity–a blessing that can be so easily snuffed by the cares of real life. It’s a joy to me to infuse my day-to-day experiences with the expression of art and creativity. It’s a privilege to be paid for that sort of thing. It’s a blessing to share that love with the little creative minds I’m nurturing.