NUMB

1 : devoid of sensation especially as a result of cold or anesthesia

I've been thinking about a blog post - or even a series of posts - about self-care.  I realized part way through Lent that self-care is the lesson for me in this season - a far more important lesson than how to live without caffeine or what to do with 40 days' worth of collages.  Upon realizing this, I've tried to embrace the challenge of self-care.  Because make no mistake, self-care is a challenge for women in today's world.

Whether you're single, working full time and cooking for one or married with children, homeschooling for a living and feeding a horde every night, there are many things in your life that vie for attention - and nearly all of them yell more loudly than self-care.

I've tried for a time to tune out the cacophony of voices calling for me to do this or that and instead ask myself what I want to do.  I've had some small successes, but Tuesday I wasn't listening to the voice of self-care, even when I thought I was.

Tuesdays are the day that A goes to tutorials.  I had a few things to take care of on the computer and an errand or two to run, but basically had the day free.  I took care of the least desirable tasks first, then rewarded myself with a TV show (don't Brits just make the best TV series?).  That felt good, so I proceeded to waste another hour playing Scrabble online.  I didn't collage, blog, exercise or finish my Bible Study.  I did take a brief soaking bath and follow it up with a quick nap, but the day left me exhausted and a bit bewildered at how tired I was.  After all, what had I done all day?

What I'd done, when I stopped to actually think about it, was numb myself all day instead of taking care of myself.  And if caring for myself helps the process of unfurling, numbing is its antithesis.  Numbing encourages an inward curl, a mental (if not physical) fetal position.  While that might feel all right - or even good - for a few hours, it leaves me achy and in need of stretching.  Stretching my mind, my heart, my body with the things I need to truly be who I am.

This is the path to humility, don't you think?  Mentally composing a post on self-care, only to completely forget to actually live my words.  So instead of offering encouragement on the value of taking care of yourself, I hope you'll read this post and choose to not follow the path I trod yesterday: being numb is not the same things as being cared for.

RETREAT

2. : a place of privacy or safety : refuge
3. : a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director

It is a difficult
  lesson to learn today,
to leave one's friends
  and family and deliberately
practise the art of solitude
  for an hour or a day
    or a week.
For me, the break is most difficult...


And yet, once it is done,
  I find there is a quality
to being alone that is
  incredibly precious.


Life rushes back into the void,
  richer,
    more vivid,
      fuller than before!
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

My retreat this weekend was lovely.  If you've never been on a directed silent retreat, I can't recommend it highly enough.  It is more than self-care.  It is soul-care.  And our souls desperately need care.

Upon return, a note from K was waiting on my pillow.  It read:

Dear Mom,

We miss you so much! We LOVE YOU! We have something that we want to say to you, and this is the thing we want to say to you.  You are the best mom in the whole world!

They were words I needed to hear and the fact that they came on the heels of time away assured me that I don't have to take care of myself at the expense of my children.  I can take care of me to take care of them and leave us all healthier, happier and more whole.

CONNECT

4 : to have or establish a rapport

Last weekend, we took B and K to one of B's favorite stores.  She loves this place.  It's an eclectic mix of really cool things - jewelry, clothing, soaps, candles, purses, even puzzles.  While there, B found a puzzle of Alice in Wonderland.  It was a perfect puzzle for her: 500 pieces, challenging imagery and a cool box that looks like a book to hold all of the pieces.  We bought it for her and she and I worked on it over the span of two or three days until it was completed.

When we first started the puzzle, I was ready to quit.  This is a hard puzzle.  All of those cards that border it look remarkably similar unless you spend lots of time looking very closely.  I spent a few minutes on it that first day and wondered whether we'd bitten off more than we could chew.  Then I walked away.  But B didn't walk away.  She worked on the quote first, then Alice's body.  Meanwhile, she tackled the border in chunks, which made it more manageable.

After B had made some progress and it was clear she wasn't ready to give up on this puzzle, I joined her again.  I picked one area to work on and was encouraged to see some progress.  That kept me going.  B and I work puzzles well together.  While we were working this time, I told her that on my last silent retreat, I did a puzzle and it was the only time I felt a little lonely.  I felt lonely because I rarely do a puzzle alone - I always do it with B.  She smiled and asked whether I would do a puzzle on my retreat this weekend.

Puzzles are a natural fit for B.  She's highly visual, great a spatial concepts and mathematically minded.  While two of these three descriptors might fit me, I am legally handicapped in the area of spatial concepts.  It literally hurts my brain to try to figure out how to mentally flip and rotate figures.  Yet I like puzzles.  And I found with this puzzle that it was a joy to lose myself in it.  To look very closely at the box and see that the Queen of Hearts has quite a few differences from the Queen of Spades.  Who knew?  Did I have to move the pieces around to get them to fit?  Absolutely.  Sometimes it was absolutely comical to watch myself find the piece that I knew belonged in a spot and work to turn it the right way.  But instead of shaming myself for this, I smiled inwardly and thought, "I should probably do puzzles more often. Maybe I'd actually get better at this."

We finished the puzzle yesterday before school.  While we were on the last few pieces, B said, "The sad part will be taking this puzzle apart when we're finished. Let's leave it for Daddy to see when he gets home from work."  It's still sitting on the dining room table, but I've told B that we can take it apart and do it together one more time, then seal it and hang it on her wall.  (I also bought the Wizard of Oz puzzle by the same company for us to do before tackling Alice again.)

I'm leaving for a silent retreat momentarily.  As B headed out the door with J this morning for school, I told her I'll think about her as I work on a puzzle.  She gave me a hug, smiled and headed out without so much as a backward glance.  (This was in sharp contrast to K, who is nearly devastated any time I leave and had to make sure I knew it.)

Later this morning, I thought about how much I enjoy puzzle time with Bekah.  While we connect the pieces of the puzzle, we connect with each other.  And this daughter of mine loves connecting.  She can be prickly.  She wants connection on her own terms.  But that makes me all the more happy to seize the moments when they appear.  Perhaps I should start searching now for the perfect puzzles to complete during those teenage years when she hardly wants to inhabit the same room as me.  Nah.  I think I'll just savor the moment and look forward to the next puzzle that helps us connect.

AGENDA

2. : an underlying often ideological plan or program

Do you have an agenda for your children's lives?  Do you hope they will live near you when they are adults?  That they will pursue a certain profession?  Play a certain sport? Share an interest you have? Make the Honor Roll?  Attend your alma mater?  Love your favorite food?

I think most of us have big and small agendas for our children.  They can be as innocuous as an unspoken fact that your entire family drinks milk with dinner or as poisonous as the notion that nothing less than perfection is acceptable.  I have a few agendas for my girls: the biggest is that they be who they were made to be.  This is a somewhat dangerous agenda because it means all of my other acknowledged and unacknowledged agendas may fall by the wayside.  I truly, deeply hope to have three daughters who love to read - for all of their lives.  This is a partly selfless agenda.  I know from experience the worlds that a book can open and I think books have encouraged me, broadened my mind, expanded my horizons and made me into a life-long learner. 

But it's also a selfish agenda.  My husband and I are readers - it's a core part of who we are and it's a big way that our family spends our time.  So what happens to my agenda if a daughter (or two) doesn't fall in love - and stay in love - with reading?  I'm not sure what would happen.  But I know this: I am not going to shame her into complying.  I'm not going to pressure her to just try this book - or this one - in the hopes that I can ignite the flame by force.

I think as a parent of young children, your agenda is, in some ways, less important.  It's easier with toddlers and preschoolers to cover all the bases.  You teach them a smattering of manners, behavior norms, faith principles and general expectations.  But one thing that's challenging about having your children age before your very eyes is that I feel I really must decide what things on my agenda are most important because I can't do it all.  One of my key goals (if not my primary goal) as a parent is to not get in the way of each of my daughters growing into themselves.  That means not putting my own ideas of who they should be on them, but it also means helping them shake off and stay free of agendas that the world might put on them.

This line of thinking has led me to a desire to really combat consumerism in my life and the lives of my children.  Because if you spend your life worrying about what things you have or don't have, how can you be who you're meant to be?  Consumerism is all about comparison.  It's about who has what and how much.  And becoming your own person isn't about anyone else but you.  I'm sure the path looks different for each of us, but it's only been as I've been able to decide for myself who I am - free from comparing myself to others - that I've grown to even get a glimpse of who I am.

I think consumerism and/or materialism is a battle every parent in our culture faces.  We live in a world that bombards our children with images of what they should want from an incredibly young age.  Thanks to large doses of commercial free PBS, a blessedly sweet non-competitive elementary school and enormous imaginations, my girls have mostly avoided the gimmes.  I am thankful that they aren't currently defined by what they have and I am determined to fight to keep it that way.  This will require some tightrope walking during the late middle school and early high school years, when fashion is likely to become more important to them.  I don't want to ignore their desire to explore who they are through what they put on, but I also don't want them to fall into a pattern of spending too much of their time, energy and thoughts into what things they have. 

I don't what that for them because I firmly believe it's a trap.  It's a way to keep their focus off the things that matter and on the things this world tells them matter. Obsession with material things can keep someone from pursuing a job they love because it doesn't pay enough.  It can keep them from living in the place they want because it doesn't fit their self-image.  It can keep them from seeing God as their provider because they are so busy buying non-essentials that it doesn't even cross their mind to be thankful that their needs are actually being met.  I don't want any of these things for my girls.  I want them to hold the things of this world loosely, so that the world has a loose hold on them.

ABSENCE

: the state of being not present

Last Friday, I took my 11 year old daughter, A, to the airport.  She boarded a plane and I left the airport alone.  She was nervous, excited, giddy - all things that an eleven year old girl does really well.  A was on her way to Milwaukee to visit J's parents.  This trip was an impromptu gift for several of us: time with her grandparents and her first solo flight a gift for A, time alone with A a gift to Me-Me and Grandpa, time alone a gift for me.  Her flight up went well (for which I am very thankful since I need her to willingly board the plane again tonight!) and she called to let us know she had arrived safely.

She called that evening to see what we were going.  She called Saturday to see how K's soccer game went.  She asked to talk to her sisters.  She talked to me.  She talked to J.  After a phone call or two of this, J and I realized that she missed us.  Since our girls have been little, they've spent time without us at my parents' house and J's parents' house.  But none of them have ever done it without sisters as companions.  It was sweet to see our absence from her make her heart grow fonder.  And A wasn't the only one.

Last night at bedtime, I told K to grab her most recent library book and go read in bed until I joined her.  "Can I clean my room instead, Mom?"  "Clean your room?" I say, puzzled.  Her room is strewn with toys and clothes - all her doing.  After helping her ready her room for a playdate on Friday, I've since then left it to K.  The result of that was quite a mess.  She's going to voluntarily take care of this mess?  Is she angling for a later bedtime?  Apparently not, because K's reply was,  "Yes, I want to clean my room so that it's nice and clean and beautiful when A gets home tomorrow!"

A and K had been sharing a room for a few days before A's trip.  K has a spare bed in her room and A wanted to sleep in there with her.  Actually, A is ready to just move into the room, but we thought we'd give it a few nights (or weeks) before moving furniture and clothing from one room to another.  K adores having another person share a room with her.  She is such an extrovert that she doesn't even want to sleep alone.  And we've found from past experiments that A and K make pretty good roommates.  While K is four years younger, A is an early to bed, early to rise girl, so the earlier lights-out doesn't bother her.  And sharing a room with her six year old sister gives this tween a reason to let her little girl side reign.  She plays zoobles, Barbies and dress-up with K - a gift only a youngest sister can give.

K is excited to have her sister, playmate and roommate return tonight.  A's flight gets in at 7, so I imagine K will be on pins and needles in the hours between school and airport.  But her room is ready.  Because K not only cleaned it last night, she got up early this morning to finish tidying and vacuum.  Yes, the vacuum was in use in my home prior to 8 AM this morning.  I can assure you this is not the norm.  It may, in fact, be the earliest wake up call my vacuum cleaner has ever received.  But K wanted the room completely clean and ready for A's return.

I know I have years ahead of me of girls squabbling, arguing and generally being annoyed with each other.  After all, one purpose of siblings is to learn conflict resolution in a safe environment.  But having sisters also exposes your own selfishness.  And as much as we each need to see that, it's never fun to do.  So raising three girls has its fair share of blessings and challenges.

But today the blessings are shining a bit brighter, taking up more room in the forefront of our lives, reminding us that it's a very sweet thing to raise three girls who enjoy each other (even when they are completely unwilling to admit it).

A, K and B

BONUS

: something in addition to what is expected or strictly due

I Love You art by K, age 5

When J received his annual bonus a few weeks ago, we decided to try something new.  We've typically seen the receipt of a lump sum as a way to give to organizations that don't normally receive our tithes.  J and I have enjoyed brainstorming together about who to give to and how we can bless them, so we decided this year to let the girls in on the action.  They were each given a sum to donate to an organization of their choice.

Their immediate reactions were a bit surprising.  They all knew exactly where they wanted the money to go.  K wanted to give some to the homeless and some to an orphanage (they'd recently watched Annie).  B wanted to give to Soles 4 Souls and a homeless shelter.  A wanted to give to Rejoice, where she dances.

A had an opportunity to donate her money fairly quickly through a dance marathon event, but it has taken awhile to get around to giving to B and K's causes.  This actually worked out well, since K said to me not long ago, "Mommy?  Have you given my money away?  Because I thought the people in Japan might need it."  I told her that was a great idea and that we could talk about it some more.

B had also had a slight change of heart.  Her school is holding a Jump Rope for Heart event and she had asked if she could give her money as part of that.  While I initially agreed, as I thought more about it, I wondered whether her motivation was curing heart disease or earning prizes...

Today, I was taking care of some of my final dispensation of bonus gifts and decided to see if I could take care of B and K's giving online as well.  I started by talking with B about her giving.  I told her I'd been thinking about Jump Rope for Heart and that while it was still OK for her to give to that, I wanted her to think about whether she was being motivated by the cause or the prize, since the point was to give, not get.  Of all my children, B has the strongest conscience.  It didn't take her long to conclude she was, in fact, more motivated by the prizes.  After some discussion, she ended up splitting her gift and giving equal amounts to Soles 4 Souls, CUREkids and our church.  When J asked why she wanted to give money to our church, she said, "It's my church," like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Then came the task of getting K to make a decision.  She started by asking me whether the people in Japan or the homeless people needed the money more.  How do you answer a question like that?  It kind of broke my heart.  I tried to explain that Japan's needs were more urgent than the needs of the homeless, but that their needs were still very real and present.  She asked to see pictures of what happened in Japan after the soo-man-ee (as she calls the tsunami).  So we looked at pictures.  Lots of pictures.  We talked about what we saw in the pictures and K asked me, "Are you getting sad?"  She was right.  It was hard to look at the widespread devastation in picture after picture and not get sad.  But we still needed a decision.  Where to give the money?  As I was about to split her gift between an organization that supports the homeless and Japanese relief efforts, she decided it should all go to Japan.  I clicked away before she could change her mind again and assured her that was a good choice.

I've been encouraged by my girls' reactions to this experiment because I want to try something new this Christmas and let them give gifts to others instead of receiving gifts from J and I.  I thought by giving them a taste of what it can be like to give, they would be more agreeable to the idea of changing the way we celebrate Christmas.  But even as I'm encouraged by K's concern for the people of Japan, A's love for the kids she dances alongside and B's desire to help others, I'm stunned that the same children who can care about others can turn around and be mean to each other.

My children fight far more than I'd like.  They bicker over who's going to sit where, snap at each other if they have to repeat themselves and generally act as if their sisters are put on earth for their personal torture.  So these same loving girls can be real pains, too.  In times when the din is high and my spirits are low, I try to remember that siblings are meant to help us understand conflict resolution.  All of these little squabbles and spats will hopefully turn them into the humble, selfless, giving creatures I sometimes glimpse.  In the meantime, I'm going to try to remember moments like today, when K looked at me earnestly and said, "Who do you think needs the money more?"

SEASONS

2. b : the four quarters into which the year is commonly divided

I packed up the flannel sheets today.  Folded away snowflakes and snowmen.  Tucked their softness into a bin.  And remembered how happy I was a few months ago when it was time to pull them out of that same bin and put them on the beds.  Recalled the delight in slipping under them for the first time, their softness and weight bringing sleep as a gift.

I love every season when it arrives, fall perhaps most of all.  The heat of summer seems to bear down on me, making it harder to move, to think, to do anything.  Fall offers reprieve from heat's oppression and points towards Thanksgiving, then Christmas, my favorite times of year.  But this winter has worn long.  It has kept us indoors, snowbound, for far more days than I am accustomed to.  Summer's heat I have long dealt with.  But snow for days on end?  This is a battle where I lack training.  I know how to combat the heat - with water to drink and swim in, trips to the art museum's cool interior, a morning movie in a darkened, air conditioned theater.  Snow?  I can offer you some hot chocolate and pancakes and let you watch some TV.  I don't have much beyond that to offer.

So after a long winter, this spring is especially welcome.  From our bathroom window, I've watched one of our trees for signs of buds, then blossoms and have been pleased when they've appeared.  I've looked for green day after day and been glad to have it greet my eyes more and more often.  I've opened windows, cleaned out closets, tried on sandals.  I've been able to smile as I folded and put away flannel sheets.  Thankful to be moving from one season to another.

This is life, isn't it?  Never static, always moving away from one thing, towards another.  And here's how I want to be able to live it: thankful for the season just arriving, grateful to have lived the one that's come and gone.