Today was a long and busier day. The beginning of the school year in its ways are always pretty hectic. We continue to find our grooves with the juggling of rides for the kids. By the time it was time to pick up my high schooler, my brain had fused this morning’s instructions with yesterday’s plans. I was positive I had told him he would have to take the bus, but I was also certain my daughter had told me they were practicing at the park.

So that’s where I went. By the time I missed one road and then the road to the park and then found a way into the park and got lost I was feeling rage at life’s absurdity and overwhelmed inside. I called Josh who was on the way home from St. Louis and asked if he could tell me where I was in the park. When we made it to the spot where she’d said to go there wasn’t anyone there. He asked if I’d checked out the sports app and of course I had not. When I had a place to pull over I saw that practice today was at the school.

I drove over to the church and pulled in from two different ways before we found him. After the extended venture through the park I was glad I had not left the little boys home. He was sitting in the grass with his backpack. When he climbed into the van he smiled and said, “Ok, what’s your side?” and I gave him the whole long complicated story. “What’s yours?”, I asked, and he said everything he’d thought and made a clock to pass the time.

This evening we went for a walk on the beach trail. I’ve been working on my case study for most of today because it needs to be done before tomorrow. I took breaks to pick up the boys from school and to take them to piano and then to practice.

Wayne did something to the road so now it looks a lot better. It feels better as well. It feels a little bit more like a road now and my feet did not feel like they do when you first start to move in an elevator. It felt at first like the ground was pushing up on your feet.

My father-in-law didn’t get to move closer today. I have not talked to him personally since he’s been in the hospital but I’ve been thinking about the particular suffering of him with his body. It is an awful thing to go through when your body doesn’t work right.

I hate that for him. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped to reflect and check in with myself in that regard here. I feel it in the increased pant sizes that haven’t gotten any smaller. I feel it when I don’t jump or run and feel more tethered to the earth.

I feel it in my healing chest where there used to be a blown volcano.

Last night I wrote two pages after blogging. I like the way it feels to not have to worry about things but I don’t like how it feels to be stressed and crunched for time when I am doing my homework. This last project was the worst it’s ever been in a long time. I went to bed at 11 and set my alarm for 2AM. I needed every single hour to get the rest of it done before leaving for class in the morning.

Doing bits of it at a time really isn’t that bad. I do still like the days where I get to camp out in the living room with my blankets and drinks and just get lost in writing a paper without having to worry about anything else. I just don’t have as many of those open days anymore. There other things going on.

It really isn’t our ourselves, but others who help us to change. We are able to do so much to point, but there are parts we are unable to do and need help with. During one of the readings this morning I was l looking through the opening pages of the book. I like the words from the dedication which said,

Dedicated to those who are struggling to change

To our children, who have strengthened our commitment to making a difference

And to all who have come before and taught about the power of relationships to bring about change

I texted Josh and asked if we could sit down tonight and talk about our schedules for the rest of the week. I don’t think we’re two ships passing in the night but two times today we passed each other on the road. I was coming back from practicum and he was off to meet a pastor for coffee to talk over a few things regarding the high school.

He said, yes, we could, after his school board meeting. We ended up having time before then. The second time we passed each other he was on his way back from meeting with the pastor and I was on my way taking one of the boys to practice and driving to the other school where another was going to get dropped off. I brought my books and didn’t read. Instead I walked for about twenty minutes.

I have this case study that needs to get done this week. Before we left from picking my son up at practice I texted the piano teacher and asked if it was possible to switch our lessons to another day. I was going to be dropping out, as well as the one who started high school. But the younger two could still come in the afternoon.

I enjoyed my practicum time today. I will be working with them two mornings a week. Today I was mostly shown around, sat in on sessions, and read the manual. It is a regular thing for them to have students. There was a med student who was also there. They also have nursing students who will be observing next week.

I’m still sorting out my first day thoughts, but the thing I have said and thought a couples of times is that if you are waking up, getting out of bed, putting clothes on your body and maybe even something (not illegal) in it, you are doing fantastic. There is this hyper-productivity culture that sets up so many crazily unrealistic expectations.

Really, I mean that. If you have anything that even slightly resembles a family, or a job, or a decently comfortable and nice place to live, we have so much to be thankful for. I was disappointed with quitting piano but I told him I didn’t have the bandwidth to make myself practice. If I’m ever going to do it will have to be on my own time later on.

The campus was pretty on my walk today. We did a lot of sitting this morning so it was nice move around and stretch my legs. Josh and I talked about how we were feeling the crunch of not having his mom there to help with the pick-ups and occasional rides. I know she misses the meets. They’re planning to get back to Springfield on Wednesday.

I wish it wasn’t so hard for me to work on my homework. I know I have to do it, so why don’t I just start it sooner? I am going to work on some tonight and try and get at least three pages accomplished. Something we do in group is set goals. They have to be measurable, and you say not what you might do, but what you actually will do.

If it was that easy then people wouldn’t be the places they are so often in. But I do think there is something to the goal setting and little steps toward progress. There are some things that I also think will always be hard no matter how much we grow. Those things will look different depending on the person. So maybe not three, but I will try.

The high school kids had their first meet yesterday. Their team is even smaller this year, with two girls including my daughter, and then four total boys. Two of them weren’t there last night and are debating on whether or not they’re going to keep running. Cross country is not one of the school’s primary sports. Most of the sports boys in the fall play soccer. The girls play volleyball.

One of the soccer moms texted me yesterday saying it’s going to be a long season. I said, “Oh? Anything in particular?” Basically watching high school boys running around, running into each other and being knocked to the ground, and then thankfully getting back up again is difficult for moms to watch year after year. There is something about the sports with the increased testosterone.

And even when you’re a couple of states away it doesn’t matter. I was more nervous and physically disturbed with my son’s first college 5K yesterday than I was with the junior high meet or with this one. I have tried to figure out why this is. I think that it has something to do with the fact that he was the first one and the only one I had that much 1-on-1 time with and for in the earlier years.

He didn’t do very well. And even I was surprised and a little concerned with the time. Things like that make me wonder about what else could be going on. I was happy about the prospect of him having an already built in team and community but not so much about meets and more training. The worries and cares of this truly are endless without the blessing of the Lord who is willing to take them.

He wanted to hear about this meet too, specifically the mile splits of his sister. We ended up “hanging out” during the races via text. At one point I asked if I was texting too much and he said no, so I gave him the updates from the start times to the first mile splits of the lead runners to the team member splits at the 2-mile where I sat down and waited for first the boys and then for girls to run by.

I have really enjoyed having the phones to keep in touch. I feel like I have talked to him more in one week than I did in all of his four years of high school. That has to be an exaggeration but something about it feels true. I don’t regret not getting them phones, but I am seeing what you miss when you do not have that instant access. Even with the phones I miss him, and felt it there.

We stopped by Dairy Queen on the way home from the meet. Since we really haven’t gone on any vacations much these past few years, I figure the money spent on travel food is sort of making up for that somehow. Each meet is sort of like a mini-vacation. Dad and the kids got ice cream blizzards and I had a chili dog and fries from the 2 for $5 menu. I say more of these types of meals than the others.

After church today we picked up lunch and went to my in-laws house. Josh wanted to measure and scope out potential areas to fit a ramp. We brought a wheelchair from camp and played around with what it might be like to have to back it up into the house. We tested out the hallways and doorways and decided the front door would probably be best. They’re hoping to get something built within the week.

During church I met with a couple of congregants. Every so often there are a few of us who end up out in the narthex before church is over. We talk and get to hear a bit about each other’s lives. Busy and hard are the common themes, with sometimes more of one than the other. It makes us all the more appreciative of the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In him we find true rest for our souls.

I sometimes feel like talking so much about one kid makes it sound like I am completely out of touch with my other kids. There is something about having multiple kids that makes it easier to view them with what I call a “herd mentality”. They’re “your kids” or “the boys” or whatever nickname or category they get lumped into over the course of the years. At various times I’ve called them “kidlets” and “kiddos” and “boyos”.

But you really do have something different with each of them. For years I’ve told the boys goodnight with a special 3-line cadence. “Goodnight. Love you. Jesus loves you” and they something similar back “Goodnight. Love you too. Jesus loves you too.” But I rarely said that with my oldest. If they were in the room together when I’d go down before bed I sometimes said it, because I didn’t want him to feel like I was withholding that love from him. But it was different. I often wondered if it was puberty or him.

Because the boys I would give kisses to and to this day they kiss me back. But with Ethan I would kiss his head, and only rarely his cheek. With my daughter I kiss her head, but it isn’t awkward to say it. By the end before he left it was a simple hug and “goodnight”, sometimes initiated by me and sometimes by him. When they come into my room and if I’m already half asleep, in no time I am up on my side reaching out with my arm.

My mind has been a mashed up conglomeration of memories, my emotions a slow and pretty swirl of bright colors. I want to write about them all, go back and clarify them all, make sure no one who would read here is misunderstanding. I can’t do all that. So I keep documenting the journey in the hours that come, the moments that come, the stretches of time when I am home enough to write.

I will say that I somehow kind of forgot that most major life changes include a time of transition. In my mind I went from thriving here to hopefully thriving there with nothing too significant or hard in-between. My purpose in writing certain things down is not to drag other people into my drama. Nor is it to tell of our past family struggles. But this is the life I am living, a life that daily includes other people.

A part of being a family in Christ is that we wouldn’t go through our struggles alone. Yes my kids are my kids and my husband is my husband, but they are also a part of my family in Christ, a family that I have been part of for much, much longer. If things were up to me I’d keep grasping for pleasures and insisting that all we needed were hacks to bring happiness. Heaven really will be better than this.

The older two for years fought bitterly. Sibling bickering had to be some of the worst times of mothering. No amount of teaching, or trying to painfully hear both sides, was enough for them to finally get along. I think they grew out of it. He went to school and the hours apart seemed to calm things, though it had started to settle down by then. By the time they were riding daily in the car together to and from school, and to and from practice, and to and from Wednesday night youth group activities, you’d never know.

The younger boys were different. They didn’t fight, and still don’t. They may have fought when they were little, but it was never like the first ones. As a mom you just want your kids to be happy and the best times were when everybody was together. The younger boys and I went to pick up the middle one from town where the bus drops them off at the other local Lutheran grade school. I had my reasons for choosing the school I did. One seemed more private, the other more parochial. None of them are ever perfect.

On the way home from the bus stop we stopped at the store. I wanted to pick up something for the circuit pastor’s cookout/potluck. Josh already picked up the meat but I wanted to add something else for the table. He’s down in St. Louis for the day with his dad. My mother-in-law has been at the hospital with him for over a week and needed some time to come home and do things. They’re hoping to move him back to a closer facility soon for rehab but won’t be able to do so until at least the first of next week.

The boys came in and picked out their drinks. These are kind of moments I feel like I missed with my older son. I know we had them, especially with the homeschooling. On one of the days we brought the kittens with us to the coffee shop drive through. He loved those kind of spontaneous adventures. I did too, and tried to provide them whenever I could. Of all of them he was the hardest to homeschool which surprised me because I thought by far he’d be the easiest. He was in many ways, also freeing me up.

I’d give him work to keep him occupied, and he would speed through every page. The mistake I often made was then to try and give him more. He’d get his work done fast so he could do other things. I insisted that someone with his abilities and intellect needed to be learning as much as he could, taking advantage of this unique and fleeting period of time when he currently had nearly limitless opportunities. And then we would fight ourselves but at the time I couldn’t see it. He wanted to be a kid, not a scholar.

When we stopped having kids it felt like I was finally able to start catching up. The big kids just continued getting bigger and bigger. But with every baby I was locked in time, getting farther and farther away. I was starting all over. He always liked to play with the babies and was affectionate with the little ones. He was the one who suffered most when we moved away from his school. I knew kids grieved, and that he was grieving. What I didn’t know was how to give it time and be patient. To be his mother even now.

The younger boys and I went down to the lake this afternoon. Prior to that I’d taken some time to start sorting through school papers and getting a feel for what I’m supposed to be doing. We had our first class on Tuesday with the very nice but harder professor again. The others will let us out usually by 9:30 or 9:45. She informed us all of what we already knew, that she keeps everyone there until 10 each time. This way we are getting the most of our tuition dollars.

Water has a similar effect as the sand. It always amazed me how you could take kids to the beach with a bucket and a shovel and they’d stay busy for hours in their own little worlds. When it comes to sand kids seem to know what to do. I would say the same is true with water. Of the three of us none of us were “doing” anything. We were being. One went in right away and the other stopped by the shed for a recently donated swim board. I followed close behind for who knows how long.

Swimming in the lake here never gets old. You would think that it would. I always think of Colorado or somewhere up in northern Canada where surely there have to be “better” lakes. The scenery is surely more breathtaking and the pine trees and mountains make even more of an impression with their shades and hues. And even so I could still be happy. I can still think, “This is such a beautiful place, and I could need nothing more” like I do when we swim here.

This morning I met with a friend for breakfast. We’d planned to get together several weeks ago for a time not long after the boys left for school. Our boys have been friends since the summer we moved here and have continued to be friends through summers at camp. It is a comfort for me as a Christian parent when my kids are able to find those kinds of solid Christian friends.

This is her second time going through the process. It really is amazing the things we learn with others simply from taking the time to get to know them. Women are missing something these days, she said. Our grandmothers used to get together to snap beans or can vegetables and all the while they’d talk. It’s where we found our encouragement and those to share the days with.

I’ve been thinking more lately about how our culture deals with parents. At some point during the summer I was doing an investigation of trying to get a hold of one school and find out something from another. There was this sense of, “Wait, am I meddling in my son’s life?” I didn’t think so. He was a counselor at camp and I was playing catch up on the ways we were behind.

There was something where they were not able to do through my email, they had to hear directly from the student. She was apologetic and said she hoped I could understand. I did understand, and yet, it still hurt. I choked back a tear or two and later told my son that he was going to have to find a time to come back home and use the computer. We had a few times like that.

And of course in all this I seem like “the nag”. Or at least that is how I felt I seemed. And that’s just it, there are way too many negative archetypes of mothers out there. We’re either neurotic and nagging, or we’re abusive and toxic, or we’re cold, distant, and unavailable. It can really make you wonder if your mother or your father at any time did anything right.

I can think of times when I have been all of those things. And I am not discounting by any means that our parents are flawed people who have caused pain in our lives. At some point, however, we have to see them for who they are, and who our parents are includes a mixture of virtue and vice. Each of us comes from a unique set of parents and through them we were given the gift of life in this world.

Being with others has this way of cleaning out the spiderwebs that have formed in our heads, these thick strings of lies influencing the way we act and think. Solomon wrote an entire biblical book whose purpose was to give “knowledge and discretion to the youth.” In the Lord’s mind parental teaching and influence is valuable, described as “pendants for your neck”, that is, something to keep with you.

So with all of that this morning, and with conversations we’ve had in the past, she gave me the courage to continue reaching out. At first I was mad that this was the way it had to be. I’m supposed to be letting him go and letting him find his footing and just forgetting he’s this person I’ve nurtured and loved for 18+ years. I wasn’t even going to text him. Texting too soon would be just me being “that mom”.

That mom who what? Loves her son? I’d asked her a few weeks ago how often texted and she told me every day. My mouth dropped open. Even if they don’t say anything, or she would just say goodnight, or send a daily verse in the family chat. With one of them she’s doing a 10-day devotional about transitioning to college. I read through the sample and then downloaded the app to access the others.

The weirdest thought came to mind somewhere in the early morning. I starting thinking about a show I’d watched when I was little about Siamese twin girls who were joined at the head. I remember thinking how completely awful that would have to be. And then I started thinking about my son out in Nebraska and how it’s almost like my head needs to be closed up somewhere.

The thoughts of him are always in the left side of my head. It is becoming more common now for therapists to say things like, “Tell me what is coming up for you in your body” or “Where in your body do you feel that?” I’ve never really noticed, however, where in my head my thoughts are.

Whenever I have ailments like this it’s always the left side that’s affected. And now I’m imagining myself with those bandages around my head like the separated twins had. When I was sitting in class last week I started wondering where my daughter was. I hadn’t heard from her lately.

And then I thought, “Dear God, no, I’m not doing that again.” The constant fearing, wondering, worrying. It doesn’t even have to be constant, even a little is enough to drive you insane. I’m not saying as parents we’ll never worry. I’m saying that in that moment I felt power over my thoughts.

I know it isn’t right for me to compare my life with others. When I picked up the younger boys today, who are still going half-days, I felt guilty when we were walking away like I was deserting the teachers. I did last year too. The seventh and eight grade homeroom teachers supervise noon recess.

On the sidewalk and driving away, it’s like I’m getting away with something that I should not be getting away with. Why I am not involved more? Why isn’t it me helping? They’re going to have to go to school full-time at some point, but right now it still is working out both money-wise and time-wise.

God calls us to the lives we live and he equips us to live those lives in the moment. The life that I am called to as a mom is ever changing. As we pass through more of those seasons I see it. Babyhood, childhood, homeschool, it was a wonderful and special time but wasn’t meant to last forever.