The three older kids are at the Christmas dance this evening. We hosted supper again for the pre-dance meal. It was Elianna and Maddy, plus their two dates, Miles and Matt. In addition was Micah, who is also Maddy’s brother. Their parents are sadly no longer together, but the kids have stayed friends and have been friends since they were very little. Ethan also went along, technically taken by Miles. Matt and Ethan are both post-high school and worked at camp together last summer. They are also close friends.

At least I did not cry when they all left this time. My mother-in-law was also here for supper and joined my husband and I at the adults table in the living room–the younger boys ate with the others. Once the kids left we cleaned up the table and dishes. I did not do most of the cooking. Usually Josh does the meat and I do the sides, but he did everything this time. While he was food prepping I was giving the boys hair cuts. I know marriage is not about keeping score, but it’s still strange to me how much I’m not doing.

I was talking about this earlier with another wife and mother. She asked if there was anything she could send along, having sometimes sent along rolls and a dessert. I said we had everything and were good. Josh was getting ready to go to the store and I asked what the roll brand was she usually gets (food allergy friendly). And then she just insisted that rolls and dessert were coming along, thanks to her husband who was about to take a trip to the store and would make the dessert. And then I wondered.

Is this a special phase in marriage where husbands take over significant amounts of cooking responsibilities and complete almost 100% of the Christmas shopping? She hadn’t bought yet a single gift either. Her vacation planning and recovery had taken all of her brain cells. Women joke about the brain cells things but do men do this ever? Have we burned through more with the years of worry and birthing and multi-tasking? Or is this just one of those ways we are different? Manifesting as the weaker vessels?

She too had a similar health breakdown following the year her sister was murdered. Strange neurological symptoms including drooping and numbness in the face. The doctor said it was likely due to a virus though he did prescribe an anti-biotic that helped for the sores that had broken out on her skull. She had to quit all kinds of things and couldn’t do much for almost a year. She did go to counseling and started slowly getting better. In stressful times the face symptoms come back. Either way we were grateful.

The Christmas tree farm was closed for the season. I was worried the places in town would be fairly picked over, but there were still plenty of trees to be had. I don’t know how to Christmas in this new family season. When the kids were small, like all under ten, everything felt so natural to me. As a mother you had a sort of power over your children. You directed the day and created the light.

There was something undeniably God-like about it. And now I’m just mom. And the pains are still there, but they’re different now. Just like each person who lives here is, their personalities coming out and developing, whereas before they were just kids. They were themselves, but altogether one in a way that remains in my mind but has faded with time.

It isn’t strife or sullenness, the things that you would expect at this stage. It’s distance and me in my room while they decorate. I did eventually come out and everyone opened their Advent pajamas. Dad did the shopping for those this year. The one whose former pants were six inches off of the ground was grateful. The rest were too. Mine were green, a new favorite pair of pajama pants now.

My first paper grade came back on Tuesday. I got a 92% on the multicultural paper and was ecstatic. Three whole points came off because of mistakes I’d made with the reference years and at least two times she found a citation in the paper that wasn’t in the references list. That means if I had taken the time to double and triple check all of that then I could’ve done even better.

The second one was a 300/300 and I didn’t even know what to think other than that she had to have just been tired of grading papers by that point. Either way, I know these are just part of a long list of accomplishments that are fleeting and in the grand scheme of eternity, do not matter. But in the moment I enjoyed that feeling of completion and like I’d finished something hard.

The drive home from Nebraska went well. The boys and I woke up this morning and left the hotel around 7:30. My phone has been dinging very frequently the past two days with family texts about my aunt and requests for prayers for certain things. My cousin is putting a video together full of videos from family members for her birthday. I watched a preview and it’s turned out very well.

One of the boys and I left around 8 this morning for Nebraska. The students are off for Christmas break once their finals are done. Until recently I thought the last final was over sometime around 4:30, but actually there was one at 7PM. I’ve never heard of a final being given that late before.

There really isn’t much between here and there. Chillicothe, MO is about the most happening place where you feel like there are really places to stop and see things. So we stopped there and ate lunch at Applebees. We normally wouldn’t go to a sit-down place but we had no reason to rush.

We knew about the 7PM final several days ago, so I’m not inferring that I only found that out today. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do in the gap of time from when we were supposed to arrive and when the final would be over. We tried looking for a hotel in Lincoln but that ended up being a hassle.

I thought if we did that it’d get us home sooner, being at least a half hour closer when we started tomorrow. And then I was like, “Why aren’t we there like right now, watching practice? I decided to go to Seward and we’d just have to deal with having the extra half hour. It made so much more sense.

So here we are in the hotel room. The younger son and I did find the older one. We drove him back to his room and said we’d see him in a bit. After supper the two of us walked around the town square. We drove around and looked at lights then watched a small part of Home Alone 2 while we waited.

I wasn’t much up for a walk today. This morning I tried but didn’t get very far and this afternoon again I again wasn’t ready. Uncle Glenn called before lunch to ask about Christmas plans. One of the boys was on the couch having stayed home sick for the second day in a row. I’d started reading to him A Christmas Carol in a weak but genuine attempt to do something motherly. The nursing wasn’t as strong this time around.

He doesn’t know when exactly he’d be able to be here, but knows that it’ll be a struggle to find open restaurants on Christmas Day. I told him just to plan on being here Christmas morning, or that I’d at least plan for him then, and if something changes he could let me know. It truly don’t mind him being here, he’s family and has few other places to go. He’s been here Christmas morning before and I like when he comes.

Last night before class one of the other mom classmates handed out gift bags to a couple of students. I’d thought about saving my extra soaps for the girls at school but I ended up giving them away to my practicum co-workers. Which is fine, it was her turn to give that time, and mine to receive. It’s been kind of a long and harder semester and I’m thankful for women who text and joke about having to breathing into a paper bag.

I haven’t bought a single gift otherwise. Josh has been taking care of it mostly. I keep seeing Amazon boxes in front of the house. He’ll send the occasional text asking for shoe sizes or snack ideas. He’s been trying to take some vacation days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. He gets four weeks of vacation here and it’s not uncommon to get to the end of the year with three whole weeks that never were used.

I’ve been in bed half the day. This time on YouTube I’m listening to “Music heals the heart in winter: Soothing music restores the nervous system.” It’s got a video with villages and snow-covered mountains. I don’t know how I started listening to these–they just pop up in my feed now–but it does have a soothing and calming effect. Whatever season this ends up being named, one thing’s for sure, it too would pass.

Tom and Shadow found me over at the Retreat Center deck. I wasn’t up there very long, just long enough to see the woods and beach trail from above.

So I walked some more and they came along to where I stopped at the indoor chapel and sat down. After sitting and thinking for a while I went home.

The Lutheran High kids had a Christmas choir and band concert tonight. Along with that the piano students from our church played after their concert for a mini-recital. The younger boys each played a song. My back today has continued feeling better and better so I went along.

Before we left I was finishing up straightening out my reference pages. I’d finished the writing part around 5PM but waited to turn it in until after 9 when we were home. I turned it in three different times trying to get the formatting situated. Sometimes when you turn something in it changes.

The other one I turned in yesterday, so those are done now, thanks be to God. Tonight after the concert we stopped by Baskin Robbins since one of the kids asked. Grandma came along as well. We also stopped to pick up lunch food. On the way home we listened to some radio music.

Josh and the kids were busy over at the CGC this weekend. This year the camp put on an overnight Joyful Hearts Christmas reunion. It was meant for the adult campers with disabilities to be able to have another option for camp time. Full-time caregivers also expressed their delight in being able to have a day freed up over the holiday season. Our new program director Lauren thought of this and it seems to have gone over well.

Today was another writing day. It really is crazy how much time this all takes. I could definitely cut out some distractions, but overall I like to have stretches of time to go at my own pace which is typically pretty slow. There’ll be bursts of time where two or three pages can get done in two hours. I think the most I’ve ever written in a day was eight. The one I’m not currently is at that many. I plan to keep working through the evening.

My back throughout the day has been gradually getting better. It’s hard because when this initially happens I am not able to sit, I can only be on my back or side or walking very carefully. This afternoon I spent some time tracking the indoor meet going on in Nebraska. Ethan ran the 600M for the first time which he seemed to like. The cook brought over a bunch of leftovers which was nice. I need to keep making some progress now.

“For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”
~Ephesians 5:8~

All I did was try to stand up from the place where I’ve been sitting for most of the day. With that I’m pretty sure I threw out my back again. It doesn’t seem to be as bad as the last time, but whatever I did, I’m in bed now, with my pajamas on and computer and articles close. Last time this happened I had to type a book report in bed for my Stone-Campbell Movement class. The whole thing was a little ridiculous but we made it.

I was dancing earlier. Between that and the sitting something probably got loosened up and weakened so that the right twist or bend would be the thing to make it happen. My chiropractor says that people only throw out their backs when they’re emotionally stressed. How many times a day do you bend down and take something out of the pantry, he asked. I did feel stressed then but I had not been feeling stressed now.

He’s good but I didn’t always agree with his philosophies. I do need to finish these papers this weekend so that is important. When I get like this I want to act kind of silly and don’t like being serious. And then I’ll think, “Hmmm, really? Maybe don’t say that. There are so many serious things going on in the world…” I’m not dismissing serious things. It’s okay to be silly at times. But it’s not always a bad thing to second-guess.

It was almost warm outside today, with a high reaching almost 60 degrees. I texted Ethan to see if this would be a good night to FaceTime. We never have gotten into a schedule with calls. I’ll think everything’s fine and that we’ve all just adjusted and then I’ll think again that maybe I need to be being more intentional. It’s like that with relationships, where you tend to drift without the efforts to keep from drifting.

So we talked with him for a while tonight. He was playing his game with other boys from back home. Fortnite just came out with a LEGO version. I can’t believe it’s taken them this long to come up with something like that. There are other things I prefer more than video games as far as activities the boys can do. I’m a little scarred from some of the Facebook group posts I’ve read from wives who are at their wits end with the gaming. You wouldn’t want that for them.

But I do like that they at least can be social with them. The other paper I’m working on is about disorganized attachment. I have to start out by writing what conditions are necessary for healthy human development starting with infancy and across the lifespan. So reading about that too has had me thinking more about the ways I am interacting with my kids. The nice thing about brains is that they can be rewired.