Sometimes being a parent makes you say things, particularly to ask questions that you never expected to utter. A sampling of things I have actually said. Some of them more than once. Some of them frequently.
"Where are you going with that hot dog?"
"Stop licking your brother."
"Who peed in the trash can?" (or...the corner... or the bucket...)
"No you can't play on the roof."
"Yes I know Daddy just dumped water on you from the roof."
"Who flushed the capri sun down the toilet?" (or the lego.... or the Star Wars action figure...)
"Well, did you hit him first?"
"Who tried to put my drivers license in the computer disc drive?"
"No more hiding in the drier!"
"Stop taking all the pens apart!"
"The popcorn IS dinner."
"Don't sit on your brother's head."
"Why are the eggs under the stairs?"
"Are you stealing your brother's underwear?"
"No you cannot wear your pajamas to _____ (church, library, park....)" and also the opposite "Fine, wear your pajamas I don't really care."
"Did someone put a slice of cheese in the toaster?"
"Stop peeling the paint off the bannister!"
Yep. This is my real life folks.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
"Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo" (October 2014)
Ahhhh... the wisdom of an animated fish with short term memory loss.
I have been accused of being an over protective parent. When I discovered that my 2 year olds were sad in church nursery, I took them out. When my 3 year old didn't want to go to his primary (sunday school) class alone, Kris or I went with him. For months. "You really need to cut the apron strings." A well meaning (I guess), but seriously misguided (in my humble opinion) primary leader told me. We don't let our kids ride bikes until they are 8. They very seldom were ever babysat. They almost never are allowed to spend a night at someone else's house. I am seriously nervous when any of them climb trees. I don't like them to go anywhere alone. Ever. I regularly spy on my teenagers' Facebook activity... as in I actually have their passwords and can get in as them and see everything they see. And they can't even be on Facebook before they turn sixteen. When they attend youth activities we drive the leaders crazy asking for details. Heck, we don't even send them to school before they are about 16. When they are away from home, we text constantly, typically several times a day. Even those that live in a different state.
Now I have 3 children who have been away on missions for over a year now. This represents a new parenting milestone for us. We have done college before, but these are our first missionaries. Daily texts and phonecalls do not happen with missionaries. A once a week email that is frequently shorter than we would like and twice a year skypes or phonecalls, that are always much, much too short are all we have, but oh how we value those emails and those calls! Last week, I received an email from the Texas Houston East mission home asking for a few specifics so that they could arrange a flight home for Bayley on January 7th. I definitely DID NOT burst into tears attempting to read the email outloud to Fionnula. Because that would be silly. And Fionnula had no cause to say something like "I know you are happy... but you sort of seem sad..." Because, well, there were no tears of course!
I am frequently asked by others as they get ready to send off their own missionaries, or even by those who are just curious "Is it awful when they leave?" Once someone even said that she "could not believe I would allow them to go," yeah, that really happened. So, setting aside the obvious facts that my children were 18 and 20 and largely financing their own missions (sort of... but we aren't talking here about how our family mission fund works... it's clever though, and totally not of my design), and so really they were quite capable of going whether or not I or Kris 'allowed,' it... and yet, I guess we did allow them to go, we even encouraged them to go, we are proud of their decisions to go. But, yes, it was terrible when they left. We cried, they cried, their siblings cried...at the airport, on the way home from the airport, for days and weeks after at unexpected moments. A few days after they were all gone, I found a pair of running socks Rhys had left behind. It grieved me to no end that he forgot those silly, very replaceable, socks! A year out, we discovered a lifeguard whistle under the seat of my car, could have belonged to any of them, and yes it made me wistful and nostalgic and, at that moment, it hurt I missed them so bad! Some mornings Fionn wakes up crying because she dreamt they were home and woke to find them not. So yes, letting them go is hard.
You know what else is hard? When we receive emails from them that they are sick, that they are discouraged, that they have a difficult companion, that they aren't eating, their feet hurt, people are mean, dogs are biting, bees are stinging, boys are throwing rotting fruit at them. In the year (and a bit more) since the missions began, there have been fires and earthquakes in Kegan's mission, Rhys was seriously ill for months, was nearly mugged once, and lost his credit card and camera and Bayley broke her wrist and had to have surgery in the mission without us there. It is always hard to be a parent that cannot step in and fix things for your kids.
But what sort of mother would I be if I had told them that I couldn't bear to have them leave me, that they needed to stay here... for me? Because I would feel more comfortable with them safely tucked away in my basement or because I couldn't stand the loneliness. Would I sacrifice what they wanted and needed for me? Of course not. Would I rather Rhys be safe in my basement and far from the stray dogs of Argentina who chase him and bite his ankles but missing out on the adventures of living in Argentina for two years? Would I prefer that Bayley had been sent home for that surgery, so that I could be the one who sat by her side? Would I have her sacrifice the rest of her mission because I was too selfish to share her with the wonderful people of Texas who have taken such good care of her? Would I deny Kegan the chance to serve the people of Chile and help them re build their city after that devastating fire? Most of all, would I deny my children the amazing learning experience and the chance for exponential spirtitual growth that their missions have been and would I deny the people of Chile or Argentina or Texas the service and love of my children? No, I wouldn't.
I love my kids. I miss them terribly. I miss them like a piece of me is gone. But being a parent means sacrificing what would be most comfortable to me for what will be best for them.
I have been accused of being an over protective parent. When I discovered that my 2 year olds were sad in church nursery, I took them out. When my 3 year old didn't want to go to his primary (sunday school) class alone, Kris or I went with him. For months. "You really need to cut the apron strings." A well meaning (I guess), but seriously misguided (in my humble opinion) primary leader told me. We don't let our kids ride bikes until they are 8. They very seldom were ever babysat. They almost never are allowed to spend a night at someone else's house. I am seriously nervous when any of them climb trees. I don't like them to go anywhere alone. Ever. I regularly spy on my teenagers' Facebook activity... as in I actually have their passwords and can get in as them and see everything they see. And they can't even be on Facebook before they turn sixteen. When they attend youth activities we drive the leaders crazy asking for details. Heck, we don't even send them to school before they are about 16. When they are away from home, we text constantly, typically several times a day. Even those that live in a different state.
Now I have 3 children who have been away on missions for over a year now. This represents a new parenting milestone for us. We have done college before, but these are our first missionaries. Daily texts and phonecalls do not happen with missionaries. A once a week email that is frequently shorter than we would like and twice a year skypes or phonecalls, that are always much, much too short are all we have, but oh how we value those emails and those calls! Last week, I received an email from the Texas Houston East mission home asking for a few specifics so that they could arrange a flight home for Bayley on January 7th. I definitely DID NOT burst into tears attempting to read the email outloud to Fionnula. Because that would be silly. And Fionnula had no cause to say something like "I know you are happy... but you sort of seem sad..." Because, well, there were no tears of course!
I am frequently asked by others as they get ready to send off their own missionaries, or even by those who are just curious "Is it awful when they leave?" Once someone even said that she "could not believe I would allow them to go," yeah, that really happened. So, setting aside the obvious facts that my children were 18 and 20 and largely financing their own missions (sort of... but we aren't talking here about how our family mission fund works... it's clever though, and totally not of my design), and so really they were quite capable of going whether or not I or Kris 'allowed,' it... and yet, I guess we did allow them to go, we even encouraged them to go, we are proud of their decisions to go. But, yes, it was terrible when they left. We cried, they cried, their siblings cried...at the airport, on the way home from the airport, for days and weeks after at unexpected moments. A few days after they were all gone, I found a pair of running socks Rhys had left behind. It grieved me to no end that he forgot those silly, very replaceable, socks! A year out, we discovered a lifeguard whistle under the seat of my car, could have belonged to any of them, and yes it made me wistful and nostalgic and, at that moment, it hurt I missed them so bad! Some mornings Fionn wakes up crying because she dreamt they were home and woke to find them not. So yes, letting them go is hard.
You know what else is hard? When we receive emails from them that they are sick, that they are discouraged, that they have a difficult companion, that they aren't eating, their feet hurt, people are mean, dogs are biting, bees are stinging, boys are throwing rotting fruit at them. In the year (and a bit more) since the missions began, there have been fires and earthquakes in Kegan's mission, Rhys was seriously ill for months, was nearly mugged once, and lost his credit card and camera and Bayley broke her wrist and had to have surgery in the mission without us there. It is always hard to be a parent that cannot step in and fix things for your kids.
But what sort of mother would I be if I had told them that I couldn't bear to have them leave me, that they needed to stay here... for me? Because I would feel more comfortable with them safely tucked away in my basement or because I couldn't stand the loneliness. Would I sacrifice what they wanted and needed for me? Of course not. Would I rather Rhys be safe in my basement and far from the stray dogs of Argentina who chase him and bite his ankles but missing out on the adventures of living in Argentina for two years? Would I prefer that Bayley had been sent home for that surgery, so that I could be the one who sat by her side? Would I have her sacrifice the rest of her mission because I was too selfish to share her with the wonderful people of Texas who have taken such good care of her? Would I deny Kegan the chance to serve the people of Chile and help them re build their city after that devastating fire? Most of all, would I deny my children the amazing learning experience and the chance for exponential spirtitual growth that their missions have been and would I deny the people of Chile or Argentina or Texas the service and love of my children? No, I wouldn't.
I love my kids. I miss them terribly. I miss them like a piece of me is gone. But being a parent means sacrificing what would be most comfortable to me for what will be best for them.
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