family

Simple Resolutions for a Stronger, Saner Me

I’ve been trying to figure out what to write for this week’s blog. Since it IS New Year’s Day, I feel like it should hold some sort of tremendous import or be full of proclamations and profound resolutions.

Problem is, I just don’t know what those might be. I’m totally fresh out of profound proclamations. To tell the truth, I’ve never really owned any.

I am a simple person with simple needs. And my resolutions are equally simple. Family comes first and foremost. Always.

Therefore, I vow to give more love and hugs and phone calls and prayers. Every day. Every single one. I’ve tried to do that this year. But sometimes I’ve failed.

Sometimes the days spin wildly out of control – much like twin toddler tantrums – doubling and flipping and following so closely one upon the other that I suddenly find myself on the other side of nightfall and realize I’ve failed. Failed to call my girls, to check on my grandson, to pray for my babies (all four) and the lives they are owning and embellishing. Failed to say “I love you” to my husband. Failed to lavish an ample number of hugs on my rapidly-growing little boys – and they need lots and lots of hugs. As many as I can give. Because hugs grow good humans. I’m convinced of it.

I need to do better.

And to do that, I need to take better care of myself – primarily my mental health, which takes a beating from full-time teaching and all-the-time mothering.

So, to maintain my sanity, I resolve to take more naps and wear more blue jeans. I believe fully and absolutely in the restorative power of both. Blue jeans and naps do a world of good! And in a world full of bad, I believe they could lead to a gentler, kinder (more comfortable and well-rested) universe.

I know how cranky I get in buttoned-down, up-tight clothing. My fuse is short when my fabric is inflexible. And when I’m sleep-deprived, heaven help! I become a ticking time-mom. 😜

Unfortunately, my work place believes in neither (naps or jeans) so I’ll just have to get as much of both in as I possibly can on my days off. But why does the school administration object so unreasonably to such reasonable stress relievers?

I think a nap class in the place of study hall could shoot our test scores through the moon. After all, it is scientifically proven that naps boost productivity and mental alertness. They also lower stress levels and improve overall mood. I’m here to say that high schoolers – and their teachers – could greatly benefit from post-lunch siestas. Although I guess I understand the objection to naps. Sort of.

But blue jeans? Why, pray tell, are blue jeans so frowned upon in our establishment? Do the powers-that-be really believe that students respond more favorably and focus more intently when the instructor is dressed professionally? How, pray tell, do tailored trousers and silk blouses translate into higher SATs and college admissions? I’d like to see a study on that hogwash.

Still… I don’t have an issue with Monday-through-Thursday compliance. But I do believe that casual Friday should be reinstated. (We used to have dress-down days at the end of each week, but then this year, that simple workplace perk went the way of the dinosaurs. Why, you ask? I have no idea, I reply. I do, however, have lots and lots of anger and resentment…)

Oops… I seem to be digressing – and stressing –over a set of New Year’s resolutions that are meant to help alleviate my stress levels: more naps and blue jeans (at least on the weekends). Simple. Cheap. Effective.

So there you have them. My far-from-profound, hardly earth-shattering resolutions. Love more. Hug often. Call daily. Pray constantly. And nap and wear blue jeans every weekend and calendar break of 2018.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a nap to take…

January 1, 2018 0

Hay Bales and Husband and Hercule, Oh My!

This time of year, three of my favorite things — football, teaching, and family – all make my world spin at dizzying speeds. And while I try valiantly to juggle all three, there are just some days – and weeks – where things get out of balance, and I must regroup. This was one of those weeks.

To calm the chaos, I find comfort and joy in a couple of shaggy-haired boys with sheepish grins, a movie night with the hubs, and hay bales.

I’ll start with the hay bales. Yes, hay bales. They make me happy. They’re so simple. They’re so round. They’re so simply and perfectly round. And they smell so good — like sunshine and fresh air. And they send tiny little flecks of their sunshine-smell up into the actual air, where they dance around in the sunlight like flying little flickering fairies of dusty hope.

I love them. They make me sneeze, but oh, how I love them — big, round, sneezy blessings of promise and hope.

This time of year, the landscape is trimmed with their texture– giant swells of them collect in the fields of my hometown like nub on sweaters, or they nudge up to the fence lines in scalloped hedgerows.

I get this calm in my soul when I see them. I can be totally caught up in the chaos of my day – the football frenzy and the toddler tornadoes and the Halloween costumes still not found – but when I pass by these laid-back haystacks I feel… better. It’s hard to explain.

In a world full of jagged edges and complexity, sometimes it’s just nice to see roundness and simplicity. They are gentle reminders that the storms of today will mellow into the golden grains of tomorrow. All shall be well.

But they are also gentle reminders that time marches on and seasons change, and we should embrace the present, no matter the chaos that swirls around it.

I passed hay bale after serene hay bale on the way to the home to curl up on a Wednesday night with a glass of wine and some Murder on the Orient Express on cable. I am an absolute sucker for some Dame Agatha and her mustachioed-marvel, Hercule Poirot (second only to Sherlock Holmes in my whodunit hero worship).

The movie is breathtakingly beautiful, with sweeping vistas of Balkan mountain ranges and Edwardian opulence. And Poirot and his little grey cells never disappoint. Nor does a nice glass of red with a big bucket of popcorn.

If I love hay bales for their simplicity, I love detective movies for their ability to deconstruct complexity — to unravel chaos and lay it out in a seamless, satisfying denouement. And I know the world isn’t so easily solved. I know that chaos and sickness and sorrow exist, and there’s not much that can be done to dismantle the darkness and wipe it all clean. But mystery movies curled up with my husband help sideline the reality for a bit.

And then there’s my shaggy-haired rapscallions with sheepish grins — their hair a mixture of hay straw and loam, their faces a mixture of shimmer and shenanigans. They leave riptides of Legos and crushed Cheetos in their wake. But even through all the bruised heels and stained carpets, they bring me such joy — such breathtaking, heart-splitting joy. Today they’ve both cuddled me and clobbered me on more than one occasion. But oh, how I love them so! From the minute they were conceived — tiny little round he-bales of embryonic perfection – they’ve complicated everything. And they’ve simplified everything.

They add chaos to my world, and calm to my soul.

Yes, this week, the world has spun in super-duper, frenetically-fast fashion. There’ve been faculty meetings and football practices and parents-in-law visits to juggle. And I love it all. I really, really do. But I also feel jittery and disjointed at times. But that‘s where my husband and mysteries and hay bales come in. My recipe for soothing a weary soul.

November 13, 2017 0

A Little Allegory of a Parent’s Soul

To introduce the concept of allegory to high school students, I use Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree.” It is the first book I ever remember receiving as a gift. I still have that original copy. It’s inscribed with a birthday wish and a life blessing. Its edges are tattered and curl softly from use, and its insides are tatted up from Crayola abuse.

I loved “The Giving Tree” from the beginning, although I didn’t understand its complexity back then. Instead, I loved it for its simplicity and purity — the modest black and white sketches, and the story of the tree who loved a boy – loved a boy from every depth and breadth and height her soul could reach.

A boy and his tree. I loved it. But I didn’t get it. I didn’t.

And then I became a mom.

And KA-POW! – deeper understanding hit me like a felled oak straight to the noggin. This wasn’t merely the story of a boy and his tree. I mean it was, but darn, it was so much more, too! It was a little allegory of a parent’s soul. And for the first time ever reading that story, I cried. And ever since, every single time I read that story… I cry. I can’t even read the last line, I get so choked up.

The truth and power of its message gets to me: the unhesitating willingness of a mama to hew off whole parts of herself to raise up her young with the necessities and tools to survive in this world.

Like I said, I introduce the concept of allegory to my high school juniors – and they can see it, the multiple meanings hidden in its seemingly simplistic lines. They see the sacrifices the tree makes to keep her boy happy. They see her wide-open love through the gifts of her leaves and her apples; they see the unflinching sacrifice of her limbs and her trunk; and they think they understand the final grand gesture in the giving of her shriveled, old stump. Yes, they can definitely see it. And they think they get it. They interpret the allegory in one of two ways…

Some of my students connect it to parental love – those blessed enough to have parents who have shown them true, unconditional love.

But sadly, some don’t get it at all because some of my students haven’t felt that sort of love from their moms and dads. The stories I hear — the stories I see – students whose parents have left them surfing couches in friends’ houses, students whose parents are locked away in jail or whose love is locked away in addiction, students who are parenting siblings — students mere saplings themselves — playing the role of the Giving Tree.

It’s an impossible task for them. They lack the depth and breadth and height of maturity: their leaves are too tender, their fruit is too green, their roots are too shallow to support and sustain another soul, much less themselves. Their stories are enough to crack open a planet-full of hearts and send them weeping.

And speaking of planets… some of my students see another allegorical interpretation: humanity’s blatant misuse of Mother Earth and her resources. In this version, the boy takes and takes and takes with no regard for the Giving Tree’s sacrifice – the more he needs, the more he takes until there’s nothing left but a shriveled-up stump – and even that gets used.

And yes, the depletion of our planet’s resources is a valid and compelling argument — easily seen and scientifically supported, regardless of those who might say otherwise. And in this political climate – when the Environmental Protection Agency is being run by a fossil fuel magnate and the current POTUS is playing a nuclear-annihilation game of chicken with his Asian doppelganger, it is an interpretation with grave importance.

But I prefer the little allegory of a parent’s soul. And I really do believe it was Silverstein’s intent. Because after each sacrifice, after each leaf and apple and branch and trunk that is taken, his prose simply reads: And the Tree was happy.

And the earth cannot be happy being plundered and pillaged. That just cannot prove true.

But as a parent, that happiness statement rings true every single time. When my girls need me. When my boys need me. When my small and humble breasts sustained them all as infants. When my wide and ample hips carried them all as toddlers. When my long and lanky arms surround them as both youngsters and adults. When my eager, willing heart beats for all four of them always and forever with joyful abandon… I am happy.

For them, I would give all. Willingly. And happily.

That’s how I know “The Giving Tree” is a little allegory of a parent’s soul.

This past week, I introduced my boys to Silverstein’s masterpiece – my original, 45-year-old birthday book, its edges all tattered and curled from use, its insides all tatted with Crayola abuse. My boys were mesmerized. They loved it: the simplicity and purity of its prose, the modest black and white of its sketches.

This story of a tree who loved a boy is timeless. This story of a tree that readily hands out huge chunks of herself never gets old. The tree herself may get old. She may lose apples and branches, and her tattoos — if she had any — may wrinkle like that ME + T heart scratched into the core of her being, but no matter what, if her kid finds happiness, that tree finds happiness. No matter the hardship, the struggle, the pain…

Yes, my boys loved the book.

And this tree was happy.

November 6, 2017 0

All Aboard the Potty Train!

We just sent both boys off to daycare in big boy undies. Both of them! One sporting Captain America because we haven’t found Iron Man briefs yet, (so to him they’re the next best thing), and the other guy in day-old, slightly used Superman ones because he has OCD tendencies (and that makes them the only thing. Please don’t judge me.)

Now in case you haven’t figured it out, it’s been ALL ABOARD the potty express this weekend in the Candela household. It’s proved a cruel and rickety ride– and I’m still not positive we’ve reached our destination, but we’re getting close.

This morning, we tossed the engineer’s cap to the boys’ long-suffering and sweet-natured day care instructors, along with additional supplies: some stickers, a couple of magic bracelets, and plenty of extra underwear, which I pray they won’t need because no matter how many channel locks and sleeper holds they employ, they will NOT be getting additional briefs on our youngest boy. Truth. I apologize in advance. We clearly owe their teachers some Martin’s chicken biscuits (for those of you not from around here, they are our breakfast equivalent of an In N Out burger. Although these women actually deserve a bottle of private-select, high-quality bourbon — but I believe that’s frowned upon by the State Department.)

Now I feel I need to clarify just a bit before proceeding further. Parker has been out of diapers for the entire summer. He’s been chugging along like a champ, except for one thing (um.. actually two — number two — to be exact). So that was our goal for him: to go number two in the toilet. Tate, on the other hand, has refused to get on board all summer long — like adamantly — so we knew it was going to be a wild ride.

The train rolled out at oh-eight-hundred Saturday morning, with a meticulously-plotted plan in place. We knew we needed strategies, tactical diversions, and lots and lots of patience. It commenced with the disposal of the one remaining unsoiled diaper. We made a great show of it, each boy grabbing a separate Velcro tag and marching it to the kitchen, where we threw away the last remaining vestige of their infancy. They laughed and laughed. And I may have shed a tiny – microscopic, really – tear. Diapers are a hassle and an expense. But they’re also the end of an era… But I digress.

The boys laughed and laughed. Until it wasn’t funny anymore. Until I pulled the wool from their eyes… ahem, diapers from their ass.

“Stand up, Bug. Let’s put on your new Spiderman underwear.”

“I want a diaper.”

“We don’t have anymore, remember? You’re a big boy.”

“I’m not a big boy. I’m a baby. I want my diaper.”

“No, let’s put these on. You love spiders.”

Tate may love spiders, but he does not love Spiderman underwear. What commenced was a tremendous thrashing about and flailing of limbs that left my extremities bruised and him bare assed in the floor howling at the inhumanity of it all.

The potty train had left the station. And then stalled immediately due to a tiny human lying prostrate on the track. For fifty-three minutes. Truth.

Parker, on the other hand, was all about it… until he had to poop.

“Mommy, get the diaper out of the garbage.”

“Not happening. It’s too messy. See?” I take him to the trashcan, where I had intentionally poured Mrs. Butterworth all over it, knowing full well that I would need the evidence to back me up later.

He tried a new tactic. “Let’s go to Target and get some more.”

“We can’t. Target is closed. It’s Saturday.” (Small white lie.) “Besides, we have this magic bracelet. (Big white lie) Let’s put it on instead and then go poo poo in the potty.”

Parker is the more easily manipulated of our two fellas, so his eyes instantly lit up. He proffered his arm and away he and daddy went.

At last! We were off and rolling! Until we weren’t. Another delay. Parker sat there, chugging away, but that sweet little engine just didn’t quite believe he could. Not even with his magic bracelet. So he didn’t.

Tate, meanwhile, finally got off the floor but refused to get into his tighty whities — which, truth be told, are a little loose for his small frame and actually multi-colored. For the remainder of the day, he rode the train naked and full steam ahead, pulling ferociously at his safety valve all the while. But he found success – and stickers on a chart each time.

But rather than using the cute, little, froggy urinal we purchased – complete with spinning tongue to inspire good aim – he used the bushes outside our front door.

As Saturday drew to a close the ride left all four of us completely pooped (although only two of us had actually done so), and with the soil in our front bed growing more acidic by the moment. The gardenias should love it.

Cue our Sunday morning departure. It was a good deal easier on all the passengers. Tate finally fed the frog and even managed to spin its tongue, although it might actually be a uvula… it looks kind of like a uvula. Regardless, he did it. (Although he still prefers the shrubbery.)

And Parker finally conquered number two atop the toilet – the magic bracelet managing to wield its powers — and got tatted up as a reward. And Mike and I actually began to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.

The frog and his ?uvula?

a tatted up Parkerbear

Yes, the potty express is finally proceeding full steam ahead. And I’m praying that having handed over the controls to our sons’ ever-faithful teachers, the forward motion will continue. I pray that the air brake isn’t somehow inadvertently tripped in the chaos of centers and snack time. I’m not worried about Parker. He’s pretty much got this. But Tate, he worries me a bit.

Earlier, when I mentioned his OCD, it wasn’t for dramatic effect. He has definite tendencies. Tate won’t do anything until he’s confident he can succeed. And once he’s mastered something, he does it, ad nauseam. We’ve recorded hours of him singing Elsa’s theme song. He’s completed his favorite ABC puzzle approximately two hundred thousand times. (I exaggerate. Let’s say one hundred. Thousand.) Last week I told you about the elevator that we rode over and over and over and over again on vacation. And when we weren’t riding it, he was talking about riding it. And begging to ride it. And screaming to ride it.

So I feel like it’s kind of the same with the potty express. He feels fairly confident right now. At least about the first part (we’re working toward no. 2). For a while over the weekend, he wanted to pee every three minutes – and his body wouldn’t necessarily comply — which caused him to stress a wee bit (yes, pun intended). But now, he’s relaxed into an every-thirty-minutes-or-so pattern. (We have a plethora of stickers to prove it.)

Our family boarded this train with the intent of promoting confidence and independence (and a new school level – age 3-4 class) for our little lads. And thus far, it is working. But if our youngest has a set back, his OCD tendencies may take over. He already worries nonstop about “pee peeing on the floor at school.” He gave me a running catalog of classmates who have done so in the past. And if he does, he’s sure to internalize it as failure and our entire train could derail.

So I would appreciate any and all prayers for a successful third day aboard the Potty Express. We could use all the assistance we can get. And please, please… send prayers, not judgment. I know they’re almost three-and-a-half. I know they should’ve been potty trained a long time ago. But twins are a lot of work, David. Have mercy!

July 24, 2017 0

When Worlds Collide: Tales of Food, Fun and a Beach Family Vacay

I just returned from the most amazing three-day getaway. No, I wasn’t sipping cocktails at a beach resort in Bali while toasting the love of my life at sunset. Nor was I ziplining through Costa Rica, wind whizzing off my helmet as I shot over a rainforest canopy. Ditto on shopping it up on Rodeo Drive or spinning a roulette wheel in Monte Carlo.

All of those sound amazing, mind you, but they just didn’t fit into my three-day time limit, and they most certainly did not fit into my nine-family-members-on-a-tiny-budget demands.

So we opted for toting chairs and coolers and cranky forty-pound toddlers over a hot, shelly beach on Tybee Island, Georgia. Instead of Bloody Mary’s we nursed bloody shins, and pop knots on foreheads, and giant welts of salt water contact dermatitis.

The weather was as challenging as our toddler’s demands, pummeling us with low-pressure systems and high humidity levels that delivered thunderstorms and kinky-banged selfies, afternoons in crowded hotel rooms, and the untimely death of a freshly-purchased beach canopy.

Luckily, the wildlife we encountered was more docile than the weather, the toddlers, or my hair. We saw pelicans skimming the ocean surface, dolphins flipping in the surf, and tiny alligators in penned-in ponds. And there were gnats. Lots and lots of gnats.

We stayed at the only beach-access hotel on Tybee, in a couple of spongy rooms with high-powered microwaves and low-functioning refrigerators. There was also a melt-as-you-ride elevator up to our third floor accommodations. Tate was obsessed with this magical box of sweat and steel and asked to ride it at least eighty-nine times in any given sixty seconds. Kid you not. He may grow up to be a world-renowned lift engineer for the planet’s seediest dives.

But back to the hotel appliances… they got quite the work out, thanks to our limited budget and kitchen space. I had meticulously planned our dine-in menu to include pop tarts, variety pack snack chips, bananas, and seedy blackberry jam and peanut butter masterpieces in smooshed-up and travel-twisted Sara Lee sandwich bread. There was even that one night when we got super fancy with a brick of Velveeta, a can of Rotel tomatoes, and some complimentary paper cups — turning highly processed food products into individual queso dips, served alongside Kroger Hint o’ Lime tortilla chips. We were so big time.

Now don’t let me steer you wrong — it wasn’t all bargain-fare bon apetit. We did splurge our final night there on snow crab and boil ‘n peel shrimp at a legendary local joint (where we fed the aforementioned gators from cane poles wielding weird little particle board pellets). While a monsoon raged outside, we dined in style amidst twinkly lights and ceiling-mounted fans, causing our hair to shine and billow like Beyonce (and me to grace random stranger’s plated shellfish with strands of frizzy, highighted DNA). Now the food was truly delicious (no hair in our dishes, and those corn cobs — Lawsy!), but I must tell you, our hotel room sandwiches came in a very close second. Nothing quite compares to a straight-from-the-beach-and-half-starved fistful of PB&J for customer satisfaction.

Much to this mama’s dismay, my family lives worlds apart these days, in both distance and dynamics. We reside in three different geographical states along with vast and varied mental states — from big and bodacious to quiet and contemplative, from tightly strung to perpetually unwound (yeah, that would be me) — but when our worlds collide, beautiful things happen. Love and laughter and renewed life to sustain us all (and especially this mama) until our next go round.

I came away with so many big memories from our little weekend, but some of my favorites include: Bentley and Tate riding the waves for hours like fledgling sea turtles; Boop and Parker waging water gun wars at poolside; Mike and Bradley marching on their futile but fabulous mission to rescue our tortured, cartwheeling beach canopy; and Caitlin’s, Bray’s and my giggles during our impromptu girls’ night, complete with rocking chairs and red wine in clear plastic cups (imminently classier than red solos), the youngest amongst us sipping Sprite through her head gear (upping our classy quotient by about a gazillion).

Our weather may have been temperamental – right along with our toddlers– but we still had the most glorious time (and one glorious sunset before all the rain, which Caitlin captured beautifully between sea oats and sand). I can’t tell you how good this trip was for my soul.

Now before I go, I want to leave you with some final foodie fodder: Huey’s beignets in Savannah our last morning there. It may have been drizzling rain, but it was also drizzling praline sauce atop powdered clouds of breakfast transcendence.

So if you’re feeling a bit distant from the people you love the most in the whole wide world and you live in our neck of the woods, take a little three-day vacay to Tybee Island, the tiny little beach with the big heart just outside the sweet southern city of Savannah.

Do it for the family, do it for the fun, do it for the food. Just do it. No matter what. (And do it for Huey’s. No matter what.)

July 20, 2017 0

The American Opioid Crisis: Why Parents of Even Young Children Should Stay Vigilant

My family and I (three toddlers, a preteen in braces, two adult daughters, two husbands and a too small budget) just got back from the beach for a quick weekend get-a-way.

While there, I stressed about all the normal things a mama worries about when taking her kiddos to the beach: sharks, jellyfish, sunburn, drowning, strangers, lightning strikes… and not necessarily in that order. All are typical mama bear worries. But I stayed close and vigilant, and I felt secure in the knowledge that I was taking all the proper precautions.

What I did not worry about was an opioid overdose. I mean, why should I? My boys are three – hardly in the demographic danger zone. And my adult daughters do not use and never have.

Turns out, I should worry. An opioid overdose could pose a very real threat to all of us, despite none of us being addicts. I’m not talking drug abuse anyway. I’m talking overdose.

But just what does that differentiation matter, if none in my family is a user anyway?

Apparently, a lot. Because this morning I saw a story on the news about a 10-year old boy in Miami who died of a Fentanyl overdose on June 23rd. Yes, 10, and yes, Fentanyl.

And while there have been other stories seemingly like this one — of young children, toddlers and elementary aged — who have died of overdoses after accidentally ingesting controlled substances, those stories are usually followed up with accusations of parental drug abuse. And arrests. And pictures in case files of crack pipes and needles and mysterious powders on the premises.

This was not that kind of story.

This boy’s mother has not and will not be charged. His parents are completely innocent of all wrong doing. Their child did nothing wrong. Did nothing risky. He had simply gone swimming and played in a neighborhood park.

Authorities believe he inadvertently came in contact with the highly-lethal Fentanyl either while visiting a neighborhood pool or afterwards on his walk home. It would’ve only taken a milligram or two sitting on a towel or park swing, which he then either absorbed or inhaled or ingested after unknowingly touching the synthetic substance.

This is horrifying on every level. Everyone knows toddlers and children everywhere touch anything and everything. And then their curious fingers wind up in their mouths way more often than any mother is comfortable admitting. But up until now, the fear has been strep or staph or the common cold on those doorknobs and monkey bars and tabletops. Not highly lethal doses of drugs. I can’t imagine that was ever a consideration. Up until now.

I watch the news. I’ve seen the stories. Our country is in a major opioid crisis. Deaths from overdose have risen 110% in some parts of our nation. Fentanyl is one of the reasons.

Now, I know first responders have to be cautious. I know they use gloves and carry Narcan. I know they are trained to spot the symptoms of overdose — in others and themselves, as they are at risk of coming into contact with the drug and its users every single day. Of course, they have to be super cautious.

But I never thought I had to. As long as I am careful about who comes into my house and whose house I let the boys into, I assumed we were all in the clear. Clearly, I’ve been wrong.

So what do I do now? How do I protect my children, all of us, from such a dangerous and almost invisible substance? Protect them from a drug that can kill in doses as incredibly small as grains of sand? From a drug that has no smell or taste? From a drug 100 times more potent than heroin? From a drug that can cause an overdose in mere minutes?

The stories and statistics send me into hyperventilation and hypervigilance. I already wipe down buggies at grocery stores and tables at restaurants. Now, I will be on the lookout for strange powders, I will carry wipes with me everywhere I go, and I will swab any and every available surface — whether it looks clear or not. Lysol stock will soar from my diligence.

And sadly, playgrounds and public toilets will receive my most earnest attentions. Addicts use these places. I’ve seen movies. And, if that weren’t enough, I’ve seen evidence that points to this reality.

While travelling this weekend, my husband and son were forced to use an Atlanta gas station restroom. Not necessarily our first choice, but when a newly potty-trained toddler tells you he has to go – you’d best proceed to the nearest available option. (We used the lawn of a small country church on the way home – much cleaner, and we knew God would understand.) But back to that city gas station — Security knocked on the door when Mike and Parker were in there for longer than the allotted two minutes posted on the door, revealing to me how very naïve I truly am, and how very dark our world truly is.

Because as a mother, if I see a father and his young son go into a restroom and take a little longer than what would be deemed normal, I think “mom-of-toddler” thoughts. I automatically assume that the poor dad is in there juggling britches and Mickey Mouse underpants and that toy dump truck the kid had with him, while helicoptering his tyke over the toilet seat away from the dangers of e coli bacteria. I do not think “security-guard-in-urban-setting” thoughts. I do not automatically assume that the grown-ass man in the toilet with the toddler is either: 1) up to no good with a sweet, little innocent, or 2) he’s up to no good with a sweet little innocent in tow. Either way is horrific and apparently, a very real occurrence.

I guess there are a hell of a lot more things on this earth than are dreamt of in my rose-colored philosophy. So while I was vigilantly keeping an eye out for sharks, jellyfish, sunburn, drowning, strangers, and lightning strikes, I didn’t realize that there are potential dangers lurking out there far deadlier than sharks and far more random and lethal than lightning strikes.

But I will be taking proper precautions for those now, too.

And I will pray. A lot.

July 19, 2017 0

My Grandmother: 22 years after her death, she’s still guiding me

The sore bloomed like a rose, slightly left of center and fiery red, the day after my grandmother died — twenty-two years ago, this week. It arrived in direct contrast with the single, flawless white rose that bloomed outside her window the morning of her death.

Its origins were mysterious. I had not injured myself. A bug did not bite me. It wasn’t a rash. No doctors were ever able diagnose its cause – or the effects it produced — a general malaise, low-grade fever, extreme thirst, and the haunting feeling that something simply wasn’t right that lasted for months.

It wept in itchy, angry scales of grief, a physical manifestation of an internal pain. And when it finally shed all its sugared petals, it left behind the palest primrose scar.

For a while, I could easily see it, shimmering just beneath the surface, pulsing with the pain of her loss, but also telling me she was there, she was with me.

Somewhere in the last two decades, as I learned to cope with my life without her, it slipped under the surface. Went dormant and invisible. I would search for it sometimes, run my fingertips over its resting place. Especially on those days when I most wished she were there to hold my hand. My wedding day. The morning of our first IVF appointment. The day we brought our boys home from the NICU.

I miss the light, mothy touch of her fingers. I miss her reassurance and her love. I miss the holidays at her house. Seeing her settled into her plush, padded lazy boy nest, blowsy with blankets and pillows, eyes and mouth animated with story after hyperbolic story. Tall tales of horses and hogs and uncles and cousins. Histories I should’ve recorded. Should’ve written down.

I should’ve done something.

Especially when she got sick. When she gave up her nest for a hospital bed in the back bedroom. When her face turned sallow as parchment. When her hair came out in fuzzy tufts on her pillow. When the mothy touch of those fingers took to frantically pinching pleats in the bedsheets. When my cousin and I spoon fed her cream of wheat three times a day because it was all she would eat.

Until she wouldn’t. Until she told us she’d had enough of that infernal cream of shit.

Why didn’t I record them then? I’ve forgotten the major details of most of her stories. I’ve failed her.

The scar surfaced again this weekend. It swam back to me on the anniversary of its original appearance. It has to be a sign. And I believe in signs.

She’s made plenty of other appearances along the way, but it was always her scent that appeared. I would catch a whiff of her Tennessee scotch snuff and know she was there: in the elevator the day of our IVF transfer; in the centerpieces at our wedding (ok, I put her scent there on purpose, but she was there when she held back the rain – a halo of sun in the midst of a radar of storms); when Mike pushed my wheelchair through the halls of the hospital on our way to hold our boys for the first time. A sniff of snuff told me this is my path, this is my destiny. And it is beautiful.

Twenty-two years ago, this week, my grandmother made her way to heaven on the buoyant chords of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. My cousin Jenny and I knew it was time. We brought in the recorded piano music our cousin Teresa had given her years before and we pushed play. When the Canon came on, grandma quietly slid into the current and swam to the stars.

The doctors couldn’t diagnose the rose that bloomed on my chest over two decades ago this week. But e.e. cummings could. He diagnosed it in a prophetic poem in 1952:

Here is the deeper secret nobody knows

(the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry [her] heart (I carry it in my heart)

And her heart has swum to the surface once more. She’s trying to tell me something. So I’m listening. I hope it’s her stories. I won’t fail her this time.

July 10, 2017 0

How to Potty Train Twin Boys (Lord, I Wish this Were an Instruction Manual)

But it’s not. It is a desperation outlet for a mama at her wit’s end. It has been a long and arduous journey, with no clear ending in sight.

Here we are, over halfway through my teacher’s summer, and I am failing miserably at the one and only assignment on my mama to-do list (or maybe I should call it my to-doo doo list): potty training my three-year old boys.

Now I don’t want to mislead you. One boy is nearly there. He is currently wearing Captain America underpants sixteen hours a day with zero recorded accidents. (And that includes two twelve-hour road trips to Michigan and back with only two pitstops.) Why, then, you might ask, do I say “nearly there?” Because going number two is hardly a number one priority for Parker. He will hold his feces for days just to avoid the whole messy situation. And then, just when you think his intestines will perforate he quietly asks, with a sheepish twinkle in his eye, for a diaper. The potty is out of the question. It’s either a diaper or an impacted colon. Those are the options he gives us.

Why, you might ask, is he never afraid to liquidate his holdings, but is positively terrified to make a solid deposit? Your question is my question. He won’t say. Or at least, he can’t. He can’t vocalize his fear. And the experts claim it is unequivocally fear. Fear of losing a part of himself. Or of falling into the giant porcelain abyss. Or whatever other crazy cause they come up with. After all, nothing about a three-year old’s thought process is logical. I just know the minute we give him a diaper he goes over to a private corner and bears down like he’s birthing a boulder. And generally, after days of holding out, he is.

So with regard to potty training my twin boys, I’m half way there. Just below 50%, which in a teacher’s grade book is failing big time.

But if I look at it in terms of baseball statistics, our summer is going well. Like really, really well. So I prefer to look at it this way. They are my boys and this is summer, so what better analogy to use than one involving the boys of summer? In this scenario, I’m batting slightly less than .500 (taking into consideration the whole pee vs poo ratio for the one boy). And while I’m certainly no sports analyst, and the balls I know more about are the shape of inflated pig’s bladders and slung by a fellow wearing shoulder pads rather than round ones slung by a guy on a mound chewing tobacco (the guy, not the mound), I do know enough to know that batting .500 for an entire season is a damn-near impossible feat. But so is training twin boys. So I tell myself that. To feel better about our current situation. And our current situation is… Yeah, I don’t even know what to call it.

We are striking out at every turn with our youngest – the control-freak, OCD wunderkind who has mastered an entire repertoire of Disney soundtracks and the phonetic alphabet. But he hasn’t mastered this. And we’ve tried every potty-training life-hack known to momkind.

First, we bought colorful and appealing superhero undies. We oohed and ahhed over their comfort and built-in superpowers. He was unimpressed. We had his brother model them. He was equally unimpressed. We forced him into them. (Unimpressed is not the word to use here.) We figured his perfectionist nature wouldn’t allow him to have an accident. We were so wrong. All we got out of the endeavor was piddle stains on our Persian rugs and strained nerves on every last one of us.

We tried letting him watch the rest of us go potty. He actually loves this scenario. He laughs at the bubbles we make in the toilet basin, especially brother and daddy, who have distance and hose pressure on their side. But that’s all we get. Laughs. We get laughs.

We tried stripping him naked — because apparently that’s a tactic that works for some folks. Alas, not us. He lay in the floor for what felt like forever, writhing in hysteria and begging for his diaper and Santa PJs. (Yes, it’s July. Christmas in July is a thing. Don’t you watch the shopping networks?) And in all honesty, I’ve tried replacing them with a more seasonal option, but that’s going about as well as our potty training forays.

We tried peeing in the grass in the backyard (Well, Parker and Dad have. I abstained). Boys are supposed to love this. To see it as liberating — some sort of connection with Neanderthal roots maybe? I have no idea. Anyway, daddy and brother modeled the behavior. Tate was uninspired.

We would try positive reinforcement, but there’s been nothing to praise of yet.

We even lowered ourselves to the point of pitting brother against brother – thinking the whole competition factor would kick in. Nobody wants to be a loser, right? Yeah, that didn’t work. Tate happily praises Parker for his numerous successes, running to bring him his reward without even trying to sneak a Skittle for himself. So that pretty much tells me we are at a stalemate here, folks.

A stalemate of mammoth proportions. Our situation is so dire that Tate will no longer voluntarily climb into a bathtub out of fear of that natural urge that hits when a body meets warm water. Loss of bladder control has become his worst nightmare. (I pray he wasn’t irreparably scarred by the whole tinkling superhero fiasco.)

We are living in a constant state of anxiety – and near-filth – these days. I sling him, as he climbs my torso like a frightened kitten, into the tub where I then I scrub him as fast as humanly possible, hitting all the major cracks and crevices, while he frantically whimpers: I’m gonna pee pee on myself! I’m gonna pee pee on myself!

Which prompts me to sweep him out of the tub and over to the pot, where there’s nary a whiz to be heard. Just his dad explaining, over and over, “Don’t play with it, just push it down. Don’t play with it, just push it down.” So that’s what he says, now, too. “Don’t play with it, just push it down.” All the while, though, our littlest midget is spinning his widget.

The situation is not healthy for any of us, and I really have no idea how to fix it. Like, at all. I’m at a total loss. I was lulled into a false sense of security after having the girls. They were successfully potty-trained before they were two. And of course, I’d always heard the rumors that boys are harder. And I’m here to tell you those aren’t rumors. Those are cold, hard case files from boy moms the world over. And I know I am generalizing here. I’ve heard tales of boys out there confidently flinging their diapers aside at 18 months, eager to pee like daddy, standing tall and showering the shrubs or bathroom tiles or family pets in willful abandon. But I am here to say I do not know any of them. There’s no evidentiary proof.

I figure I can look at my summer to-do list two ways. I’m either failing miserably, or I’m knocking it out of the park. As an eternal optimist, I’m going with the latter.

So in our household, my boys of summer are celebrating our season’s success with Skittles rewards for one guy and Disney tune showcases for the other. We are a team with diverse talents. And we are winning.

July 6, 2017 0

What it Takes to Be a Football Family

It is mid-June. Summer hasn’t even officially begun– the solstice hits this week – but already the father of my children is helmet-deep in football camp and has been for nearly a month.

I am married to a high school football coach. My twin toddlers have a high school football coach for a dad. He is one heck of a father, one heck of a husband, and one heck of a coach. And as another season grinds its way into gear, I’ve been thinking a lot about how football and being a football family demand a lot of similar physical and emotional commitments.

Football, and being a football family, takes teamwork. And luckily, my husband and I make a damn good team. In his football job on game nights, my husband is up in the booth — away from the field, but very much in on the action. His daddy job at home is not that much different. He’s not on the field (football keeps him away from home most days until just before the boys’ bedtime and sometimes not even then), but he’s very much in on the action. He monitors, helps make adjustments, keeps me motivated, and provides endless emotional support. There’s no way I could run this program without him.

Football, and being a football family, takes hard work and dedication. The two of us have accentuated the importance of routine and fundamentals with our twins from the get-go. Nap times and dinner times and screen times and bedtimes are established and rarely vary. The boys know and understand our expectations, which provides me immeasurable advantage when I’m putting them through their paces alone at home during the season. They are disciplined and –for the most part – dedicated to the routine. But that doesn’t mean things can’t go wrong in an instant. Blitzes can still blindside me. Take downs can occur. Turnovers can and do happen. But discipline and vision can shift that momentum right back to the proper side again, just like in football.

Which brings me to how football, and being a football family, requires a solid game plan. Without one, your team will rarely be victorious. And even if you do have one in place, you won’t always get the W. Still, it is pure insanity to play ball without one. Since most of our family’s day-to-day offense is on this mama’s shoulders during season, our schemes must be solid and darn-near foolproof. I’ve come to rely on zone blocking and a solid running game. There’s no time for huddle (and no one around to huddle with even if there were time). Now most days, everything goes according to plan. But regardless of the amount of reps and hands-on instruction you’ve given, execution is rarely without flaws. Balls get dropped. Occasionally a player goes down. Penalties are accrued. Mama’s nerves get sacked. And that’s where my coaching husband and father to my children excels most.

I’m talking motivation, here. Because football, and being a football family, requires motivation. Twins can make life crazy. And when you’re going it alone for the vast majority of the season, you need both inner and outer motivation. With husband in my corner, I have the outside motivation covered. He knows how to give just the right pep talk to pull me back into the game, more energized and ready to succeed than before. But for those times when he’s not available for consult – those times when I have to get up, dust myself off and execute the game plan without anyone else around to bounce off ideas, I have to dig deep and rely on those hard-and-fast fundamentals. I have to trust the vision, to do what we do, run what we run, and believe in our teamwork and tenacity. We’ve tried to plan for every possible scenario, to account for every gap, and to have the flexibility to take what comes at us and roll with it.

Yes, football and being a football family requires physical demands and emotional commitments from everyone involved. And not everyone is cut out for it. There are so many lonely dinners and difficult bath times. There are so many rushed labor-day cookouts and daddy-less trick-or-treats. There are so many tears from kids who miss their daddies — and occasionally from mamas missing them too. Because there may not be crying in baseball, but believe me, there is crying in football. A lot of crying.

But most of those tears are the good kind. The happy kind. The proud kind. The kind you blink away as your boys run to the fence to give Daddy a kiss during summer practice. The kind that sting your eyes with pride as you and your boys rush the field for a hug and kiss after the game. The kind you shed after your husband reads you a text sent from a player who just secured a D-1 scholarship. The kind that run down your cheeks and off your chin after a championship run that ends in success.

The kind that unexpectedly well up when you think about how much you love your football husband, your football family, and your football life – your hard, hectic, wild and way-harder-than-you-ever-thought-possible football life.