EWWWWWW . . . Gross!!!

Can we chat about life for a minute?  Just the real, messy, normal stuff that happens every day?  I know that might sound somewhat ordinary, but here’s the deal . . .

I started this blog for several reasons.  One, I hoped God could use me to bless someone (anyone) else.  Okay, maybe trying to bless others was slightly ambitious for someone of my average standing and intelligence.  At the very least, however, I wanted to share my ramblings in the hopes that someone out there somewhere might find something in my writing that makes them smile, or relate, or let go of some of their guilt, or even for just a tiny little second think about Jesus and what he did for all of mankind when he died on the cross to provide the ultimate gift of grace.  Again . . . perhaps a bit lofty. 

The second reason I started this blog was because there is a circus that puts Ringling Brothers to shame going on inside my brain seven days a week, and I need to put all the clowns and acrobats and lions and tigers and bears, oh my, into some kind of organized rings.  You know, so I don’t end up jumping off a high wire one day.  

Reason number three is really two reasons, or more accurately, two people.  Their names are Charlie and Libby, and one day, after they have passed the season of listening to everything I say (that’s actually so far gone it’s barely worth mentioning) and the season of questioning everything I say and the season of resisting everything I say and the season of hating everything I say, they might come back around to being curious about what I have to say.  I realize we are decades from this, and the truth is, it might not ever happen, but a girl can dream, right?  A mom has to believe her children will, at some point, mature enough to understand their mother did the very best she could.   And since I quickly outgrew the art of scrapbooking after spending enough money to redo my kitchen (dammit) documenting every moment of my children’s first few years of life, I have resorted to blogging in the hopes that I am recording something of importance for Charlie and Libby to have in the future.

So, since this blog is supposed to be providing my offspring with proof that their mom didn’t only think about whatever it is they think I’m thinking about, we are going to talk about life today. And folks, God is very, very, VERY good, but sometimes, life is very, very VERY gross.  We’ve had some serious gross going on around here.

Not sure if you read the rambling I wrote a couple months back about Charlie’s first email?  As I’ve previously mentioned, the smart bloggers can insert a link for past blogs in a spot like this, but I have yet to learn how to do it, so if you haven’t read that particular rambling and would like to, it’s called ‘A First To Remember.’  Basically, it was about the jubilation my ten year-old child felt at the beginning of fifth grade when he sent his very first email – let’s just say it was unexpected.  I mean seriously, who knew sending emails could make a little boy giddy? 

Here’s the gross part.  Sit down if you don’t have any kids over the age of five, because this is heartbreaking and you will need the support of a very soft couch or chair of some sort when you realize this is where you are headed.  I have sent my sweet, precious, adorable son an email EVERY SINGLE MORNING since the day he squealed like a little girl after sending his first email.  That was on August 14^th.  Today is October 22.  That means I have sent Charlie a loving message (along with a Bible verse) for sixty-nine straight days.  Now, would you like to know how many emails I have received from him?  Go ahead . . . take a guess. 

ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  Zero emails from my only son.  He has not responded even ONCE in over two months.  No ‘Thanks, Mom’ or ‘Hope you have a good day too, Mom’ or ‘It’s so nice of you to think of me every single morning for sixty-nine straight days, MOM!!!’ 

That’s totally disgusting.

Ready for more gross? 

We aren’t stomach bug people.  The last stomach bug to hit our family was almost six years ago on the Disney Cruise, where, let’s face it, the CDC would have a field day.  Have you ever been on a Disney Cruise?  There are a thousand kids with runny noses touching everything they see all contained within 300 yards.  Libby was the one to get the stomach bug on the last night of our Disney Cruise, and she was up all night utilizing a state room trash can held by her mother.  Still, she was only two years old at the time.  I may remember that night well, but as she clearly demonstrated last Friday at 3:30 am, she doesn’t. 

What I’m trying to say to you is this . . . you should include stomach bug protocol on your list of important items to routinely discuss with your children.  Put it right up there with fire safety and stranger danger, my friends.  If you don’t, you will end up with a child who has forgotten the appropriate places to vomit when she gets the stomach bug, and you will wind up cleaning every spindle and step on your staircase at four o’clock in the morning.  And then all over again for several hours the next day, because there are a lot of places you miss when it’s dark and you’re half-asleep.  Oh, and you will need to call a carpet cleaner too, for that brand new runner you just had installed. 

So gross.

There’s more grossness, if you dare.

Ever had a colonoscopy?  Good times, folks, really good times.  I don’t skip meals.  I rarely go more than a few hours without eating.  I consider it not only essential to good health, but also to my happiness and, as you’ll soon agree, my ability to parent.  When you are having a colonoscopy on Tuesday morning at 9:00 am, you have to stop eating after Sunday dinner.  You can have clear liquids on Monday, because apple juice and chicken broth are so incredibly appetizing when you are starving, but that’s it. 

Did I mention I don’t skip meals?

By 10:00 am on Monday, my head hurt.  By 3:00 pm, I had done every possible activity I could think of to keep my mind off my growling stomach.  By 6:00 pm, in the middle of the drink two entire liters of the most disgusting liquid ever created cleansing phase of the super fun colonoscopy prep work, I wanted to give up and vow to never ever have a colonoscopy.  EVER.  By 9:00 pm, I could barely walk, and sitting down?  NO.  NO. FREAKIN’. WAY.  By 7:00 this morning, I told my eight year-old daughter I was going to bop her in the head with her hairbrush if she didn’t stop fussing about the bump in her ponytail, and y’all, I wanted to do it so bad I’m not sure how I stopped myself. 

And that’s how a colonoscopy works people.  Trust me, the tube inserted in the hole not intended for such intrusions was the best part of the whole process.  I didn't mind that part a bit.  Heck, I was off in propofol dreamland with doctors watching over me who clearly knew much more about the stuff than those who gave it to Michael Jackson.  And when the probing was done and I woke up, I could eat. 

So that’s it.  That’s our latest gross, documented for my children to read when they decide their mother might have had something worth saying after all, even if it was just the normal, messy, gross stuff of life.  Because what this mama really wants her children to discover (if they ever do grow up and dive into her many ramblings), is that in the normal, messy, gross stuff of life, there is always goodness. 

There is the son who might one day remember how his mom sent him an email every morning reminding him she loves him. 

There is the daughter who got to spend the day in her pajamas watching movies on the couch, while her parents attended to her every need. 

There is the husband who drove four hours home from a work trip to be there to take his wife to the hospital for a simple procedure. 

Yes . . . there is always goodness . . . because there is ALWAYS a good God.

May you not have too much gross in your lives this month, friends, and may you always find the good in the gross when you need to.    

A First To Remember

As a parent, I have had the great pleasure of experiencing so many monumental “firsts.”  His first smile, his first steps, his first word, the first time he slept through the night at seven and a half months old you’ve got to be kidding me oh no I’m totally not and it was only after I FINALLY relented and let him have his first bottle of formula oh my goodness the little traitor who had been keeping me up all night for months because I thought he was just growing so quickly and so very hungry and trust me he had another bottle of formula every night after that.

“Firsts” are exciting.  They are thrilling and reassuring and pull of pride and joy and love.  But sadly, the special “firsts” start to slow down as infants turn into babies into toddlers into children into big kids who have permanent teeth growing in more directions than you can count.  Of course, the first day of school is always cause for pictures and text messages to grandparents, and I imagine there will be great amounts of emotion expended down the road when we experience his first date, the first time he drives a car, and his first college application.  Today, however, I have to tell you about a “first” I never saw coming.

Charlie started middle school this week. It was quite a roller coaster for my little fellow, as the jubilation he has felt for months about leaving lower school turned into some serious anxiety about three weeks before school was scheduled to begin.  Yes.  Three weeks of ten-year old anxiety.  That meant lots and lots of questions and comments about middle school and what was it going to be like and what if he couldn’t handle it and what if he couldn’t open his locker and what if he couldn’t find his classes and why in the world did his school make kids start middle school in fifth grade anyway?!?!

There were two days of orientation, and that helped . . . a little.  Still, on the morning of the first day of middle school, my Charlie was pacing the kitchen by 6:30 am, worried about his shoes and his socks and his first class and his last class and carpool and . . .

It was a half day, so I picked him up at noon.  There was a smile on his face as he slid into the car, and his entire demeanor was visibly different – calm, relaxed, okay.

He chattered happily about his day on the ride home.  My teachers are nice, I know a lot of people in my classes, it’s not that different from lower school.

We got home and he had homework, because middle schoolers are big time like that.  Now at Charlie’s school, one of the perks of moving up into the middle school is that the students each get their own tablet, which is basically a laptop computer on which they do almost everything.  So my son pulled out his tablet and prepared to complete his first homework assignment of the school year.  His task was to send an email to his math teacher.  And that’s when it happened.  The “first” I wasn’t expecting, but which was just as thrilling and reassuring and full of pride and joy and love as the others Charlie has provided through the years.   

I remember the first time I had to send an email.  I was a student at the University of Georgia, not long before graduation, and much like my son, I was required to email one of my professors as a homework assignment.  In order to do it, I had to drive to campus, find a parking spot, search for the computer lab I’d never set foot in before, wait for an empty computer, figure out how to get the computer to turn on because the person before me had shut it down, wait at least ten minutes for the computer to get going again, and navigate whatever email procedure I had been instructed to use to demonstrate to my professor that I could successfully send a message through time and space using the latest and greatest technology.

Charlie’s homework wasn’t quite so complicated.  And within weeks, I’d be willing to bet he won’t even recall doing it because he will have sent so many emails since then.  I, on the other hand, will remember it forever.

I will remember the way his face lit up.  I will remember the way he threw his hands in the air and squealed like the child he is.  I will remember the exhilaration in his voice when he hollered, “I DID IT!” 

The kid was absolutely giddy.  He had sent his first email.

I guess that’s 2013 for you, huh?  We just keep adding things for parents to pray about. 

Lord, please let my son use email wisely and appropriately.  Please watch over him as he navigates the world of technology, which gives him access to all the things I hope he never wants to Google.  Lord, please let my son send and receive only positive, uplifting email messages from now until the end of time.  Amen.

I can’t wait to see what Charlie thinks when I start emailing him.  I’m thinking maybe a Bible verse of the day . . .

Think his face will light up every time he opens it?