Boobs and A Box of Chocolates

I got an interesting tip from the counselor at my children’s school several years ago.  She’s a genius, and let’s face it, my kids could use a little genius in their lives, cuz they sure ain’t gettin’ it from me.  I often wish this counselor could just take my kids home and raise them for me, delivering well-adjusted, college educated, happy, normal contributing members of society back to me in a couple decades.

Anyway, the tip she gave me had to do with carpooling.

Carpooling can be an enormous blessing in our lives as parents.  How many times have you had to pick up one child in one location and another child in a different location at the exact same time?  It happens every Tuesday afternoon at our house.  Sewing class and cross-country practice both end at 5:00 pm.  There is only one of me and two places to be and sadly, no carpool to be had.  So, the older kid waits.  He’s hot and sweaty and tired and thirsty and he wants desperately to get home and finish his homework because that’s the kind of kid he is, and he has to stand around waiting for his ride.  Meanwhile, little sister’s chauffeur shows up right on time, and she hops in the back seat bragging about the new scrunchie she made without missing a beat.  Trust me, if there was a carpool option that would help our Tuesday 5:00 situation, I would absolutely use it. 

I have a carpool for Libby’s gymnastics practices that is truly a lifesaver.  It helps everyone in our family and I’m grateful for the women involved.  I wouldn’t give up our gymnastics carpool for anything less than a pro-bono limo driver, and I’ve yet to meet one.  Still, I understand why the genius counselor provided the advice she did, which was this . . .

“You should only use carpools when absolutely necessary, because a lot of really important conversations you can have with your kids are likely to take place in the car.”

Why the car? you ask.

It’s simple.  Because research has shown kids are more likely to discuss serious topics when they don’t have to make eye contact with you AND aren’t threatened by the reaction you might have (since you’re supposed to be preoccupied with the gas pedals and steering wheel and Atlanta’s rush hour traffic).  It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?  And I believe that genius counselor, because I had this extremely important and very enlightening conversation last week in the car with my recently turned nine (but thinks she’s closer to thirteen) daughter:

Lib: Mom, lots of girls on the teams at the gym have sports bras.  When can I get a sports bra to wear under my gymnastics leotard?

Me: Uhhhh (thinking fast about the best way to answer this question without A, hurting my child’s pre-pubescent feelings and B, making sure my child knows she’s flat-out nuts if she thinks I’m buying her a bra anytime soon) . . . I’ll be happy to get you one just as soon as you need it, honey.

Lib:  When will that be?

Me:  Uhhhh (concentrating hard so as not to make any statements my child can later turn into things I “absolutely promised,” as she has been known to do in the past, and keeping my tone as matter-of-fact as possible in the hopes that she will feel comfortable having this kind of conversation with me again in the future) . . . When you get breast buds.

Lib: (without attempting to hide the disgust in her voice) . . . Breast buds?  What in the world are breast buds?

Me: (starting to sweat a little thinking about where this conversation could go from here) . . . Remember how we’ve talked about the way God decides when boys and girls go through puberty and start growing into men and women, and how many things change in your bodies when you go through puberty?

Lib: (with large amounts of skepticism) . . . Yeaaaaaaaa.

Me: (gaining confidence in my parenting abilities by the second) . . . Well, one of the things that changes for girls is they begin to grow breasts.  Breast buds are the beginning of those breasts, and they are a sign that a girl is going through puberty.

Lib: (less disgusted and more intrigued) . . .When will I get breast buds?

Me: (thankful the conversation is surely about to end and wondering when my parent-of-the-year award will arrive in the mail) . . . Only God knows that, honey.

Lib:  So, when did you get breast buds?

Me: (wondering why this conversation didn’t end as expected) . . . Oh, I was pretty late to start going through puberty.  And actually (deciding to insert a joke here might not have been my best move), I’m not so sure my breast buds ever really turned into breasts, like most people’s do (come on, that’s funny if you know me and my size nearly A’s).

Lib: (not laughing and possibly close to tears):  But . . . I don’t want my breasts to be like yours. 

I want BIG ones.

?

!

?

!

I could tell you the rest of the conversation – there was some frightening ridiculousness that dribbled out of my mouth unexpectedly about a box of chocolates and how you never know what you’re gonna get and only the Lord knows the plans He has for you and maybe you’ll be more like your grandmothers or great-grandmothers or the people who can shop at Victoria’s Secret and buy real bras instead of training bras and it was all VERY. VERY. BAD.  I’m still trying to figure out why I felt the need to connect Forrest Gump and God during this intimate conversation with my daughter about boobs, but that’s what I did.

So carpool away my friends – we’re all doing the best we can and sometimes the best means another person drives your children - but make sure you still have some one-on-one time with your kids in the car on occasion, because it’s true . . . in life, you never know what you’re gonna get.  And if you’re lucky, one day, you might just get your daughter sharing her BIG dreams with you from the back seat.

My Bible study on Mark recently sent me to a verse in 1 Peter.  Now usually when that happens, I’m internally grumbling about having to put my bookmark in the spot I’m studying in Mark so I can flip back . . .  wait . . . is it back or forward? . . . oh right . . . flip forward to 1 Peter and spend several whole seconds trying to turn the thinnest pages in the world to find a whole new verse that may or may not seem to have anything at all to do with what I was just reading in Mark.  NEWSFLASH – the really cool thing about the Bible is how much a verse in Mark can make sense when you read it with a verse in 1 Peter.  Or better yet, how much a verse in the Old Testament, when, let’s face it, things were totally nuts, comes full circle and actually tells you EXACTLY what is going to happen in the New Testament like, hundreds of years later.  Whoa.  Only God can write that stuff people.

So, the verse in 1 Peter spoke to me.  Or I guess God did, through the verse.

1 Peter 5:2-4    Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care . . .

I typically describe myself as a mama, not a shepherd, but I’m digging the title ‘shepherd.’  It makes me think of my responsibilities in an entirely new light.  I am a shepherd to my flock.  It’s a small flock.  Only two sheep, as different as night and day, given to me to watch over day and night.  Of course, real shepherds tend to dozens of sheep at once, but I assure you, for this shepherd, two sheep can be a lot to handle.  They have minds of their own and bodies that obey those minds, despite the fact that those minds – oh, there is still so much those precious minds don’t understand.  

My sheep used to stay close to my side, always watching, waiting for my cues.  As they grow, so does their confidence, along with their innate desire to flee.  More sure of themselves than ever, they have begun to wander off too frequently, moving farther away each time, rarely looking back to see if I approve of where they are going. 

I once found my focus in feeding my sheep, in protecting them from all the dangers that seemed to hover in every direction.  They were helpless, dependent . . . my life so necessary to sustain their own.  These days, my role is shifting so fast I can barely find solid ground to stand on.  My sheep have learned to feed themselves; protect themselves.  I’m not so necessary anymore.  I must relinquish some control and become a different kind of shepherd.  I can no longer pull my sheep along behind me in the direction I wish to go.  I must follow them, watching to see if they will stop and allow me to come near, to provide guidance when they aren’t sure what lies ahead.

It’s hard, this new role.  I felt much more comfortable in the old one.  I was in charge of my sheep.  They were willing; they did things my way.  Now, they must discover their own ways, and sometimes, that means my sheep will feel pain.  They will get lost and hurt and find themselves all alone.  When they do, they won’t want to snuggle up close to me for comfort and reassurance.  They will want to blame it on me, get angry with me, find fault in all my ways.

I’m trying to embrace this new role by opening doors – fence doors, if you will, which allow my sheep to discover new pastures.  I don’t love what’s behind the fence doors – I usually find tough topics and difficult questions I don’t want to answer.  But my job is no longer to feed and protect.  My job is to lead and nurture.  I can only do that if I’m willing to walk through some open doors with my sheep, because despite my best efforts, I can only keep them closed for so long, and my sheep are eventually going through them with or without me.

A door opened this week with my littlest lamb.  She’s only seven, but she’s infinitely curious.  She asks questions all the time, many of which I have to answer with, “That’s a great question.  We’ll talk about that when you get a little older.”  She doesn’t hear the truth in my response – that I’m trying to respect her maturity level - that I want to keep her naiveté intact as long as I possibly can.  What she hears is a door slamming, right in her face.  And if I keep slamming doors in her face, she will eventually stop knocking on doors and offering me a chance to walk through them alongside her.  Instead, she will barge through them herself, unaware and unprepared. 

So a door cracked open unexpectedly, and though my first instinct was to slam it in her face – I’m an avoider after all – I took my little lamb by the hand and stepped inside with her.  And now, Libby knows all about tampons. 

Yep, that was the door she wanted to enter, and it was NOT the first time she knocked on that particular one.  My stock answer to her “What is this thing for?” inquiry has previously been, “That’s a band-aid for moms,” which I usually spurt out at warp speed right before changing the subject.  This time, I looked deep in her big blue eyes and I thought of that verse in 1 Peter.  This lamb is under my care.  She trusts me, right now, in this very moment to give her what she needs, and if I slam the door in her face, who knows when she will come to me again.  And God . . . God believes I can handle it.  He’s the one who made me a shepherd.  He has confidence in my ability to know when a member of my flock is ready to walk through a door I once kept locked tight. 

My response came out more easily than I imagined, and while I certainly didn’t provide all the details, I think I did a good job explaining that God makes human bodies so incredibly that he gives girls signs to let them know they are turning into women.  My lamb was totally grossed out and immediately told me she never, ever wanted to go through puberty, so I consider that a win.

Truthfully, I had some second thoughts about my honesty in the hours that followed, but not many.  It was a good step for me . . . for us, sheep and shepherd.  We walked through a door together and found out what was on the other side.  Hopefully, my willingness to open that door will mean my little lamb comes knocking again, over and over in the years ahead.  Because she has much to learn, and I want to be the one to teach her.  Yes, my little lamb has much to learn . . . so many doors to open . . . before the day, God willing, she becomes a shepherd with a flock of her own.