It Isn't Black & White

"Matthew, why are you black?"

"He was born that way," Matthew's brother interjects while he says nothing.

"But why?" the tiny friend asks, curious.

"He was born that way!" his brother says more forcefully.

"But why were you born black?" the boy asks again. His mother enters the room, thinking she may soon need to get involved.

Matthew is quiet, letting his brother do the talking.

"He's just black," his brother answers again, for him. Later, when the conversation was relayed to me, I found this surprising. Garrett doesn't ever refer to his brother as black.

Finally, the boy yells, "I'm not black! I'm brown!"

"Mom," the friend says, "is Matt black?"

"Matthew," the mom begins, "What color are you?"

"I'm brown!" Matthew informs.

"There you go," says the mother. "He's brown."

I am not ready for this. I wish it wasn't already beginning to happen. I know this boy and his family. I know that there was nothing racially charged about his line of questioning. He simply wondered. But in his curiosity, Matthew was questioned. Why are you black? As though it is strangely different. As though maybe it is not quite as "normal" as peach skin. A small part of my heart broke for my son.

Last night, while he was suspended in a fractured world between sleep and awake, I whispered to him. "You are beautiful. Your skin is the most delicious chocolate because God made you that way. I love you. You are wonderful. God made you the perfect color." And I hope that some of it soaked into his subconscious. I hope that as he grows, when he is made to feel less than, he knows that in our family he is more than. More than enough. More than what we prayed for. More than what we waited for.

"And look at the shades it comes in--the shades of your colorful skin! Your coffee and cream skin, your warm cocoa dream skin...Your chocolate chip, double dip sundae supreme skin! Your marshmallow treat skin, your spun sugar sweet skin...your cherry topped, candy dropped, frosting complete skin. Your pumpkin pie slice skin, your caramel corn nice skin; your toffee wrapped, ginger snapped, cinnamon spice skin! Your butterscotch gold skin, your lemon tart bold skin; your mountain high apple pie, cookie dough rolled skin! Now, look once again at your skin...And the skin all people live in...And like flowers in the fields that make wonderful views, when we stand side-by-side in our wonderful hues...We all make a beauty, so wonderfully true. We are special and different and just the same, too!" --Michael Tyler The Skin You Live In

Adultery

So I was six years old when I just came right out and asked my mom where babies come from. I don't remember how it all went down but I'm sure it involved a very determined little girl who wouldn't take the stork for an answer. My own son is six and don't think it hasn't crossed my mind that someday soon he's going to shock me (Think: The Great Tooth Fairy Revelation over chili dogs) with, "Where do babies come from? No, really? How do they get there? Seriously. Mom, mom, mom, mom tell me now! Tell me how God gets the baby in there."

And in my case it seems that God got the baby in there with a great deal of miracle work but that's only going to pacify him for so long.

Suffice it to say, I am not ready to talk to my six-year-old boy about sex. So let's hope our conversation last night doesn't turn into a quest for knowledge.

Because last night we were going over the 10 commandments. I got to number seven. You know the one. The rule about not committing adultery.

"What's adultery?" he asked.

Great. Thrilling. One simply cannot adequately explain adultery without first explaining sex and he's six and I'm not ready! And, technically, he wasn't even asking. He just wanted to know what the heck a big, weird word meant.

I thought for a couple of quick seconds and then replied, "Adultery is when someone sleeps with a person they aren't married to." He cocked his head to side and narrowed his eyes because, clearly, that was super confusing. "I mean, I can't sleep with another man. I can only sleep with daddy. And daddy can't sleep with another woman. He can only sleep with mommy. Otherwise we're breaking God's law and it makes Him really unhappy."

He nodded as if he kind of understood.

"So, I can only get in bed with daddy. Would it be okay if I crawled into bed with Mr. J----?" (Name omitted to protect the innocent man I'd just seen. The man I am definitely not participating in any extracurricular activities with.)

Garrett screwed up his face and yelled, "NO! That would not be okay!"

So we dodged a bullet last night. And my child is slightly misinformed about the definition of adultery. Ah well. It is what it is.

The Tooth Fairy

At the table last night, my son--the one who is probably just a few days shy of losing his first tooth--declared that the tooth fairy is just your mom. Later, in the safety of my bedroom, I pushed to find out who had told him this revelation. He insisted that no one told him but that he decided it must be true because he doesn't believe in fairies.

"Fairies," he declared, "are just in girly movies with a lot of glitter."

We've never said a word one way or the other about the Easter bunny or leprechauns or any other mythical creature except, of course, Santa Claus and Tahoe Tessie because regaling my vacationing children with stories about giant lake monsters is so darn fun. And so, too, is Santa.

And darn it, I want one more year of Santa.

"So tell me, are you the tooth fairy?" was one of the lines interjected into our very long conversation. And, truth be told, none of my children have ever lost a tooth so technically I have never been the tooth fairy. However, we always said that, when asked, we were not going to blatantly lie to the faces of our children. I came clean about the fairy.

"What do you think about the Easter bunny?" I asked him.

"Seriously? A giant bunny with a sack. I don't think so."

"How about leprechauns?" I continued.

"Mom," he looked at me like I'd simultaneously sprouted horns and developed giant blue spots on my skin. "No."

"Elves?" I asked, thinking that if he didn't believe in leprechauns he probably didn't believe in elves and Santa was soon to be out the door as well.

"Well those things are sure real because they come to our house every year!" he said, his eyes dancing with Christmas delight.

And then, before we broke up our little meeting, I threatened him within an inch of his life should he ever tell his brother or a single one of his friends. Because, seriously, I don't want to be the parent of that kid.

"Now, can you go get daddy for me?" I asked him because the version you're getting is abbreviated and the whole conversation was really hysterical.

"Are you going to talk to him about the tooth fairy?" he questioned.

Since that would more or less be the topic of our conversation I told him that I was.

His eyes widened into huge gray-green saucers. "Daddy doesn't know?" 

Learning With Matthew

The Little Buddy can correctly identify all 26 letters if I say them aloud and ask him to point. If I point at them and ask him their names, he knows 18 of them. He knows most of the sounds they make.

And he knows roughly three colors.

Three whole colors! Two and a half really. It's weird. We're working on it. And I'm going insane. He's got brown and blue down. Sometimes he gets red. The other day we drove into the elementary school parking lot and he yelled, "A red car!" And sure enough it was. Unfortunately he doesn't always get red. He very rarely gets yellow but will often say, "It's like a banana!" We know he isn't color blind because when we show him something in a certain color and ask him to go find something in that same color, he almost never fails. He just has a mental block with their names.

Almost any time I try to actually sit down with him and work on colors, he starts crying. I have no idea what sort of trauma has occurred in his life to make him so terribly upset about colors. Yet, the same kid, will jump for joy when I pull out the alphabet chart and squeal, "I get to wern my wettahs?"

He can say neither his l's nor his r's and so I repeatedly ask him what my name is. "Whoa-wee!" he says.

The Rock Star has a friend over and just a minute ago the other boy asked, "Is that your guitar, Matthew?" to which Matthew replied, "No. It's my oooh-ka-way-way."

Yeah. He knows the difference between a guitar and a ukulele but figuring the difference between green and red will reduce him to immediate tears. Obviously.

Record Numbers

"Women are watching the NFL in record numbers now," said the announcer on the game a few minutes ago.

Now.

Is it, like, a fad?

Because I've been watching the NFL since I was twelve. That's right. My husband is one lucky dude. Seriously. I probably definitely watch more NFL than he does.

This afternoon, when Seattle came back, looked at Tom Brady and the Patriots, and told them to have a nice flight back to the east coast, I went upstairs and asked my husband if I could have a diamond necklace.

"What?" he asked, perplexed.

"I just thought that maybe you'd be inclined to give me whatever I asked for right now. It was worth a try."

I watch football for football's sake but maybe, just maybe, these record setting women know that if they're familiar with how a certain game went, they might improve their marriages.

Sign Up Sheets

Many weeks ago, our church started advertising for the annual golf scramble. It was announced from the pulpit, a sign up sheet was placed in the foyer, and people began to discuss their swings. The Rock Star wants to be all grown up in the worst of ways. He hears mention of a men's breakfast and he's begging his daddy to take him. He hears Dessert Social and he's already planning what we'll bring. He heard Golf Scramble and, suddenly, he saw himself on the PGA Tour. Later that day, he walked up to me holding the sign up sheet. He'd written his name on it and was excited to show me that, since he'd signed up, he was definitely, without a shadow of doubt, going golfing with his daddy.

Can you see it there? On line five?

There are just certain things we can't say no to. Unfortunately, Garrett's big, begging, eyes are one of them. (Within reason, of course.) So Troy set about finding some kid clubs that our boy could use and, on the day that he went to the course to make sure everything was ready for their group, he took Garrett along.

And found out that you have to be eight to golf there.

Then there was wailing and the most horrible gnashing of teeth. The worst kind of devastation descended upon our six-year-old. We somehow managed to get him past his time of grief and, last Sunday, he had the opportunity to sign another sheet.

This one was for people willing to bring food to the adult hospitality room during our annual Harvest Party. "Look, Mom!" he said as he approached me holding the sign up sheet in his hands. "I signed up for something else since I couldn't go golfing."

Unsure of what he'd gotten himself us into, I took the clipboard from him. "Garrett!" I admonished. "You aren't allowed to sign up for anything else without asking me first."

"Why? What is that?"

"It's for bringing food to the harvest party," I said.

"Oh! Cool! What am I bringing?" he asked.

"COCKTAIL WEENIES!" I said in a lecturing tone (although it should be said that there was a hysterical outburst in the back of my throat that I only barely managed to swallow down).

He tilted his head to the side. "What the heck is a cocktail weenie?"

"EXACTLY!"

And then I had visions of us trick-or-treating while carrying around a crockpot full of mini hot dogs. Needless to say, his name was whited out and a female who has a good thirty years on Garrett signed up in his place.

An Afternoon With a Gaggle of Boys

I'm watching my friend's boys for the afternoon and remembering that, if my oldest and her oldest were twins, these four kids could all be mine. And they would be raised by relatives while Troy and I enjoyed our stay at the local mental institution.

Rowdy.

And yet, oh so fun.

We made a fort out of a sheet.

We made Halloween sugar cookies.

And now they've been playing outside for over an hour.

Giggling. Screaming. Generally experiencing merriment.

I walked past the open sliding glass door, saw my oldest and her oldest sitting in the red wagon and paused as I listened to the following conversation.

W gets out of the wagon and Garrett yells, "No! That's all water! You're drowning!"

W doesn't skip so much as a half a beat before he replies, "No I'm not. I'm Jesus."

"OH!" Garrett says quickly. "So, I guess that makes me Peter."

Five on Wednesday

1. God bless Costco precooked chicken. One of them feeds my family of four for three nights. Two night of straight chicken eating and a third night of chicken enchiladas or chef salad with chicken or taco soup.

2. Someone asked me the other day, "Where did you adopt your boys from?" It was actually a really refreshing question. Because I've always wondered why most people assume Garrett is biological just because he's Caucasian. And, yeah, sure, the kid looks exactly like me but most people--and all their extended family members plus their mailman--think he's a spitting image of his father who usually isn't with me when adoption questions come up.When I answered, "Well, Garrett is biological and Matthew was born in California," the response was a somewhat surprised, "Oh! Okay." Again, it was just nice that someone realized that just because Garrett is Caucasian doesn't mean he came from my body. Even though, in this case, he did.

3. I started watching that new show Revolution. I have a very strong feeling that I will waste five years of my life on it and then throw something at my television during the finale. Much like I did with Lost. That being said, I have to know why the lights turned off!

4. I really like autumn in Utah. Except for the fact that it's just a pretty transition into winter. And I don't like winter in Utah. December in Utah is fine. But the long, cold months of January, February, March, April and part of May can just fall right off the calendar for all I care. So basically, what I'm saying is that seven months out of the year I'm pretty happy with the weather patterns. I guess it could be worse.

5. I'm trying to buy my kids one fun thing at the grocery store when we go. This is difficult because GOODNESS have you seen the price of food these days? But I don't want my boys to grow up and say things like, "If only my mom had bought us cookies every once in a blue moon." I say no so often. Take today, for example. They wanted canned strawberries. They wanted cheese shaped like Mickey Mouse. They wanted donuts. I said no to all of those. But I bought them Little Debbie Fall cakes. They were pretty excited. One of them pumped his fist, howled, "Yes!" and then followed it up with, "I love you, Mom."

Last week I bought them each a packet of Kool-Aid. My husband informed me that Kool-Aid was a staple for him growing up and that I was probably going to be responsible for my kids growing up maladjusted because I'd never made it. (Just kidding. He totally didn't say that.) We had it as a rare treat but I do remember enjoying it. So I let them each pick a packet. It was the first time, in Garrett's six years of life and Matthew's three, that I'd ever bought Kool-Aid. So I got home, completely under the impression that I added that little packet to some water and called it a fun drink. Then I read the directions.

AND OH MY GOSH DO YOU ALL KNOW THAT YOU HAVE TO ADD AN ENTIRE CUP OF SUGAR TO THAT CRAP? I truly did not know this. So I added way more water than it called for because I do not need those boys hopped up on that much sugar, believe me. And then I had a slight panic attack that I was completely polluting their systems. I mean, their bodies are TEMPLES for crying out loud. But I shook it off and was met with two perfect smiles when that drink hit those tongues.

Although, thankfully, a week later, most of that Kool-Aid is still sitting in the fridge. They simply don't ask for it. And for that there is much rejoicing.

Lesions

Does anyone else ever grow weary of shaving your legs? Brushing your teeth? Washing your hair? Do not get me wrong, I don't want to go around blowing putrid breath on people. I don't want to have hairy man legs. I don't want greasy, unwashed hair. I'm not depressed or otherwise apathetic toward life in general. But sometimes, I stick that toothpaste on that brush and I think, "I just did this."

And I'm weird about my teeth because I live in perpetual anxiety that "today will be the day I get a cavity!" Being cavity free through 30 years of life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Truly. At my last dentist appointment I found out that I have not one but two incipient lesions. They were marked on my virtual tooth chart and I saw them, two darkened teeth, staring at me. I almost hyperventilated and burst into tears right then and there. But the dentist came in and told me my teeth looked great.

"WHAT ARE THOSE BLACK TEETH THEN? HMM? EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THE HECK THOSE THINGS ARE? AND ALSO WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 13?" I interrogated him, is what I'm saying.

The hygienist stepped in. "Oh those. Those are incipient lesions. Basically they're cavities but they don't need to be filled yet and as long as you keep brushing and flossing like you do, we won't need to do anything."

But she'd lost me at the basically they're cavities part.

So what? Now I'm only a filling free kid? Because I'd prided myself for 30 years on being a cavity free kid.  And I tell you what, the moment those incipient lesions turn into bonafide, raging, decaying cavities is the moment that dentist's office doesn't know what hit them. Because try as I might I am sure that I'm going to lose it. I'm going to dissolve into a puddle of tears as I bid goodbye to my filling free mouth. Guys, I am seriously weird about my teeth.

And terrified of Novocaine. Flat out, down right, terrified. And I got an epidural.

That's right. I had a needle plunged deep into my spine and barely blinked but the thought of one pricking my gums is the worst kind of Halloween horror I can imagine.

So there's the inevitable downward spiral my pride will take upon no longer having perfect teeth followed by the sheer and utter terror of needles being stuck into my mouth. And I'm living on borrowed time because the incipient lesions are actively living in my mouth! Living there...as if I invited them. Living there as if all those years of obsessive brushing didn't matter after all.

As I said before, it's not that I want to stop bathing or brushing my teeth--I mean, heck, my teeth time now involves even more obsessive brushing than it did before, even more furious flossing, and a more attentive Listerine rinse--it's just that I sometimes tire of the routine. It doesn't really matter anyway because, eventually, those incipient lesions are going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

But then I remember things like, oh, biblical times, for example, when people traipsed through the desert in bare feet and bathed only every so often. When meals consisted of lamb and onions and leeks and garlic and, occasionally, locusts and there is no mention anywhere of toothpaste.

Then I gladly hop up and do the teeth routine.

Scared

I think I got a little too much of my dad's genes. He being the one who once scared my brother so perfectly that the kid threw up in the hallway.

But let me back up.

We were all playing a game where we turned off all the lights in the house and then we had to find each other. Or something. The rules have faded into the deep recesses of my memory. What I do remember is that my dad took the screen off of his bedroom window and sneaked into the backyard and then back in through another part of the house. We knew we had him cornered in one end of the house so, when he grabbed my brother from behind, the kid had no chance. So terrified was he that, upon initial contact from my dad, Jon vomited all over the carpet.

I love to scare my kids.

I'm pretty sure this is never going to win me any mother of the year awards. I'm also pretty sure it means that my nurture genes are devastatingly flawed.

All I have to do now is let out one, small, crackly moan and my boys will yell, "Mommy's a monster!" and promptly run away. One or both of them will eventually get brave and come looking for me. Their momentary absence will, however, give me plenty of time to hide myself away into some nook or cranny somewhere and give me the perfect opportunity to grab one of them as they creep anxiously around the house. 

A look of panic flashes across their little faces for a split second before they dissolve into giggles.

Thankfully, to date, I've never made either boy toss his cookies.

Pumpkin Pies & Pajamas

It's not National Pajama Day. I know because I looked it up after we saw not one but two people wearing pajamas in McDonald's. At 1:15 in the afternoon. The first was a kid who was, clearly, wearing not one but two kinds of pajamas. He began by putting on a thin cotton, long sleeve shirt and matching pants. He then paired this with Scooby-Doo jammies of the short sleeve variety. I pondered this child--who I'd say was about five--for quite some time before asking my husband, "Is he wearing two pairs of pajamas?" Troy then watched him for about ten seconds before replying, "Yes. Yes he is."

Then, when we were leaving McDonald's, I noticed a full grown young woman standing at the counter wearing flannel pants with some kind of bedtime print and a soft cotton tee. Her outfit came complete with slippers.

This led me to ask, as we exited the building, if it was National Pajama Day. So I looked it up. Nope. National Pajama Day is November 6. Do you think people maybe got confused?

But then I was in Walmart and I saw a cart with two boys inside. Both of them were wearing pants complete with belts but were lacking shirts. I quickly scanned the cart wondering if they had discarded their top wear. This in and of itself would have been slightly weird but there were no shirts in sight. So, apparently, this was a, "Grab your pants, we're going to Walmart," kind of moment.

"What about our shirts?"

"What about them? We have to go. NOW. Walmart doesn't wait for shirts!"

So, apparently, it's just National Dress Strange and Go Out In Public Day and I didn't get the memo.

In other news, my three-year-old is cuter than your three-year-old. No, I know what you're thinking. It's just because he's mine. Right? I'm biased. Right?

Wrong.

Because watch this.



He always calls pumpkins "Pumpkin Pies" and it's the cutest thing. Of ever. They're in all the stores now and when he sees them he squeals, "Look, Mom! Pumpkin pies!" The other day we were driving past a pumpkin patch. "Mommy! A bunch of pumpkin pies!"

And if that doesn't win him cutest three-year-old of all time then the voting is clearly skewed.

Shower Math

I have mighty revelations in the shower.

It's weird.

But there's nothing much to do in their but think.

Because my hands and arms know the routine. They've been doing it for decades. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Position leg. Shave. Repeat.

And so I think.

What should come to me the other night in the shower but a simple math equation.

My six-year-old is one third of way raised.

Oh sure, I know that I'll never stop being his mom and he'll always be my baby but in two thirds time he won't have (and I use have here as though I'm fooling myself into thinking I have some major influence over that independent child) to listen to me or take my advice. In two thirds time he'll be a man.

Women's Retreat Chicken

Our retreat was really an incredible time of fellowship and worship. I was concerned that 38 women sharing five toilets and four showers would be a problem but it really seemed to work out fine. Our only adversity came in the form of dinner when, apparently, Satan decided to send his minions to occupy the oven (an appropriate place for them, really).

My friend, Joyce, who was heading up the kitchen duty for the weekend, wrote out the dinner recipe and passed it out at Bible study in case we wanted to try the meal at our own homes. It's way too wonderful to keep all to myself. We quadrupled the recipes for our big gang. Which didn't actually end up making any difference.

Women's Retreat Chicken
Ingredients:
8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, cut in half or in chunks
8 slices swiss cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
3 cups Pepperidge Farm stuffing or dressing
1/4 cup white cooking wine
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

Directions:
Start with 38 hungry people and a broken oven. Preheat the oven to 350. This won't actually work, but pretend. Put the chicken in an ungreased baking pan, preferably a metal one so that when the oven doesn't work, you won't be able to microwave the dish and eat on time. Place the swiss cheese on top of the chicken. Mix soup with wine (I know, I know, this is a Baptist church, but do you realize that the vanilla flavoring that in in our cakes, brownies, frostings, cookies and pies that we are so fond of is 41% alcohol?) Besides, the alcohol evaporates as the dish bakes (or burns as the case may be). Pour the soup mix over the chicken & cheese. Sprinkle the stuffing on top. Drizzle the melted butter over top of the stuffing. Put the pan in the oven. Pray. Pray hard. If you don't happen to have a broken oven on hand, bake for one hour. If you have the broken variety, stand by anxiously for about 2 hours whilst the top of the dish burns absolutely black and the chicken remains raw. If it works, enjoy! If not, break out the ham sandwiches! Bless the Lord for providing for you! Open the windows and doors to let the smoke out and as many flies as possible in.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: One hour, in theory
Serves: Lots

Miss Rosa

Garrett: Mom, did I ever have a teacher named Miss Rosa?

Me: No.

Garrett: Why?

Me: I don't know. You've just never had a Miss Rosa before.

Garrett: Not even in preschool?

Me: No. Why? Did you think you did?

Garrett: Yes.

Me: You had a Miss Star.

Garrett: Oh. Yeah. That's close. I must have just gotten mixed up.

Um. Okay.

Apply Here

I'm praying for a female acoustic guitar player with a strong voice to join our church and lead worship at our retreats. While we're on the subject of a faith based wishlist, I'm also praying for a rich benefactor who will give liberally to the church, but so far God just keeps revealing that the current body needs to give more. Go figure. Also on the list is the request that a good, godly, Christian family will move into the vacant house next door, be searching for a church, come to ours, like it and stay. Yes. I pray for specific things like that. Go big or go home.

But back to the female acoustic guitar player.

We don't have one.

So at our retreats, we worship to album songs. I usually stand up in front and sing along and I typically invite someone else to stand up there with me. The problem is, I look like a complete and total dweeb.

So I guess my request is actually for a female acoustic guitar player who does not look like a total dweeb when she worships.

I want to be Jill McCloghry or Brooke Fraser or Amy Grant in my next life. If, you know, I believed in reincarnation and if, in said reincarnated life, I could come back as people who already exist. It's complicated theology.

I never raised my hands up like that before. I was a good little Baptist girl who kept her arms firmly at her sides. And then, one day, I felt one arm creeping up. God is all around me. In me, even, but suddenly I wanted to stretch my body as close to Heaven as I could. To reach Christ. To touch His face. To hold that nail scarred hand. To brush my fingertips across His tunic and be healed.

But I think this is a situation where what is felt on the inside is not necessarily translated to what one looks like on the outside. Because, apparently, while I was worshiping the Lord, I thought I needed to hold my scarf down for fear that it might grow wings and fly away. And, also, I think I look a little more like I'm in pain and a little less like I'm in love.

So I'm taking applications for next year's worship leader, is what I'm saying.

But we did have a fantastic time with 38 women crammed into tight living quarters, praising our Savior.