Recovering

Hillary participated in choir districts on Saturday. It was kind of a big deal, because (due to spring break) only a few students got to go. She practiced after school with the choir director for weeks. For three days before the competition, she declared that she couldn't drink any soda...and the morning of, she wouldn't speak above a whisper (in order to "save" her voice). When the time came to perform, she was nervous. She kept taking deep breaths. Then the judges were ready, and she stood in the front of the room, stock straight, and began to sing.
The first song was in latin, and she started off a little quiet, but got stronger with each note. I could tell her confidence was coming back. She concentrated on breathing correctly, phrasing just right, and perfectly delivering her dynamics. But then....something happened. I wasn't sure what, since I wasn't looking at the music, and everything sounded fine. But because I know her so well, I could tell by the look on her face something had gone wrong. The song ended and she looked at her teacher (who was accompanying her on the piano). Hillary's face was flushed and her eyes were wide. She was making that movement with her mouth that I know means she's trying not to cry. And her teacher mouthed, "Don't worry about it. You're fine."
There was still one more song to sing. I wondered if she would be able to carry on.
I remember the first time Hillary sang a solo in church. She had practiced for days, and knew every note. She stepped up in front of the congregation...and froze. She had forgotten the words! The tears started to flow, and the music just kept playing. I did the only thing I knew to do...I walked up there, stood beside her, and finished singing the song. She stopped crying, but didn't sing along. But she stood there with me through the whole thing. She didn't give up on performing...she tried again on another Sunday, and sang like an angel, all on her own.
So here we were again...flustered from a blunder...but not giving up. She looked at the judge...he nodded...and she started her second song.
As soon as it was over, she came back to where we were. "Did you see me mess up? I ended the song too early. I left out a whole verse!" Her teacher said, "The judges don't look at that stuff too hard. It's not so much how you mess up, it's how you recover." And she had recovered. Most of the spectators didn't even realize she had not been perfect.
When the scores were posted, Hillary had recieved a 1. That's the best you can get. She's going to the State Competition! Apparently the judge thought her perfect notes were more important than her mistake.
And once again, I've learned a lesson from my children. We all make mistakes. But we take a deep breath and just keep singing. The Judge treats us with grace and mercy, and our mistakes become a beautiful song.

Blinds leading the blind

It's spring break...a perfect time to spiff up the house. As my husband and I sat on the couch on our first night at home in a LONG time, I casually asked, "Feel like painting?" He peeled his eyes away from the basketball game he was watching and made some kind of sound that I took to mean, "That sounds great!" So it happened that the bed was moved, the curtain rods and plug-in faceplates were taken off, and I trimmed with my little brush while he rolled with the big roller. After one windowsill and two feet of baseboard, my neck was hurting, my hand was cramping, and I was ready to shut down the home improvement show. Not so, my hard-working husband. He doesn't appreciate my style of working, which includes doing a little, then taking a break, then doing a little more, over a period of days, weeks, whatever. I was happy with my one brown wall and wanted to look at it for a while...put the bed back together, hang the pictures, and see whether or not I liked the new look. But he was into this project and NEEDED to finish it. So he did...and I went to town. I got the tires rotated...bought groceries...anything that needed doing which would keep me away long enough for him to finish painting. This made us both happy!

Of course, once the walls were finished, the curtains didn't match. I couldn't put green curtains back up when my new walls were brown and my new bedspread was blue. And since my thorough husband had already removed the old mini-blinds and curtain rods so he could paint correctly, the bare windows let the sunshine in...and our privacy out. He decided we needed new, room-darkening blinds. After all, this is spring break, and he would like to sleep past 6:30. So off we go to Lowe's. Unfortunately, they closed at 8:00 and we got there at 8:06.
So we decided to try Wal-Mart. To our surprise, they had blinds for $5! What a bargain! We had purchased blinds before at Lowe's and were prepared to pay the $16 they charged per blind (including cutting them to size for us.) My math teacher husband quickly pointed out that we could get THREE Wal-Mart blinds for the price of ONE Lowe's blind. They didn't exactly have our size, but hey...these are adjustable. Back home we go with blinds in our hands and a song in our heart.
I should have known we were in trouble right away when we couldn't figure out which bracket went on which side of the window. While Yancy was working on that problem, I was completely unrolling the paper-thin plastic blind so I could see the adjustable bar. Carefully scrutinizing the vague 4 point font directions printed on the 1inch square label, I adjusted the bar, then peeled off the sticky tape and stuck the flapping half of blind to it. Then I chose the appropriate pre-sliced tab and tore off the extra overlap.
Yancy (who doesn't need a ladder to reach the top of the window) maneuvered the rolled up blind into the brackets and....it wouldn't fit. He squeezed the "adjustable" bar (wrinkling the blind down the middle), got the ends into the bracket, and then tried to pull the bar back apart so it would be long enough to stay in the brackets. From my position on the floor (where I was rolling with laughter) he looked like a super hero trying to show off his awesome strength as he p-u-l-l-ed with all his might to no avail. There was nothing to do but take the whole thing down, reposition the brackets, and try again. After several new nail holes in his so-carefully painted window sill...I guess he'd had enough. As he was screwing the last one into place, I pointed out that it was crooked. He ignored me and continued pushing the drill with bulging arms and a twitching muscle in his clenched jaw. There was no way this bracket was winning. Even though the bracket now sticks out at an angle I'm sure the manufacturer never intended, with the screwhead literally buried in the sill, the blind hangs in our window...crooked enough that it will only roll up half-way. Did I mention there are THREE windows in our bedroom?
We decided to take a break and sleep on it. We're going to Lowe's tomorrow!

Boy Lessons

As much as I love being my son's mother, there are some things he can only learn from his dad (or sometimes his grandpa).

"My son, hear the instruction of your father..." (Proverbs 1:8)

Lesson #1 You are needed. I need your help to do important things.

Lesson #2 You are strong like me.

Lesson #3 You are smart. You know about things.

Lesson #4 You are heard. I listen when you talk.

Lesson #5 You are trustworthy. I trust you with responsibility.

Lesson #6 You are one of us. We like spending time with you.

Lesson #7 You are capable. You cook the eggs, I'll cook the bacon.

Lesson #8 You are fun!

"You are mine. You are loved."

What's on Your Refrigerator?

I guess you could say my refrigerator is a kind of visual display of my life priorities. I'm not one to put useless things like coupons on there. The things that make it to my fridge door are important. The field trip permission slip that has to be signed...the phone chain for snow days...emergency numbers. But mostly, my large metal bulletin board shows off my family. I love to keep recent photos of my kids there. Right now there is a newspaper clipping showing Hillary receiving a check from a local company to the High School Band...she smiles brightly in her uniform. Next to that is another newspaper clipping of Parker and his 6th grade class assembling toys for needy children at Christmas. Every time I open the door, I smile at the snapshot of me and my husband, his arms wrapped around me, both of us smiling, that Hillary took after a ballgame one night.

I'm not the only one who posts things, though. Hillary will add a new poem she wrote...Parker contributes a snowflake cut out of notebook paper, and the one-point-perspective drawing he did in art. And because it's important to them, it's important to me. They know they are loved because I show them off.

I guess everyone needs to feel that way sometimes.

I have a little boy in my class who is in Special Ed classes for a big part of the day. He's not the sweet-hearted- blessing from God kind of special ed kid. He's the challenging- shaggy haired- peering through dirty glasses while holding up his too-big pants kind of kid. He's defiant and hyper and loudly says whatever comes into his head. But I pray for patience and modify what I can and try to make him feel like a valued part of our class. Every day, when he finishes his work - instead of putting it in his backpack like the rest of the students- he takes it up to my whiteboard and sticks it prominently in the middle with a magnet. Then he says, "Look Mrs. Temple, look Mrs. Temple, look what I did!" And I proclaim it beautiful and creative and I leave it there all day (sometimes writing around it if I really have to use the board!). After all, this may be his "refrigerator".

The Shirt Off My Back

I am willing to do almost anything for my children. Yeah, I bluster about making them face the consequences of their own actions and promoting their independence...but when it comes right down to it, I'm willing to give them the shirt off my back. Case in point.........
Last Friday evening Hillary was in a choir show featuring songs from Broadway plays. But that makes it sound too easy. You see, she went straight from school to track practice to home (just long enough to grab a snack) to the school for the performance. As she was flying out the door I asked, "Do you have everything? All your costume pieces?" Yeah, yeah, yeah....
Fifteen minutes later, as Yancy, Parker and I sat in the Mexican restaurant (one block from the school) having dinner before the show, Hillary calls my cell phone. "Mom, can you bring me a black t-shirt?" Well, I would...if I could warp time and actually make it to the house and back before the show started. Nevermind the hypoglycemic attack I might have from not eating til after the show. So I did the only thing I could. I offered her mine.
We're close enough to the same size to share things like shirts, socks, shoes and underwear. Yes...there was that one extreme occasion. It was after a cross country race. Hillary had run 1.6 miles and given it her all. When she finished the race, she was so exhausted (and had been "holding it" for the last mile) that she wet her pants a little. Unfortunately, we had to go straight from the meet to a parade in another town, where she was to march and play her saxophone. She had brought clothes to change into - but no extra underwear. She said she'd be fine and she'd just wear her wet undies under her clean clothes...but by the time we got to the parade, she'd changed her mind. So I discreetly wiggled out of my jeans (right there in the front seat) and gave her my unmentionables. My husband said dryly, "Are you almost done?" "Why?" I asked. "Because there's Pastor..and he's heading this way." You never saw someone move so fast! In the end, Hillary marched down the street with musical abandon while I went (uncomfortably) commando til we got home.
What's a shirt when you've already surrendered your underwear.
We get to the school and I race back to the choir room. As I'm asking where we can go to change, one of the other girls says, "What do you need Hillary? Oh, I've got an extra shirt you can borrow." I could have hugged her. This girl just saved me from sitting in the audience with my coat zipped all the way up, wearing nothing but my bra underneath like some kind of sicko flasher. (Afterthought - why didn't Hillary ask around before I resorted to stripping?)
So the crisis was averted and I sat with the other (normal) parents and enjoyed the show. I guess I should be flattered that Hillary is willing to wear anything her mom would wear. That's it! I should start wearing 'granny panties'!

About a boy

How much longer will my lamp be a landing strip for toy airplanes? When will he no longer think it's fun to sit beside me as I read aloud from a book about dragons? Last night, as he lay beside me on the couch, he said, "You're one of my favorite people." How many more years before his affection and admiration are turned to a pretty, young girl.

I already feel the rumblings...

Lately, no matter how much he eats we can't seem to fill him up. He wants to stay up later and sleep in longer. His arms wrap all the way around me with room to spare, and he looks me eye to eye.

Yet, as his body changes, his spirit stays the same. Sweet, affectionate, introspective, determined. The man will eventually overtake the boy...but that's okay. He's not leaving the good stuff behind, he's just growing into his heart.

What it takes

As a young mom, I never subscribed to that old "It takes a village to raise a child" theory. I was out to prove that I could do it, and do it well, pretty much by myself. I didn't even allow my husband much input most of the time. This baby was MINE and I would feed her, change her, dress her, discipline her, teach her, and love her...thank you very much.
Of course, I couldn't keep that up for long, and I eventually learned to appreciate the other people in my kids' lives who love and support them. Extended family, friends, teachers, pastors...all touch my children's lives in a positive way.
Last weekend, Hillary competed in the Fine Arts Festival in Springfield. It's a church-sponsored event that encourages young people to use their talents to minister to others in a variety of ways. Hillary submitted a photo, participated in a drama with a large group of other teens, and choreographed a small "human video" - performed by herself and 3 other girls. When I got to the room she was performing in, it was crowded with people. As I looked around, I realized many of them were there for her! Since this is a district wide event, several of our old friends were there. Her current youth pastor was there, who got her started in the youth worship team...and also her previous youth pastor and his wife (from the church we attended before we moved), who took her on a missions trip last summer. There was Ms. Elena, who took her to school in the mornings when she was in elementary because I had to be at work early...and Ms. Dena who was her first grade teacher and Bible Quiz coach...and Kim and Gennifer, new friends who helped coach and encourage Hillary through all those practices to get to the competition.
As the music began, and Hillary started to act, I could hardly breathe. All four of the girls did great, and when it was over I wanted to stand up and yell "That's my kid!" But there was no need...because all those other faces were already shining with pride, and it looked like they were thinking, "That's our girl!"
So maybe it doesn't take a village to raise a child...but it does take a family!