One of the things about getting married before your growth plates close is, you don't have much grownup training. My parents spent the 2 years before we got married really hammering these messages into the 2 of us a) finish high school b) keep your pants on and c) have a job. We did all of that, more or less, but we never really had time to learn etiquette or whatever and as a result, we only know how to have the Christian equivalent of frat parties. "Let's have this couple over for dinner," he says, and I panic, because a sit-down meal with one other grownup couple is entirely different than queso and Cokes for 30.

Since the remodel, though, our house is so pretty for entertaining, and I have had a couple of ladies' events here. And that is how I almost killed my whole city.

See, sometimes kids puke for no reason. I have multiple kids and you never know if this is a real thing or what. So my daughter puked and she was kinda droopy for a day or two but everybody else was fine, and so I thought, no need to move the baby shower this weekend, everybody is well again.

The women came in, all of them adult women with earrings and presents and things. My friends decorated and coordinated the food, because, again, unless it's rice and beans for dozens, I freeze up. It was a lovely shower for my friend Marisol, who is adopting a baby in January. (side note: you should go donate something, anything to Mari and Efrain's adoption fund. I'll wait.)


Welcome back! Thanks. Like I was saying, it was great. People ate the snacks, they chatted, I did not discover any horrifying ex-diaper or rotten apple in a trafficked area, etc. We all were grownup ladies and we had a lovely time and then they all went home. Yay me, I thought.

And then the puking started. By me. It wasn't too bad, if you enjoy having your innards ripped out by demons for 12 hours. The MOG held down the fort and tried to offer comfort, because he enjoys comfort when he is ill, but I convinced him that nothing would comfort me more than being left alone to die in a pool of my own body fluids. Then he got sick. And then all of the grownup ladies got sick. And some of my children, and their children, and maybe the Pope.

I stood on the cliff above my city, watching their writhing and wailing, and I knew: I did this.

I was the forerunner, so I warned them. Eventually they started a Facebook group with unflattering pictures of themselves, not in the throes of illness,  necessarily, but soon afterward. Thanksgivings were canceled. Tragedy, chaos and natural remedies abounded. I was awash in guilt, which was a nice change from being awash in puke. It was a strange kind of horrific community building.

Everyone is in recovery now, as far as I can tell. I'm still pretty iffy, but I am determined to carry on. When all this is over, I'm having all you people over for chips and queso.

i remember
waiting for you
so foreign
so emotional
for my joy
to be their loss

and then they handed
you to me
and i was lost
surrendered
to loving you
forever

you fill
my days with laughter
you keep
me running, always
you are
my son, forever

Happy Birthday Tristan.

There is a myth that children move quickly. The reality is, children only move quickly when they don't want you to catch them. The rest of the time they move at a glacial pace, and they slow down even more when there is a line of people waiting on you, waiting on them. None of that is what I am talking about, but no one is paying me to write this blog and I can be all non-sequitur if I feel like it. If any of you want to pay me, I'm listening. 

When I picked up my children from school today, they crawled into the car at a leisurely pace, offering bits of video game trivia and the usual riddles-I'm-not-allowed-to-guess-correctly. And then Brynn handed me an adorable little craft she made. "It's for you!" she said excitedly, "because you're FORTY-ONE!" 

I choked a little. "I'm 41?" I asked, "Do you think I'm 41?" 

"Well," she countered, "aren't you?"

"No! I'm..."

Toby chimes in, "She won't be 41 for a few DAYS, Brynn."

"Will you be 41 on your birthday, Mom?" she asks.

"I'll be 41 in... seven birthdays," I answer, weakly, because that seems very soon. As I go back over the calculations, I realize it is six birthdays. I don't tell them. 

We head down the road toward home. 

"How old are you, Mom?" she asks me, not realizing I am aging as we speak. 

"I'm 35." 

"35. 35," she counts, gaining speed. "and then you'll be 36, then 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44! Then you will be 44!" 

I'll be in my room, guys. 

(Disclaimer: this is a serious one. I never write things like this based on one thought, and it probably wasn't anything you did that inspired me. It's life, all of us.)

One of my favorite things about having this space to communicate is the fellowship of shared experiences. It took me years of writing down the details of my day before I realized that we all share so much. Like Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. I often think Solomon might have been a lot happier if he had limited himself to a reasonable number of wives. Was he asking for trouble? I'll let Lamentations answer that question.

We are the same. We're unique and individual and God's special snowflakes or whatever, but also we are very much the same, despite our cultural differences and languages and ages, we're all so, so human, and we all want to a) be loved and b) be great. And all of us, every one of us, is failing in some way.

And social media is a gift, it's a tool that allows us to see into each other's lives, and to have a glimpse of the sorrows and the joys and even the mundaneness that is part of the story. Sometimes, though, we take a tiny peek into someone else's window to the world and we make a judgment call. I think about this occasionally, when I set goals and fail them in front of the internet, when I go through the small known and unknown hypocrisies that are part of trying to be great and be loved.

Wouldn't it be great if we could learn to love each other, to celebrate each other, to take our shared brokenness and offer grace. What if we saw each others failures and offered a hand? What if we gave the benefit of the doubt? You and I, we're the same. We want the same things. Even when our day-to-day or political or religious goals are worlds apart, we are both so human. I choose to believe that none of you are monsters or robots, just humans, striving for better humanity.

So if someone posts a picture of a cake, maybe they aren't bragging. Maybe they just tried really hard to make a cake. Tell them good job, or, if it's me, tell me good effort and I bet it tastes great. Someone posts a selfie, maybe they are lonely and reaching for community, or maybe they are having a good hair day, so, TELL THEM. We are all finding ways to touch each other, to find that shared thread that makes us not alone. It's not our job to police motives, just give grace and recognize we all need each other.

And if we fall, when we fall, maybe TwitYourFace is not the place to address it. Let's take Matthew 18 face to face.

Maybe in this new world, this technological age, it's less important that everyone do it right and more important that we love each other. Grace.

We go to the airport sometimes, because my husband is always running off. He says he goes places to preach and sing, but I've always suspected he has a second family, with a chunky wife who really keeps a clean and quiet house. Every time he comes home, he is so surprised to find that a) I am so thin b) our children are so, so loud and c) no, I did not notice that sandwich under the couch. d) seriously, I never saw it. None of this is the point, try to pay attention. The point is I frequently drive to the airport.

Typically, when I have a plan, it's an overeager plan that makes me arrive somewhere a half-hour early and then my kids have to say "Is that daddy?" to every bald African-American man that walks by for a long, long time. Do they think their dad is black? I don't know, because I don't see any way to have that conversation without giving them Loud Conversational Ammo.

This time, I was all casual, like, I'm a grown woman who drives to the airport all the time and besides, I have a GPS, so I only gave myself 45 minutes. "FORTY-FIVE minutes??" you say, "I can make it to the airport in TEN minutes," and to that I say, "Shut it, Richy." I was making good time, too, barreling down 71 North at 45 miles an hour, because that's a freeway speed limit, when I got a text from the man himself. He evidently was tracking my progress via GPS, as he is prone to do when he's being a super-creeper. "At your current rate," it read, "you will be 20 minutes early FYI".

I'm a grown woman, I thought, and I know how to get to the airport, thank you very much, and maybe I would have texted that except I was driving and also everyone was trying to kill me with their cars and also my children were trying to kill me via sonic energy. I'm a grown woman, I thought, with 20 minutes to kill and I should swing by Starbucks and get a hot chocolate. So I mapped to a nearby Starbucks and then I drove there, except it got really confusing and then it didn't have a drive-thru so I was about to map back to the airport when I got a text from the Head Creeper, who had landed 20 minutes early. Because of course he did.

I fired up the ol GPS, which had died unexpectedly. (Isn't that the way of death?) and I drove off into the scary dark night. "THIS IS NOT THE WAY I REMEMBER AND I FEEL WIERD IN MY FACE AND I'M HUNGRY AND HE IS LOOOOOKING AT ME AND IS THAT DADDY AND DID YOU SEE THAT DOG? THAT DOG THAT DOG THAT DOG? MOM ? MOM? MOM? MOM?"

"Listen, guys," I said, clutching the steering wheel to try to gain some feeling of control, "I really don't want to yell at you. But Mommy is kind of lost and the GPS is sliding around and I DADGUMMIT..." as the GPS slid under the console. "Mommy is kind of stressed. I AM REALLY STRESSED and your best bet for not getting yelled at is to talk.to.each.other."

There was a moment of silence as they processed.

"Mom?"
"WHAT."
"Knock knock..."

I wandered like the Israelites, y'all. I drove all over the place trying to find the freeway, but it had been taken away as a punishment for my very dark thoughts. All the while, the GPS would start up for a moment, give one direction, like "Veer left in 2 miles" and then it would die again and I would think dark thoughts and then it would say, "prepare to make a u-" and then it would die again and everybody would say, "Did you hear that? Did you hear that? A U-what? What does it mean? Are we in another state? Is that daddy? What did the ocean say to the shore?"

"Mom? What did the ocean say to the... never mind."

We made it. 30 minutes late and some change, due to parking at the wrong part of the terminal, because of course I did. I collapsed in the passenger seat and tried to go to a happy place, which ended up being McDonald's, after a lot of strong marital discussion. "Why didn't you just use your phone GPS?" you ask, and to that, I say.... oh, yeah.

I coulda ate a hundred, maybe. Or three, anyway.

I think the time was around 3 pm. I had stolen away to my room for a lunch break, as I am prone to do when I want to eat my Ramen noodles alone in the lap of luxury. The screaming started sometime around the first bite, as it is prone to do. I gave some thought to ignoring it entirely, but let me tell you a couple of rules of parenting: If ONE child is screaming, it's probably okay to eat your lunch. If NO children are screaming, do not eat. Go immediately and find out why. If MANY children are screaming, it has a 50% chance of being a real thing and you can probably snag a bite or two but then run once you get near the children, just in case there are news media in your yard. 

It was the cat. The stupid, stupid cat was stuck in a tree. Now, listen, I'm kind of a cat person, in that cats might be the animal I hate the least. I like their furry aloofness and their comfy rainy-day approach to life. I enjoy seeing a glorified throw pillow stroll casually from one sleeping location to the next. I am not, however, one of you, who love your pet and put her in the Christmas card and care deeply if she lives or dies. 

We are a little more like: 

But we have these dadgum kids, and I love them. So it was my job to get the cat out of the tree, or at least to make a college try. Luckily, I had an enormous amount of moral support from the Man of God, who was late for a wedding and yelled "Good luck!" as he peeled out of the driveway, and also I had almost unlimited advice from the peanut gallery. "Just GET HER DOOOOWWWN," they wailed. "GO UP IN THE TREEEEEEE and GET HERRRR!" 

You guys might not realize this, but I am height challenged. I can't even reach the dishes in my own cupboard. Also I am completely uncoordinated and have not climbed a tree since the first grade, and also I am terrified of heights. Also I don't love this cat. So I hauled ladders around, but none of them were tall enough, and so then I thought, I bet I can get her to jump to the roof. I tried to sneak upstairs but was immediately detected and then 3 of 4 children all watched in fascination as I opened the window from their room to the roof and leaned out. I could FEEL Tristan getting ideas. 

Since I have extremely helpful children, Toby took possession of my phone for documentation and the other children leaned heavily on my back, ensuring that we would plunge to our deaths together. Toby will have video of me falling out the window, I thought to myself. It was a dark place. Plus the stupid, stupid cat would not jump to the roof 2 feet below the branch, so the plan was abandoned. 

Next I went to the alarm panel and set our very loudest and most frightening notification for that window, because, come on. 

Then I went back outside where everyone was gathered, cheering Misa to "JUMP!" which, luckily, she is too stupid to understand. I found another ladder, covered in black widows and brown recluses and terror, but I couldn't get it to open, because I don't speak Home Depot. "Just open it!" the helpful children cried, "Just click that thingy and open it and get up the tree and save the cat RIGHT NOW!!" 

Finally I thought, well, I haven't died yet, so here's one more way, and I leaned the ladder against the tree and climbed the ladder, again, mostly concerned with not dying in front of my children for the sake of a cat. As you will see in Toby's documentary, I saved her, only to be clawed ferociously across my wrist as a thank-you. 

In the end, we still have a cat and Tristan has discovered several interesting possibilities for fun and excitement. Send pills. 

I'm afraid of plenty of things. "There is no fear in love!" says you, super spiritual guy, and I'm all like "But I don't LOVE birds," and checkmate. I am, in fact, afraid of birds. They are so creepy with their bony little claws and their sharp beaks and beady little eyes, like demons of nature wrapped in soft little feathery jackets. I am also afraid of rodents who appear in MY HOME without warning, and I'm afraid of heights and fish that I cannot see and dogs, except the really dumb slobbery ones because they're not going to eat me.

So, yeah, I have fears. But I think there's a built-in fear buffer when you've faced some hard things, because there is a reality that bad things might happen, so you almost can't plan based on those kind of risks. I feel like I operate on a denial system of sorts, and that is how I happened to be on a committee of two, planning a cruise directly after the Italian cruise disaster. "What could go wrong?" I ask myself. "I've already been through this..."

The cruise was perfect. I went with 21 other women, (with NINETY-ONE children between us, but we did not bring the children). It wasn't until the middle of the first night on the boat that I started thinking about how bad it would be if the boat went down. I was also very concerned about snoring, because I've had the same roommate for 17 years and he says I snore. Ultimately, the boat did not sink and I do snore.

I'll write more about the cruise, because it was deeply refreshing and also an introspective window that I do not normally see through, even though I talk about myself and mine on social media all the time. There's just something about hours without interruption that brings great perspective.

Speaking of perspective, women are much larger up close. I am not talking about my friends, of course.  I am talking about all of the other women, who seem relatively fit when clothed but then when you get face level with the vast majority of their skin, you discover the limits of Lycra. Also the limits of decency.

I ate all the things, sang karaoke, spent hours on a beach and got the most marvelous sunburn. And "I" didn't twerk, but some people did. More about that later, too.

I didn't do a lot of extracurricular activities as a kid. I went to school and I did my time with all the academics and then I did the required amount of time with getting my arms broken in games of Red Rover and trying very, very hard to be invisible during dodgeball. I think I succeeded at being pretty invisible because everybody always forgot to pick me until everyone else was picked. Many a hot Texas afternoon was spent kicking holes in the packed dirt, waiting for everyone to finish sporting so I could go back to class. As a conservative, I am against all this nanny-state business. But if there were some legislation for a waiver out of violent sports for skinny little bookworms, I would halfheartedly sign an online petition for that, in political solidarity.

It's not that my childhood was totally devoid of show business. We did do Psalty plays with alarming regularity, although I was usually cast as a sheep or one of a large group of angels. Piney Woods, I still think you missed it. I could have been a STAR. At home, though, it was all music and theatre. If the NSA had been around back then, they probably would have been even more confused, because we rarely stuck with one character or accent for long, with my favorite being a stern and imperious Russian woman, who did not tolerate fools or meatloaf. Our family Christmases to this day include Cossack dancing and spontaneous stand-up comedy acts...

my first high school role: British maid

So in 10th grade, I went to public school and spent my first 2 days trying not to cry or get punched and then on day 3, I saw a sign for drama auditions and found my tribe, a melting pot of small-town fundamentalists and deviants in varying mixtures. I loved acting. My dad also had a drama troupe at our local church, and we did hilarious corny skits with a message, somewhere. In the end, it came down to college and acting or teen marriage and youth ministry, and (spoiler alert) I picked the latter. I have never regretted that. Well, I have regretted the marriage and the youth ministry at certain emotionally charged moments, but that fades pretty quickly.

This very long self-centered intro was supposed to be about my children being in a play, and somehow it is all about me. Maybe that's just because it's gotta be about me somewhere. I think I'm kidding.

Anyway, Toby and Brynn got to be in a play. They were awesome. What I would like is for all of my children, and I am talking about my children, not the soap opera, is for them to be super creative and musical and artistic and fulfilled, but maybe not actors who move to Hollywood or New York or anything. And also I don't really want them to be actors who only do low-budget Christian movies about the end times. Or even high budget. (Looking at YOU, Nic Cage). I don't know what I want. You guys are stressing me out with all these questions. Now I have to figure out if maybe they should be nice safe accountants or insurance salesmen or something.

Hey! In other news, I'm going on a cruise. I won't be drinking booze, because it tastes like fuel ooze. Sorry, I just got accidentally rhymed and then it got all freestyle up in this hizzouse. That's it, that's all I have to say. More about the cruise tomorrow.

This might be the longest break I've taken from writing in almost 8 years. I didn't do it on purpose, I just quit talking. I mean, really, I've still been talking on my Facebook an inappropriate amount of times a day. But this is my brain space and it is mysteriously quiet. I'm trying to make money, that's one part of it. I'm working half-days to pay for my vacation and various "extras" for my little people, and that does take brain juice and more importantly, time. But still. I miss writing and I miss the interaction of writing for you. So I'm back.

I'll be 35 here in a week, and that has me thinking a lot about what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'll tell you one thing, I will be a mom. I am SUCH a mom. Interesting thought: the more I ponder everything I want to do with my life, the younger I feel. Somehow I have switched over in the last few months from feeling like I'm having my third-life-crisis to feeling like I'm just getting started.

Stay tuned, this life is going to be interesting. Maybe.

In very, very sad news, the swimsuit that I ordered from China is not going to work. According to the website, I am what is called an Asian Large, and I didn't like the sound of that but I bought it anyway because I still needed a swimsuit. But it doesn't fit right and I could say I'll just sew it but we both know that would go so terribly wrong. So now I need another swimsuit. If you think this is a first world problem, you're right. Maybe since you're so smart you could find me a swimsuit that doesn't make me wonder if my mirror is bent like a funhouse mirror.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. We saw family, went to CiderFest and on a 2.5 day getaway, and we saw Tristan's birthfamily. And we, the mister and I, talked and talked and tried to get a grip on the future, that slippery future. But all of that's another day. Asian Large, signing off.