Dancing

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
I'm a terrible dancer. I have no sense of rhythm and can't remember any dance moves to save my life. In college, I took two semesters of dance classes, but I can't even remember the names of the courses, much less the dances I learned.
No matter. Right now in my life I'm dancing my heart out. I'm learning to left foot-right foot and not put my feet in one circle too long. I'm learning how thin I can stretch before I have to curl back inside of myself. I'm learning how much weight my stretched shoulders can carry and what has to fall off.
Though I don't have musical rhythm, some days I catch a glimpse of what it must be like. Some days I dance from school to work to school to homework to dinner to monitoring bedtime activities and still have enough energy to have a coherent conversation with Adam when he gets home from work. Some days I stand up tall because I know I danced that day. I was able to balance on the right foot while stretching with my left arm to stir the dinner pot. I was able to balance it all without falling over.
Other days I have to recoil. I have to force myself to sit and breathe and appreciate. I have to take a nap. I have to read a book for sheer pleasure. I have to stop the clock and refocus before I'm able to proceed. These moments of relaxation, renewal, and refreshment are just as important as the times I'm fully-engaged with life.
Life is so short.
Occasionally I dance on autopilot. Out of sheer exhaustion or overwhelm, I just keep moving and going through the motions until they make sense. The fabulous and fascinating part of just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make sense of it all is that some days it works!  The children will say something beautiful or share a concern and I will shout with joy because they have grasped the concept. Yesterday Paul cleaned his room on his own accord and I was as excited as the two times I met Anne Lamott!
On days of overwhelm, I remember the other people on the dance floor with me. I'm not dancing by myself and I have several loved ones I can lean on. This weekend I spent 12 hours on Saturday at a church event. It was important to be there, but then I woke up Sunday morning and realized Paul was out of pants because I didn't get to do the laundry. I later confessed to Adam that I was overwhelmed with my weekend duties and last night we spent a couple of hours and hung and folded every piece of laundry in the house. Engineer that he is, the folded laundry looks so much neater when he does it. Today I have empty laundry baskets and I am so grateful.
My life is dancing, and just when I catch my breath and sync with the rhythm, the song changes. I never get bored.

www.sxu.hu
(Don't I look fabulous here?)

Hamburger Helper, Rain, and Perspective

It's almost the end of summer and although I see school coming and know that time is slipping, slipping away, I can't seem to step out of the fast lane.  Since next week is the last week of summer and I have no childcare during work hours this week or next, I am getting up earlier and earlier to get a jump on my tasks.
I am rolling out of bed sometime between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and immediately turning on the laptop to start working.  It's much easier for me to get work done when there is not a child literally sitting on my shoulders, and I have been productive, but I am constantly trying to remind myself that I do have limits and am not superhuman and that it's a good thing.
Yesterday I was productive, but by 10 a.m. I realized I wasn't going to finish what needed to be done and the kids needed to be doing something besides watching the Muppet movie.  I used to be vehemently opposed to television for children, but this summer have let up a little and I let my kids watch about an hour or so a day while I try to breathe or get something done.
We needed to do something fun and silly and fast, or there was a danger I would start taking myself too seriously.
Here's what we did:

We took our Hamburger Helper foam hand puppet to the zoo. We all brainstormed and struggled to find anything that was not awesome about taking Hamburger Helper to the zoo and we couldn't find anything.  "The thing about Hamburger Helper," Claire said thoughtfully.  "Is that he rocks."  Paul said, "Yeah, Hamburger Helper is totally awesome."  These are definitely my children.

Hamburger helper loves giraffes!

This was so cute we left Hamburger Helper out of it.  It's the new baby elephant, Belle.

Claire suggested we put Hamburger Helper on the elephant's trunk.

Hamburger Helper visiting ducks.

Hamburger Helper wearing a Burger King crown while waiting for the zoo train.

Awww!  Look!  No arms!  Hamburger Helper rode the zoo train.

Every time I start feeling sad and guilty that my human powers aren't super; that they are just normal, then I get some perspective.  I was feeling guilty about letting the kids watch a movie in the morning instead of forcing them to play.  Oh the humanity!  Television in the morning!  Obviously the kids would be scarred for life from that.  But then I saw a family at the zoo who put their child on a leash.  Not a cutesy kid leash like I had to use for Claire when Paul was an infant and she was a fast two year old at the zoo.  No, they used a retractable dog leash attached to the poor kid's pants.  The father sported a tattoo on his arm that said "100% rebel." He was trying, he really was, but I wanted to pull him over and give him some mercy.  I wanted to suggest that maybe he remove the leash while the kid was climbing in the rope playground but I couldn't.  I was intimidated and all I could do was pray for him to be able to calm down and let go just a little.  So I sat on my bench and said a prayer for him and within 30 seconds saw him relax.  He stopped yelling and did let go a bit.  He didn't take the leash off the kid (I'm afraid it was reinforced with duct tape.) but he stopped his angry rant.  I was so glad because I didn't think I could sit there another minute without crying for his child.

Then while Claire climbed across the rope tunnel close to the ceiling she shouted down to me, "You are the best Mommy ever! And I know other moms can hear this and are disappointed!"  That made my day.  She wasn't on a leash and apparently watching the Muppet Movie didn't scar her or make her a terrible person.  It was going to be okay.

We followed our trip to the zoo with a trip to Central Library downtown.  We went last week and all the librarians remembered us and not because we were disruptive.  They remembered us because we are sometimes awesome.

The library has a program where you can check out a stuffed animal cow called Maggie. You are supposed to take pictures of Maggie all over Fort Worth and put them on Social Media.  

Paul built Maggie a tower.

Maggie in Sundance Square.

Maggie at the Water Gardens.

Kids splashing and running in the Water Gardens.

We played at the Water Gardens until a torrential downpour arrived.  We were soaked and Claire was very upset that Maggie was wet, too.  We had to run back to the car in the rain that was coming down so hard that I had to take off my glasses to see.  We also passed a beautiful lady standing on the curb trying to stay dry.  A man approached her from the hotel across the street and then it hit me that she was a prostitute. What can I do but offer her a prayer at that point?  

So by the time we got home, I had about three inches of my body that were dry, and that was where my purse had hung.  I was cold, wet, and humbled.  How heart breaking to see a poor family using a dog leash on a kid and a beautiful lady selling her body in the same day.  As the rain covered my entire body, all my stress was washed away and I was filled with compassion and perspective instead.

Balance and Candy Corn

When I called my elderly friend Jo for a visit recently, I wrote down her grocery list. I've been buying her groceries with my own for years, but since Paul came along, it's been a little more difficult. I have to take two kids to the store every time I go. That means four hands that have to be supervised the entire time.
Also, I only go once every two weeks because of the economic crunch from my lack of income. Add to that the task of feeding two hungry kids at least five times a day and you have a basket full of groceries, exhuastion, and stress.
Because of the enormity of the shopping experience, I have started buying Jo's groceries on a separate trip. It's usually a short list, so I just run in her small local grocer and grab the items on the way to her house for a visit.
So this week she needed coffee, creamer, milk, and candy corn. Her store was sold out of Halloween merchandise. This meant I had to drag the kids to another store to buy what she wanted.
I know helping the elderly is right, but after consulting some friends, I'm going to have to put a limit on it. The message of the church is to give more, but sometimes I feel like I over-give.
I am often sent on wild goose chases for my grandfather or Jo. Either my grandfather's sight is failing, which is likely, or his local Wal-Mart is cutting their stock every time he goes. Each time I visit him he tells me about some grocery item that his store "doesn't sell anymore." For a while I wrote these items down and tried to buy them at my store, but they were never the right item.
"No, not that kind of tomatoes. There's onions in the can," or "No, that can is too big. I just can't use it."
I am now imposing a one store limit. If I can't find what is requested at the first store, then I just have to visit with empty hands. That might actually be better anyway because it would take the focus of my visit off of the groceries and onto the people.
I want to help because it's right and I enjoy it. The chase for candy corn will now stop so I can take a load off and focus on the other loads I carry.