Slap Unhappy

My heart sinks whenever I see the kids' school pop up on my caller ID. "Best" case scenario was once Layla nose dived into a mud puddle (I feel legit proud), and didn't have backup clothes, and worst case was Judah getting his first ever migraine and screaming in abject misery in the middle of class. Usually it means they've puked or have a fever and I need to go get them. Never fun on any level.

Well, yesterday we captured the third kind of school phone call Pokemon: The Discipline Call.

Layla's sweet, sweet Kindergarten teacher left me a message just letting me know the story of the "white reminder" I would find in her folder today (a conduct report home to parents). She said Layla had slapped a friend, not very hard, but definitely a slap on the face and the little boy was upset. When she asked about it, Layla couldn't really say why she had done it--the boys hadn't hurt or teased her. The teacher said it was handled and over with as far as the school was concerned, but that it was extremely out of character for Layla. 

My first thoughts and feelings: I'm pretty angry because she knowsKNOWS that using your body to hurt or control someone else is unacceptable anywhere anytime (unless she's in danger). I'm embarrassed because I don't want my kid to be THAT kid, and what if the teacher thinks we are just crappy parents? I feel betrayed by Layla for making me look bad.

All that stuff is ABOUT ME. Not about Layla. That's not great.  That's parenting out of my own junk and insecurities instead of out of love for her and a desire to train her to be a healthy adult. 

So as I am waiting for the bus with Jesse, we decide to just ask her about her day as if we don't already know and just see how it plays out (because honesty has been a challenge for Layla sometimes, and want to give her practice at speaking hard truth). I am praying to just hear her heart and care for her--not myself. 

I am glad I had that time to think beforehand.

She hops off the bus and I asked about her day. She immediately says "I got a white reminder" kind of with a weird smirk on her face, almost a naughty smile, and I look at Jesse and am all "OH IT'S ON" inside. Benefit of Doubt: GONE. Little homie is laughing about this?!?!? Time to rain down the thunder. My "tsk-ing" finger is itching to be wagged.

But then she dissolves into tears, wailing, "I'm sad to talk about it." And my wagger finger disappears. I had not expected this gambit from this child. And it wasn't a gambit.

Come to find out, her day leading up to the slap was pregnant with angst. First, she had asked a few friends to play at recess and they had all been engaged with other buddies or activities and (not unkindly) declined. Then she did all the right classroom behaviors/tasks that typically earn her a reward but her teacher just happened to not notice this one time. And finally she left her snack box in the garage in the morning, so she didn't have anything during class snack time, and when she asked a friend for a piece of his cookie the friend said no.

That's a LOT of perceived rejection for a 5 year old who thrives on relationship, positive reinforcement, feeling treasured, social interaction--and SNACKS, by golly. 

"People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed..." -Wise Trolls

Does any of this absolve her of or change the fact that she straight up broke a serious rule when she slapped her buddy? NO. Does it mitigate how we chose to discipline her? NO again. Does it add another separate layer to the situation? Yes.

Parenting isn't a zero sum game. Obviously Layla having her heart hurt doesn't give her a free pass to make bad choices (the classic "there's no excuse for that!" comes to mind). We have to handle the behavior and the heart. One phone call becomes two very different parenting tasks.

This is tiring and daunting and does not come easy to me. It's more efficient and mathematically tidy to just call it a wash: you had crappy stuff happen to you, and you did something crappy because of that. Even Steven. But almost every parent who is actually trying knows that's not going to work. When she's 17 and her boyfriend dumps her and she decides to shoplift some holographic nail polish because she's sad (the future has cool things) she WILL go to space jail. This stuff doesn't wash out (nor does holographic nail polish, I bet), it doubles down, it finds a way out, and the older you get the yuckier and scarier those ways out become.

It's not a wash, so we have to address it.

But we can't stop with JUST addressing the slap either, and saying, "we don't care WHAT you were feeling, you NEVER slap!" Because, while basically true, I'm betting what she hears and internalizes the most is the "we don't care WHAT you were feeling" portion of that statement.

I am betting that because I have felt that. "You and your feelings don't matter, just stop screwing up."

She'll come up with another outlet for her painful feelings because pain always has to go somewhere. The slapping is a symptom. Sure, it's expedient and necessary in the moment to treat symptoms, but real healing is out of reach if we stop there and don't treat the source of the infection. 

Two things we have to parent now: her heart and the slap.

Feelings and Actions. Our brains are REEEEEALLY good at mashing them together.

As parents, Jesse and I want to work to detangle these two things from each other; to bring attention to, and help the kids learn to identify and separate what they're feeling from what they decide to do about it. Because, without ever intending it, she merged them (we all do): I am feeling hurt, so it's okay for me to hurt someone else. 

My entire adult life has been spent trying to chop that thinking in half. To throw on the brakes and say, "Whoa, let's stop at 'I'm hurt' part and address that." Because honestly, it just feels better and easier and less risky to go around slapping people rather than talking about how I felt rejected and alone and un cared-for. 

That is called VULNERABILITY and both our lizard brains--that help us survive in the wild, and our sinful hearts--that say  "you can be a god and have the power," throw up unending resistance to showing it. 

It took me YEARS to realize that I am actually not simply an angry person. I am a deeply sensitive person with a soft heart who takes rejection or refusal (perceived or real) as a negation of my basic value. That's a scary proposition to stare in the face and my lizard brain was not about to let me show this "weakness."

But you know what isn't scary? Going on the attack.  I medicated pain by just getting super pissed super fast at anyone who hurt me. The knife in your back doesn't hurt so bad when you're flailing about with brass knuckles. Of course you also don't get the knife out or help heal the damage, but who cares as long as it makes you feel better right now?

So Layla's slap: what did we do? Ironically, something like this had JUST happened to me a few days earlier. I had felt incredibly rejected by someone that I treasure and had ended up crying about it! I am 33 year old and was crying about my friend not liking me enough (and yes, my first thought still was "Imma unfollow her on Instagram, block her on FB and NEVER talk to her again" because I'm basically a  maturity expert).

I told Layla about my heartbreak after she described what happened. I asked her if that was kind of how she had felt, like the people that she loved didn't love her back? She said it was. Then Judah chimes in, "I have felt that way too. It feels like everyone in the world is against you." Whoa. We're having a moment here! (Jesse had gone back to work at this point).

Layla lost privileges as a result of slapping her friend. But, while that was very important, we only spent maybe 5 minutes on that part before we felt like it was covered. We spent far more time talking about her heart and what makes it feel cared for and what makes it feel scared or empty. We talked about what to do in case she feels those painful feelings again, and how to stop them before they take over. 

If we'd freaked out and given away her barbie dolls or done something major to punish her and make the lesson stick, I bet she'd remember better and would never slap again. I  bet that memory would stay with her for a long, long time. Not in a good way. And honestly, she probably won't even remember the talk we had about feelings. But it's one more brick in something bigger we want to build. That gives her a firm foundation of knowing that her parents are a safe place for her heart. That she is loved and treasured and valuable.

Demolishing something is so much faster than building something, but it leaves rubble and nothing. We want to leave substance.

We don't want her to be so afraid to mess up that she does things right. We want her to be so secure in who she is and how she's loved that it naturally spills over into her decisions and the way she treats people. 

Layla decided to write an apology to her friend. She can't spell so Judah scribed while Layla dictated. It smells like purple Mr. Sketch: a grape paradise. It smells like fearless love.

  "People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed...but throw a little love their way, and you'll bring out the best" -Wise Trolls.

Restoration: Hard

Let's just pretend I've had more blog posts than menstrual cycles in 2016, and jump right in.

I've written about what a transformative experience it was for me to learn how messed up I am, to not shy away from that or downplay it. (In my opinion, it's actually one of my best posts ever, even if I refused to capitalize letters back then).  Learning to identify the events from my childhood that hurt me, and to recognize the pain they caused and still cause has been the most eye-opening experience of my life.  

This isn't one of those, "oh my gosh I need to click through to read about what dramatic event Keight's referring to that messed her up" situations. Because SPOILER ALERT: nothing grabby or terrible happened in my childhood.  No one from the Lifetime Network is calling asking for my story rights. 

But you know what? I was a human kid raised by and around other humans, and that alone GUARANTEES that I experienced painful stuff. Stuff that my kid/tween/teen brain didn't know how to deal with in a healthy way, so I just coped or numbed or distracted or [ir]rationalized my way through it. These instincts that we have for when we're confronted with pain are great because they help us survive, to get through the pain and keep living. 

But as you may know, I am interested in more than surviving (cause, you know, like, it's the tagline to the blog, right? WHATEVER, YALL).

And wouldn't it be great if once we survived long enough to grow into our adult brains we just automatically started doing things in a healthy, rational way? I mean now that we have the vocabulary and reasoning enough to understand things a little better, shouldn't we have our junk together?

EFF TO THE NAW NAW. 

Because, surprise! While my sweet little kid brain was busy coping around a painful moment, it was also setting up habits and thought patterns and making some bizarre kid-conclusions about the world (hang around with Layla for a day if you wanna experience some hilarious and "WTF" 5 year old logic). And as the ever-popular factoid says: 90% of your personality and thought patterns are fully formed by first grade. It's kind of insane when you imagine your five or six year old self being at the wheel of the decisions and relationships that you are dealing with today.

Because 5 year old Keight? Well, she had an imaginary friend named Tennis. And he was a tiny, hairy, adult man who lived in her throat. I'm not sure I want the same brain that birthed Tennis the Throat-Dweller navigating me through the grown up world of emotions and conflict and life (however, I do want to hang out with that brain's owner, because she sounds like a trippy little riot).

Tennis is in there. And those bareback shortalls are the dope freshness.

Here is a basic example from my life. When I was maybe 6 or 7, I was playing with a kitten at my cousins' house. This was the first kitten I remember ever meeting, and it was a pure wonder. As far as I was concerned, it was a stuffed animal come to life, and I treated it with my signature 6 year old gentleness (re: unintentional and clueless brutality). Well, duh, I grabbed it too hard and the cat scratched the mess out of me. I vividly remember the shock as I pulled my arm back and felt those bright red streaks of fire. I didn't even know something so sharp existed in the explored universe, much less did I expect to encounter it on this tiny fuzzball. 

Immediately in my head a switch was made from "cats are all adorable and sweet and exist to delight me" to "they are all scary and mean and will hurt me." Well, neither of those assumptions was actually true, but my kid brain swapped one for the other without skipping a beat.

When Jesse and I were newly married we found two kittens in the woods at a friend's house. We took them home so they wouldn't die, and I started looking for someone to give them to.  They were so cute, but I didn't get attached and kept saying, "we can't keep them because I HATE cats." Even when I would be cuddling them to bits, I would still assert "but I hate cats."  After a few days I was like, "huh, wait a second, what I am believing to be true and what is actually true aren't lining up." It was this strangely dramatic moment at age 24 to have the epiphany, "OMG I THINK I LIKE CATS!" 

It's not always as easy as "X  happened in my childhood and it was painful, and that is why I am still doing Y today."  It may never be so cut and dry, but that type of cause and effect is happening a ton during childhood as we learn the world and make conclusions about it. And the effects are going to keep playing out until our adult selves step in and change the pattern.

I had filed away "Cats = Bad" in my kid brain, and the case was closed. I wonder how many very lovely, sweet cats I ignored or ran away from through the years based on my faulty thinking.  And it even took my adult brain a few days of discomfort and full exposure therapy--having those little fluffy puffs clamber around all over me--before I even got the message of "WAIT A TICK! I think I DO like these things!"

I couldn't find a pic of me with a cat (for obvious reasons), but here is me in a cabbage patch kids swimsuit and my chumbo baby brother that HAS to be worth something.

It's a silly example, but it's helped me realize how powerful this stuff is, and how totally unhealthy and unfounded patterns can get passed down for generations if we don't intervene with new thinking.

But, if it was that tricky to realize I was operating on an incorrect assumption about freaking kittens because of one physically painful moment from childhood, how much harder and more painful is it to explore this stuff when the pain/lie/thought is about something closer to home, that played out over years in my heart? 

It's a buttload harder. And it feels like digging around with a red-hot poker in an infected sore. One that you had managed to contain to barely a throb when you had it all wrapped up. The vast majority of the time we choose the quiet and constant throb of lingering infection over the intense and temporarily more painful process of cleaning out the junk and truly healing.

I had no emotional investment in the feline race. The pain that one kitten caused me didn't have any attachment to my worth or identity. And yet it still took me 20 years to reevaluate the information and move forward under more correct thinking.

When I start coming up against and exploring events and patterns that tie in with my identity, my self-worth, body image; when it's issues like acceptance, intimacy, shame, fear, rejection, and abuse, my little kid brain tells me to run kicking and screaming away because it hurts and it's hard. To move past this stuff and process it in a healthy manner means letting myself truly feel the weight of what really happened, to look directly at what was lost and grieve it.

Choosing grief when it isn't absolutely required sounds insane. Grief is something we think of as forced upon us by the most dramatic circumstances of life. Circumstances that none of us wish for.  But if you get to a place like I did and you just feel stuck--in a dysfunctional marriage pattern, in unhealthy parenting, in crumbling or shallow relationships, in feeling like you're just passing through life, in your growth with Jesus; unprocessed pain could very well be why. It definitely was for me.

It's hard for me to look at the little girl in these pictures and know that she was the one that got hurt by the world and by people in it. But I would never tell her to suck it up or get over it. I would want her to be comforted and heard and healed. I have to remind myself that Jesus wants that and more for me: even the grouchy, wrinkly, not-as-cute-or-loveable 33 year old version of me today. I'm still her, and she needs someone to fight for her.

Consider this your once-every-5-years reminder from me: You're messed up and have been hurt, and dealing with it could really change your life for the better. But it will be hard and it will hurt. I'm not telling you what to do, but you should totally talk to someone with training about this stuff.

"Ugh, pain? Do I have to?" Yes, tiny Keight. You have to, for the new generation of tinies. Now eat your apple jack necklace and appreciate how exquisite 1988 is.

Home Alone

Judah got off the school bus at the wrong stop yesterday. He ended up bawling. I am thrilled that this happened and so freaking proud of my 6.5 year old.

He was supposed to get off at our church (aka Jesse's workplace) which is on the same route as home and about 2/3 of a mile away. We put a note in his folder to let everyone know about this unusal change, but there was a substitute teacher yesterday who didn't check. 

So he stayed on the bus and got off at our street like he does most Mondays. The bus drops off at the corner, maybe 20 yards from our front door. At the beginning of the year I would wait by the window and then walk out to meet him getting off. Then I started just keeping an eye out the window and stepping outside to greet him and watch him cross the street. That has progressed to complete independence where I just go about my day and he gets off the bus, crosses the street, and lets himself in 100% independently.

ASIDE: I am having a weird feeling right now because it's like "wait is this actually something to be proud of or call 'independence' in this day and age? Is that where we are?" but also simultaneously, "uh, wait, could I get in trouble for this is someone tattled on me?" WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?!

A few weeks back I had a spare key made for Judah on a total whim. We were are the hardware store getting paint and he was being a dreamy little delight. I saw the key blanks and remembered we needed a spare anyway. Then I saw they had Star Wars themed ones! I got Darth Vader for myself and Jesse yet couldn't leave little Yoda behind (even though his design wasn't as cool), so I asked if Judah would like a house key to have just in case I ever forgot to unlock the door for him. He was very excited and when we got home we practiced using the key and secured it to his back pack.

And yes, Tile is very worth it. Jesse and I are serial key misplacers. This has saved fights and money already.

When we were attaching his key we talked about how he'd probably only ever have to use it if we forgot to unlock the door for him, but how if there was an emergency or something crazy happened and Jesse nor I were home, what would he do?

After some truly whacko and concerning options from him (mostly involving punching and potions) I realized it was god that we discussed this. I suggested knocking on a few neighbors' doors to ask for help with calling us or walking all the way to church; and we decided the best first option was to grab his or Layla's iPad and wifi-call mommy or daddy. We then took the time to put pictures in our contact info so that they could both easily select us.

He has had his key for about 2 months, and that was the last time we talked about this stuff.

The first day he had his key with him and got off the bus he got mad at me for opening the door when I happened to see him coming because he had wanted to use the key. So for the rest of the week, Layla and I would lock the door when we heard the bus, stay in the house, and listen to him struggle until he was able to turn the lock and enter victoriously.

So yesterday I was out running errands with Noa and Layla and Jesse was at work. Judah came in and started doing his homework (can we talk about how great that is that with ZERO supervision he did his dang homework!!) and then he noticed things were quiet (when he tells it, he adds, "maybe toooooo quiet").

He went to the front window and saw neither car in the driveway (smart thinking!). That's when he says he first felt afraid, but then "felt powerful in his chest". I told him later how this is called adrenaline and how our bodies are made to power us up with it in scary moments. He liked the thought of Hulk juice in him.

He tried to find his iPad and couldn't, but did find Layla's in their bathroom beside the toilet (that's my girl!). He pulled up FaceTime and called Jesse. As soon as Jesse saw the call from Layla's iPad--which he knew was at home--he knew Judah had ended up there alone.

When Jesse picked up the call and Judah saw his face, the power juice in his chest dissipated, and he started sobbing, finally feeling the scariness of the situation fully now that he was safe from it (man, biology is cool).

After I got out of my class (I'm soon to be certified to lead RYH groups!) They told me what had gone down. I was instantly SO SO SO proud of my boy and felt so confident in the head he has on his shoulders. I was also incredibly grateful that we was able to process and feel and talk about the fear and sadness and power he had felt through it all as well as satisfaction from solving it on his own.

Am I glad he's safe? Yes, but he was probably never in any danger whatsoever.  I am THRILLED however that he took action, used critical thinking, and remembered what we had talked about. That is worth about 100X more to me than him being protected by circumstances this one time.

If you can't tell, we are Free-Range parents. We parent not to protect our kids from the world, but to prepare them for it. We have practiced getting separated in stores and taught them how to find helpers as well as how to spot "tricky people"  versus almost all other strangers who are happy to really help kids. We believe that talking to grown-ups gives them the experience they need to determine when a grown-up is acting shady or suspicious or asking something inappropriate of them.

Abductions and stranger danger have actually decreased over the past decades, but media coverage, social media fear-mongering (including many totally false stories) have blown it up so that even in my head--which I considered pretty level--it can feel like there are boogey men around every corner. THERE AREN'T. All the statistics say that if your child is going to be kidnapped, abused, raped or have violence committed against him or her, the OVERWHELMING odds are that it will happen at the hands of someone you or they trust.

We need to adjust our parenting energies accordingly.

All that helicopter parenting does is drastically limit the amount of time our kids practice thinking and using judgement--these aren't gifts that come with their draft card or college acceptance at 18--these are character values and neural pathways; brain muscles that have to be exercised and built up.

Otherwise we are turning 20 year old babies loose on society and calling them "adults."

There is no measurable proof that helicopter parenting makes a difference in the safety of our kids; I think there is demonstrable (if anecdotal) proof that it makes our kids less capable. Ask any high school teacher who has been in the game for decades what kind of trends they have seen in parental vs. teen responsibility and involvement. 

There was nothing I could have done to stop Judah from forgetting to get off the bus when he did (I mean beyond pinning a note to his shirt or nagging him, but even then kids are championship-level oblivious sometimes), no matter how low the helicopter flies, these are autonomous creatures we're raising and they're going to go off-plan at some point. But if the goal is to eventually have them making their own life/choices/character (living permanently off plan!) then these age-appropriate forays to independence seem vital...even if they are play-acting or controlled (not suggesting you lock the door and leave home today at bus time just to see what happens).

Tonight we are going to talk hypothetical fire scenarios. I will probably let them play with matches as a visual.

Adult in Training.

WTFBMI

Layla just went for a well checkup to get her hearing and vision tested and get one more shot she needed to be up to date. We are doing this because she is going to start in a public Pre-K program next week and to register you need a vision/hearing/dental/nutrition screening.

As I was faxing the paperwork I noticed something weird on the boxes the doctor had checked and signed off on:

Um, what?! Her BMI is in the 97 percentile?! and NEEDS FURTHER EVALUATION!? I couldn't believe it so I went to the dot gov site for kids' BMI and typed in the info.

Ok so that escalated things. "Obese?!" THEM'S FIGHTING WORDS! You are calling this child OBESE? This child?!?!:

She looks like Ronda Rousey's Mini Me.

Ok, so, talk me down. I do know that BMI is a pretty crappy measurement in adults with a lot of muscle. When I was cut and working out all the time during my volleyball years at Tech, a BMI calculator said I was overweight, but a Georgia Tech's Bod Pod told me I actually had 13% body fat.  So I know that BMI is definitely not the end-all, be-all.

But in kids?! All I could find talked about BMI being faulty for giving false normal results in children who are, in actuality, obese. Um, okay, I am looking for a false-obese flaw though.

But even if BMI is a problematic tool, why is the school system, and my doctor, using this as a screening for her nutritional health?! I feel like no doctor would examine her and ever pronounce her obese.

She is certainly NOT the kind of kid who is a whippet-thin, string bean (her brother is). Girl has fabulous muscles and a booty for jumping. She's 4.75 years old, super active, eats a balanced and varied diet and wears store-bought clothes that are mass produced for 4-5 year olds. Are we really okay branding her with the Scarlet "O?!"

I want to shrug this off because I know that her heart is so perceptive and would notice the subtlest shift in my attitude toward her in terms of what she eats, how her clothes fit, or her body. I knew with girls that I might have to battle some body image stuff in their tween years and beyond, but just didn't predict this in Pre-K. I also didn't realize that the judgements and pressures from "the world" on my daughters' bodies could hurt me deeper than those I  receive about my own figure!

Go home, BMI, you are drunk.

 :

Giving Dragon Mommy the Morning Off

Things were getting bad around here. It felt like every.single.morning was the same crapstorm of asking/nagging/threatening/rushing the kids to get their basic stuff done to enable us all to get out the door. I got so tired of hearing Jesse and myself say "guys, come on!" that I was white-knuckling our corkscrew: it was a toss up between using it to shotgun a bottle of wine at 8 am versus using it to just lobotomize myself.

It's our own fault. Often Judah and Layla wake up way too early and we just phone it in and cave to get them to let us go back to sleep. "Go play iPad," we say. This is so successful at getting them out of our faces and occupied (scarily so...like Wall-E levels of screen obsession) that we let them keep playing on them while we get ourselves ready--until the last possible moment. (In case youre wondering: my parents gifted them one and we bought another on big sale to avoid bloodshed...we are those parents who gave every kid their own iPad...oh dear).

So with 20 minutes left before we have to leave for work and school no child has dressed or eaten or sanitized their bodies. Oh, and they are INDIGNANT to be asked to stop in the middle of their game/movie/hacking the FBI/whatever it is they're doing that is so crucial to their very lifeforce that the threat of having to stop so that they might ingest foodstuffs and go on living is THE MEANEST THING EVER to ask them to do. 

Wait a second! So we buy you, our 4 & 5 year old, a $300 toy, and for making you stop after an hour and a half of unrestricted play on it --to eat and be clothed and go get literate, MIND YOU--you are now angry at us and saying that life is unfair and this is the worst day ever?!?!

HERE COMES DRAGON MOMMY.

Rather than give in to the temptation to become a late-onset baby-shaker and jostle some sense into my first-world-proto-cusshole preschoolers, we decided something had to change. NO MORE ENTITLEMENT. STANDS WILL BE TAKEN! LINES: DRAWN! CAPS: LOCKED!

They are 4 and 5 and a half: they can handle chores. If this was 500 years ago they would have children of their own by now...or a cow or something, at least. They have chores when they get home from school (no play time or snack until they've put up shoes and coats and bags and lunchboxes and folders) and implementing those was so easy and effective, but for some reason we have just been the blind exasperated lunatics leading the blind spoiled freeloaders when it came to mornings.

An iPad is a modern damn marvel, the capabilities of which nation-states have fought wars over for much less throughout history. I love my kids, and they're cute and all, but I'm sorry, being my living spawn does not the god-given RIGHT to own one of these trinkets give you.

Starting today, they have to earn it. They each have a morning routine checklist to do and only when every item is done can they have iPad. I am no longer the bad guy hounding them about 12 tasks at once. Talk to the list, fools!

We are selling this as a privilege instead of a downgrade or loss of fun by saying if they get it all done, they get INFINITY time on the iPad before school. Until they realize the only way to maximize this is to wake up unholy early (a real possibility) this automatically should set a limit just because we have to be out the door by 8:25.

If they get everything done on all 5 days of the week, they will earn an allowance. $1 for each year they've been alive. Jesse balked at this being too much money, until I said, "How much would you pay stay sane...NAY how much would you pay to keep ME sane?!" because really my stress level getting ramped up is what is toxic to our household (working on it).

I made up an Excel spreadsheet because you know how I be, and we can change and add things if needed. I know these lists/sheets/boards aren't a new idea by any means, but they are revolutionary in this house so far. 

Layla's Sheet*. Complete with stock clipart? yes! because mama aint got time for cool design-y logos. Picking my battles...

We took basic human morning things like brushing teeth and wearing shoes and added a few age appropriate actual chores to the list because they need to contribute to the tribe! They put a sticker on when it's done (we dont care about the order) and for fun, I made little iPad tickets that are tear-off-able at the bottom for them to cash in for the (now locked) iPads when everything is done. They can tear off the dollar bill at the end of the week to get their paycheck. 

Day 1: stunner!

We still had to help guide them through everything today and help keep them on task, but it was so much better to say, "check your list!" rather than saying "WHERE THE FRIG ARE YOUR SOCKS?!" after telling them 6 times to put them on.   And of course the novelty will surely wear off with the stickers and tickets. I'm okay with that...we are trying to create responsible, non-jerk humans, not an actual cartoon paper currency economy. 

We love that their desire for the iPad is now the constant reminder of what they need to get done rather than our words and effort.

Judah's Sheet*. We made feeding the dogs and picking up an entire room his new jobs. He did them like it was cake. 

I could show you Noa's list but it's just a picture of boobs and poop, sooooo, nah.

These sights have never been so beautiful to me before:

Oh yeah. She's feeling it.

Veg, my hardworking contributor, VEG I SAY!

Below is a link to my actual spreadsheet if you want to download it and edit it for your kids own needs. It has the tearable tickets at the bottom and everything is sized to fit the standard little circle stickers that you'd use for garage sale prices or any other fun mini sticker...or checkmarks when stickers get old. I had to max out my margins.

Morning Kid Routines

(let me know if this doesnt work after you open and download...this is my first file-share attempt on the blog.)

They just got home and walked up to the fridge and looked at their sheets. Judah goes, "I love our new list."  And I'm all Emperor Palpatine: "Yes, my son. Yes." 

*One thing we blatantly forgot and I hope someone tries to Jesus juke/call me out on is a devotion. We have been doing the She Reads Truth ABC memory verses that we have pretty pretty flashcards for (wall sized and pocket sized for the car). They get candy when they can recite their verses...so that's separate but probably should go on the list.

It's Not a Hobby; IT IS WAR

With 3 kids in the house who are basically just industrial strength needing machines, finding time to pass stool without another human touching me is challenging.  Carving out an hour to sew when I have all 3 kids at home with me is downright comedy. One of my Big Mommy Beach Bags should take about an hour to sew. But unless a minimum of 66% of my offspring are unconscious, it takes about 3 hours--and years off my life--to get it done.

It can get frustrating. And I tend to end up angry. Not so much angry at the kids, because for the most part the interruptions are simply kids being kids; needing attention, a diaper, help, a mammary, a cage match referee. Just angry because my desire to stay seated at my sewing machine and work for longer than 3 minutes at a time feels like it is constantly being thwarted. 

A crash from the kitchen: He scaled the pantry shelves and pulled an entire Fruity Pebbles box's worth of cereal on top of him and all over a basket of clean laundry. PAR-TAY!

They have neediness radars that are tuned to sense any productivity hormone my brain emits and to instantly react with full force to stop it in its tracks. I swear, they can and do entertain themselves happily for long periods, but for some reason when I have something I really enjoy doing, they can't survive 45 seconds without my requiring my undivided attention and my two able hands.

Jesse came up with a new definition for anger recently: he says anger is often just blocked goals. 

It seems to fit:

Cut me off in traffic? I'm angry because you blocked my goal of not having my life endangered and/or personal space stolen. 

Internet acting schizo at work? I'm angry because it's blocking my goal of disseminating my delectable spreadsheets throughout the company.

Somebody talking bad about me? I'm angry because it blocks my goal of having healthy relationships and not getting my feelings hurt.

It's a really useful exercise for me when I feel the anger monster just taking over. Instead of seeing anger as this 3rd party outside phenomenon that I have as little control over as I do the weather, I can break it down a little and better figure out what's going on: What goal do I have right now that feels like it's being blocked? Often times it give some self awareness that my goals might need adjusting (I just want to sleep until 10 am on a work day! I expect the three children to behave in the grocery store when they are hungry and have been trapped inside all day! Jesse obviously needs to read my mind!)

This new perspective also reminded me of the kids' eternal interruptions of any private creative time that I try to take lately. When it comes to blocking this particular goal, my youngins are basically at Dikembe Mutumbo levels against me. (Fun fact: I once found myself with Dikembe in the cough/cold aisle at a CVS in 2002).

I sit down and start threading my machine: in comes Layla reporting a milk spill:

I pull out all my fabrics and get ready to cut them to start on existing orders: Noa wakes herself up from what should have been a nice long nap with an explosive poop:

I take two squares of fabric, place them perfectly under my needle and lower my foot upon the pedal. Judah bursts in needing me to beat a level for him on Lego: Star Wars.

Next thing I know, 2 hours have passed and I have sewn maybe 7 stitches, gotten up 34 times and have rage-tangled my machine at least twice.

When I applied the new blocked-goals to this common source of anger and frustration in my life--and then immediately thought of Dikembe--I starting thinking of sewing not as an activity that the kids ruined, but as a goal temporarily blocked.

Dikembe blocked shots better than anyone, but opposing players scored on him plenty of time. They just had to work around him.

As such, I decided to stop thinking of sewing as a hobby of mine, but have chosen to look at it as a competitive sport. My kids aren't ruining things; they're just playing defense.

Productivity? Think again, Mommy.

Getting angry about someone ruining my plans makes me bitter and teeth-gnashy, but being in competition with someone: well that's my JAM. 

It's now a contest for me: how can I prepare, react and deflect so that I win by being able to get things done AND keep the kids reasonably happy healthy at the same time. (Spoiler alert: they win too because I stop treating them like temporary inconveniences or bite-sized stressors).

Layla comes in, bored with the show I let her watch on Netflix after 6 minutes? BOOM I parry that attack with a new little art project from the $1 section of Target. Noa isn't happy unless I am holding her? BANG! I pick and roll that baby into the Ergo. Judah comes in saying he's hungry when he's just had a snack and dinner is an hour away? KAH-BLOOWIE! I tell him I bet I can finish sewing this scarf before he can pick up all his toys. The Force (of competition) is strong in this one and he loves a chance to win.

Nothing fundamentally changes except for my attitude. I never got pouty and bitter on the volleyball court when opposing teams tried to do their thing. Because, duh, I expected some resistance and adjusted so that I could accomplish my goal (#Winning). My kids aren't against me, but often the flow of their little lives just naturally throws resistance into my perfect idea of a day. Instead of meeting that resistance with a spoiled little tantrum that leaves us all feeling unfulfilled, I am committing to just adapt my strategy and make it a game where I expect to have my productivity momentarily opposed, but still try to score as much sewing time as I can.

Dragon-mommy is mean to kids, gets nothing done and is a stressed out mess puddle by the time Jesse arrives home:

NOT IN MY HOUSE!

Noa Lou Dukes

Our sweet #3 was born last Monday, October 6th at 3:01 pm. 

Noa Lou Dukes

8 pounds 1 ounce

20.5 inches long

She is more magical, awe-inspiring, gorgeous and beloved than we imagined was possible (and we had heard that 3rd babies are pretty spectacular!). This was taken at 90 minutes old.

Some highlights:

The name: Upon being told we couldn't leave the hospital until we filled out her birth certificate paperwork, we decided to finally settle on the middle name that had eluded us all this time. You remember how much I love "Lukas" but couldnt saddle her with "Lukas Dukas" potential?  Well one of my favorite things about that combo was being able to call her "Noa Loo."

I knew that Jesse's mother's middle name was Louise and the thought of giving our daughter a name that honored and united two very strong and admirable female lines was pretty cool (read how Noa came from my grandmother--after we already loved the name--here). But Louise was a tad too traditional for me (like Genoa had been in the first name). Jesse had told our friend Kellen about this quandary, and he simply and brilliantly was like, "If you want to call her Loo/Lou/Lu, just actually name her that. It doesnt need to be short for anything."

So thats what we decided to do. It is still definitely an homage to Jesse's mother (who is called LouLou and Lovie Lou by the grandkids) even though it is shortened, and we had a blast telling Linda that that was what we had decided for her name. She may have slightly lost her mind. It was completely adorable and utterly affirmed our choice.

moderately excited about her 6th Grandchild being her namesake.

The name Lou means "warrior," and since Noa means "love in motion" for us, our daughter's entire name now means "His conquering love in motion"  (and the "His" would be Jesus). This is our prayer for Noa's entire life/legacy.

The birth: Oh dont you just WISH I had the story ready and we could find out how close to this plan we stayed? Well, I wish this, at least. I LOVE telling my birth stories, but they are an investment of time and brainpower, and I am not quiiiite there yet. Rest assured it will be faster than the first two, which took about a year each. 

IN the meantime, maybe you'd like to read my friend Tara's story of how she delivered her daughter Paige's first baby this weekend and was a few contractions away from doing so at the Baylor football game. Seriously one of the most hilarious and beautiful and angsty and insane birth stories I've ever read (Tara is my spirit animal).

The photos: Our wonderful photographer, Brenna, made it for the entire birth and has show us some early sneak peeks of her work. Great Golly Gosh, she is talented. We were thrilled to be her first birth session and obviously she is going to rock this milieu of photography like she already does for families and babies. Here are a few:

 

The family of Five: This too is going to get its own post, because my big kids have fallen SO HARD for baby Noa that the intensity must have its very own URL. Rest assured, it's cute, it comes with video and pictures and it makes me want to have 14 more babies for them to love.

Her Song: If you've been here awhile, you know my worship leader husband writes/records original songs for each of our kids (Judah's and Layla's are blogged). He has just finished writing Noa's song and just needs to record it. IT IS COMING! I'll let you know when that single drops (because I say things like that).

Playing a demo for me of his second draft. (We are so blessed to have Jesse on paternity leave for 3 weeks).

The baby: Oh man, I probably can't even articulate how dreamy Noa is. A big part of it is surely that now that I have big, stinky (seriously! they smell so bad compared to my newborn...how did I never notice this?!), non-baby kids, I am ever so much more schmoopy and treasuresome (not a word) about this utter beebee. Judah being 17 months when Layla was born, we really had two babies and didn't fully dive into or "back" to the newborn experience. We are full on submerging ourselves this time.

It's also much much easier to have a newborn when you've done it a few times. We were out of our minds stupid and stressed with Judah and thought a new baby was the hardest thing in the world. No. One newborn is a vacation. The hardest thing in the world is whatever age they are at today.

But the biggest thing I think that has made this go-round so cross-eyed lovey dovey is just Noa! She is so chill and sweet and easy and hilarious. There was a stretch in the hospital where we seriously didnt hear her cry for like 20 hours (and she was with us the whole time!). She eats like a champion, sleeps about 18 hours a day, and is wide-eyed, squeaky and nonstop funny faces the rest of the time.  And her poop smells fantastic (again...compared to the big kids').

We are soaking up every moment with this baby. I hardly ever can bring myself to put her down (sleeping or not), which is NOT like me, and I can definitely see how babies of the family get doted on or spoiled. It seems like I spend hours just petting her hair (so much more/darker than my first two!), marveling at her tiny little belly/chest (taking perspective photos to show scale to remind my future self of how tiny she once was), sneaking up the back of her onesie to rub that sweet, silky baby back, and super-saturating every cone and rod in my eyeballs with the details of her perfect face. 

This little angel bean is a massive meteor that has changed the entire makeup of our family in the best way imaginable. 

Nesting Infesting

Y'all.

Y'ALL!!!

You almost literally will not believe what happened to/atop of us this week...until I show you pictures.

Let's set the stage: I am 37+ weeks pregnant. Getting up out of a chair is cardio for me these days (which is why I mostly DONT get up). My kids sense this weakness and therefore their powers grow ever-stronger by the day as they realize they can run much farther amok and I am helpless to stop or retrieve them. I have just 4 office days left to train my temporary replacement so missing work to stay home is so not an option right now.

On Monday I decided to be super productive. I finished up the last (HURRAY!) of my Etsy orders and turned my attention to a jumbo KitKat breaking down half of the studio room into what will be a quasi-nursery with enough space for a crib when Noa eventually moves out of our room (bedside-sleeper for the first few months).  I also needed to set up all of our Fall decorations around the house that we had just hauled down from the attic and were just sitting in a big bin in the living room depressing me instead of making me feel all the cozy clichés of autumn like they were intended.

So I was in-process for awesome. But with me, this usually means I have just made a big mess getting everything spread out before me so I can form a battle plan. It's about to all go into new and clean and wonderful places, but for now it's just a teased-out mess. I'm so totally, gonna get back to it and finish it wonderfully.

I stopped at 1pm to go get the kids from school. As I am in carpool line the School Director comes up to my window. This is unusual but not unheard of. We are friends.

And then she says, "I have some bad news. Both of your kids..."

And my mind is trying to finish this sentence:

 "...attacked classmates today and are now expelled." 

"...attacked each other in the hallway and are now expelled."

These attack/expulsion scenarios are as far as I get when the REAL predicate of the sentence falls from her lips:

"...seem to have lice."

Jaw: dropped

A thousand deaths: died

10 years: taken off my life

Skin: Crawling

Noa: clawing her way back up the birthing canal all, "ummm, okay, no, I think I'd rather not come out after all. I'm good in here."

But the first thing I say? "Oh my freaking gosh, I think I have it too."

My head has been itching like MAD for a week or so. The pregnancy websites say this can happen in late 3rd trimester. Hormones can even cause scalp psoriasis and crazy-itchy dryness. I had complained to Jesse about had bad it was and we lovingly began calling it "my mange." We went so far as to have him examine my scalp for crazy rashes or even bugs and there was nothing. So even when the kids began scratching  their heads rather more than usual, I just didn't think anything of it. (Like a big dumb, dummy, dumbass).

But now the perfect little tetris piece slides down into place and it all makes sense. (Prepare for your head to itch badly as you read this. It's inevitable).

I get up to the front of carpool line to pick the kids up, and the director shows me in their hair what they had seen (Judah had been crazy ape-scratching so his teacher had asked that he be checked). I was expecting plague-like proportions of buggy-hoards to be traversing his scalp, but actually it was just tiny specks attached to some hairs about an inch from the scalp. This was my first lesson in Lice Education 101 (I stand here 4 days later holding a Doctorate Degree from the School of Hard Knocks Nits).

I am just mortified and apologizing profusely to both of their teachers and the director, and I am brought up short by how they are all saying, "No, no WE are sorry!" I'm like, wait, our family exposed yall to this scourge and you are saying you are sorry for us?!?!

I should have taken this as a sign of what was to come. The teachers knew...oh, yes, they knew what was in store for us.

I have never had lice. Not as a kid, not never. My kids have had the warning letters come home saying there was a confirmed case at the school, but preventing it is way easy. We just got this kit from the drugstore and sprayed them before school each day and cycled in the shampoo during regular baths. Easy as pie.

Yeah, but once you already have it? My parking lot phone research was quick to inform me: DIFFERENT BALLGAME.

We headed to the store to get a treatment kit and I braced myself for one horrible day of work: laundry, vacuuming, treating, combing, coaxing, bribing. 10 hours later I fell into bed exhausted. Everything had been sanitized or quarantined and I had spent 6 hours in my kids' hair combing out nits and the occasional live bug (can't even believe that sentence is something I am typing) and sweet, uninfested Jesse had uncomplainingly treated and combed all of MY hair when he got home.

i'm covered by the  "in sickness and in health" clause. also by jesse's neverending grace and love and awesome.

The house was destroyed. The baby and fall stuff was still scattered everywhere but forgotten.   There are trash bags full of stuffed animals and pillows all in quarantine. Fast food detritus on the counter because, yeah right, who is cooking during THIS!?! All hopes of "productive" have fled and we are on hardcore survival mode.

But it was worth it. Once the kids are treated and nit-free (gag), they are good to return to school. So when I woke up--sore beyond belief from being bent over the kids' heads for hours and from nonstop housework--I was tired but relieved that the nightmare (nit-mare? sorry) was behind us.

Dropoff is at 9 am. At 9:15 my phone rings. Yeah, they found a live bug on Judah.

I think my low point in all of this was when I went to the director's office to pick them back up, and my kids are sitting on the floor like happy little sprites (praise jesus they are too young to understand stigmas..Judah was happily announcing "Bugs laid eggs on my head and now they are HATCHING!") and I just plop all 90 million pounds of pregnant, hormonal me down next to them and start crying the director. "I dont know what else to do. I could not have possibly done more."

One thing my research had found was that this will often become a weeks or months long ordeal. If you miss one egg, the cycle can start all over again. And I am just extrapolating this out and realizing it's only going to get harder. That I'm getting less and less functional, and OH YEAH, there is a newborn about to jump on the scene as well. I just CANNOT keep doing this only to have it fail time and again.  All that effort and work wasted.

After pulling it together--now I am readily accepting all of the staff's sweet, "I'm so sorry" condolences. I start researching some more. I need another option because this has gotten way bigger than I have the capacity to handle right now. Turns out there are services and places just for lice treatment! Who freaking knew?

The price list was a little scary, but I am calculating the physical and emotional toll that just ONE day of DIY treatment took on me and the kids and Jesse and our house, and the hours spent, and the work and school missed, and the absolute NEED for this to be over and done with before the baby comes, and all of a sudden $150 per head and a guaranteed cure in one day seems pretty worth it.

And I know that everyone has a DIY home method they swear by: olive oil, Cetaphil, tea tree oil (we actually use this as preventative).mayo, vinegar, etc. I looked into these and they all looked pretty viable, but I just did/do not have the time to implement even one of these messy options and just hope it would work I  needed something I KNEW would work, and physically removing every trace of varmint by hand from our heads was the only way out for us when I needed a final, sure cure that very day.

Enter "Elimilice" (Love that name. Clutch branding, bros). They are Atlanta-area only I believe, but there are similar salons all over as far as I know.

*NOTE: I am writing this allllll on my own and received no discount or compensation for blogging about this place (though if I had been smart I might have asked beforehand because it was pricey...though worth it).*

Horrible, almost-funny irony: Elimilice is opening a branch 5 minutes away from us...in two weeks. Right now the closest one was an hour and half away. NO MATTER: nit-pickers can't be choosers! Off we went, stopping only to pick up a box of Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins for lunch because I just could not be waving this white flag any harder, yall.

We arrived and  I just remanded us into custody of the capable hands of professionals. "I can't do this myself.  Please fix us."

And over the next 3.5 hours they did just that. All three of us sat in a room together and had a technician work on us individually. Judah happily and quietly played iPad, and Layla, sensing a captive audience chirped, talked, sang, and performed her heart out in a never-ceasing and loud display of showing-off that nearly broke my brain.

I realized that I could never have combed the kids hair as thoroughly as was needed to completely eradicate this scourge. I didnt have the tools, the facilities or the skill to systematically go over every single hair multiple times. They treated us all with a conditioner type stuff (the whole shebang is all natural) to start with and let it sit for a while. This is a special stuff containing an enzyme to dissolve the glue the holds the eggs onto the hair shaft (I know. I'm dying too, having to read that..and I lived it!) so that they would come out when combed.

little lice spa babies.

After each and every stroke, the techs would rinse the comb into a bowl of clean water. They would do the entire head and then check the bowl. If there were nits or bugs they would repeat the process, going until an entire head's worth of combing produced water with no evidence. Judah had three rounds, and Layla and I had two. They said we all had really light cases (pride points? but, no, there are none to be had in this ordeal).

They said that it was no wonder I didn't get all of Judah's because his hair is so very thick. My parents, Jesse and the teachers had suggested shaving his head just to end the entire saga for him, but I absolutely couldn't. He is my little Samson, and his hair seems such a part of him! Plus, with the baby coming, there are going to be pictures taken that will be around forever! Unless a life is on the line: his lush locks remain!

The kids finished faster than me because my hair is so long and so tangle prone due to highlights. My tech had my hair so sectioned off and organized to be able to scour every millimeter of hair, that it was seriously impressive...if not super cute.

it was a rough couple of days.

The kids got to go into a special playroom JUST for the lice-free and they had a blast for an hour while I finished up. They also were thrilled to be treated to free snacks during the process (they had been offered DVD players from the start, but since we had brought our iPads, we didnt need them).

We left with scalps singing from being combed raw and clean, and with a guarantee that the process would work. We had to come back for a followup check and had to bring Jesse since he lives among the infested and would have to be checked and treated if necessary. Additionally we have to use the preventative stuff we already had on hand going forward so that it won't get passed back (I'm praying it was never passed from my kids to anyone else) or reinfested in any way, and we will need to do comb-through checks once a week.

At our followups we were declared still clean and Jesse smugly listened as he was declared never-infested to begin with (he's become a total Calvinist about the whole thing. He thinks he's elected to be more lice-resistant than us).

We marched proudly back into school on Wednesday and dared anyone to scorn or shun us (PS, this would never happen bc the staff is awesome and they keep the identities of the infestors confidential...I am exposing myself here). We have the cleanest heads in all the land, dammit!

It's funny because you hear all your life that lice has nothing to do with cleanliness, hygeine, socioeconomic status or anything controllable (you'd have to live the life of a hermit to 100% protect yourself. People being around people is what causes lice). And I totally believed that and tried to never judge when there was an outbreak. But knowing it's not their fault didn't stop me from branding the unknown child/family as  "UNCLEAN" in my head.

After taking a turn as the leper, it was really important to me to come out loud and, well, not proud, but just loud. One of my favorite bloggers, Rebecca Woolf, dealt with lice in her family (4 kids) for THREE MONTHS doing DIY treatment, and was just so upfront and honest about it that it super impressed me, and helped to break down a lot of the hush-hush shame that surrounded lice (it doesn't hurt that she is gorgeous  and brilliant and fashion-y and an amazing mom, and yet they STILL got lice. Those things shouldn't matter, yet i'll admit they did in my judgemental brain ).

So here I am saying it: The Dukes got lice.  It sucked.  What's more, we seem to have been Patient Zero at the kids' school since no one else has reported having it. I am sorry to all the other families who got the note from the school, and had to take preventative precautions. But I am also saying we kicked its ass and it's over. And that if your family gets the lice-whammy through no fault of yours, considering skipping the hassle and hours and mess in your own house and just let the pros handle it.

I have readjusted my hopes and again hope Noa will have hair when she is born, now that the threat has passed. The autumn decor is cheering me up daily from their appropriate positions around the house, and there is room for the crib and all of the baby clothes in the 3rd bedroom. Life has now returned to the crazy-insane abnormal normal that is life.

Suck it, parasites (just the figurative "it," not my family's scalp-blood. mmmkaythanks).


Have yall battled this beast? Dealt with prolonged recurrences? Been shamed by the L-word? Let's talk about lice!!!

If you read that whole post without your head itching then you are a jedi.