The last two weeks have been very trying ones around our house. Two weeks ago today, I headed out of state to visit family with our 5 children for a "spring break" from our regularly scheduled programming. 15 minutes before we were to arrive at our destination, my 5 year old son vomited, and I don't mean a little carsickness. I mean he vomited on people, in crevices, on pillows, blankets, coats, sisters, in bags of DVDs and yarn. For some reason, my children think that a hand in front of the mouth might stop vomit from coming forth (because we all want to keep stomach acid mixed with partially digested food and virus in our bodies). That hand actually acts as a vomit amplifier - propelling vomit in every conceivable direction... up, down, left, right, yes... even backwards. There are those moments as a parent when I have observed a mess beyond the scope of my wildest nightmares and screamed to myself (silently in my head, of course), "Where am I supposed to even start to clean this up?!" I felt so sorry for him as he stood outside the van without his vomit-covered coat. (It had been 48 degrees when we left our own home only to find snow and wind chills of -20 three hours down the road. As a result, his coat had been a vomit-casualty.) I was standing behind him trying to keep the wind off his soaked body. He started to cry, and I was trying desperately to find something that wasn't gross to put under his bottom and around his shoulders. I was trying to find something to help clean up the mess. I had been so happy not to have diapers on trips anymore, but there's a caveat to that - no wet wipes. I dumped some things out of a Walmart sack and set it on his car seat, and he sat on it, and I drove as fast as possible to our destination. (I figured that if we happened to get pulled over, one whiff of my world would get us a police escort to our destination.)
Well, I could elaborate on the rest of the sordid tale, but it went something like, "Hi, Grandma! We brought vomit!" 3 loads of laundry, detailing vomit van in snow and -20 degree wind chills. "I feel better. I was just carsick. I can eat a full lunch and supper!" 3 hours of The Bachelor season finale that my father-in-law loves. "Goodnight, everyone." "Urp" (from the next room over). Texting my husband on midnight shift, "Should we go home now?" Waking up at 5:00AM with my daughter who isn't feeling well... loading up the van with buckets, bags, wipes, and Lysol on 4 hours of sleep to drive the long way home.
We have since spent the past two weeks in stomach virus "hell". We all know that stomach virus does its best work on children at night. We went back to pull-ups. We spent days passing bowls and washing hands. We spent nights cleaning and changing bedding, washing vomit out of hair and clothes, and doing loads upon loads of laundry. When I say "We", of course, I mean "I", because my husband has been away for work. The one night a week he has been able to come home has been spent trying to keep him from getting sick too. Oh, and our youngest ended up with a trip to the hospital and a 30 hour stay for dehydration.
Yesterday was my birthday. My love was home, and we went to church and then to lunch at a nice restaurant with our sweet kiddos. A few months ago a friend of mine with two children told me that she and her husband always sit together when they're out with their children and that the kids sit on either side of them. I thought, "Wow... must be nice." We have spent most of our years together hearing, "I want to sit by mom," and "I want to sit by dad" and dividing ourselves as evenly as possible amongst five children. Yesterday was no exception. As we sat across from one another at a big, round table, we attempted to exchange a few words now and again consisting of "adult conversation". When I say "a few words", take me literally. Our older three children are 16, 11, and 9, and they rarely - if ever - interrupt our adult talk with loud stories about what they watched on Spongebob or what they named a new stuffed animal and why. Rather, they contribute to it at appropriate times with appropriate conversation - which is an awesome part about having older children. Then there's these two:
I say "is", because we sometimes refer to Levi (5) and Violet (4) as an entity - "Leviolet". They are our youngest, and they like attention. Namely, they like to interrupt adult conversation. So our dinner went much like this:
Levi: Mom, can you get me some soup?
Me: Sure.
Levi: Why is this spoon so big?
Me: It's a soup spoon, buddy.
Austin: I doubt he'll be able to fit it in his mouth.
Me: I'm sure he will.
Violet: Daddy, I love you.
Mark: I love you too!
Claire: Can we go to the salad bar as many times as we want?
Me: No. Just once. (to Mark): What did you...
Levi: (mouth full) Hey, mom, did you know when Squidward didn't like crabby patties that Spongebob said, (insert awesome Spongebob voice) "They're good for your soul." (Squidward voice) "My soul? I don't have a soul." (lowest voice) "Muahahaha!" It's so funny!
Me: Oh, you do a good job with that, buddy. (Pause) (to Mark): I was going to ask what you thought...
Violet to Mark: (Yank, yank, yank at the arm...) And I'm going to miss you so much!
Levi to me: And then Squidward started to like crabby patties, and then he was eating so many that Spongebob said (voice again), "No, Squidward, they'll go straight to your thighs!" (Squidward voice) "My thighs?" And then his thighs exploded. Hahahaha! Isn't that so funny?
Me: Yes, I saw that one I think. (Pause) (to Mark - faster this time): What did you think of...
Levi: Hey, mom, I know which one of my stuffed animals you like the best!
Me: Yeah - the Walrus.
Levi: Yeah, and I named him "Wally". You know why?
Lest you think my children are somehow starved for attention, let me assure you... between homeschooling, no TV service, a daddy and brother who love to wrestle and roughhouse with kids, a mom who loves cooking buddies, and plenty of talking and snuggling from dawn till bedtime, they are loaded down with attention and interaction.
When I was a child, there were a few "cardinal sins" when it came to interacting with adults. One was, "Don't interrupt adult conversation... ever... unless there is blood - lots of blood." We haven't been as diligent teaching this rule to our last two children as my parents were with me (as evidenced by yesterday's lunch conversation). I started thinking on the way home about why this rule was so important. It didn't take me long to figure it out. Here's the strange part about blogging. When I write this next part, all of my friends are going to think I'm referring to them. I have a lot of interaction with a lot families. I'm not talking about you, and I am talking about you... in the sense that I'm talking about most of us. Most of the time I can barely even start - much less finish - adult conversations without child interruptions - many times several of them - by my children or other people's children or both. Sometimes, when in a large group of adults and children, I can be interrupted while talking with another adult by a child completely unrelated and sometimes even unknown to either one of us. Being interrupted can be exasperating... particularly when it's an important or sensitive topic. This often leads me not to even ask important questions or things that might end up in detailed adult conversation for fear that it will be eavesdropped or interrupted and, as a result, end abruptly or uncomfortably. It almost leads me not to ask "caring questions". The genuine "how are you" or "how have you been holding up" types of questions or to give the actual detailed answers to those questions when people ask them of me. "Real" is pushed aside in favor of ease in dealing with children. Helpful conversations that teach me something new or meaningful conversations that develop closer relationships that might've been had have many times been lost because my children think that their own immediate needs are more important than anyone else's, and I reinforce that by saying, "What do you need, honey?" (And then am often met with a Spongebob dialogue reenactment.) How nice to virtually say to a person, "I'd really like to hear about your heartache at the loss of your mother, but those crabby patties are really going right to Squidward's thighs."
I think it's easy to become co-dependent with our children and to foster co-dependence in them. We are so quick to throw out old parenting ideas that seem overly "tough" or not squishy and gooey and "loving" enough, but we neglect to investigate the reasons that traditional parenting worked for hundreds (if not thousands) of years when carried out by loving parents. We forget that new ideas are not really new at all - (as is nothing else under the sun). We forget that fostering artificial self-esteem in our children is not nearly as important as fostering genuine esteem for others. Not everything my children do is new, interesting, and/or praiseworthy, but their self-esteem demands that I pay attention to it and praise it at the expense of everyone and everything around us? What kind of beastly adult will that make them? I think we all know those types of adults or teens who interrupt or dominate conversations every few moments with their own "self-actualization"... selfish motives. We might even be or be raising those people.
Last week I had to make a difficult choice between being in the hospital with my youngest child overnight and coming home to be with my older children. My oldest (Austin) is nearly 17, and he is well capable of taking care of his siblings - as he as proven many times before, but I hated that I had to choose. I love being right across the hall from my younger ones. Levi (almost 6) shares a room with his sister (who was the one in the hospital). He tends to be scared in the rare case that she is not sleeping in his room. As I was tending to my youngest in hospital, I looked at the clock and thought I should have told Austin to sleep nearer to Levi so that he wouldn't be afraid, but it was too late to call. When I talked to Austin the next morning and asked him how things went, he said, "Well, Levi was scared. So we talked, and I prayed with him and for him and told him that if he got scared to just call on Jesus, and he would be safe. Then we practiced it a few times. Then he was fine, and I went to bed." I said, "Well, I was going to tell you that you should have slept near him or let him sleep in your top bunk." Austin responded, "Mom, is it more helpful to give him me or to give him God? God's always there. People aren't." Wow. I know that. I learned that - to the most painful degree I could imagine - when I was 26 and my husband of nearly 7 years left me with our two daughters and then started taking them away for weekends and birthday and holidays. I learned that building my life around my girls or around my identity as a parent was not helping me or my girls be better people. My girls and I found out in short order that the people we love and those we are certain will be there forever - for better or worse - will not always be there. There is only One Who is always there and Who never fails. Giving our children a false sense of security - yes, even in the infallible presence and perfection of their parents, is setting them up with an unhealthy dependence upon people to meet their needs. They need to be secure in that both of their parents are present (Lord willing), that we will meet their needs to the best of our abilities (as God enables), and that we will provide a framework of support to help them prepare for life, independent from but forever and unconditionally loved by, us. However, giving them an idea that we will always be there, will never let them down, and will always be their security blanket no matter what does not foster in them a sense of independence that is vital to the human spirit - not to mention survival.
I am equally convinced that parents need to be a very present part of their early and formative years, because we are an example to them of God's loving, caring presence. Unless we are present (in whatever capacity and however that looks in your home), we can't be an example of that. However, problems arise when we go from setting ourselves up as an example of God's love to them to becoming a substitute god for them. I once saw a parenting graph that showed that at birth a child is 0% responsible or capable of caring for self and that, therefore, the parent is 100% responsible for that care. The graph showed that, at a steady rate, the percentages should become more even, level off, and eventually reverse. In other words, at 5 a child might be 20% capable of caring for self and the parent is responsible for the other 80%, and so on until they are 20 years old or so and they are 100% capable and responsible for their own care and decisions and consequences. The graph thus demonstrated that, over the first 20 or so years of life, the child is weaned off of being the parent's dependent and to being his own, independent person. I would only add one thing to that graph, and that is that a child moves from being fully dependent on parent to fully dependent upon God. I can't promise that I won't be hit by a bus tomorrow or develop a terminal illness or (as has happened to me in the past year) be in the hospital myself or with a sick sibling. I can guarantee that God will always be present and is always present with them.
I dread blogging on parenting topics, because they are always so controversial. People get so easily offended as if by stating a parenting choice of your own you are saying that is what everyone who truly loves his or her children must do. I was just reminded yesterday that it's okay to teach children not to interrupt adult conversations unless it is a true emergency, and, in those cases, to do it politely by placing a hand gently on an arm or standing nearby by not in between talking adults.
