Summer fun?

Oh how to approach scheduled writing time when my head is still reverberating like a gong from all this mornings fun? The only way I know, with the truth, and here it is folks. I am not a joyful mama. What I mean by that is that all the super fun activities that I have placed on my (things good moms are supposed to do to facilitate good summers and happy childhoods) checklist, turn out to be excruciating misery. I envy, oh how I envy those mamas who can bask by the pool with five littles in tow, and get dirty on the beach, and participate in water fights, and forgo schedules to linger into the evening, and get home exhausted and say, that was a blast. That my friends, is how I envision those things when I write them on the list, but in fact, the execution of them feels as though I were trying plan a complex heist with substandard evil minions.

Today: the park. Can't be that hard, right? First, my children behave as though they have never before left the house, and therefore do not know that they will need such things as footwear and jackets.  They have also clearly forgotten that public bathrooms are icky nasty disgusting and must be avoided at all costs. While I am trying to facilitate the assembly of gear, bodies, and preemptive potty trips, the smallest is, as usually hatching an escape attempt. Everyone has now put on their muddiest boots and traipsed through the house back and forth as many times as possible.  We are late.  I am flustered.

But, it will be fine. My oldest, responsible child has promised me that she will stay with her brother in the little play area so that I can focus on bible study.  That, my friends, was a marketing ploy, engineered to lull me into a false sense of security about choosing the park. Small son is thus abandoned to his own devises to demonstrate that he has more guts that brains. Boys. He does this in front of Baylie's next year preschool teacher, to make my stellar motherhood public. There are tears, though fortunately, none of them are mine....yet. The bible study is like turrets syndrome, I try to focus on my friend, but, my son's life is at this stage, basically a series of escape attempts, so I holler, and when that inevitably produces nothing but feigned deafness on the part of my children, I run after my son mid conversation, repeatedly.

By the time it is time for lunch, my son needs a nap, but he wants to keep playing, or at the very least, do some open mouthed kissing with the strange dog nearby. Anything but sit still and eat. Middle child has applesauce all over her pants and has set her spoon down in the grass.  I am sure strange afore mentioned dog or it's predecessors have peed there. I can't think about it. My son is contemplating investigating the vroom vroom cars in traffic.  Picnics are fun. Yay.

We have not really accomplished lunch, but we cut our losses and wrestle smallest urchin into the car kicking and screaming, which he does all the way home, and beyond.  I sarcastically thank largest urchin for all of her help. The doctors office calls to reschedule Levi's appointment, but, from all the screaming in the background, they can tell this is not a good time. They are very perceptive. If we do not nap soon there will be more tears, and they will be mine.

I want so badly for my children's childhoods to be filled with memories, where their mom was not uptight, but my exhausted brain can not compute how to execute my list without it being just another thing to check off. Our bible study is about fighting back with joy. I know enough now to understand, my perspective changes everything, but I do not know how to translate this into reality, not amid the bad attitudes and the meltdowns about shoes. I am blessed.  I know it.  I see it, but sometimes I don't know how to live like it. I want to dig in, burrow down in my hobbit hole where we are cushioned by routine, but what can you do when you have kids but try again? Instead, we will dig out. I will seek the secret to joy on the go. Each item on the list will be an experiment in joy. God must certainly be as sovereign at the park and the beach as he is in our very own cozy cookie carton, so I pray I will learn to find him there, among the germs and old gum, and that he will be larger to me than they.

The story of John continued

If you are a regular follower of my blog, then you may remember that I wrote an overview of my relationship with my biological dad in 2013.....At that time, I felt as though I would probably never hear from him again, but around Easter, I felt an impulse to send him a picture of each of the kids. I wanted him to see what beautiful souls he is missing out on. He thanked me in a private message and sent me a facebook friend request. We had been friends on facebook previously, several years ago, but he had unfriended me. My family strongly discouraged me from accepting the request. My mom and sister, specifically, felt it was foolish to open myself up to be hurt again.  I honestly did not feel I would, and I felt like, since I have come to Christ, I should try to show my father grace by allowing him to see my children at least in this way, and that way, if he ever showed repentance, the door would already be there for a relationship, though I thought his likelihood of repentance slight, I know that God can do as he chooses, and I have made it a point to pray for him regularly.

In my mind, there are two John's. One is very charismatic, and fun to be around. He is lighthearted and complimentary, and positive.  This is the man that I miss spending time with. When a lot of time has gone by, and the wounds from the other John begin to fade in memory, I begin to miss this John. As a child, I ached for the praise of this John, and as I got older, I learned that the longer I could pretend that the other John had never existed, the longer this one would stick around.  If I could ignore the elephant in the room, and play on his terms, I could hold the chimera of his affection for a time. Though he signed away his parental rights, my mom allowed us to spend time together so I wouldn't resent her for his absence. We went to baseball games and waterparks, races, and sled pulls, and occasionally, he would come to my school functions.

But always, there is a cycle. I never know what turns it, and suddenly I am with the other John. Anyone who has been in a codependent relationship knows the feeling of walking on eggshells, waiting to step on the inevitable hidden land mine. My dad hasn't had a drink in many years, but the pattern of alcoholic behavior is still there.  This John, how do I tell you what it is like for a child to be blamed for being unloved....if I could only behave somehow, or not say the wrong thing, he would love me, wouldn't he?? My small child self wondered.  Isn't it wrong not to love your child? He would tell me in a thousand ways how things were my fault and my mother's, and call me names, and the thing is, he has filled in the memory gaps with things that didn't happen, and in his mind the are irrefutably true, there is no way out.  This invariably ends in only one way, with years of silence.

When he comes around again, he acts as though it has never been, and so always, have I, until this time. Many of you that are my friends on face book, have seen glimmers of our facebook relationship this time. Small things awakened a dangerous sliver of hope, through experience, I should know how convincing the honeymoon stage can be, but he even told me he had become a Christian, and as it ever is with a parent, you never totally give up. This time though, the land mine came publicly on my facebook feed, set off by a seemingly innocent post of mine about Morgan enjoying vacation bible school, and it played out like Jerry Springer live on facebook.

And so it is that I am processing that loss, again. I am sad, because I have long prayed for a chance to share Jesus with my dad, I failed to communicate well that it is not about me being good and doing things right, it is about Jesus on the cross, covering my sin in his grace, and that doesn't mean that thereafter we are perfect, and never respond out of our hurt instead of His grace, it means that we are loved by a love that large enough to cover our imperfections, a love that we do not have to earn.

But friends, I gained from this exchange as well. Jesus is the only one who can save my dad, not me. I don't bare that burden, and from this conversation I learned how much I have grown.  I am not afraid of the pain anymore. It can be a part of my life, but it will not keep my from protecting my family, or telling the truth, or standing up for what I believe. He doesn't wield that power over me anymore.  Also, I always believed that he was so clever at manipulation, that anyone would fall under his spell, and believe the things he said about me. The support that I received was humbling and amazing.  I love you all so much for standing at my side, and loving me. I know I am an imperfect sinner, but I am not those words he spoke to me, the ones chosen because they cut deep. Thank you for seeing me. And so another round ends, but leaves me so much stronger, and so grateful for the love of Jesus, and my wonderful stepdad who chose hard love. Please continue to pray for me, and him. I leave it in God's hands.