Almost

About a month ago my friend Erin called to tell me there were rumblings about a possible opening for an English teaching position in Buena Vista. I must say right off that we considered this seriously. I went so far as to order transcripts, secure recommendations, apply officially, accept an interview, and begin entertaining buyers for the farm. We went to great lengths to make this a possible option; in the end we made the decision not to go. Please forgive me that I can't go into all the specifics this time - I can't tell you the details and walk you through it; I simply cannot relive it.

It is no mystery to anyone that I am homesick something awful for Colorado. People often ask me what it is about that place that I love so much, and I just can't tie it up in a neat little summary for them. I would have to spend a couple of hours telling stories and giving examples; that town is so much more than just a sum of its parts, and it requires more than mere words to paint that picture.

For a couple of weeks I fought a fierce internal battle, and on any given day I could be found leaning one way or the other. Aaron and I spent hours going through the pros and cons...sorting out housing issues, school issues, moving issues, family issues, etc. But in the end, the decision was made through circumstances I could not control...one by one, each carefully placed plan fell through, and it became very clear that I am not meant to go.

I think when I saw the open position, I became swept up in the memory of BV...it has a powerful hold on me. But the Universe is wise, and God is good, and you know what they say about unanswered prayers. This is where we are, and where we are is good. We made a life for our family that is good. More than good, maybe, as Erin reminds me every single time we talk.

On the day I sent the email declining my interview, my heart was broken anew. It felt like I had very nearly grasped my bliss, and here it was, slipping slowly through my fingers. And on that day, when I was at my lowest, I got a note from my friend Angie in Blue Earth. (I bet you don't even know, Ang, how timely it was.) Out of the clear blue sky, she sent me a message about a song she liked that she thought I would like too. The song is called "A Life That's Good" from the Nashville soundtrack. As I listened, the words solidified for me that the life we have here, the life we have made HERE, is good. (I can't tell you, Ang, how much I needed that - needed it right then. I'll tell you all about it when we're out on the boat together this summer.)

It gave me a sense of peace. I have to share it, so you can feel it too, in case peace is what you're really needing right now. Thank heaven for my friends. For Erin, whose strength keeps me grounded and Holly who stands beside me always and Melinda who makes my wish list look possible, and Kathy whose heart is just like mine and sends Maisy when I need her, and for Angie Loge who has absolutely no idea that she saved me. And for everyone everyone (you know who you are, you wonderful people - holy cow, if I get going I might be writing for days) everyone, who makes it bearable to live in sub-Arctic conditions 9 months out of the year. Love to you.

And to God, who knows the plan...hopefully. Just kidding, God, I know you got this.

To Read or Not to Read...

I'm planning to ramble today. This post will not be terribly well-planned, nor will it be carefully edited, so I apologize in advance. I'm feeling so frustrated, lately, that I just have to pour out all my crabbies on to a page somewhere, and let it sit and ruminate for a while. At that point I might be able to make sense of some of it and then develop some kind of plan of attack to alleviate my stress.

(This is a teaching post, FYI, not a parenting post, so if I've lost you already, feel free to click off on this tiresome rant. If you are a teacher, and feel like watching a fellow colleague have a meltdown, then by all means...read on.)

I'm just a little alarmed, okay I'm just a LOT alarmed, at the direction that the written word is taking these days. I know I am from a vastly different era than the 8th graders I see every day, and maybe I'm just OLD, but I truly believe that classics are timeless. If a person is motivated to read something, and has the reading skill necessary to read it, then I have a responsibility as a teacher to expose them to GOOD literature.

The problem lies in the fact that it is becoming really difficult to do the first two parts of that last sentence. Middle-schoolers sometimes not possess the reading skills to access good literature. But even more troubling, they often lack the motivation to try. Don't get me wrong - I do have students who come to me passionate about the written word; I do have kids who love to read. But the number of kids who don’t read regularly is growing every year.

In today's fast-paced Insta-World (I'm going to coin that phrase - remember you heard it here first ) I am losing ground in the battle to convince them that the journey is worth it. So often I see a student pull themselves out of a reading and say "this is too hard." They shrug their shoulders, pull out their smart phone and open up Flappy Bird. They want instant access to facts (thank you, Google) they want instant feedback on their daily activities (thank you, Facebook) they want instant access to their friends (thank you, Snapchat) they want to IM and Skype and Facetime. The payoff during this technological firestorm we live in is an Insta-World, where human interaction is at your fingertips, and accessing information and ideas through hard work has become an antiquated art - something their grandparents did Back In The Day.

They have no idea, actually, what the payoff is for doing the work, because they aren't willing to do it. The payoff for doing the work is to become a better thinker, to become more connected to the human condition, to understand something on a level beyond the average thought process of the general population. There is beauty in the process, and it can change the way you perceive the world, change the way you interact with others, and change the core of who you are. It sure isn't easy, but it sure is worth it.

Take Sylvia Plath, for example. Now, you may be a reader…you may even enjoy poetry from time to time. But Sylvia Plath isn’t on anybody’s short list. Do you know why? She writes raw, cynical, painfully honest metaphoric truths. It’s HARD to read her stuff. It’s hard to make sense of it; and when you do, it’s even harder to embrace. Which is precisely why I read it. I feel like I’ve unlocked the door to a higher level of consciousness when I finally figure it out. I wish I could describe what it feels like, that moment when you see something clearly for the first time. That moment when something difficult and vague comes sharply into focus. There comes first a moment of triumph, when you can understand it, followed closely by a wash of emotion when the meaning of the work sinks in. It makes me feel alive in a way that nothing else can. I have more than once set a book down on the nightstand and felt like a completely different person afterward.

That feeling is something I am desperate to communicate every year to the students who sit in desks in my classrooms. They are 8^th graders, so obviously I’m not handing out copies of The Bell Jar or even A Room of One’s Own. Rather, I find myself trying to convince them that The Odyssey is even more exciting than Ridiculousness. (I won’t tell you how often Homer loses that battle…you really don’t want to know.) Mostly, I want them to become aware of the power of the written word. I want just once to change them – to make them feel alive, to make them feel like they might never be the same again after reading something powerful.

Unfortunately, (and here comes the BIG truth…the reason for my great passion and even greater despair today) I have come to the sad realization that the written word as I learned to appreciate it, is dying a slow and painful death.

Technology may be a wonderful thing, but it is absolutely killing language. It is stripping it of its beauty, making it small and mean. My students communicate with each other in the language of robots and computers. I wrote a dialogue on the board in class one day that looked something like this:

“R U going 2nite?”

“N”

“Y”

“B/C. RU?

“Prob”

“K. CU 2MOR”

“TTYL”

“<3”

Every single one of the kids in my class could read it. Right down to the “less than 3” symbol, which they all equate with a heart. They told me this was likely an exchange between good friends since the symbol for love was used.

Really? We equate “love” with “less than 3?” When did that happen?

Even more distressing: I wrote the following stanzas from Emily Dickinson on the board. She knew a few things about love herself:

Heart, we will forget him,

You and I, tonight!

You must forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

When you have done pray tell me,

Then I, my thoughts, will dim.

Haste! ‘lest while you’re lagging

I may remember him!

Want to guess what kind of response I got? Out of all the kids I showed it to that day, an alarmingly small number (4? 6?) were able to successfully interpret the base meaning of the poem. Once I helped them read the actual words, (What does ‘haste’ mean?) we tackled the idea that the writer is speaking to herself. (What? Why is she talking to herself?) Making sense of the message was next on my list (She likes that he’s warm? That makes no sense, Mrs. G!) You’re right, it doesn’t! Keep trying!

One wise soul suggested that dim meant the writer was stupid to break up with the guy. Almost…but not quite.

I ordered a classroom set of Divergent this year. With all the movie hype, I thought that putting actual books in the hands of my kids was a good use of funds. And hey - it's a pretty good book. It's entertaining; it has some great vocabulary words, (Guess how many of my students figured out that the names of the factions are just "fancy words" for the definitions of the factions' value systems? That's called synecdoche, by the way - good job, Veronica Roth.) It isn't exactly To Kill A Mockingbird, but it's entertaining.

Maybe this is the trend I need to follow. Maybe I need to scrap Shane and my unit on Western Filmography and swap it out for the Next Big Movie Blockbuster. I don't want to believe that True Grit and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon have run their course in terms of what they have to teach us about justice, loyalty, and the code of honor. Maybe it's just a Hunger Games kind of world out there now...I don't know.

I do know that good reading skills and exposure to good literature has had a profound effect on me, and I will continue to fight the good fight for as long as I can. Tomorrow maybe I’ll hand out a little Shakespeare and see what happens.

The Dentist

My kids love our dentist. It is one of the great joys in my life, that my kids love our dentist.

I say this, because I have dentist-phobia. Or severe dental anxiety. Or whatever you call it when I would rather do anything anything anything at all except go to the dentist.

This fear is deeply rooted in my childhood, where most of our irrational fears reside. I had chronic tonsillitis as a child, and it was treated primarily with shots of tetracycline, which created quite a bit of damage to my teeth. As a result, I spent a LOT of time at the dentist. There is a story about one epically bad trip to the dentist that may or may not be entirely true, depending on how much my brain has embellished it over the years. The story is that on one particular trip, the dentist asked if I preferred the gas or the Novocaine that day. In my young, desperate, terribly misguided mind, I thought that if I refused both of them, they would let me get up and go home.

I was wrong.

Turns out refusing both of them just makes for a much more painful extraction.

So...I am afraid of the dentist. Even my grown-up, perfectly logical, rational self becomes nearly paralyzed with fear in the lobby of the dentist's office. My hands get clammy, my mouth gets dry, my heart rate increases, I stammer idiotically when asked a question...it's truly humiliating. I mean, what adult do you know needs to be gassed in order to get through a cleaning? Oh, well, that would be ME. My husband, on the other hand, LOVES the dentist. He had the full orthodontia experience, from some caring grandfatherly type, no doubt. He thinks I'm certifiable, of course.

Anyway. My kids LOVE our dentist. We were referred to this particular dentist through a friend.(Since we LOVE him, and this is going to be a rave review of his practice, I hope he doesn't mind if we mention him publicly...we see Dr. Paul Roggow in Jackson, MN)

The first time we took Emma, I thought I was going to have a heart attack in the lobby. Aaron warned me not to transfer my fears to my children so I was trying to hold back my stress, but I was terrified for her. Let me tell you, it was unwarranted. Not only did the appointment go well, but they took her picture in the chair, sent her home with a bag of goodies, and then a few days later, she received a handwritten card in the mail from them, thanking her for coming! She was hooked.

Every appointment we've had since then has been magical for my kids; when Emma broke a tooth and had an emergency extraction, I asked, "how was it?" She said, "it felt SO much better when he got it out!" Then Dr. Roggow called me later that night just to check on her and ask how she was feeling.

After Carys received her last "thank-you" note from them in the mail, she wrote them a letter back, explaining how hard she was working at brushing and how much she missed them. This is not the experience I remember from my own childhood, so I do take actual JOY in the fact that this is what we have found.

Yesterday, I took Cooper for his first cleaning. He has heard so much from his sisters already, that he went in with high expectations. He was outgoing and friendly, which is the politically correct way of saying he asked a million questions, giggled uncontrollably, and tried to impress the hygienist with his recently acquired armpit-fart talent.

I could only sit there, mortified, as my little man responded to her with his super-star best foot forward:

Jill: "Cooper, I'm going to get Mr. Sunshine ready so I can look at your teeth!"
Cooper: "You don't have to call it Mr. Sunshine. I know it's just a light."

Jill: "You are just like your sister!"
Cooper: "Which one? Because I'm actually not like one of them at all. We're only technically related."

Jill: "I was thinking of Carys." (She pronounced it Car-iss)
Cooper: "Her NAME is Carys. Who would ever name their kid CAR-ISS?"

Jill: "What flavor do you like, bubble-gum or cookie dough?"
Cooper: "Cookie dough is bad for your teeth! Why would you have cookie dough at the dentist?!"

And so on, and so on.

Keep in mind he giggled throughout, and flashed his dimples and batted his long eyelashes, so all this banter (which his mama calls sass) kept Jill in stitches as she worked on his teeth.

Last year I had a small chip on one of my lower teeth, and it bothered me so much that I finally broke down and went to Dr. Roggow to have it fixed. I will admit that the experience was the best I had ever had in the chair - although I still experienced terrible anxiety leading up to the procedure. They took advantage of my presence and did a full and thorough exam and cleaning, and let me know that I definitely have some work that needs to be done.

I shouldn't have expected anything less...while I brush and floss like a fiend, I don't actually make regular dental appointments part of my life, so I knew that I had some work to be done. I got the quote, said thank you, and went on my merry way. Sometime later, Aaron went in for a cleaning and the traitorous office staff mentioned that I had yet to make the appointment for my work...and Aaron came home and let me know that I was NOT getting out of this.

He stood next to me while I called to make the appointment. The first one I made happened to fall on a weekend that I was coaching a track meet last spring, so I had to reschedule. Then for the second appointment I developed a mysterious case of strep throat, so of course I had to reschedule. Aaron grumbled and groused and brought it up every chance he got, so I set the appointment for Wednesday, March 12th. (Hey! That's today!)

It just so happens, that the boys basketball team at our high school made it to the State tournament for the first time in 24 years. I've had every single one of those boys in class, and several of them are in my homeroom, so I can't possibly miss my chance to watch them play. And it just so happens that their first round game is Wednesday, March 12th. (Hey! That's today!)

Of course, I'll have to reschedule...

Wrestling

A few months ago, we signed Cooper up for youth wrestling. We had been doing basketball camps already, but this was the first chance we had to get him into the wrestling room to see if he would like it. He was lukewarm initially, but quickly came around and began to look forward to each practice. Emma was already having traveling basketball practices, so that meant Carys, who was kind of adrift each evening, was left to her own devices in terms of entertainment.

One evening, bored to tears while we watched Cooper warming up on the mat, she asked, "Can I do wrestling too?" Of course, my Mama instinct said no way, absolutely not, but her Daddy the wrestler was quicker with a response: "Sure, Sis, come on out here."

I cringed, I winced, I cautioned, I pleaded, but to no avail. She ran happily out to join her dad and brother, and that was only the beginning. Each night thereafter, she packed a bag with shorts and a tee shirt and jumped right in to the mix, learning single leg take downs and half nelsons, and thoroughly enjoying herself. Soon she asked for wrestling shoes, and a singlet, and Aaron tried to convince me that her flexibility and core strength was helping her hold her own on the mat, at least with her practice partners.

As a mom, it is painful to watch your son get taken down hard and stretched into multiple unnatural configurations, but it is doubly difficult to watch your little girl, who formerly spent her days curled up on your lap with a stuffed animal and storybooks get thrown into a headlock and flipped over onto her back.
She braved her first mat burns, her first accidental choke hold, a few bruises and other unmentionable scuffles all the while basking in the glow of her father's attention.

Cooper also began to thrive...due in no small part to his sister tagging along to practice with. She outweighs him by 3 pounds, so he has to make up in technique what he lacks in weight. Aaron is proud as punch, obviously, and before long we were wrestling in Sherburn on Monday nights, in Blue Earth on Tuesdays, and in Fairmont on Thursdays.

This weekend we thought they were ready to try their first Open Tournament. There have been a number of Team tournaments throughout the winter, but we didn't think they were ready to wrestle-off for a position on the team. An Open allows everyone to enter, unattached to a team, and it was finally time to see if their practice minutes were making any kind of difference in their skills.

We arrived for the Fairmont Youth Open early, to get a jump on weigh-ins. Cooper made the 45 pound class, and Carys made the 50 pound class, and both kids were giddy and excited. As the rest of the world poured into the gym, I began to get really nervous. There was a line forming outside the building to check in and register. The stands were packed. All ten mats were crawling with kids practicing. At one point, they surpassed 200 in registration, and I was full of anxiety.

Carys and Cooper tussled around for a little while on the mat, calmly ate a banana next to me in the stands, and casually sipped on their water bottles. I chewed on my fingernails, re-braided Carys' hair for the third time, and tried desperately NOT to look on the outside like I was feeling on the inside.

Coop's class was called first, and Aaron took him down to the mat. He lost his first match, mostly because he was so surprised by the actual meet format that he wasn't very prepared and he got pinned almost immediately. As soon as the ref held up the other boy's hand, Cooper finally realized what that meant, and he just plain got mad. The next match he battled much better; in the middle of the match Carys yelled, "Sink it in deep, Cooper!" and Aaron about died laughing - she pays attention at practice, apparently! When the ref held up Cooper's hand at the end of the match, his grin spread ear to ear. By the end of the day he got to stand on the 3rd place podium and get a medal to take home. If he wasn't convinced before, he was definitely convinced now, and you could see the pride and excitement glowing in his eyes.

And then it was Carys' turn. When they called her class down to the mat, I thought maybe I was going to throw up. There is no fear like the fear of the unknown, and I had no idea how this was going to go. It was clear that these kids were here for real competition; I knew this would be very different from the clinical approach that they were seeing in practice.

She stepped on the mat for her first match, and at the whistle I tried to concentrate on filming so I didn't think so much about what was actually happening. Grandma Gail, who has had years and years of practice cheering from the edge of the mat, was shouting all sorts of encouraging words, and Carys just grinned and giggled and wrestled her way through three rounds. She lost by decision, but she made it all three rounds without incident.

I breathed a little, then, and Aaron picked her up and squeezed her hard and she was pretty happy with the first one, even though she didn't win. For her second match, we all thought it would probably be similar to the first one. Except it wasn't. Her competitor was a no-nonsense little tough guy and Carys walked almost immediately into a headlock. One of the Fairmont coaches was kneeling on the sideline and he talked her through it, trying to get her to hook his leg. She survived to the end of the period, but she was definitely a little rattled. She took the up position to start round two, and just wasn't strong enough to hold him. He got away from her, and she walked right into headlock #2. This time he threw her down, and she hit the mat pretty hard. I could hear her gasp a little, and my throat closed up and my heart stopped beating for a few seconds I think. Fortunately her practice minutes paid off, because she rolled through it and nearly earned a reversal. But the damage was done, because while she wrestled hard for just a little bit more, her opponent caught her in a cradle and finally managed to pin her.

So there I stood, on the edge of the mat, feeling like I might maybe die, as Carys slowly removed her leg band, shook her opponent's hand, shook his mother's hand, and then walked over to Aaron. She held her composure until he picked her up. Then her head tucked down on his shoulder and a few tears began to drip from her eyes. She rubbed her chin and the back of her head, and said, "Mommy, that really hurt." I probably shouldn't have said anything, because her pride might have let it go at that, but my throat was already thick and I kind of choked out, "Oh honey, I know..." And then she started to cry. (I was dangerously close to tears myself.) Aaron just walked her away from the mat for a few minutes and rubbed her back and told her over and over that he was proud of her.

We both told her she didn't have to continue if she didn't want to, but once she got over the initial shock of it, she asked him, "Dad, how do I get out of that headlock? I don't want that to happen again." And Aaron jumped right on that and took her to a practice area to work on it. She didn't even hesitate to go to the next match, and she got a 4th place medal out of the deal.

I still feel terribly conflicted; on one hand I am so proud of her toughness...much more than I would expect out of your average 7 year old. She has always been the softer of my two girls, so I just have no idea where this quality came from. There is another part of me that is pulled by my mothering instinct to put the big kibosh on this wrestling business. Basketball will be starting in a few weeks for her age group, so why not wait for something less...physical, I guess?

But last night we went over to Blue Earth for practice. Aaron wasn't feeling well, so this was the first time I had attended this particular practice session. I was really impressed by Coach Wood's clinical approach to teaching technique; he spent a lot of individual time working on each skill. It was nice to see other girls on the mat as well, and Carys had no shortage of practice partners. At the end of the night, Cooper scored 5 in the Takedown Tournament, and Carys even scored 1. When Coach Wood mentioned the Blue Earth Open coming up this weekend, BOTH of my kids cheered. And on the way out the door, Carys says, "Hey Mom, I bet I can do better than 4th this weekend!"

All I can do is smile, and say "I bet you can, sweetheart, I bet you can."

The video for Carys is below; the headlock I previously described happens around 1:48.

Cooper's first win!

Busy

Life has been really busy lately; so busy, that I haven't had a single second to record some of the more significant events around here. I was pondering what kind of post I could make this month to summarize all the comings and goings and happenings in the Gudahl house, but this morning provided me with one of those time-stands-still moments that does it just beautifully for me.

The Kindergarten program at Fairmont Elementary is exceptional; I could go on all day about that. Just one example would be the nights they set aside for students to come in with a parent, have dinner together, and bond a little over their education. This fall, they hosted one of those evenings and we weren't able to attend due to other commitments. I was determined to make it to the next one, so when I saw the sheet come home I made a mental note that it was going to be held in the first week of February. Cooper began talking about it at home days and days ago, and reminded me often that there was going to be a "party" at his school. I could tell it was important to him, so I added it to the calendar in my phone.

Last night, Emma had basketball practice at the elementary school at 5:00. I am helping coach her basketball team, so I was there with her, while Carys and Cooper were attending wrestling practice with Aaron at the high school. When my practice ended, I noticed one of the girls wasn't going home, but sitting in the hallway. When I asked if she needed to call her mom, she said, "No, my mom is doing that Kindergarten thing with my brother, and I'm just waiting for them."

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.

I walked over to the signboard in the hallway and saw that I had, indeed, missed the program. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had entered it a day later on my calendar.

I can't tell you how terrible I felt driving home. I accept full responsibility for it; we have had somewhere to go and something to do nearly every day, nearly every minute, for the last month. Of course it makes perfect sense that the program would fall on the same night we already had two other commitments.

If I had taken a single minute to re-check the date, taken a single second out of my day to really look at what clearly was so important to the little man, I would have seen the conflict and figured out how to fit it in. Cooper has been wrestling in two different clubs all winter, so it wouldn't have been a big deal at all to miss one night of practice to attend his school function.

I dreaded having to tell him. When all 5 of us got home, it was already 7:00, and the kids were rushing through showers while I was rushing to put dinner on the table. Things were chaotic, and I thought I'd better wait to give him the bad news until things were calmer and quieter. Unfortunately, dinner was followed by a mad homework-completing extravaganza, followed by tooth-brushing, jammie-wearing, story-reading, bed-tucking, drink-of-water-getting craziness, and I just let it go.

This morning, as I was making breakfast, Cooper came into the kitchen and tugged on my sweater. He said, "Mom, do you have to work at 5:00?" I said, "No, why?" He said, "Because I think my school party is at 5:00 and I didn't want you to miss it."

I wasn't prepared, I wasn't ready. I just turned slowly around and said, "Buddy. I am so sorry, but we missed it. It was last night."

I wish I could accurately frame his reaction with my words. His face absolutely crumpled, and tears filled his brown eyes immediately. He turned on his heel and went into the living room where he threw himself on the sofa and cried his little heart out.

For a moment I just stood in the kitchen, holding a spatula in the air while the eggs bubbled behind me. Aaron looked at me, wide-eyed, and said, "Oh Sara. He was REALLY looking forward to that."

I felt just sick. I turned off the stove and went to Cooper, where he was pouring his troubles face-down into the couch cushions. As I pulled him on to my lap, I felt guilt of such an enormous magnitude. When the kids were younger, I used to devote whole days to them, individually. We would have Mommy and Emma days, Mommy and Carys days, and Mommy and Cooper days on a rotating basis. The other two would go to Grandma's, or to daycare, and I would spend time that was singular to each one alone. I haven't done that in nearly two years, I think.

There was no excuse to make; all I could do was tell him over and over how sorry I was that I had messed up. I promised to find a way to make it up to him, and he pressed his forehead into my neck and tried to catch his breath. He would wipe his eyes hard with the back of his hand, and sniff loudly, but he still wouldn't look at me. I felt truly like the lowest human on the face of the earth.

I could only promise that he and I would carve out some time together tonight and we would do something just the two of us. Suddenly I had landed on something that seemed to interest him a little more, and he finally fastened his brown eyes on me and said, "Like what?"

I was so excited that he had finally looked at me that I blurted out, "Maybe you could teach me how to play Skylanders?" (That is the name of his favorite video game, and I have had absolutely no inclination to play it whatsoever, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.) The clouds in his eyes began to part, and even though his cheeks were still red and swollen, he said, "Ok. But we better play the Giants first, because that's the easiest and you won't be very good at it."

Then, as he used the bottom of his tee shirt to wipe his nose, he launched into a description of characters, and what powers they have, and what obstacles we will face, etc. I recognized that we had turned the corner, and I sighed a little sigh of relief that we were able to get through the worst of it before I had to leave for school.

But make no mistake; I have let him down, and I know it. It feels terrible, because a promise made needs to be a promise kept, and I had PROMISED him we would attend his program. So I have some work to do, and it has to start with me slowing down the activity train a little at our house.

When you are presented with opportunities for your kids, you are quick to say yes, because you want to give them lots of experiences. In today's athletics world, every minute you give them helps, so we say yes yes yes to soccer and softball and basketball and wrestling and swimming. Multiply that times 3 kids, and some days we don't know if we are coming or going.

I have the same problem in my professional life; I coach at the high school, I coach at the elementary, I run youth camps, I run the Student Council, I'm a team leader, I'm part of the Staff Development committee...and the list goes on and on.

But the list needs to come to a screeching halt, or at least a slow crawl, because let's be real here. I like to be a positive presence in the lives of my students...but I am also in the business of being someone's mom. And I need to be a good one, because I will run out of chances to read to them, to play with them, and to make them feel like they are number one in my world.

I sent an email to the head track coach at our school today. I am taking the spring season off this year. This spring, I'm going to go to the library with my kids. I'm going to take them to the park when it is warm. I'm going to be home by 4:00 every day to make dinners, clean the house and still have time to sit on the end of their bed and read the next book in the Narnia series. I'm going to ride bikes with them outside, and jump on the trampoline, and take them to Kindergarten programs.

And as for tonight...I'm off to play video games, with my number one guy.

40

My parents will be married forty years tomorrow. At first glance, that number reminds me that I'm only a year away from turning forty myself...but that's not what inspires me to write today. I'll save that post for next year, when I'm feeling sorry for my old self.

A couple of years ago, I was looking ahead to their fortieth anniversary and talked with my brother about maybe planning some kind of party for them, but it really isn't their style. My parents are more reserved and prefer attention to be centered squarely on others for big parties. One year I forgot their anniversary and when I asked mom why she didn't remind me, she said "Well, it's not really an occasion for you to remember - it's for your dad and I to celebrate." I've thought about that a lot actually, and I think that I have to disagree.

Forty years of marriage, especially in this day and age, is definitely an accomplishment. And while I know my parents feel like their marriage is their own private occasion to celebrate, the truth is that the life they built these last forty years has had a profound effect on me, and it has been a direct influence in the life I am building for my own family. I have learned so many things from being raised in the environment they made for me, and while I didn't plan some blow-out party, I hope that I can at least celebrate this milestone by doing what I do best - writing about it. I made a list of some of the things I have learned from them.

It Doesn't Matter Where You Live
We moved a lot. A lot. When you are a young teacher, you are the first cut to make when budgets are slashed, and my dad had to deal with that quite a bit in the early years. We went from Salem, SD to Wells, MN to Herreid, SD to Brookings, SD to Blue Earth, MN before I was 10 years old. We lived in every kind of dwelling from mobile home to small house to farm house to apartment and back to house again. I can remember parts and pieces from almost all of them, and the funny thing is, they were all perfectly perfect in my young eyes. I can't remember a single negative thing about ANY of them.
If you ask my mother, she will probably not share that opinion. She absolutely hated the farm house outside of Wells; all I can remember about that house is playing on the tire swing in the yard, wrapping yarn around beautifully colored balls with her in the living room, and that I lost my two front teeth that summer and had to eat sweet corn cut off the cob and I thought that it was pretty special that she would cut it off for me. I only have good memories of that place, and of every other place we lived in - isn't that remarkable? We only lived in that house for a summer before they found us a "better" place, but for the life of me I cannot remember what was wrong with it. Why not? I know why - because when it came to making a HOME for me, my parents took that very seriously.
My dad was working in the Del Monte factory that summer - as an adult I can appreciate that must have been an awful thing, to give up the summer off to make enough money to keep us going. I never felt any kind of financial strain, and to talk with them now I understand there definitely was some financial strain in those years. I just remember that my dad used to sing the opening bars of a particular song to me, and I remember that summer that I asked him to sing the rest of the song so I could hear all of it. What a small memory, perhaps, but the point is that I never felt the hard parts, whatever they were.
As a parent myself, I will occasionally find myself wishing for a bigger/nicer/fancier home - it's important for me to remember that the structure of the home we live in has very little impact on my kids. I would do far more for them to focus on the life I make for them inside.

Give To Others Whenever You Can
Considering now that my parents were by no means wealthy in the monetary sense, it might seem unusual that the idea of giving was so celebrated in our house. Whenever I gave something of myself to someone, whether it be my time, my energy, my hard work, or my talents, my parents quietly praised that action, and slowly over the years I've found that I take real joy in what I can contribute to the people around me. If I were to list all the ways my parents found to better the lives of our friends and neighbors, they would be embarrassed that I called attention to it, so I will refrain from doing so. But my mother loves thinking up ways to do something unexpected for someone, and my dad will shovel out the neighbor before he shovels out his own walk. Those are just small examples, but I lived under that model my whole life and I find that by continuing on that journey, I'm not just enriching the lives of the people around me, I'm giving something to myself as well. I don't believe I'm on this Earth purely to better my own experience here, but also to make it a little bit better for the people around me. (This probably contributes to that Can't Say No condition I suffer from, but at the end of the day I'd rather be accused of doing too much for others than the alternative.)

When You Don't Agree, Do So Respectfully
Everyone fights, everyone argues. There have likely been lots of times in forty years that my parents didn't see eye to eye on things. To their eternal credit, I have never seen my parents have a knock-down drag-out good old-fashioned yelling match ever, in the almost forty years I've been on this Earth. I've seen them disagree; retreat to their respective corners to think it over, then come back together to talk it out. They listen to each other, and while sometimes one or another might "win" the argument, they don't hold grudges and they never let a disagreement affect their bond.
I can't tell you how much this has shaped my own life. I've learned how to fully think through a problem before I try to solve it. I've learned that however valid I think my argument is, the other side is also perfectly valid, and that my own wishes do not out weigh the wishes of others. I have learned that an argument should never cross the line into being personal, and not to let one bad day color any of the others.
If they've ever had it out, they've done it out of my presence, and I'm so grateful for that. I've never seen them be ugly to each other, and it has taught me to have that expectation in my own relationships. I hope I can continue to model that for my kids.

Communicate Your Needs
My parents are very good at letting each other know what they need. From the mundane to the essential, I've listened to them talk to each other and watched them go out of their way for each other for so long, that it's almost like a beautiful dance. There are so many examples to choose from here...my dad is a creature of habit and mom will go to great lengths to keep routines running smoothly for him. My dad makes sure that anytime my mom needs anything, he makes it happen. From stopping at the store on the way home to making sure the car is warmed up and gassed up any time she needs it, there are so many small ways they take care of each other. They can anticipate what the other is needing, without words, and that is no small accomplishment. It isn't always convenient, but they make the effort anyway.

Family First
We have a large extended family, but we live quite a ways away from most of them. With all the moving we did over the years, the four of us became a very tight central unit. Life is full of both highs and lows, and our family has been no stranger to hard times. Through all of it, we had one simple philosophy, and that was to take care of each other. The needs of our family far outweighed any outside influence, and my brother and I often talk about how rare a thing it is to have parents like ours. Every single thing we have ever wanted or tried to do, was met with enthusiastic support from both of our parents. I wonder how many people out there enjoyed that kind of upbringing? We had only to mention a whim or a thought or a wish, and our parents got right behind it. They made so many of our adventures a possibility, not by paying for it, but by helping us figure out how to get it for ourselves.
I wanted to go to Scotland and live for a little while. "Okay,  no problem, let's start a savings account this summer." Hey, I changed my major and now I want to be an English teacher, so I need to go to school for another year. "All right, make an appointment with your advisor, I'll call the financial aid office, and let's make it happen." I want to move 14 hours away and risk life and limb to live in the mountains. "Let me help you pack."
Truly, our happiness was ours to make. My parents, if they had an opinion, rarely voiced it unless there was some concern for our health and well-being. (I wish they had warned me about Missouri, but they probably didn't know what a fiasco that would be!) And my brother and I both have led the lives we have truly wanted to live, with no strings or ties to hold us back.

Laugh A Lot
Our family has a dry, dark, and sometimes strange sense of humor. I think it comes from all those years of close togetherness. We don't get a chance to be a foursome all that often anymore, but when we do, we laugh. And laugh. At ourselves, at each other, at our choices and our lives. I can remember so many family game nights, and games in the car on trips, and 2 hour phone conversations filled with inside joke after inside joke. There is something magical that happens when the four of us are sitting around the table playing cards, and it will be the legacy they leave behind that I would miss the most. I only have to mention the Spanish Armadillo, and the entire tone of the conversation changes. Get a few drinks in us, and then it gets really interesting. I love those nights more than anything, and I hope I can build that for my own kids as they grow.

Love Each Other
No matter what we say or do or think or feel, we love each other no matter what. It would be so easy to hold on to hurt feelings, much easier than letting them go, but at the root of every thought and action in our lives is love. I know without question that may parents love me desperately. I have always known it, and never doubted it, even when I was making some poor decisions in my teenage years. I can catalog every time I ever let them down, and even when I knew they weren't always happy with me, I never once doubted how much they loved me.
As a parent, I aspire to this and have a great fear of not being able to do it as well as they did. I want my children to walk around in the world with  my love for them at the very center of their beings. You can navigate life with such confidence, knowing that in the hard times and the failures, you have a soft place to fall, and someone who loves you even if you royally screw up. They are just a phone call away, and I call them far too often, probably. They celebrate my successes, share in my frustrations, listen quietly to my failures and guide me tirelessly in my uncertainty.

These things, among others, are the legacy of your forty years together, at least as they apply to me. Thank you for making our houses homes, for teaching me to laugh and how to love. Thank you for the strong sense of self and confidence you instilled in me, and thank you for showing me what compromise and a happy marriage should look like. Happy Anniversary...Love, Sara

Vintage

Yesterday it was Emma's turn to get the mail; when she brought it into the house she held up a catalog from some mail-order department store of sorts, where Everything Is Affordable (In Only 10 Easy Payments of $19.99!)
The kids were kind of amazed at the idea that we could order by mail an entire household of brand-new items. They had a great time poring over the pages and pointing out all kinds of things we should probably have. I think the shine and polish of brand-new appliances and furniture must seem thrilling to my kids, whose house is filled with furnishings of exactly the opposite nature.

I will freely admit that my obsession with vintage might be bordering on pathological. It would be unusual to find a single significant piece that was purchased in the last 10 years. Heck, I am not sure there are very many pieces that were even purchased by ME.
Most of the things that surround me in my home are hand-me-downs from the people we have loved. And every item has a story attached in some significant way. It gives me great comfort to run my hand across my grandmother's table; to wrap myself in an afghan my mother hand-knitted; to put butter in Grandma Dee's butter dish, to drink water out of colored aluminum tumblers from my great-grandma's farm house.
Part of it is a return to my childhood, I think. I used to sit at my Grandma Bartscher's dressing table, delighted at her matching brush and hand mirror, charmed by the silver turtle pincushion that sat on the corner. I remember the crystal bowl she used to serve red jello with bananas, and the green glass lamp with a big brass key that sat on the end table next to the couch where I slept. When you turned the key, the light in the glass threw a ghostly green glow on the floor. One more turn and the brighter bulb above in the shade clicked to life. Grandma always left the green light on in case I needed to get a drink or go to the bathroom. She would check on me in the middle of the night without fail, and in the glow of that green lamp she would tuck the pink velour blanket down around my feet.
I loved that lamp passionately, because I associated it with my grandmother who I loved passionately and lost far too early. And when it was time to clean out my Grandpa's house, I made sure I brought that lamp home. I think a modern designer would shudder at the look of that lamp, but I could never part with it.

I am lucky that I married a man who not only understands this about me, but shares my passion for staying connected to the past. When we go fishing, he brings Grandpa Ted's fishing tackle on every trip. Ted's fishing bifocals are still in the box, and Emma loves to put them on when she is tying tackle. I know that when Aaron smiles at his daughter outfitted in those goofy glasses, he doesn't just see a goofy 9-year old. He's looking through her, like a window to the past where his grandpa sat in the boat with him, tying tackle and teaching him the ins and outs of catching fish. How could I ever replace them with a pair of plastic store-bought glasses, made from a mold, pressed in some factory somewhere and labeled with a bright yellow $9.99 sticker?

I see so much more value in the depression-era quilt that I picked up at an estate auction for five bucks than I do in the down comforter I purchased online for $59.99. I don't even know who made the quilt in this case, but someone somewhere spent hours upon hours hand stitching a scrap quilt, likely created from pieces of their life: a torn dress, an old work shirt, a sheet or a tablecloth. That quilt is batted with real wool, shorn from a sheep - not pressed and filled in a factory in China. That quilt is hanging on a wooden quilt rack my husband made for me himself during our first year of dating. On top of the shelf are three glass bells that came from his grandmother's house and offer a quiet reminder of that great lady who loved him.

What do my children see when they look around our home? Do they see the worn edges of the buffet in the dining room? Do they see the chip out of the edge of that serving bowl? Do they see a stack of blankets that are certainly used, definitely faded, and unraveling a little at the edges? Maybe so. It shouldn't surprise me when they come home from someone else's house and ooh and ahh over their "really nice house." We probably don't have the same "really nice house" that lots of other people have.
I wish they could see what I see. When I get out that serving bowl, I see the hundreds of meals I ate at my grandparent's table. That buffet has traveled through three different family homes, the most recent being my own parents, and has survived many dramatic adventures. And those blankets - well, if you've never made an afghan or a quilt by hand, then you probably have no idea what those mean. I don't see the faded colors, I see my mother sitting wrapped up on the couch, crochet hook in hand,  talking about her day with my dad and trying to finish one last row before she heads to bed.

Even my own wedding ring has a story. (Actually, I have 2 wedding rings, and they BOTH have a story.) When I went to look at rings with Aaron so he could get some idea of what I liked, I just never had that pull toward those gigantic sparkly rings that so many women are fond of. They seemed so out-of-place on my hand; like they weren't real, even though the price tag certainly said otherwise.
We went to several jewelers, and finally we stumbled on a small private shop in nearby Salida, Colorado. I just had a feeling when we went in there, and I walked over to a case filled with vintage estate jewelry. My eyes were immediately drawn to a small white gold ring with a square-cut diamond surrounded by intricate engraved scroll work. The jeweler explained he got it from a local woman who had passed away and he purchased her jewelry from the sale of her estate. He knew her personally; it was her wedding ring, and she and her husband had been married 60 years. They had no children to inherit her pieces; he had considered her a great personal friend, and was pleased to be able to pass on her jewelry. I will never forget what he said to me: "she lived her life with great integrity. It was an honor for me to know her." And I knew right then that that ring was meant for me. I knew that the simple, vintage piece with a meaningful history was so much more suited to me than the flashier rings that I had previously seen. Aaron seemed incredulous that this was what I picked out at first, and actually tried to dissuade me. (I think there must be some kind of pride factor involved with what kind of a ring a man puts on a girl's finger, but THIS girl ain't buying that line.) I insisted this was the ring for me, and that is the ring he gave me.

What about the other ring? Well. Outside of Buena Vista is a beautiful mountain called Mt. Antero. It is a mountain with many veins of precious metals and gems lining its interior, and most of it has been privately sectioned off into mining claims. Aaron had gotten friendly with a couple of locals who had mining claims, and he spent some time mining up on Antero with them. It just so happens that my favorite gemstone is aquamarine. And it just so happens that Antero is full of uncut aquamarine. As a surprise wedding gift to me, he gave me a matching aqua ring, necklace, and earrings set in white gold.
The aqua ring is the first spontaneous piece of jewelry he's ever given me; it was mined from the mountain I looked at every morning in the backyard of our first home, in the town I still love desperately. I wear the aqua ring daily, as a reminder of his unexpected thoughtfulness and of our connection to that place.

I watched the kids pore over the pages of that catalog with great amusement, but I felt little pensive at the same time. I want them to understand the value of things that stand the test of time; I don't want them to feel the pressure of "keeping up" with the neighbors or trying to out-shop or out-decorate or out-accessorize their friends. I also don't want them to feel like they live in a thrift store. (ha ha) So I think I need to tell the stories and let them know that these older pieces are pieces of lives that were lived in a time long past. They are threads to the people who made us and reminders of our history.

I will say, that the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer my parents gave me as an early-Christmas present definitely kicks butt over the Black and Decker Dinosaur I'd been using for the last 10 years. So not EVERYTHING has to be old. (I did order it in Vintage Blue, circa 1950, because I still have an image to maintain.) And I've been eyeing a beautiful microsuede sofa sectional for the family room, but so far I just don't have it in me to trade out the white leather sofa we bought in Missouri. The stories from Missouri are of a completely different nature, and while we don't mention those 8 months all that often, the couch is maybe one of the better memories from that crazy adventure. I'm saving that story, though, for another day.