What the World Needs

On Sundays, I teach a group of 14-15 year old girls. Here's what we'll be talking about today.

Get Your Own Basement: Advice on Becoming an Adult

My eldest son's declaration to "move out and play video games in his own basement," along with a recent discussion about dental hygiene have caused me a great deal of alarm as a mother.  It seems that despite my best efforts (such as constantly repeating the directive to change underwear daily) my children are still ill-prepared to go out into the world and function as productive, adult-male members of society.

Don't get me wrong, they are lovely boys.  They rarely cause me any trouble.  I've never received a call from the Principal's office or the police station.  None of them have ever been arrested, tattooed, or pierced (as far as I know).  They help out around the house, are well-behaved and get good grades.  But being labeled "gifted and talented" by the school district does not necessarily guarantee one an advantage in the common sense department.

Case in point: last Monday a certain son of mine was going out to breakfast with some friends from his church youth group.  He came downstairs to verify that he should NOT brush his teeth before he left.  Because, after all, his father and I had been saying to him nearly every morning for the past 12 years, "Eat breakfast and then go brush your teeth."

Somehow, this "gifted" young man could not, on his own, come up with the caveat: unless you are going out to breakfast with friends, who will not appreciate your bad breath and crusty teeth, in which case you should most definitely brush your teeth BEFORE eating breakfast.

Guess what?  He wasn't the only one.  When he walked into the bathroom to brush, we heard his older brother say.  "What are you doing?  Shouldn't you brush your teeth after you get back?"  That one is apparently gifted and talented too.  No really.  And he's graduating from high school in two years!  At this rate, he'll never be prepared to move out of the house!

I hope these boys never, EVER schedule a job interview before breakfast. And dating?  Thank goodness 99.9% of dating happens after breakfast. 

The thing is, I'm never exactly sure what I'm leaving out when I give parental advice.  I really didn't think I'd have to explain that while brushing your teeth after breakfast is usually a good idea, it would obviously be better to brush before breakfast if you're going out with friends.  But clearly what is obvious to me is not all that obvious to my children.  

So I've decided to leave some advice for my sons here on the blog.  Basic stuff.  Stuff I don't think I need to cover, or feel that I already have covered at some point, but should probably review anyway. Just in case my children move out before I've had the chance to follow up on my daily admonitions to wear deodorant with specific details such as "every single day" and "under both armpits." 

Hopefully, by leaving said advice, they won't have to come back and live in my basement after they've left home.  They will be able to function in the adult world simply by checking the blog for tutorials on common sense topics like Don't Buy Things You Can't Afford or How To Replace the Toilet Paper Roll in Three Easy Steps.

Think of it as an advice column of sorts.  For boys.  And possibly girls, depending on the subject matter.  Because obviously everyone needs to learn to change the toilet paper roll.

Get Your Own Basement

The other night at dinner, I was sharing some new research with the boys that shows more and more women are becoming the primary (often sole) breadwinners in their families.  On top of the fact that 62% of college students are now women.

I took it upon myself to remind my sons that just because girls are clearly more motivated than boys, it was not a license for them to become "adult" men who live in my basement and play video games for the rest of their lives. 

To which E promptly responded.....

"Don't worry, I'll move out and play video games in my own basement." 

Thank goodness!

DON'T MISTAKE ROUTINE FOR COMMITMENT

This is my great-great grandfather, David Cline.  He was a Jewish Rabbi in Latvia.  We know very little about his life, although I have always been fascinated by his Jewish faith.  Tonight at sunset my Jewish friends will begin their observance of Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, and the holiest day of the year for Jewish people.

 

 

 

I was reading about Yom Kippur this morning in the Washington Post, where Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld explained that "Yom Kippur is a reminder that we can't only commit halfway to God."  

Don't we all need to be reminded from time to time to be more committed to whatever it is we believe in?  Rabbi Herzfeld talked about God removing stumbling blocks on Yom Kippur--all those things over the course of a year that have kept us from doing what it was we wanted to do.  Or knew we should do.  He said that on Yom Kippur, "God comes out to meet us and helps us take that extra step of commitment to Him." 

And be careful, he warned, "not to mistake routine for commitment."  That's a pretty powerful little statement, if you think about it.  About how we think we're committed to something as long as it's easy.  But when it becomes difficult, even just a little bit, it turns out it was just a routine and we weren't very committed at all.

For example, there are many members of Rabbi Herzfeld's congregation who routinely attend  synagogue.  But when it rains, he tells his children, "the forecast calls for scattered congregants."  And aren't we all like that sometimes?  We let a little rain, or some other inconvenience, keep us from doing what we should have done.  Rabbi Herzfeld has printed ponchos for his congregation with the slogan, "Shul. Weather or not."  Weather or not.  Whether or not.

Quite simply, that's the only way to know if we're really committed to something.  We go and do what we're supposed to do, or religiously speaking, what we believe God wants us to do. Whether or not.

Obviously there are differences between my religion and Rabbi Herzfeld's.  In my church, those who speak to us have put it this way:

"May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear."  (Jeffrey R. Holland)

But what Rabbi Herzfeld said spoke to me too.  He reminded me that whatever it is I say I'm committed to, I can't commit halfway.  If I do, it's not a commitment at all.  It's just a routine.  And nothing great has ever happened in my life when I've just been going through the motions.  I have to give a little more than that if I want to achieve all the great things God has in store for me.

"Yom Kippur is also a reminder that if we carry out on our commitments, if we commit with all our heart to service, then we can literally transform the world with our actions. We were all created for greatness, and Yom Kippur reminds us that if we take our commitments seriously we will achieve greatness."

So thank you great-great grandfather David Cline, and Rabbi Herzfeld, for reminding me today to try a little harder.  Thank you for  reminding me that:

"God wants us to be stronger than we are--more fixed in our purpose, more certain of our commitments, eventually needing less coddling from Him, showing more willingness to shoulder some of the burden of His heavy load. In short, He wants us to be more like Him."  (Jeffrey R. Holland)

So put on your ponchos and get going!

You can read Rabbi Herzfeld's article here.

ON RAISING TEENAGERS: I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING EITHER, AND I'M OKAY WITH THAT

Lately, I've been lamenting the fact that there is very little information out there about raising teenagers.  When it comes to babies and young children, information abounds.  Frankly, there's almost too much of it.  Starting with a plethora of opinions on what, exactly, is the best way to bring a child into this world.  And once you've gotten them here, there is plenty of information on how to feed them, clothe them, play with them, discipline them and educate them.

All you need is the Internet and you can learn all about the dangers of BPAs in your child's sippy cup, the benefits of homemade organic baby food, and saving the world with cloth diapers (frankly, I always preferred to use disposable diapers and save my own sanity).  And the list goes on.

And if you don't have the Internet, don't worry.  There's always another mother standing by to let you know you're doing it wrong.  For every mother who occasionally takes her child to McDonald's for a Happy Meal, there's another mother on the sidelines whispering "I would never let my child eat that."

Which is one of the downsides to all this information.  While it (supposedly) helps us raise healthier, happier kids, it's also ammunition mothers use for judging one another.  Until your children get to be about thirteen years old.

That's when the world goes thankfully, mercifully silent. 

Yes, I said thankfully.  I'm actually learning to be thankful that when it comes to raising teenagers, no one is lining up to give me advice.

I've had a teenager for two years now, and still can't seem to find much information out there on how to parent him.  Don't get me wrong, he's a great kid.  He's got good grades, a job, and never causes any trouble.  He helps out around the house and babysits his brothers so his dad and I can go out.  He's responsible and polite and clean (even if his room usually isn't).  But even then, I'm always haunted by an eerie feeling that, for the first time in my parenting career, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  At least when he was younger, I could browse through an issue of Parents magazine and fool myself into thinking I had a handle on this parenting gig. 

I've come to hope that this is because everyone else with a teenager is clueless, just like me.  At least with young children, you know what the options are.  Natural or epidural.  Breast or bottle.  Cloth or disposable. With teenagers, the options are less clear, and that makes it a lot harder to figure out what to do.

As the saying goes, "Small children give you a headache, older children give you a heartache."

But I've come to realize that instead of lamenting the lack of advice and information on this phase of my child's life, I should embrace my membership in this "Mother's of Teens" club I've been privileged to join.  No one in this bunch is going to judge me if my fifteen year-old eats at McDonald's, because they all know you can't tell a 15 year-old what to eat.  (I've never really believed you could tell a 2 year-old what to eat either, but a 2 year-old can't drive himself to McDonalds, so you've got a little more control in that sense).   I might even become comfortable enough around my new mom friends to admit that one of my teenager's first words, at 9 months old, was "fries."

Mothers of teenagers are refreshingly non-judgemental.  Or maybe it's just that at their current stage of parenting, they've learned to let things go.  They've learned that the long list of decisions the magazines and websites and other mothers convinced them they should agonize over has had very little impact on how their kids are actually turning out.  What mattered was that they loved them and spent time with them.

Even if it was time spent together enjoying a McDonald's Happy Meal.

AUTISM AWARENESS

I'm sure some of you already know from firsthand experience that April is Autism Awareness Month.  I have three autistic nephews.  I'm also a photographer.  You're probably wondering why I mention that?

Because I know having professional portraits taken is something most parents dread.  It's just so stressful!  Now imagine how parents of autistic kids feel about the prospect.

But I really, truly believe that photographs are so important.  And that you should, at least every once in awhile, have them taken by a professional.  And if there is anything I can possibly to do make this easier for families with autistic children, I will try.  So today, over on my photography blog, I've posted some tips, for both parents and photographers, on photographing autistic children.  You can read it here.

I hope it helps.  I'm no expert.  I do know autism is unpredictable, and maybe nothing I've suggested there will work for some children.  But I hope it helps some mother of an autistic child feel like professional portraits are something she dare attempt.  Or at least inspire her to take more pictures of her own children.

John Berger said, "All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget."  For proof of that, look no further than my last post, where I shared photos of my oldest son, taken over the last 15 years.  You'll see moments (and there are hundreds more stored on my hard drive) that I never would have remembered without the photographs. 

You can read more on my feelings about the importance of all this here, and why, if you've been putting off family pictures, you should delay no more!

MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTION, AGAIN: REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE

Yes, I did share this message from Jeffrey R. Holland last year around this time.  But it's just as true today as it was then. Faith is for the future.  Don't look back.  Remember Lot's wife.

Reminding myself of this might just become my annual New Year's tradition.

As a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been.

The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.

*Personal note:  This next bit is the part that really gets me, because I went to this very same university--which this man eventually became the president of.  In fact, he signed my letter of acceptance.  And the experiences he shares of his time as a student at BYU are remarkably similar to mine.  It makes my eyes leak every time I read it.

I remember one fall day—I think it was in the first semester after our marriage in 1963—my wife and I were walking together.....somewhere on that path we stopped and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Life that day seemed so overwhelming, and the undergraduate plus graduate years that we still anticipated before us seemed monumental, nearly insurmountable. Our love for each other and our commitment to the gospel were strong, but most of all the other temporal things around us seemed particularly ominous.

On a spot that I could probably still mark for you today, I turned to Pat and said something like this: “Honey, should we give up? I can get a good job and carve out a good living for us. I can do some things. I’ll be okay without a degree. Should we stop trying to tackle what right now seems so difficult to face?”

In my best reenactment of Lot’s wife, I said, in effect, “Let’s go back. Let’s go home. The future holds nothing for us.”

Then my beloved little bride did what she has done for 45 years since then. She grabbed me by the lapels and said, “We are not going back. We are not going home. The future holds everything for us.”

Twenty years later I would, on occasion, look out of the window of the President’s Home across the street from the Brimhall Building and picture there on the sidewalk two newlywed BYU students, down on their money and down even more on their confidence. And as I would gaze out that window, usually at night, I would occasionally see not Pat and Jeff Holland but you and you and you, walking that same sidewalk. I would see you sometimes as couples, sometimes as a group of friends, sometimes as just a lone student.

I knew something of what you were feeling. Some of you were having thoughts such as these: Is there any future for me? What does a new year or a new semester or a new major or a new romance hold for me? Will I be safe? Will life be sound? Can I trust in the Lord and in the future? Or would it be better to look back, to go back, to go home?

To all such of every generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”

Here's looking ahead to a joyous, faith-filled 2012!

AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

Photo credit

by Thomas S. Monson

When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given.

I share with you an account of one family which was able to find blessings in the midst of serious challenges. This is an account I read many years ago and have kept because of the message it conveys. It was written by Gordon Green and appeared in an American magazine over 50 years ago.

Gordon tells how he grew up on a farm in Canada, where he and his siblings had to hurry home from school while the other children played ball and went swimming. Their father, however, had the capacity to help them understand that their work amounted to something. This was especially true after harvesttime when the family celebrated Thanksgiving, for on that day their father gave them a great gift. He took an inventory of everything they had.

On Thanksgiving morning he would take them to the cellar with its barrels of apples, bins of beets, carrots packed in sand, and mountains of sacked potatoes as well as peas, corn, string beans, jellies, strawberries, and other preserves which filled their shelves. He had the children count everything carefully. Then they went out to the barn and figured how many tons of hay there were and how many bushels of grain in the granary. They counted the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and geese. Their father said he wanted to see how they stood, but they knew he really wanted them to realize on that feast day how richly God had blessed them and had smiled upon all their hours of work. Finally, when they sat down to the feast their mother had prepared, the blessings were something they felt.

Gordon indicated, however, that the Thanksgiving he remembered most thankfully was the year they seemed to have nothing for which to be grateful.

The year started off well: they had leftover hay, lots of seed, four litters of pigs, and their father had a little money set aside so that someday he could afford to buy a hay loader—a wonderful machine most farmers just dreamed of owning. It was also the year that electricity came to their town—although not to them because they couldn’t afford it.

One night when Gordon’s mother was doing her big wash, his father stepped in and took his turn over the washboard and asked his wife to rest and do her knitting. He said, “You spend more time doing the wash than sleeping. Do you think we should break down and get electricity?” Although elated at the prospect, she shed a tear or two as she thought of the hay loader that wouldn’t be bought.

So the electrical line went up their lane that year. Although it was nothing fancy, they acquired a washing machine that worked all day by itself and brilliant lightbulbs that dangled from each ceiling. There were no more lamps to fill with oil, no more wicks to cut, no more sooty chimneys to wash. The lamps went quietly off to the attic.

The coming of electricity to their farm was almost the last good thing that happened to them that year. Just as their crops were starting to come through the ground, the rains started. When the water finally receded, there wasn’t a plant left anywhere. They planted again, but more rains beat the crops into the earth. Their potatoes rotted in the mud. They sold a couple of cows and all the pigs and other livestock they had intended to keep, getting very low prices for them because everybody else had to do the same thing. All they harvested that year was a patch of turnips which had somehow weathered the storms.

Then it was Thanksgiving again. Their mother said, “Maybe we’d better forget it this year. We haven’t even got a goose left.”

On Thanksgiving morning, however, Gordon’s father showed up with a jackrabbit and asked his wife to cook it. Grudgingly she started the job, indicating it would take a long time to cook that tough old thing. When it was finally on the table with some of the turnips that had survived, the children refused to eat. Gordon’s mother cried, and then his father did a strange thing. He went up to the attic, got an oil lamp, took it back to the table, and lighted it. He told the children to turn out the electric lights. When there was only the lamp again, they could hardly believe that it had been that dark before. They wondered how they had ever seen anything without the bright lights made possible by electricity.

The food was blessed, and everyone ate. When dinner was over, they all sat quietly. Wrote Gordon:

“In the humble dimness of the old lamp we were beginning to see clearly again. …

“It was a lovely meal. The jack rabbit tasted like turkey and the turnips were the mildest we could recall. …

“… Our home … , for all its want, was so rich to us.”

To express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven.

 

Adapted from H. Gordon Green, “The Thanksgiving I Don’t Forget,” Reader’s Digest, Nov. 1956

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Just a little Monday inspiration, from one of my favorite inspirers, Jeffrey R. Holland.

God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future, He expects you to embrace and shape the future--to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities.....God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe! 

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go.

 What is the best that lies within us? Of how much are we capable? None of us yet knows. An old Arabic legend tells of a rider finding a spindly sparrow lying on its back in the middle of the road. He dismounted and asked the sparrow why his feet were in the air. Replied the sparrow, "I heard the heavens were going to fall today." "And I suppose you think your puny bird legs can hold up the whole universe?" laughed the horseman. "Perhaps not," said the sparrow with conviction, "but one does whatever one can.

I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future.

There is not a single loophole or curveball or open trench to fall into for the man or woman who walks the path that Christ walks. When He says, "Come, Follow Me" (Luke 18:22), He means that He knows where the quicksand is and where the thorns are and the best way to handle the slippery slope near the summit of our personal mountains. He knows it all, and He knows the way. He is the way.

On this upward and sometimes hazardous journey, each of us meets our share of daily challenges. If we are not careful, as we peer through the narrow lens of self-interest, we may feel that life is bringing us more than our fair share of trials--that somehow others seem to be getting off more lightly.....but the tests of life are tailored for our own best interests, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that all the rules are fair. We can be reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way.

TEN THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER SAY TO A MOM

I recently came across this handy checklist of 10 things you should never say to a mom.  If you are a mom, the items on this list need no explanation. Although I can't resist commenting on a few.

If you are a not a mom but have been forced to read this list by someone who is, you can get further explanation here.

1. You look tired. 

2. Do you work?  Oh, do you mean outside the home?  Nope.  I just sit around the house all day, living a life of ease.

3. You look like such a mom!  What does that mean?  I have big hips?  This one goes hand in hand with #10.

4. Oh my, you have your hands full.  Is this a nice way of saying I have too many kids?  Or that my kids are bratty?  Hmmm.

5. That top/dress is so flattering on you.  Flattering?  Because it hides my muffin top?  Is that what you're saying?

6. If that were my child, I’d [fill in the blank]!

7. My kid also went through a nose-picking phase!

8. When’s the baby due?”

9. I wouldn’t let my child eat that.  Don't even try this one on me.  Someone recently told my youngest he'd give him a piece of candy if he ate a dead moth. He was all over that!  He'll do anything for candy.  I'm sure the moth would have been full of protein too.

10.  Glad I’m not the only one who wears mom jeans! 

THINGS THAT MATTER MOST

Just reminding myself . . .

If life and its rushed pace and many stresses have made it difficult for you to feel like rejoicing, then perhaps now is a good time to refocus on what matters most.

Diligently doing the things that matter most will lead us to the Savior of the world. 

 ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf



EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMETHING

About 8 years ago, if memory serves me well (which, let's face it, it probably doesn't) I was talking with a group of moms.  Several of them were older and wiser, more seasoned at parenting.  One of them said, "If you think there's nothing wrong with your kids, just wait."

I know, it sounds a little harsh.  At the time, my oldest (now 14) was about 6 years old.  There was nothing wrong with him.  Or any of my other kids, thank you very much.  I didn't realize it then, but "if you think there's nothing wrong with your kids, just wait," turned out to be some of the best parenting advice I ever got.

Our late pediatrician put it this way: Everybody's got something.  He got something.  Cancer.  He's been gone for awhile now.  I still haven't found a suitable replacement.  When you're looking for a doctor, try and find one that understands that everybody's got something. 

Fast forward five years.  Our oldest son is being life-flighted to the hospital because he had a massive seizure on a school field trip in the mountains.  Yes, of course I was distraught.  Panicked at times.  But in the hours after the seizure, I remembered what those wise mothers had shared with me all those years before.  If you think there's nothing wrong with your kids, just wait. 

Don't get me wrong.  After my conversation with those women, I didn't spend nights lying awake, trying to figure out what my kid's something was going to be.  Health problems?  Dyslexia?  Autism?  Depression?  Bullying?  Don't  worry and wring your hands over that.  It's a waste of time.  Because chances are you'll never guess right.  I wouldn't have come up with seizures in a million years.

But when that first seizure happened, in a strange way, it didn't surprise me.  The actual seizure surprised me.  But the fact that my son had something didn't. The idea that everybody's got something was strangely comforting to me. 

I know, some kids have multiple somethings.  Some are born with them.  Some of us don't find out what our something is until we're old and feeble.  Maybe you don't even know what your something is yet.  Which means your parents are still waiting to find out what's wrong with you.

Even now, when I start feeling stressed out about this seizure problem, it helps to remember that I'm not the only parent out there dealing with this sort of thing.  The sort of thing that makes you anxious.  Really anxious.  That makes you want to seal your kid up in a bubble and never let him leave the house again.  I get past that by remembering that every parent in the world feels that way at some time or another, and if they can deal with it, so can I.

I'm not going to lie.  Seizures scare the living daylights out of me.  I hate them.  But I wouldn't trade seizures for any of the millions of other somethings that could be wrong with my son.  And if you had a choice, you probably wouldn't trade your kid's challenges for any of the million other challenges that kids face in the world today.  It's funny how it works out that way. 

Those women who tipped me off about the fact that something was going to be wrong with my kids are the women I look up to the most when it comes to parenting.  Sure, they worry and pace and lie awake at night, just like the rest of us.  But because they understand that everybody has something, they handle things with the kind of wisdom and grace that I want to have as a mother.

So love your kids.  Spend time with them.  Don't worry too much about what challenges might be in the future.  Just prepare (in the most calm, reasonable manner possible for a mother) for what surely lies ahead.  Remember, everybody's got something.

And most importantly, remember this:  One of the wonderful things about being a mother is thinking your kids are absolutely perfect, no matter what their something is.

THE INVISIBLE MOM

A few months ago, my mom emailed me something and I've been saving it up just for Mothers Day.  Happy Mother's Day to all the invisible mothers out there, including my own!

Me, mom, grandma, and great-grandma.

 One of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask

to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'

Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping

the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can

see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this?

Can you open this?? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being.

I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number

is the Disney Channel?'

I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my phone?,

What's for dinner?'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the

eyes that studied history, music and literature - but now,

they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.

She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a

friend from England. She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and

she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there,

looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not

to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic,

when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package,

and said, 'I brought you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly

sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'With

admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book.

And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths,

after which I could pattern my work:

1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals -

we have no record of their names.

2) These builders gave their whole lives for a

work they would never see finished.

3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

4) The passion of their building was fueled by their

faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the

cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny

bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man,

'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be

covered by the roof, No one will ever see it.

And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me,

'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day,

even when no one around you does.

No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on,

no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting,

no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over.

You are building a great cathedral, but you can't

see right now what it will become.'

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder.

As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished,

to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went

so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime

because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend

he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving,

'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies,

and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours

 and presses all the linens for the table.'

That would mean I'd built a monument to myself.

I just want him to want to come home.

And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say,

'You're gonna love it there...'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals.

We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.

And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel,

not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been

added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

GRATITUDE ENOUGH TO GO 'ROUND

Photo source

Harry S. Truman said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

I've noticed, since the demise of Osama bin Laden on Sunday, a bit of a debate about who we should be thanking. 

Some say the Navy Seals deserve all the credit and the President deserves none.  Some want to give the President more credit than others think he deserves.  And what about the previous administration? And all the other military personnel? The CIA? The behind-the-scenes people?

Who, exactly, is it politically correct to thank here?  And why are we even having this debate?

I don't know much about covert ops or intelligence gathering or running a country.  I'm pretty sure what I've read in Tom Clancy novels doesn't count.  I know even less about losing a loved one in a terrorist attack, or a war.  I can only imagine, with great trepidation, what it must be like to hold down the fort for months, maybe even years, while my spouse or child is doing his military duty somewhere far away from home.

I don't know who has worked the hardest or lost the most sleep since September 11, 2001.  I do know that it most definitely wasn't me, and that there are a lot of people who deserve my thanks and gratitude today.  And so this is my humble and in no-way-meant-to-be-controversial opinion.

There are a lot of things we could conceivably run out of in this country.  Water.  Oil.  Food.  But I am confident that the gratitude in the hearts of the American people is a resource we have in unlimited supply.

It's not like a pie (an apple pie, of course, because we're talking about America here) where giving a big old slice of thank you to the military means there's no pie left for the President.  Giving some credit to the President and his cabinet doesn't mean that all our brave men and women in uniform are only going to get crumbs.

I know, a pie of gratitude is kind of a ridiculous metaphor, but I like the idea of never running out of pie.

Maybe this would be a good time to step away from our natural tendency to keep score.  To think that praise or gratitude for one person somehow diminishes someone else. 

Believe me, I do it too.  I admit, I am not yet the the type of person who doesn't feel a little bit slighted when someone else is being complimented or thanked for a job well done.  Especially if they are being complimented or thanked for something I think I'm good at.  Like cooking, or photography, or . . . well, that's it actually.

How does this happen, especially when we wish so much that it would not? I think one of the reasons is that every day we see allurements of one kind or another that tell us what we have is not enough. Someone or something is forever telling us we need to be more handsome or more wealthy, more applauded or more admired than we see ourselves as being. We are told we haven’t collected enough possessions or gone to enough fun places. We are bombarded with the message that on the world’s scale of things we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

How can we overcome such a tendency so common in almost everyone . . . we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed.  We can cheer every talent and ability, wherever it is bestowed, thus making life here more nearly what it will be like in heaven. - Jeffrey R. Holland

So go ahead, thank everyone in the military.  Thank them profusely.  Give them all the credit you possibly can.  Then go ahead and thank Barack Obama and his administration.  I promise, if you're a Republican it won't turn you into a Democrat.  While you're at it, thank George W. Bush and his administration.  It's not like we've only been hunting terrorists for the last 2 years.  I promise, if you're a Democrat it won't turn you into a Republican.

When you're done with that, since it's Teacher Appreciation Week, thank all the teachers who have made a difference in your life and the lives of your children.  Running out of gratitude yet?  I bet you'll still have plenty left to thank your mom on Sunday.  You know, for being awesome and bringing you into the world.

Isn't it wonderful how dispensing gratitude somehow fills your heart with even more thanks and gratitude?  And that, my friends, is how saying thank you to everyone you possibly can, for everything you possibly can, ensures that there is always gratitude enough to go 'round.

IT'S A SWIMSUIT MIRACLE

I went swimsuit shopping today.  I know it's not swimsuit weather yet, but if I wait, there won't be anything cute left in my size.  And I need a swimsuit for our cruise this summer. 

Technically, I need two.  Because there is nothing worse than getting up in the morning and putting on the damp swimsuit you wore the day before.

The miracle: I found something in the first store I went to.

Of course, this didn't happen without some strategic planning on my part.  My strategy? I looked in the mirror, faced the facts, and asked myself one simple question. 

Where would my mother shop for a swimsuit?

I skipped all the places I would have gone 10 years and 2 children ago.  The places with reasonably priced swimsuits. 

I headed straight for Land's End.  Technically, it's Sears, but that's the only place you can try on a swimsuit from Land's End.  I'm all for shopping online, but there is no way I am buying a swimsuit without trying it on first.

I ruled out all the bikinis right off the bat.  At my age, the idea is to conceal, not reveal.  There was still a vast selection to choose from.  I took one of everything into the change room.

I'd love to show you the swimsuit, but Land's End won't let me steal a picture from their website. What I ended up with is an awful lot like that swimsuit in the photo.  With a little more flare to the "skirt" and some strategically placed folds across the mid-section. Strategically placed to fool the eye into overlooking the actual folds on the mid-section of the person wearing the suit.

I liked it so much I only hyperventilated for a few seconds when I looked at the price tag.  There was a time in my life when I wouldn't have considered for two seconds spending $100 on a swimsuit.  But I'm older and flabbier now, and I've had to adopt a new swimsuit shopping strategy.

Namely this: It's better to look good than have money in your bank account.

OUR KIDS ARE WHO THEY ARE, AND IT IS ENOUGH

Several years ago, one of my wise and wonderful college roommates (we'll call her Michelle) shared an article on parenting from the San Francisco Chronicle.  It was written by a woman named Joan Ryan. 

Joan often felt like an incompetent mother to her adopted son with developmental challenges. She researched and took notes and kept binders of information in an effort to help him succeed.

When he was 16, he had a skateboarding accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. The experience completely changed her style of parenting. 

Her article contains some of the best parenting advice I've ever come across. I re-read it often.  Usually after I've been too hard on one of my kids about something relatively unimportant and I need to be reminded of how fabulous they really are.

Perhaps you can relate . . .

The embarrassing truth, as I look back on it now, is we felt kind of smug and maybe even a little superior, like buyers who had gotten the inside track on a house before it hit the market. Our triumph was in landing the final open slot for the professional pitching coach. Oh, believe me, there was competition. But our son, barely 12 years old at the time, became the lucky beneficiary of Sunday night, one-on-one pitching sessions for which we paid an hourly rate once earned only by lawyers and therapists.

The lessons, we thought, would be a hedge against abject Little League failure, a shell of protection from the hundred small humiliations visited upon boys who can't turn double-plays or hit fastballs. Our son left baseball the following year. It wasn't his sport. We had known it wasn't his sport. Yet we still felt compelled to hire an expert who could shore him up, boost his skills, maximize his potential.

I share this today because I am facing up to the fact that, as my son heads into high school, the expectations of success and the consequences of failure are ratcheting up. I listen to the anxiety in the voices of parents who are waiting this week to find out if their children were accepted in the high schools or colleges of their choice. I know that over the years, many of these parents -- like me -- have hired any number of specialists to "enhance" and "enrich" their children's development.

We have justified the constant molding and shaping and restructuring of our children by telling ourselves it's a different world from the one in which we grew up. The competition is almost medieval. One San Francisco private high school warned a parent she ought to get her son a tutor ASAP: His grade in algebra had dropped to a B-. And we know so much more about child development and brain function than our parents did. We immersed ourselves so fully in reading the books, attending the workshops and subscribing to the magazines that we intimidated ourselves into believing that we are not even close to having the skills necessary to be parents.

So we became the first generation of Americans to outsource the job, creating a booming new industry of educational therapists, college consultants, study-skills experts, college essay editors, nutritionists, personal trainers, social-skills instructors. We fear our children will fall behind and end up wearing a blue vest with a name tag for the rest of their lives and it will be our fault.

Stop the hamster wheel, I want to get off.

I'm taking my meddling hands off my son's life because I am realizing, as I watch him mature into a full-fledged teen, that he is who he is. For all my ham-handed tinkering, I didn't mold him into the person I envisioned. What I got instead, miraculously, thankfully, is the person he is.

"For a country that so values the individualistic spirit, we're stuck in this one-size-fits-all mind-set," said Alvin Rosenfeld, a former Stanford psychiatry professor, the father of three adolescents and author of the 2000 book, "Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard?"

"We think everybody should go to Stanford or Harvard and be athletes and get 1600s on their SATs," he said by phone from Stamford, Conn., where he is in private practice. "Everybody's looking for the same stupid stuff. But it's the quirky kids who are the innovators. They're the ones who created Silicon Valley. The future in the global market is in innovation and creativity. And that kind of creativity isn't in the universities."

His years of studying and treating children have led him to believe the most enriching experience parents can provide children is what seems like the simplest thing: Be with them. But it is not always easy, considering they might not want to be with us, especially when they are teenagers and would rather pull their hair out by the roots than be seen in public with the likes of us.

It's also not easy just to "be with them" because our little gerbil minds are so accustomed to moving, moving, moving that, just as we settle in together to watch "Pimp My Ride," we hear the crazy lady's voice inside saying, "Do something productive! Rent a foreign film! Visit the Lichtenstein exhibit! Explain metaphysics!"

I have been slapping my hand over that crazy lady's mouth. I have been trying to breathe and let my son struggle and stumble and get bored and get frustrated because, as Annie Lamott says, "It's good (for children) to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."

I wonder sometimes if we have put so much emphasis on the things that the experts can provide that we haven't provided enough of what only we can. Values. Unconditional acceptance. Refuge. Quiet. Love. Our job, it seems to me, is to spackle the cracks and shore up the foundation of our kids, not to rebuild them with Greek columns and turrets. Our job is to light up when they walk into the room.

The hardest part of parenting might be letting go of the prefab image you had in your head of what your child would achieve and what his personality would be and how he'd look when he thanked you from the podium at Stanford. I'll give in to the siren call of the experts, I know. My own insecurities run too deep to resist all of them. But I also know that my son has done a better job of molding himself than all the professional tinkerers could ever do.

For a generation of educated parents that believes with enough expertise, hard work and money just about everything is in their control, it comes as something of a shock that our kids can't be bent into shape like pipe cleaners.

They are who they are. And it is enough.

PUNISHING IT FORWARD

The other night, G and I were watching television.  The t.v. mother was lamenting the fact that no one ever tells you how hard it is to raise children before you actually have them.  The t.v. father agreed.  He had a name for this tendency parents have not to mention the difficulties of child-rearing to those who aren't parents yet.  Punishing it forward.

So in an effort to better inform those who have yet to embark on the path of child-rearing, I wanted to share this Eleven Step Program for Those Thinking of Having Kids by Amy Lawrence. And yes, #7 is absolutely true.  If you cannot manage to grocery shop with a herd of goats, you definitely should think twice before having kids--which coincidentally is what baby goats are called.

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.

2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.

3. Go home.

4. Pick up the paper.

5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...

1. Methods of discipline.

2. Lack of patience.

3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.

4. Allowing their children to run wild.

5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)

2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.

3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.

4. Set the alarm for 3AM.

5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.

6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.

7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.

8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.

9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.

2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.

3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.

4. Then rub them on the clean walls.

5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.

6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.

2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.

2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.

3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.

4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.

2. Make a small hole in the side.

3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.

4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.

5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.

6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt-sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

*Lengthy disclaimer: I love all of my children and except for the time C pulled the curtains (rod and all) from the wall, and that other time when he colored all over the new carpet with markers, and those times they all pooped in the bathtub, I don't regret having them for one second.  As the author of this 11 step program said, "this is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say 'it's all worth it!' Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you'll need when you become a parent!"

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: TO REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE

I'm not much on New Year's Resolutions.  Maybe because I'm not very good at keeping them.  But there is one resolution I'm going to make as 2010 comes to a close and 2011 begins.  My resolution? To remember Lot's wife. 

Let me explain.  Not in my own words, but in the words of Jeffrey R. Holland, someone who has inspired me on more than one occasion to do better and to be better.  At the beginning of 2009 he gave an address at Brigham Young University, where he was once the president, and I was once a student.  Here's some of what he had to say about looking ahead.

The start of a new year is the traditional time for us to take stock of our lives and see where we are going measured against the backdrop of where we have been . . .

As a theme for this discussion I have chosen the second shortest verse in all of Holy Scripture. It is Luke 17:32, "Remember Lot's wife."

The story of Lot's wife comes to us out of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah when the Lord, having had as much as He could stand of the worst that men and women could do, told Lot and his family to flee because those cities were about to be destroyed.

With less than immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. Surely with the Lord's counsel "look not behind thee" ringing clearly in her ears, Lot's wife, the record says, "looked back," and she was turned to a pillar of salt . . .

What did Lot's wife do that was so wrong? As something of a student of history, I have thought about that and offer this as a partial answer. Apparently what was wrong with Lot's wife is that she wasn't just looking back, but that in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her.

It isn't just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future.

As a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterday however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in . . . when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future -- faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot's wife is to say she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord's ability to give her something better than she had. Apparently she thought, fatally as it turned out, that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind. 

When my wife and I were first married, we had absolutely no money. We had a small apartment just south of campus -- all of two rooms and a bath. We were both working too many hours trying to stay afloat financially -- but we had no other choice.

I remember one fall day, walking together up the hill past the Maeser Building on the sidewalk between the President's Home and the Brimhall Building. Somewhere on that path we stopped and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.

On a spot which I could probably still mark for you today, I turned to my wife and said something like, "Should we give up? I can get a good job and carve out a good living for us. I can do okay without a degree. Should we stop trying to tackle what right now seems so difficult to face?" In my best reenactment of Lot's wife I said, in effect, "Let's go back. Let's go home. The future holds nothing hopeful for us."

Then my beloved bride did what she has done for 45 years since then. She grabbed me by the lapels and said, "We are not going back. We are not going home. The future holds everything hopeful for us."

Twenty years later I would on occasion, look out of the window of the President's Home across the street from the Brimhall Building and picture there on the sidewalk two newly wed BYU students, down on their money and down even more on their confidence. As I would gaze out that window I would occasionally see not Pat and Jeff Holland but you who were walking that same sidewalk -- sometimes as couples, sometimes as a group of friends, sometimes just one lone student. And I knew that some of you were having those same thoughts we had had. Is there any future for me? What does a new year, or a new semester, or a new major, or a new romance hold for me? Will I be safe? Will life be sound? Can I trust in the Lord and in the future? Or would it be better to look back, to go back, to go home?

To all such of every generation I call out, "Remember Lot's wife." Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us. I pray you will have a wonderful year, and a wonderful life filled with faith and hope and charity. Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant, and live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, trust and divine love transform your life today, tomorrow and forever. That is a New Year's resolution I ask you to keep.

MAYBE CHRISTMAS DOESN'T COME FROM A STORE

Christmas is less than a week away! Here are a few thoughts that help me remember the true reason for the season . . .

"The Grinch, that memorable character from a classic children’s story by Dr. Seuss, had a heart that “was two sizes too small,” and he hated everything about Christmas. Through the course of the story, however, he undergoes a dramatic transformation when he learns that there is more to Christmas than decorations and gifts.

Perhaps the Grinch’s story is so memorable because, if we are honest, we may be able to relate to him. Who among us has not felt concern over the commercialization and even greed of the Christmas season? Who hasn’t felt overwhelmed by the packed calendars, the stress of finding gifts, the pressure of planning meals and events? In fact, psychologists tell us that during this season of cheer and goodwill, many feel sorrow and depression.

We know what the Christmas season ought to be—we know it should be a time of reflection on the birth of the Savior, a time of celebration and of generosity. But sometimes our focus is so much on the things that annoy and overwhelm us that we can almost hear ourselves say in unison with the Grinch: “Why, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now! I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! . . . But HOW?”

While it’s true that we can find materialism and anxiety in Christmas, it is also true that if we have eyes to see, we can experience the powerful message of the birth of the Son of God and feel the hope and peace He brings to the world. We, like the Grinch, can see Christmas through new eyes.

If we look for what is wrong with the Christmas season, we can surely find it. Like the Grinch, we can grumble and complain, becoming cold and cynical about what we see around us. Nevertheless, if we look for the good, we can see this time of year with new eyes—perhaps even with the eyes of a child.

The Grinch saw the good in Christmas when he learned to look past its worldly trappings. If we do the same, we can, with the Grinch, proclaim: “Maybe Christmas . . . doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas . . . perhaps . . . means a little bit more!” ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Merry Christmas Everyone!

WE'RE RAISING BOYS

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.

Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass."

"We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."

~Harmon Killebrew

I'm sharing @ Wordful Wednesday @ Seven Clown Circus

Wordless Wednesday @ A Beautiful Mess and Live and Love Out Loud