On Your Eleventh Birthday

Dear Joshua:

You’re eleven years old! That’s wild to me. I don’t know why eleven feels so much older than ten. Maybe it’s because you’re going to middle school (WHYYYYYYY) this year, or maybe it’s because you’ve grown up so much lately. Whatever it is, it’s been really fun to watch you at this stage.

i’ve been thinking about what to write for you for a while. Sometimes your birthday brings a lot of emotions for me. I’m always thrilled that you’re here, but sometimes it’s a lot to remember. That isn’t your fault, of course, but sometimes I have difficulty figuring out what I want to say. So this will be a little departure from the norm. and if you decide you don’t like it… well, get your own blog.

”Looking Back”

A boy, a girl,
They fell in love,
Grew together
Exchanged some vows.

Days went by,
Then months,
Then years,
And they knew the time was now.

They had prayed
And wondered aloud
Seeking guidance
On bended knee.

And one day,
the answer came.
God reached down
And gave them peace.

The boy, the girl
They felt such joy
To have their cries
Be seen and known.

But the joy they knew,
The plans they’d made,
Crumbled and faded
Just as they’d grown.

Their precious boy,
Already so loved,
Fought to breathe
And fought to live.

The boy, the girl
They stood by his side
Unsure, now, how to pray
Unsure of God’s motives.

Days went by,
Then weeks,
Then months,
So many days the same.

Their son, so loved
Would rise, would fall
Until one day,
God whispered his name.

The boy, the girl,
They had thought hard,
And had known their son’s name
For many days.

And now, while waiting,
While fearful, while watching,
Heard God remind them:
“It means ‘I will save.'”

Their precious son,
Already so bold,
Already so brave,
Began to fight anew.

The boy, the girl,
Witnessed God’s love
As He whispered,
“See what I can do.”

For that same God
Who gave them peace,
Was with them,
And stayed there each day.

His hands reached down
To their precious son
And continued
To model the clay.

The boy, the girl,
Now they knew
That when God
Seemed far and cold,

That He was the same
God who had given
The peace they had
Longed to hold.

In times of sorrow,
In times of joy,
In times of peace,
fear, depression, pain.

The God they knew.
Who sent His Son,
Was — and would always be —
the same.

The boy, the girl,
Their precious son,
They had been given
A most precious gift.

For though their son
Would struggle still,
Develop slowly, differently…
There was a shift.

Not a curse;
No, not at all.
Their precious son
Was free!

Not from hardship,
Woes, or pain.
But to seek God
And know eternity.

Their precious son,
Now growing up,
Has declared it
For his own.

He seeks the Lord,
God’s will be done!
He prays and sings,
Never truly alone.

The boy, the girl,
They thought before
God was good
When he brought joy.

But now they saw
God’s goodness
Displayed in the hardship
Known by their boy.

The boy, the girl,
They realized, then,
That we don’t love God
For good times He brings.

They loved their Lord,
And sought Him now,
Because He had given them
A precious son who sings.

God showed them hardship;
That part is true.
But there is more to
The story to tell.

God said He’d save,
And then He did,
And now, through hardship,
It is well.

The boy, the girl,
Their precious son,
Would take sadness
And despair again,

As now they know
God is always God
He will be, He is,
And He’s always been.

Happy, happy, happy eleventh birthday to my Joshy, my Josher Washer, my Jo-Jo, my t-rex loving, Titanic facts learning, Lego building, always singing, pillow stealing boy. I hope you know that we love you always. We love you when you fail a test and we love you when you accomplish a goal and we love you when you drive us crazy and we love you when you make us laugh and when you cry and when you sing and when you wake up and when you go to bed. We love you and we would never change a thing.

Love,
Mom

Five Years of You

Dear Jenna,

Happy, happy 5th birthday!

Every year on both of your birthdays, I like to stay up until midnight, so I can sneak a peek at you or Josh right as you are turning another year older. I always look forward to it. But this year, I will admit to being a little less excited about it. Not because I am unhappy it’s your birthday, but because a little part of me is sad to see my smallest baby grow into such a big, wonderful girl.

This year has been amazing for you. The transformations I’ve seen in you have been unbelievable. You learned to swim! That was what we spent most of last summer doing. You went from being too afraid to let go of me in the water with floaties on to pushing me away so you could do it all by yourself.

Doing things by yourself has been a theme for this year. You constantly tell me, “Mom, I got this,” and you do not want any help. That has been another change for you – I remember you coming to me at the beginning of the school year and telling me you couldn’t open your applesauce by yourself. Now, you get mad if I don’t give you a chance to try on your own.

Your confidence, while always one of your strongest qualities, has grown so much this year. You used to shy away from strangers, only talk to one or two friends at school, and hide behind me when someone at church said hello. And that was all okay – I never want you to feel like those were bad things to do! They were great things, because they were you. And now, you are the girl who jumps in front of me to greet people, who introduces yourself to new friends, who has gone from one or two friends to a whole classroom full.

You love babies. You loooooooove babies. And you are so patient with them! You let little cousins and little siblings of friends play with your toys, and you walk with them to get to where they are going, and you laugh and gently tell them no when they go for a fistful of your hair. I love that about you – I love how patient you are, and what a generous spirit you have.

This year, you have also learned a lot about what it means to be a sibling of someone with special needs. Through countless therapy visits, doctors appointments, and one memorable hospital stay for Josh, you have never complained. I want you to know that, even though I don’t always get to spend the time I want to with you, I love you SO much. I love you and Joshua the same, and I wish I could always give both of you 100% of my time. But you are my strong, independent girl, and you give me the time I need to help your brother.

That isn’t to say we don’t get our fair share of play time! You and I have had countless adventures together, mostly in the mornings before school when we play with ponies, build with blocks, or explore in the resource room for craft ideas. We pretended to be invisible ninjas, and got to watch baby chicks grow. At home, we were Barbie sisters, Shopkins pals, and had dozens of “sleepovers” in the middle of the afternoon. You are always up for a new adventure, and your imagination never stops.

Your career goals have changed a little – now you want to be a fancy hair stylist for ballerinas. You will drive a van around to the fanciest places and give ballerinas the fanciest hairdos. You will call your business Orange Grape Clips, and you will also have a fancy dog. Just remember your un-fancy mom during all this, okay? I need help with my hair all the time.

Fancy things are your favorite. You love to come into my room and go through my jewelry box. You always walk away with a prize – a bracelet or necklace that was mine as a kid, and you add it carefully to your own “colleption” of beautiful things that you keep inside your Build-A-Bear wardrobe. You love make up and dresses and picking out your shoes always takes some time – and you never pick the ones I think you will.

You even wore a skirt while you played baseball – it was very “A League Of Their Own,” and you did not care one bit that it might be harder to play in a skirt. Although I don’t know if you were in baseball for the game as much as you were for the accessories… You may not ever want to do it again, but I am proud of you for finishing the season and getting your trophy!

The most exciting thing this year happened just a couple of weeks ago – we were driving Josh to school when you asked if you could pray to become a Christian and follow Jesus forever. I was so, so excited for you, and I love that you were bold enough to ask. Things like that can be hard for you – you don’t always love being the center of attention when you don’t expect it. But you asked and we talked and you prayed and it was wonderful <3

Jenna, these last five years with you have been fantastic. You are funny, and silly, and sweet, and smart. One comment I always get about you is how you are always willing to pitch in to clean up, to help out, or answer a question. You get so much joy from giving others joy. I want to be as generous as you!

You have your moments – we all do :) but even in those moments where your lip is out and your foot is stomped and your arms are crossed, I thank God for those qualities (sometimes it takes me a few hours…), because you have a boldness about you that I want you to always have.

And you are still little in just a few ways – you still use “m” for some “n” sounds, like when you “meed” something to eat. You still add an extra “ed” to things you want to make past-tense, like “fixeded.” You still believe that magic is real and that Rapunzel really did escape her tower and that unicorns live in the woods. You don’t really care if your shoes are on the right feet, and you think glitter is the answer to everything. I am clinging to these little girl qualities about you, because I know you are growing before my eyes.

Happy, happy, happy 5th birthday to the best little girl I will ever know – my Jenna, my Jenner Benner, my Beaner Girl, my Jenster, my baby. You will rock kindergarten – because you got this.

Love you forever – or, as you would say, for 9,000 days – ,

Mommy

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  “I can’t believe you forgot about me. Again.”

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An Open Letter to My Children

Kids…I love you. I think you know that. And I think you also know that I often seem to express my love in odd ways – like fussing at you for moving too slowly in the mornings or getting on to you for spilling your juice. I want to do better. I want to show my love in better ways. I always start out with the best intentions.

Every morning, I pray for you. I pray for your safety, for the little things I know you struggle with, for you to have a great day. I pray to have patience and to let the little things go. I pray for reminders that you are only this little for a short while, and that I should cherish these moments. I pray that today is the day I manage my frustration with no – okay, maybe just a few – mistakes.

And every night, I pray for forgiveness of my failure to achieve all of these things. Or, just as often, my failure to achieve any of these things.

If you want the truth, I’ll go ahead and give it to you: Parenting you is hard. Not because you’re bad kids and not because I don’t love you.

If I could let you take a brief tour of my mind, you might understand. It’s like a bag of cats in there – neglected household chores competing for attention with overdue bills are swirling around, usually surrounded by a revolving schedule of school activities, work commitments, therapy goals, and doctor’s appointments. Sprinkled around you’ll find anxiety over my own stuff – money and work and marriage; worry that I am forgetting something important; fear that today is the day I say something to you that ruins your life forever. Look left and right while you’re in there and you’ll see two of me arguing with each other – one convinced that tough love was the right call; the other certain that a gentler approach would have yielded more understanding.

And that’s just the first layer.

Keep digging, and you’ll see doubt. So much doubt. It claims its own special section of my mind, plaguing me with the fear that I have messed up one too many times. I yelled too much, I didn’t forgive quickly enough, I didn’t give you the attention you so desperately needed. And then, of course, there’s the doubt that I was too soft and now you won’t understand consequences, that I forgave you instantly and you didn’t learn from it, and that so much attention has caused you to totally rely on me for validation.

There are about 12 more layers to go after that.

I don’t present this to you as an excuse, as the saying goes, but an explanation. An explanation of why you throwing one more ball at me when I am already juggling 17 is just enough to send me over the edge. An explanation of why I love to hear you sing, but at this moment, hearing one more sound is the absolute last thing I need. An explanation of how I can love you so much and want to be alone for just a few minutes.

But if I am asking you to understand my mind, then it’s only fair that I work to understand yours. Your anxieties and fears and joys and excitement might be a little less defined, but are no less valid. I know that your need to sit right next to me, thigh to thigh, at all times is not borne from a desire to annoy, but a desire for closeness. Your continued requests for another snack are likely not a cleverly designed plot to keep me from working, but a need that you cannot meet for yourself and therefore have found the one person who can help you in that moment. And when I do not respond, you can only assume I am not paying attention, or can’t hear you. And so you ask again. And again. You know I will get frustrated, but you can’t help yourself.

Should you learn to be patient? Yes. Should I learn to be patient? Yes.

So, kids, we have to decide – whose needs are greater? Who wins?

The answer is neither of us. Neither of us wins, because neither of us is perfect. You know better than to push your sibling. I know better than to expect two preschool-aged children to get along like adults. We both know better, but we don’t do better.

And, so, today, like many other days, I have prayed for patience. And, today, like many other days, God has given me multiple opportunities to practice. But I think tomorrow I will pray for something else. I will pray for the ability to get out of the way and let God work through me, to erase my imperfections and give you the mom you need. I will pray for each of you to practice the kindness and love that we have so often talked about – and I will pray you find an example of those things through me.

In short, dear kiddos, I will try my hardest. I am a fallen person in a fallen world, and my best will be full of mistakes. I will ask you to try your hardest, which will also be full of mistakes. I will yell at you again. You will make eye contact with me as you deliberately crumble a fistful of Goldfish crackers into the couch. We are human, you and I, and that means perfection is not in our future.

No, not perfection. But if we both agree to focus less on ourselves and more on what God has called each of us to do, I think we can achieve grace for each other’s flaws, forgiveness of each other’s wrongs, and enough love to cover every inevitable mistake.

I will offer to read this to you, and you will say okay. I will get frustrated at your inability to sit still. You will get bored of listening to your mother read her own blog to you. We will argue.

And then we will make up.

Love you always,

Mommy

On Your Fifth Birthday

Happy fifth birthday, buddy! You are already five years old… it’s hard to believe. Which is funny, because when you’re a parent, you’ll see that some days drag so slowly you think they’ll never end, and some days pass so fast you can’t remember they happened. And, somehow, enough days passed for you to be five!

Every year with you is more and more fun, and this year has been no exception. You learned a lot of new words this year – you like to tell me you’re “SO disappointed,” how “delighted” you are, and when you feel “very frustrated.” You still haven’t mastered your R and L sounds, so it’s ridiculously adorable to hear you say big words in such a little voice. Sometimes you try to correct Jenna and teach her a new word – it rarely (maybe never) works, but I like to hear you try.

You’ve spent probably 75% of this year dressed as someone else – Captain America, a dinosaur, Spiderman, Marshall, and sometimes a costume of your own creation. You love to dress up and play pretend. And you do not break character for anything. You make those British guards look like party animals. Sometimes, when you’re a puppy, it’s really tricky, because you’ll only answer to your puppy name, which I don’t know, and which you won’t tell me because “puppies don’t talk.” Except to say that one sentence.

Superheroes have been one of your favorite things this year. Every morning you hopefully ask me if it’s raining so you can wear your Batman raincoat. When you wear it, you have me put the “hoodie” up so you can run around singing, “Nah, nah, nah, nahhhhh, BATMANNNNNNNN!” over and over again.

This year was a tough one for you, medically speaking. You did bites at the Marcus Center, which was hard, but you did it. You gained inches and pounds and ate your weight in pureed food. I was (and am) really proud of the way you handled yourself during those sessions. We had some rough moments, which I may or may not find funny in five more years, but you gave it your all. And you’re still giving it your all each time we do the bites.

We also discovered that you were dealing with some other issues – namely, the issue where your blood sugar would plummet when you were sick! That was a fun surprise. We are still unraveling parts of that mystery, but you held up like a champ through tests, blood draws, and – the worst part – no Paw Patrol movies. It wasn’t fun, but you rarely complained. You are tough stuff, my friend.

We won’t talk about the two broken legs. Back to back. In summer.

I love watching you make new friends. You’ve become part of a little group at school, all of you kids who love building blocks and playing pretend. You could be friends with anyone. You could be friends with a sheet of paper. But I love to see you form these special bonds as you grow.

You’re so big now. So. big. What you lack in weight you make up for in literally everything else. You feel big feelings, you imagine big ideas, and you have a big smile. You love being big, and I know you’re holding strong to your goal of growing higher than the ceiling so we have to get you a giant house.

You’re also silly in big ways. You love to “trick” people, either by sneaking up on them or telling them something outrageous in such a serious tone that they actually start to believe you. You love mischief, and while it is often your sister who gets caught doing the actual mischief, I have a feeling she is only following orders from a certain five-year-old mastermind. I’m on to you, dude.

The other remarkable thing about this year is that you started to notice some of the differences between you and your friends and classmates – and you didn’t care. When you asked me why your school bus is so small, I answered you as best I could, by telling you everyone is assigned a bus that fits them perfectly, and held my breath while I waited for your answer. In your typical cheerful manner, you just said, “Oh!” and then went back to being Batman for a while. You don’t care about your differences. And they’ve made you more compassionate for others who are different, too.

Speaking of the bus… your morning bus driver recently told me that you sing songs for the entire ride. Paw Patrol, Batman, Robocar Poli, Little Einsteins – you sing it all at the top of your lungs, giving everyone a brief but exciting concert five days a week. On the way home, you chatter away, telling the driver and the aide about your day, about what you saw, who you saw, who you didn’t see, things you would like to see, something you think you saw but can’t remember, etc., etc., etc. X infinity. You love to talk, and if you don’t know the other person well, it makes no difference to you.

I could go on for pages and pages. I could talk about how funny you are. I could talk about how much I love to listen to you play. I could tell you how hard it is not to laugh when you study your reflection in the mirror until your “haircut” is perfect. I could tell you that even though I thought I was going to Italy, I wound up in Holland, and it’s a better trip than I could have ever planned.

What I will tell you is that I love you. And I’m proud of you. And you are FIVE today!

Love you always,

Mommy

How to take a toddler to the pool in just a few, easy steps

1. Tell toddler you will be going to the pool if they finish their lunch.

2. Immediately regret this decision as the toddler now spends the rest of lunch time saying, “Pool? We go pool? Pool now?”

3. Repeat the phrase “After you eat” so many times you’re thinking it would look nice as a tattoo.

4. Threaten toddler with no pool ever again if they do not finish EVERY BITE OF THAT TOAST.

5. Remove toddler from high chair. Throw the toast they didn’t eat in the garbage can. Realize you no longer have principles or resolve.

6. Look for sunscreen. It should be on the shelf. It’s not on the shelf. Maybe it’s in the bathroom. It’s not in the bathroom. Maybe under the couch. Not under the couch.

7. Oh, look – the toddler has it.

8. Try to rub suncreen all over toddler. Mutter things under your breath like, “We are NOT doing this again until Daddy is home to help.”

9. Realize toddler is now covered in fuzz, hair, and crumbs from rolling around on the carpet after being slathered in sunscreen. Decide not to care. The pool is basically like a bath, right?

10. Pick out a swimsuit for the toddler.

11. Pick a different one.

12. Pick a different one.

13. Pick a different one.

14. Put chosen suit on toddler.

15. Repeat step 14 for the next 12 minutes. Wonder how this suit got so impossibly hard to put on since the last time the toddler wore it.

16. Realize the suit is from last year. Pick a different one.

17. After finally dressing the toddler in his swimsuit, gather all accessories: pool float, pool key, extra hat, extra sunglasses, extra sunscreen, extra vodka, extra goldfish, extra towels.

18. Remember you have another child.

19. Put aside guilt in order to slather and dress the other child.

20. Yell for toddler after you realize he has escaped to parts unknown.

21. Swear to toddler you will put him in his crib for the rest of his life if he does not get out of the kitchen RIGHT NOW.

22. Convince toddler to go out to the car. Think about how much you want a nap as you wrangle the toddler, baby, and 473078402 additional items into your car.

23. Tell yourself you are going to stay at the pool for at least an hour. It’s a beautiful day and you are determined to tire these children out for bedtime.

24. Drive to pool. Contemplate driving into the pool.

25. Unload items.

26. Unbuckle toddler and tell him to stay right there as you unbuckle the baby.

27. Watch toddler ignore you as he heads for the pool gate.

28. Grab the baby and crap-ton of stuff and race toddler to the gate. Feel good about winning but then feel bad that you feel good about winning a foot race with a toddler.

29. Walk toddler to pool steps.

30. Convince toddler that this pool is not an agent of Satan sent to destroy all mankind, but is in fact the same pool that he has been asking to go to for the last hour.

31. Insert toddler into pool float against his will.

32. Insert baby into pool float, also against the toddler’s will.

33. Get into the pool and push the floats around, making high-pitched noises intended to convince the toddler that this is fun.

34. Spend seven minutes in the pool avoiding the glances of others noticing your crying child and his terrible mother who forced him into the pool.

35. Give up.

36. Remove toddler and baby from the pool.

37. Dry everyone off. Change toddler’s clothes. Change baby’s clothes.

38. Wrangle toddler, baby, and pool accessories that have somehow increased back into the car. Buckle everyone in.

39. Listen to toddler cry. Ask what’s wrong.

40. Bang head into steering wheel repeatedly upon hearing the answer, “I want pool!!!!”

Repeat as needed.

See? It’s easy.

“I can’t believe you forgot about me. Again.”