My apron strings, a status report

These kids just keep going and coming back and leaving again. At this rate my proverbial apron strings are going to be all in tatters with all the stretching and untying and retying. This summer feels like a huge turning point in our family with the kids trying their beautiful new wings (new metaphor alert!) and us, their parents, waving goodbye and smiling and jumping up and down and blinking back tears.

Or I might be a little bit lonely and melancholy today.

I put Maddy on the train early this morning so she could trek up to Maine to join her friend and friend's family at their lake house for the weekend. Lauren blips in and out between work and socializing, already acclimating herself to reduced family contact. Sam is at yonder camp and must be having a blast because he hasn't written us even once, although I did email the director (helicopter mom hover powers activate!) and he assured me Sam is doing great. 

Yonder camp is pretty wonderful, though. He's at Birch Creek Service Ranch in Utah, a program for good kids to learn more about service and community and have lots of outdoor fun. It's based on the philosophy of one of my heroes, Lowell Bennion, and his creed:

Learn to like what doesn't cost much

Learn to like reading, conversation, music.

Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking.

Learn to like fields, trees, brooks, hiking, rowing, climbing hills.

Learn to like people, even though some of them may be different   . . . different from you.

Learn to like to work and enjoy the satisfaction doing your job as well as it can be done.

Learn to like the song of birds, the companionship of dogs.

Learn to like gardening, puttering around the house, 

and fixing things.

Learn to like the sunrise and sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, and the gentle fall of snow on a winter day.

Learn to keep your wants simple and refuse to be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others.

(Of course, you don't have to go to a 3-week camp to learn these things. But keep in mind he has no brothers. He's the only 12-13 year old boy at church. He needs some intensive boy time.) The boys spend the first half of every day doing service in the surrounding community of ranches and farms, the afternoons doing camp fun, and the evenings in concerts and discussions and group activities, with some backpacking trips thrown in along the way.  Ever since our friend's son went a few years ago and raved about it we've kept it in mind for Sam.  So we are thrilled he's able to go, too.  It would be even better if he WROTE US A LETTER so we knew it was as awesome as we hoped. But whatever. My letters to him are increasingly pleading threatening inviting so I think he'll get the message sometime along the way.

My mothering years are galloping by at breakneck pace.  I'd love to peek in on our years of afternoon summer naps and swim diapers and sticky popsicle faces and towel bundled babies on my lap and 5:00 bathtime. Just to visit. Maybe linger. It's true: the days are long but the years are short. I used to roll my eyes at it but turns out they knew what they were talking about.

Now remind me: why didn't I have more kids? Just kidding. Kinda. 

. . .

Photo via

Another farewell every day

 

Isn't it amazing that virtual (just about) strangers voluntarily agree to get up at the crack of 0 dark thirty to teach other people's children about faith and scripture and life and eternity? Yes. Yes, it is. Almost as amazing as a group of teenagers voluntarily arising at the same hour and groggily making their way to church for a daily 6 a.m. class. On Sunday Lauren celebrated four years of this routine, graduating from our church's youth seminary program. Thank you to her teachers, past and present. You've made all the difference.

And here again, another farewell. Another landmark passed. Another lump in my throat. 

Actually, to be absolutely honest, I'm still in denial but this week--with all its "last this" and "last thats"--is working overtime to get me out of denial and into hysterical meltdown mode. I'm a little nervous...it's not going to be pretty once it hits. This episode of Modern Family hits a little too close to home.

Liner Notes 2-5

 

2.  Never get your hair cut in the midst of an emotional crisis or on the day of a big event.  Haircuts, like guns & new hiking boots, need at least a 5-day waiting/breaking-in period. 'Nuf said.

3. If you're going to do it anyway, you might as well skip over the complaining and just do it cheerfully. This is closely related to your great-great grandmother's saying that has trickled down through the ages: be pretty if you are, be witty if you can, but be cheerful if it kills you.

4. Don't expect mind reading.  As much as it would be lovely for boyfriends, husbands (though I expect you'll have just one), friends, roommates, and work colleagues to have the capacity to read your mind, life is happier when you express your expectations (or even lower them!).  A well-placed "what-I'd-really-love-for-my-birthday" is much better than a disappointment-drowned day, complete with baffled and well-meaning loved ones. Speak up, my dear.

. . .

With the first of my children leaving home in the next few months, I'm writing occasional Liner Notes, bits of advice to my kids concerning my take on how to be a gracious, awesome grown-up-type person (both trivial bits and major advice). Why "liner notes"? Because, back in the day, I pored over the liner notes of my cds, curious to find the story behind the music. That's what I hope this will be: the story behind the music of growing up and setting off on your own. (Or at least a ready-made catalog of how you can avoid making my mistakes.)

Feel free to chime in with your own in the comments, please! 

Photo: sisters in the kitchen (via Duke University Collection, 1980 by William Gedney)

Liner notes to growing up: 1

Exactly three months from today Lauren starts college. I just did a little heart skipping gasp there as I wrote that. Do you know what you do when you have three months left to impart what little wisdom about the world you've acquired? You panic a little. You wonder if you've done enough. 

Recently I realized that Miss L actually reads this blog now and then (hi Laurengirl!) and so I thought I'd direct a few entries (maybe weekly on Wednesdays?) to my kids concerning my take on how to be a gracious, awesome grown-up (both trivial bits and major advice). 

I'm calling this liner notes because, back in the day, I pored over the liner notes of my cds, curious to find the story behind the music. That's what I hope this will be: the story behind the music of growing up and setting off on your own. 

 1. Thank you notes really are essential.  Don't cash the check, use the gift, or read the book until you've written a note, a real envelope-and-paper, stamped, delivered note. (Also send one the day after being invited to dinner or a party.) It doesn't have to be long. It can just say "thank you so much." But thank you notes are non-negotiable: it lets the giver know you got it, that you appreciate it, and it increases the chances that you'll be invited back or given something again. Trust me on this one.

. . .

Feel free to chime in with your endorsement of whatever you agree with...you know how kids are more likely to believe something when it comes from a non-parental authority! 

p.s. Inspired by 1001 rules for my unborn son and other awesome such sites.

Backseat confessional

Something about riding in the car inspires all sorts of conversations and confessionals, doesn't it? A usually reticent boy will open up and relate detailed school interactions, thoughts about current events, intricacies of middle school social structure, plots of books, outlines of essays he's writing. The key is to remain mildly interested but not TOO interested if you know what I mean. Like most skittish creatures, middle school boys scamper away at the first hint of bright spotlight and inquiry.

Last week we were driving to scouts (or some other such thing) and a certain someone started describing how in one class his friends started dissing their parents, telling stories about how lame or clueless or (gulp) awful their parents are.

This should be interesting, I thought. Remember: skittish. Channel disinterest, disinterest, disinterest.

"Oh? Hmmm..."

"Yeah, I couldn't really think of anything really. But finally I told everyone how you used to mix up my shorts with Maddy's when you folded laundry into piles."

Well, whew. Internal fist pump. Though I couldn't decide if he was trying to compliment me or clear his conscience! 

I had to laugh. Don't get me wrong; there are tons of things he could have said about my cluelessness/bad parent moments. But as evidentiary exhibits of bad parents go, I'll take it. I love his rosy memory and am just thrilled that at least one of my kids doesn't have an encyclopedic memory of all of my less stellar moments. Because they're there. Oh, they're there. Just ask my other two.