Hangin' out with Trouble Makers!

I only know girls. That’s not true. I used to only know girls. It’s all that had been around me. I grew up with my mother, my sister and myself, the house of gals!  I grew up with girl cousins.  I had boy cousins too and played with them, but I gravitated towards my girl cousins. There are a lot of girls in my family. My grandparents had 3 girls, mom and my aunts.  My grandfather’s brother had four girls, my second cousins.  My cousins started having babies, more girls.  OK, they had boys too, but at first, it was the girls. And now the cousins’ babies are growing up having babies, and yep! Girls!  My best friend had two girls. Then my sister had two girls.  I know a lot of girls that like to go on and on about how they only had guy friends not girl friends, cause some how that made them cooler and more down to earth or blah, blah, blah, something, something. But I had a ton of girl friends and I’m still pretty sure I’m as cool as I think I am in my own head.  I had some guy friends, but again, I gravitated to my girl friendships. I got girls, girls made sense to me.  The world of boys was foreign to me and I just steered clear of getting messy.

I didn’t want to have children, forever! But sort of always knew, if I did, I’d have a boy. But I didn’t have to worry about it, forever! Because I wasn't going to have children.  This is why you should never depend upon yourself and your own knowledge. You know nothing, least of all the future- and God loves to prove that! 

When we first decided to foster, with the hope we may adopt our own (yeah, I’m skipping the whole how I came to want kids bit), I just knew it would be a boy and that petrified me. I knew dolls, I knew Barbie and My Little Pony and I knew Jem and The Holograms.  I knew how to play house and even though I bit mine, I know about painting nails. I’m not all girly and frilly (clearly, if you've met me) and know little about pretty hairdos or make-up, but I get that girls dig that stuff and can support it.  I get the emotional breakdowns over things that will pass quickly (like sixth grade and boys at the dances), I get having crushes you’d just die for that don’t know your first name and I know secrets between best friends are precious gifts (Just ask mine –we know too much about each other and I think its an unsaid agreement, what we know, we take to the grave).  And I know the, you know, physiological stuff.  The boy “stuff’, was a different world that I didn’t want to delve into!  What did I know about boys?

Boys were loud! They were disobedient and challenging! Boys destroyed stuff! They ran around and yelled! Boys were violent and mean and bullied!  Boys played rough and fought, wrestled and completed. Boys fart and laugh, Boys burp and laugh, Boys tell rude jokes and laugh.  Boys didn’t listen or follow routines or instructions. Boys were trouble! No! Boys were Trouble, capital ‘T’!  Raising a boy! That was terrifying.

I think I've mentioned a time or two, I’m hard headed and don’t take in learnin’ the easy way.  God always has to give it to me the hard way to teach me right!  God gave me boys.  Boys! And how fast does a girl knowing momma fall in love with a trouble makin’ boy? 

Oh, instantly!

They called us and told us they had a trouble maker in the hospital! He was sick and cried a lot. He was in pain and struggle to cope with what his little body had been dealt. He wasn't doing so swell and lots of tummy trouble. He’d be a challenge and we’d have hard work with this one.  He’d come with medication, he’d come with charts to fill out and scores to keep up with.  He’d come with tremors, sensitivities to noise and lights, vomit and wailing.  He’d come sleepless and uncomfortable. It wouldn't be an easy road, do we want in?  Psht! Bring it! We were there that night.  We walked in and there he was! Screaming in his bathtub- just awesome! Just perfect! Just what God had order- a beautiful boy for us, Zachie.

Oh, then trouble maker number two blew on to the scene.  Willful and loud and demanding! He decided he had enough of a small little space and wanted out in the worst way, but a little too soon.  But he wasn't scared; he knew he was strong and ready for the world.  9 weeks early, he had us around his teeny, tiny pinkie- Special rooms, special beds, special meds, special food, special tubes, and special large medical bills.  My favorite answer to give when a doctor asks, ‘How long has he been sick like this?’ is “Well, he was born two years ago, so let’s see…yeah, two years.” And they look at me like I said at punch line and I say, ‘That’s my final answer.”  But he came on the scene with the strength of prayers on his side- just awesome! Just perfect! Just what God had order- a beautiful boy for us, Hurricane Isaac.

And now I know boys.  I know boys are loud! But it’s giddy, fun and wonderfully infectious! And full of adventure!  They are oriented to try hard and please, and so anything that challenges them they’ll proudly proclaim, “I win, I the best!” And they’ll fall into your arms for a big hug and kiss.  They destroy everything in their path because it’s what it was created for! Block towers raise high over heads, train tracks weave in and out of furniture! Piles of blanket forts and trucks lined up as long as rugs!  It’s all for the sole purpose for the ‘bad guy” to destroy! But not to worry! Spider-man will come along soon and avenge them all!!!!!  Boys are sweet, helpful and so large in their loving!  They say I love you with grins of ketchup.  They kiss you all over your face with the peanut butter lips.  They hug you with a wind up run across the kitchen floor.  And yes- boys fart and laugh, boys burp and laugh, boys tell silly jokes and laugh.  And you know what, momma’s laugh at it too!  Boys are smart and learn so quickly, just give them the energy to do so!  Don’t make a boy sit! Don’t make him confided and still!  He’s a boy, let him move! Boys want to please you and say sorry so fast when they know they've wronged you.  Boys are awesome. No! Boys are Awesome, with a capital ‘A’! 

And all the hard stuff, the disobedience, the learning of lessons by all parties and trouble times where it gets a little tough.  Well, that’s all kids, boy or girl.  They love me not because I’m perfect at being a mom of boys, but because I’m their mom and they never have to doubt my love.  And I’ve got a super hero to back me; Christ is there with every painful prayer.  And the physiological stuff, well…we’ll figure it as we go, besides I’m pretty sure Marc’s got it covered.  Besides, I have more pee stories in this head of mine then I ever thought possible.  

My boys have given me my awesome new life. Every day they give me a new story to tell!  And I think that will be a focus for a while of this blog.  Their joyful, often hilarious stories these boys write on my heart.

I am a momma of boys and it’s all I know! Girls are scary! What the heck would I do with a girl!? How terrifying!

And before you ask, yes, we are done! Two boys are good for me!  Really, I’m done.  I know this! We’ve decided this!  You hear that God, don’t go provin’ any points, ok?

Please?

I feel like I just invited a new kind of trouble…………………………………………....

Anyways, enjoy the stories to come!  Zachie and Isaac are about to make you laugh a lot.  I know, I live with them!

Why?

“Why?”

I look at her hard.  She know my answer; she just won’t give to me!

She watching that road again, back and forth, back and forth.

She looks at me, “What, baby?”

I soooo exasperated with her lately!  But, I was feeling gracious.  “Ugg, I said why?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know. I really don’t know him.”

That making no sense and that not real answer.  I gotta come from a different angle to get somewhere on this situation.

Momma driving me to school.  Such a loooong drive, but I pretty good about it. I help her out to make the time past.  Tell her funny stories, yell out once in awhile make sure she still there and occasionally I get hungry and feed me a nose goodie.  But come on!  Momma! Pouring rain and once again you all crazy and silly goosey rushing to get some gas in this big truck.  But look, a man! He walking in rain! Look! Why? 

So, again, I say,

“Momma, why?”

I can see she decided too, I old enough to know now. I four, after all. 

“Well, baby.  He probably had to get something at the store and doesn’t have car.”

Ok! What?  She holding back and really, this is getting crazy- just explain to me already.  I sweating to death back here, because Momma always turns the hot air on and forgets how high it is blowing on me. I been in the car for ever, ever and ever. So long waiting! I hungry! And now there’s a guy in the rain! And what did he buy? Why he not have a car? Why? 

“Why?!”

“I don’t know”

“But why he walking? Why he buy? Why is him car gone?”  Come on, Mom! Work with me.

“Baby, I just don’t know, I don’t know him.”

Really?  Again, with the irrelevant and not useful information. She always doing this, you know. I see this world, I see how old she is, I look around and see a lot happening here. And that a problem, I don’t get it.  She gets it.  She has what I need; The story!

“But him car is gone. Him wet.  Him sister died?”  I grasping here, Lady. I trying to work out the details, problem solve this one. This just not clicking here. Why there be  man in rain. What he buyed at store? Chocolate? May he likes plane and bought plane? I like planes. I have black ones. Sometimes they zoom fast and sometimes they crash.

“Why him crash his black plane?”

“What?”

Wait. “What?”

“No, Zach. You said something, what?”

“What, mom?  Silly goose.”

She smiles at me. She is a silly goose.  “Ok, Zachie. We’re almost to school, ok, Baby?”

NO! The man in the rain. He walking. What happened to him car?

“But mommy, car all gone. He go in store? Why? Why he in the rain? Did his sister die?”  Maybe she did.

Nothing.

“Why?”

“Did his sister die? I don’t know, hun, I don’t know if he had a sister.  Sometimes people walk in the rain and not everyone has a car.  Cars are special gifts.”

I have idea! “You give him your car?”

“No, hunny, we need our car.”

“Why?”

“Ok, Zachie.”

I can tell! This is it! Finally the answer!

“You see that man. His name is Bob. He was living with his sister, Jane. But she got sick and died. He didn’t have a lot of money and needed money, so he sold the car for money.  So, now he had money but no car and he needs food. So he was going to walk to get food. On the way to get food it started to rain. So that’s why Bob’s in the rain.”

“Ohhhhh! Ok, mommy.” She such a silly goose, why not just tell me to begin with.  She makes so hard on herself sometimes, she knows I four and I can know things now!  His name Bob.

“Why?”

“What, huh?”

“Why he name Bob?”

“I don’t know, Zach.”

Really, Momma.  Here we go again.

A Cold November Night, perfect for burying the dead.

There is something haunting about winter nights, isn’t there? Driving home on a November night, just winding quietly and silently by myself, noticing the whiteness of the world glowing all around me in my little Maine haven of wilderness.  I see nothing but endless memories, and the odd feeling I just want to pull of this road.  I want to step into the cool night, have that crisp wintry, residual autumn air fill my lung. I see the fresh, hard snow leading brightly in the night into untouched fields of where my mind wants desperately to roam. But why?

Do you know this feeling? Have you travel down that back road? Have you seen how gorgeously lit the world is in the stillness of a winter night with a large moon?  Haven’t you just wanted to walk into the void of it, hearing your foot steps be the only sound crunching heavily across this sea of frozen-ness and just lose yourself in it- this world, this life, this place where time has seized?

I sink back down in my thoughts and all the silly fears I have piled up, year after year after year.  I can climb the greatest heights and peer over without a gasp.  I see whatever little uninvited creature scurry petrified across my path and my only response is a vague annoyance that I have to deal with it.  I go through trauma that punches my guts and you won’t see me shed a tear.  I can speak to crowds of endless rows, hear my voice boom across the plateau of faces and it doesn’t unnerve me. 

But if you shut the lights out in my world, I shut down.

I’ve stood in a stairwell when a blackout came unexpectedly, and screamed until my husband came to help me down.  I’ve spent nearly my entire adult and mostly married life alone at night.  I keep blinds closed, I keep lights on. I sleep with the soft glow of television reminding me, there is light and I am not alone. I just don’t do dark; dark has always gripped me in ridiculous ways. I am the grown girl that will trample paths to the light switch. I am the grown girl that thinks bad things of only imagination lurk right behind me, ready to pounce.  I am the grown girl that’s always letting everyone know how brave I am about everything, that is so afraid of the dark.

So, who do I think I am? Where do I get the nerve to this impulse?  Just what do I think I’d do? Pulling over in the dead of night, crunching my path through this cold night and just sit all by myself in a white field, with the only company a big moon a zillion miles away from me.  What bravery do I possess for such craziness!?

Oh, but these memories! These memories drive me to such places. Often times, I don’t wanna remember me. But these nights, I can’t let them go. I hold fast to them, allow their force to push forward. Sometimes, I’ve forgotten how much I’ve aged in 15 years. I look into a mirror and I’m thrown off.  Where is twenty-one? Where is she deep inside there? The youth, the strength, the brashness, the sexuality, the crazy, the drunk, the angst, the loud, the beauty, the deceit, the pride, the contempt, the hell, the out of control, the endless?  Where did she go, cause this girl standing here now, who is she?  When did she age? When did she transform? When did she wage a war? She clearly won, cause holy, the scars are everywhere.

So, sometimes, yeah. I wanna stop my car and run fast as I can down to that lonely, frosty field.  I want the haunted night of cold whipping wind to just consume me. I want to remember. Everything. The hell, the fun, the dizzy, the insane.  I have memories that would make you choke back your distaste for me.  And it’s hard to say that out loud. You might even hate me, if you knew me then. You wouldn't recognize me, and you’d leave me in that field with my empty pursuits and bruised ego.  If you knew me and didn't leave a bad taste in your mouth; well, then you must've loved me for a long time and must’ve wished at some point I had done some things with myself that was a little more worthy.

I waged a war and the thing about wars. Wars have story. I share my stories cause at some time, you might be ready for war and you might think you can’t survive it, but you can- just don’t expect it to always look pretty on the other side. Just worth it.  My war is something I pushed deep inside and I spill out little antidotes here and there about what it was like to be me then and be me now.  And there’s a very few minority that know me on either side of the battle.  I have no idea what they must think now, other then when I see them- they still hug me and tell me they love me- and I know I love them with my whole heart too.  My war resulted in throwing out the sins I committed and facing them head on. Not with a twenty-year old heart of hell to give and pride to prove. It was facing sins and admitting I committed them. It was saying out loud I did bad things. A lot. I hid behind my youth, my beautiful, naive smile that could fool a shrewd judge of character, I hid behind the right words and the all consuming alcohol that I voiced like it was gospel, truth that you must hear- never hearing the fool spew senselessness.  Alcohol.  Someday, I really wanna talk about alcohol and really explain how evil it is. Because it is.  And don’t throw that stupid word disease at me.  I’ll spit back at you.  I’d never say I was an alcoholic, I won’t ever say it.  I just say, there were points in my life. I was a pretty crafty, functioning drunk. I have too much experience on too many sides to fall victim to handing over their choices, my choices, living through their hells and my hells to the likes of eliminating my free will or my responsibility.  God knows better and so do I.  Nearly every evil deed I readily and knowingly committed was drowned purposefully down with some vile bottle.  Sins that weaved wrenching, claw scratching memories.  War is not an easy thing, physically or spiritually.  My war left me collapsed and weeping for what I had been and done, not standing prideful, tall to exclaim, “Hey, live and let live.” What a stupid, destructively damning saying that is.

Oh, these dark nights! Memories of wars, waging through me!  I am battered and worn down by who I was and how much I’ve worked to never see her horrid face in the mirror again. Maybe that’s my urge to purge it all into that field. This dark, frigid night illuminating its truth on everything, urging me to run out into the field.  Escape mirrors of looking for her and the legacy she carries deep inside of me. I want to bury her dead. She is useless! She served nothing but to torment me with the memories of the sins I committed. And boy did I commit some sins.  It’s easy to say, we’re all sinners and be done with it. Like we wiped a little dirt off our hands and cleaned up some. It’s another thing to face your fear of darkness- you! You, Jen. What dark thing you were, what you did and the wretchedness you can’t shake off.  Yes, I am forgiven. I can’t bleed enough emotion to make it worth His blood.  And that is the exact point.

But I need that field tonight. I need no mirrors. I need not my warm house or this oversized car. I need my lonely, November field. I drive now, hard and purposefully. I need to pull this truck off the road. I need to get a little brave again with Him at my side. Cause the war is won, not by my strength, but His endless mercy. She is dead, Jen. Take the shovel- bury her and let it go.  You keep saying to yourself, claw out the memories. Claw them out, so you don’t have to remember who she is anymore, what she did, how she did it. So you don’t have to look into that bathroom mirror, shock that she’s not standing there anymore. For dead girls don’t reflect images.