Tancy Talks

Kids are funny. No matter how many you have of them they are all opposites.  You see this connective tissue throughout them all, yet they are all so different.

I have always understood #1 as a geeky replica of his father.  I really like his dad, so it is pretty easy for me to understand him too.

#3 is the most like me, and so I have a pretty easy time understanding what makes her tick.

#4… well… He is just HIM.  Full of life and energy, all boy, and frankly he is just fun to watch.

Then, there is our oldest daughter.  Sweet #2.  I can honestly say that I did not even appreciate her and her gentle spirit until I had her my first grade class.

I didn’t realize how like-able she was!  Everyone liked her, and she was nice to everyone.  She was everyone’s friend, and always wanted to include everyone.  She is also a good student, which makes being her teacher even easier.  I got to watch her be the kind of student any teacher or mom would dream of.

BUT, still I don’t quite get her!  In some ways, I have felt like I have had a hard time connecting with her.

She is a free spirit – even more so than I was.  My parents often told me that I always marched to my own drum.  This little girl isn’t even marching to a drum at all!  I have said for years, that she will be our child that quits shaving her armpits and backpacks across Europe.

She can talk all the way to Chicago and back, and then announce that her “Brain is empty now.”

She can happily twirl and dance in any open space and not care who is looking.

She can repeat the same thing ten times in thirty minutes, and not remember.

She is so NOT physical!  She can’t even push a mower! (We tried a self propelled one and that one took off without her).

She cried when I took her to basketball camp!

She is our little mother hen.

She is artistic and flighty.

She is sweet and kind.

She is cunning and sneaky.

I sometimes just look at her and shake my head.  WHERE DID SHE COME FROM?

Lately, she had taken up baking. ( I am blaming Stefany U. for this!)  She has always liked helping in the kitchen, but since her HomeEc class with Stef, she practically lives in the kitchen.

I can ask her to make this or that, give her a recipe, (haul out the Kitchenaid because she can’t lift it), and she can do it all on her own.

We get to spend a lot of time together in the kitchen. I have been able to share that love of making food with her.  We get to work along in the kitchen and I get to hear her ramblings about this or that. I get to enjoy he constant toothy grin and continual questions.  We have found a way to connect.

Isn’t that what she needs?  Time with mom?

Even at this very minute she is pestering me to do another thing that we can do together.  WRAP PRESENTS!  She loves anything remotely creative!

So for now, even if I don’t understand the little girl who is doing curtsies and playing with her hair in the reflection of her dad’s giant broken TV I can spend time figuring out what makes her HER.

 

 

I fall into it so easily.  I judge.  The cover tells me everything I need to know about a person.

Today, we were blessed by ringing bells for the Salvation Army.  I am continually amazed at the people who give and shocked at the people who look angry we are wishing them a “Merry Christmas.”

It is so easy to let you mind go as the people walk by.

Those people will give.

Those people will smile.

Those people will hurry by with their head down like you can not see them, since they can not see you.

I found myself judging the prospects, and I looked at a young man.  He was pierced and tattooed. He had gauges in  ears.  A “punk” with ill-fitting skinny jeans.

“He won’t even look our way.” I said to myself, and went back to the bell ringing and song singing.

Ten minutes later the “punk” came by on his way out.  He nervously walked up to me while fidgeting through his bag He pulled out a Hershey candy cane full of Hershey kisses and said “This is for your kids. Merry Christmas.”

I wanted to cry.  How dare I?  I don’t want to be judged by my pudgy- middle-age-house-wife look, and yet, I do the same.

I am so thankful that God is merciful to me, and allows me to see just why I am not in control.

It had so much to live for.

Gravy. Beef Stew. Baked French Onion Soup!

But, alas, Wyler, a shiny jar of beef bouillon granules with so much to live for, decided that he would squander this all away as he leaped to his death from the second shelf of the kitchen cupboard.

He was so young.

The bad thing about those kind of decisions is that you never know who you might affect on your way down.  In Wyler’s case, he destroyed the life of my favorite bar pan by making his rash decision.

Stone, that is what all the others in the cupboard called him, had lived his entire life in service to me.  Sure, he really didn’t like soap, and avoided it at all cost, but we all forgave him.  It seemed his lack of soap when bathing worked for him.  He was always willing to give.

Pizza.

Pumpkin Bars.

Roasted Potatoes.

Brownies.

Endless giving…

Stone was just sitting there minding his own business.  He was half full of delicious chocolately goodness.  He sat  on the counter selflessly offering his goods to this family.

But, Wyler, for reasons unknown to all of us, felt he needed to jump at that exact moment. Wyler hit Stone on his way down and created a fracture that never can be repaired.

Stone was just an innocent bystander (or by-sitter) and now he is unable to continue on.  It is curtains for Stone.

Poor, poor Stone.

We can learn so much from his life. May a tragedy like this never happen again.

The Christmas Decorating has begun at our house.  It is always a big job, and I anticipate and dread it at the same time.

I mean who is really excited about risking their own life to ascend the rickety attic ladder?  Then, when you accomplish your task without dying you must navigate the system of boards spanning the rafters that hold the ceiling in your house.  You pray you don’t miss and end up wearing your family room as giant pants.  Then you drag the 400 bins that it takes to house your decorations across the boards of death to your husband who is waiting at the bottom of the ladder of fear.  Then, you get to finagle the bins through the hole in which the ladder regularly lives and to your husband without falling out of the hole.

I mean, this all sounds like great fun, but I really do not enjoy it.  Forgive me, it is not my favorite task.

So, now the 400 bins now reside in my family room.

Now it is my job to pretty up this joint. I enjoy it, but it can be overwhelming. I am thankful that this year I have a whole lot more time to accomplish such tasks!

Christmas decorating night also is Finger Food Feast at our house.  Dinner tonight was comprised of fried mushrooms, fried cheese curds, BBQ and Buffalo chicken wings, and those little pizza thingees that I can’t remember their real name.  You can imagine the heartburn that dinners like this can bring! I am sitting here thinking, “Why in the world did I eat those pizza thingees?!?”

But, Finger Food Feast is something the kids wait for.  Even the man-child asked about the menu.  Yes, a teenager who could not care less if he ever decked a hall again, was eager to munch on the traditional indigestion inducer.

As we unpacked the decorations for the big tree, I was reminded of something that made me very sad earlier this year.  We did not take our bins to the attic right away this year, and they were all living in the part of the garage that floods during a really good rain.  It really should not be a problem because all our decorations are in plastic totes, right?  All of them, except one pretty box from my Aunt Louise that housed my precious collection of the special ornaments.

Every ornament from my ornament exchange from our first church in Buffalo.

Every ornament anyone had given us a gift.

Every ornament that my students had given me over the years.

Every ornament that my mother-in-law gave my husband when he grew up and left home.

Every ornament that my children have made us over the years.

I gasped when I found the box had fallen to the wet garage floor between the totes.

I ripped it open thinking that if things were just wet, I could dry out everything except the paper ones.

But, instead, I found mold. Nasty, black growing mold all over my precious memories.

I bawled. Those were MINE!  They were my reminders of my children’s early years.  They were my reminders of where we have been and how the years have shaped us.

I find myself a little less than excited to decorate the trees this year.  We usually have two trees: One tree prettied up with lovely thematic decorations and one tree where every ornament tells a story.

My trees do not tell their story this year. My kids said, “Oh we will make you new ones!” And, yes, they will make new ornaments, but I am still going to miss them.

Frosty the Snowman spoon from Pack 396

The golden star from our first Christmas party with the Braleys, the Francises,                          and the  Paulsons.

Eleven out of the twelve days of Christmas that my husband remembers from his childhood.

“Rudy” the mongoloid reindeer that #3 made at our first home school group

So many more, and every one was special.

So tonight, I sit here just a little bit sad.  I look forward to the new memories, but mourn the reminders of old memories. Christmas is a great place to start making new memories.  Even if my memories are of risking my life to find decorations, or getting heartburn eating my kids most anticipated meal.  They will remember it as their parents trying to make things special for them.

What should I be spending my time on?  That is the question.

What is important?

What is worth my time?

What is worth HIS time?

These are the questions running through my mind.

Since my “retirement”  I have really struggled trying to find our routine and the pace of our new home structure.  I know without a single reservation that we are doing exactly what we are supposed to do, but I have been struggling with just how that s supposed to look.

I want our home to be happy, warm, cozy, and peaceful.  For the most part, life has been much more so since my unemployment.  Just having mom not ready to pull her hair out EVERY moment of the day really helps.  Still with all the changes we don’t have it all quite figured out yet.

I went for a run yesterday morning, and was able to just spend some time alone with God and my own mind.  I was praying about how to fix this very problem.  God really impressed on me to go on another “frivolous” fast.

The last time I went on a frivolous fast, I fasted strictly from frivolous internet use.  This time I am going to expand it to any frivolous wastes of the precious time I am granted each day.

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is Facebook and my goofy Facebook games.  I do enjoy them, and there is truly nothing wrong with them.  The question is, what am I NOT doing because I am busy harvesting fake crops? I do love the perfect squares that are bloom perfectly and symmetrically! But, really, my fake gardening squares accomplish nothing except for satisfying my OCD tendencies.

God has been really working me over in all my entertainment choices.  I recently started a Kelly Mintor study named Nehemiah.  I only have made it to one of the video sessions, but I know that I was appointed to be there.  The one statement that has run over and over and over in my mind is,

“If it put my Jesus on the cross, then it is not funny.”

UGH.  Straight to my heart.  How much crass humor do I excuse because it is just funny?  I love to laugh.  I love funny.  Just because I love funny, it isn’t necessarily good.

Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report….

Think on THESE things.

The things that I am taking into my mind and heart… are they pure and lovely?

What am I doing with the precious time that I am given?

What is truly important?

I know it doesn’t mean that I can have no fun and only watch the church channel.  I just know that I must be mindful and walking in the Spirit.  If I am doing that, I believe He will make me mindful of the correct balance I need as a child of His and a mom to them.

I know God wants more of my time.  He wants me in the Word. He wants to spend time with me.  I know I need to make that a priority.

I know that I need to make sure my job here at home is important. I need to concentrate on that, especially with the Christmas season upon us.

I know that God has called me to write. I have said that for many years.  So, I am going to concentrate this month on doing more writing.  

I am going to concentrate on the important things.

So, I am sorry Farmville and Words With Friends friends.  My kids may answer my requests and keep my little farm alive, but I am going to take a month off.

Christmas is coming, and the next month will be busy. I am pretty sure that I won’t be bored!