Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Good Mother

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There are times that I wonder if my colleagues have secret meetings without me and schedule our days so that at all times, at least one of them, is misbehaving.  I’ve never actually come across the little planners I picture, but I won’t be surprised if I ever do.

Now, as regular readers know, we have a heavy lifter, if you will, someone who carries the bulk of the naughty behavior, but even a work horse needs a break and then one of the little fillies is right there with a whole new twist.   
The other night at bedtime, Eden must have had “Push Mom to the limit” in pen in her planner.  I won’t give you the gory details.  Suffice it to say she was naughty, repeatedly.  I stayed calm and firm and took away some privileges, which ticked her off.  She was screaming and yelling blame at me, as I tucked her in, kissed her and left the room.  Sweet dreams.
I was done with her.  Had the gypsies happened by at that moment I would have gladly packed her suitcase and carried it out to the caravan, so it’s good that they didn’t.   I went and sat on my bed.  She continued to scream and yell.  I practiced breathing.  In the repeated exhalation and inhalation some of the anger was released and a little compassion came in it’s place.  It stinks to fall asleep crying, blaming someone else for your unhappy situation that, if you’re honest, you know is your own fault. 
I went back in and asked Eden if she wanted to pray.  She said she didn’t know what to say.  I said I thought she did and waited.  She prayed and asked God to forgive her and then she apologized to me and I forgave her and then I told her to roll over so I could scratch her back and while I did that I sang a soft song that I’ve been singing to her since before she was born. Any of the tightness remaining eased and I felt her relax.
The song ended, but I continued to stroke and scratch her back.  
“Does that feel better?”  I asked.
She turned her head and whispered, “It’s like we’re making a movie, but we didn’t get it right the first time, so we get to make it again.”
Yes.  I’m just learning this myself, but that’s exactly how it is.

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I awoke at three this morning with the realization that I had failed to refrigerate the vat of chili  we had for dinner last night.  Fortunately Paul had, but I was wide awake.  I tried to read for a bit until Paul asked me to turn out the light.  I got up and tidied the kitchen and a bathroom then retired to the couch to read.  Finally at seven I passed out only to wake after eight to Paul sitting down to put on his shoes. 

 

 I felt terrible, tired and disheveled with a sore throat to boot.  Paul handed me a cup of coffee and prayed for both of us.  For me he prayed for that I would have strength and energy and that there would be an extra measure of grace in our house today.
Once Paul left for work, I decided my best bet to get going and beat back the angst and dread was to workout.  Unfortunately as soon as I started  Jack began jumping spastically, having hit his own wall of winter angst and need for exercise.  Since the wind chill was far below zero I stopped and rounded up the kids to take him to doggie daycare.
One of my colleagues pitched a fit and tore off her shirt (it was not comfortable!) and socks (they were there and easier to rip off than her jeans) refusing to leave.  I left with the other children and the dog to call Paul from the van.   Since I was finding just about any form of abuse reasonable, distance seemed prudent.  I got Paul’s voice mail, but by then I was calm and went back inside under the pretext of having forgotten something.   My colleague was slumped in a chair.  I got her dressed, spoke firmly but calmly and ushered her into the van.  She apologized sweetly for pitching a fit and being disobedient and I forgave her.
Having dropped off Jackie Boy we returned home and started school.  It went well enough until we got to math and another one of my colleagues had a meltdown because she couldn’t understand the assignment.  I patiently worked through the problems, but she DOES NOT UNDERSTAND MATH!  I told her to go jump on the trampoline for five minutes.
While she was jumping and sobbing another of my colleagues said something to inflame her.  I pulled him aside and told him to go get his math.  He spent several minutes looking for it and teasing my smallest colleague who was quietly watching a DVD.
I got my other colleague back on her math, continued to work with her, using cookies as manipulatives, did some more written problems, and then let her work on her own.  Soon after she had a breakthrough.  “You know, this is actually pretty easy.”   We talked about how she had a very similar experience last week, yet again with math and how, if we give our brain a chance to think and observe (rather than tell ourself we can’t understand and give up) we are able to learn most things.
Meanwhile my other colleague was not looking for his math but putting snow down our remaining colleague’s back.  She was calmly eating it, having spent her piss and vinegar early today.  I set the timer and informed my recalcitrant colleague that he had five minutes to find his book.  After four minutes and fifty or so seconds of crying, yelling, begging and running around, he found it.  I gave him the assignment and he sat down to work, cheerfully.
I went out into the living room and pulled a chair into a patch of sunlight, closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing.  I thought about that extra measure of grace that Paul had requested for me.  When he prayed I pictured a peaceful day.  I didn’t get the peace, but I was given grace.  I wanted it on the front end with the kids for me.   All three of them were astonishingly needy, but with each one of them I was given the grace to be focused and patient.  It is so easy, under great duress, to either verbally abuse or disengage to avoid that and neither choice serves anyone of us.
Two things that are coming up for me every where are the notions of God helping me and me obeying him.  Every where: sermons, casual reading, committed reading, assignments, verses sent by friends, you name it.  So far there hasn’t been anything on a bill board, but I should probably say yet.  I want to hear what he is trying to say to me.  
I love the verse that says, “He gently guides those with young.”  I felt gently guided today, led, helped.  Too often I forget to slow down, to take time and think about what my children  need when they are being their most difficult.  This is unfortunate, since that is usually when they feel the worst and their need of me is the greatest.  The thing is, my task, my call is to gently guide them and, at times, I feel alone in it, as if it’s all up to me and I’m not up to it.  
Because he’s in the country, I’ve been calling Paul at work a lot this week,  and because he’s been out of it so much, all of us are struggling.   He’s not always there when I call, but just taking the time to call calms me and gives me space to deal with my kids appropriately.  When Paul is two miles down the road, although he is busy at work, and not always available he seems more approachable.  God can seem so far away.
But, this is what is becoming clear, my mission, is to teach my children that God is near, that he is a present help in trouble, that when I call to him he will answer me, that he will gently guide me, that he will help me.
Theology in the abstract is so easy.  It is an amazing and exhausting thing to live out my faith day in day out for my own trinity of witnesses, but I am in this too far to settle for platitudes when there is truth to be had, when there is help to be given. 
Help me to receive.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/02/537/

Grace like rain

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There is a bag of rotting food in the trash. Another bag is leaning beside the front door. There is decaying food on the counter and yet more in the (repaired) fridge. The pool is green as has been for several days. It rained steadily today, but Jack still needed to be walked and taken out so there were constant tracks and puddles of water and wet patches of carpet and, of course dog hair in it all. Just because it wasn’t horrific enough Eden spilled the sugar bowl, twice.

The house smells like the inside of a dirty fridge and the air is stinky and damp.

I came back from a Pilates lesson to greet the repairman, help him move things around, spilling pineapple juice down my arm. Paul had a rehearsal so I put the kids to bed, talked with the repairman, wrangled Jack and then settled the bill. I collapsed on the bed after the girls were tucked in, Christopher was on the computer, Jack was in his kennel and the repairman was off to his last call. I read a good book until I couldn’t take the mingling odors of decaying food, sweat and pineapple juice and dragged myself to the shower.

My house is a wreck. In some ways it has been a cruddy, messy, frustrating day but I made it through. We did school and then went to the library. We picked up Burger King for dinner. The kids were thrilled.

The day was fine, maybe even good. I am tired but not exhausted. I’m peaceful.

Homemaking is a challenging gig for me. So often I feel beleagured by and ill suited to do the unending work. Today something cracked open for me. My priorities were clear. Up until this very moment I couldn’t have told you what changed but I know why I didn’t get nutty, or bitchy, or incensed, or depressed: there wasn’t any shame.

Until quite recently I carried shame everywhere, but a couple months ago I decided I was giving it up. I didn’t know how, exactly, but I started by saying I was quitting. I just announced this to myself not knowing what else to do.

Last week I had a couple of terrible days. Have you seen those bi-polar med ads in the magazines where it shows this woman going on complete bender? It was a little like that. The kids were rotten and the dog wouldn’t stop barking. The thing is both the big kids were attending a half day camp and I wasn’t even teaching them, but somehow they managed to pack the whining and fighting of a year into the half days they were home. One afternoon I snapped. I shrieked at all of them and then dragged the dog out of his kennel. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to kill him, but settled for telling him to shut up and that I hated him. It was not one bit funny. It was terrible. The kids were crying, I was crying and the dog kept barking.

I pulled myself together and apologized. They all forgave me and, still crying, told me I had scared them which is just so horrible. Decent people don’t abuse their kids, even verbally. Good mothers don’t scare their kids and terrorize the family dog. Here is the truth: I am not decent people. I am not always a good mother. That’s not shame talking, that’s the facts.

I was terribly ashamed. My behavior was shameful.

I checked the calendar. I was extremely pre-menstrual. This was no alibi, but a clue, a sign post, “Proceed with caution” Over the weekend I tried to take it easy. Paul had a workshop so I spent most of Saturday on my own with the kids at the last day of their camp at the museum. We had a good time, but by 3:30 I was ready to hand them off to Paul. He took them to the park for a couple hours. That night we got a sitter and went to a party. We had fun.

Sunday we slept in, went to the late service, picked up donuts, hung out at home with my sister’s family then got a little bite to eat and went to a movie. It was a good, lazy day.

All through the weekend, my shame hovered in the background. I prayed about it. I asked God to help me, to change me. I didn’t feel hopeless, just quietly sad and ashamed, trying to figure out how to do better, to be better.

Sunday night I was tucking Lydia in and I apologized again. She readily forgave me. We just sat there looking at each other, my shame between us. I told her how sorry I was, how ashamed I was. “Do you really forgive me?”

“Of course, Mama. I’m terrible sometimes too and you forgive me.”

I looked at her. It occurred to me that her crimes as a child were less than mine as an adult and, for goodness sake, her mother. And then I considered that there might not be any scales. There might not be any qualifiers in forgiveness, not even caveats for terrible mothers. I sat there looking at my girl, tears running down my face and I received her forgiveness. I accepted grace.

She began to cry too and I asked why. She didn’t know. We hugged and kissed, then I tucked her in and turned out the light.

This is what I can tell you after a long and chaotic day, from my vantage point in this messy but peaceful house : when you stop fighting grace and just receive it you don’t have to give up shame or lay it down because it disappears, it’s gone.