September 12, 2012

• If Life Had a Rewind Button…

  I stand in the kitchen staring at the pictures of my three children.

  It is their school pictures from last year. I look into their bright eyes and see their happy faces in photographs and I feel the sting of regret.

  The house is quiet and the kids are all long gone in the big yellow school bus.

  I am left wishing there was a rewind button or a re-do switch I could hit.

  We didn’t have the best of mornings.

  Kendall was up early and came down the steps as I was sorting laundry.  He said his tummy hurt.  He says that a lot during the school year.

  I asked him if he is nervous about school and I told him I think that is why his tummy hurts sometimes. He says he’s not, but all summer his tummy was totally fine.  I asked if he wanted to take a Tums.

  I had my mind set on going on my walk/run and getting back just in time to wake the rest of the kids up for school.

  So I left him alone in the dark living room and told him I would be back soon.  As I was sitting down to put my running shoes on, I remember thinking to myself that maybe this would be one of those times where I should put aside my plans and do the unexpected.  Maybe I should just sit and snuggle and chat with him for those 20 minutes until the other kids needed to be woken.

  But I didn’t.

  How often I seem to do that.  Let my agenda get in the way of my intuition.

  I got back at 10 till seven and Nikki had just woken up.  I woke Derrick and everyone started getting ready.

  The kids have a list of chores they have to do in the morning.  Get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, get backpack, the boys have to feed and water the dog, etc.  Just a simple list.

  The thing is:  They are supposed to do all of this without any reminders and if they have to be reminded, they don’t get a sticker that day and they miss out on the prize at the end of the week.  I have found that this cut out on a LOT of nagging and reminding and prompting on my part.

  But it is only day 7 of the new school year and I have given them a few reminders along the way, especially to Nikki, because she is just learning.

  I am getting tired of reminding.  They should know by now!!  Kendall has already done this all of last year, so when I see him dressed, but with nothing else done, sitting on the kitchen table, putting together a puzzle instead of doing his chores, it makes me mad.

  I don’t yell, but I get right up close to him and I say, through clenched teeth and in a voice that I know was probably almost worse than yelling and with a look in my eye that could kill “DO.YOU.HAVE.ALL.YOUR.CHORES.DONE?  Then WHY are you sitting here putting a puzzle together!!??”

  He immediately gets tears in his eyes.  My sensitive, soft-hearted but oh.so.frustrating son!  But I am too hard hearted to really care or apologize, at least not right then. 

  When I think back on it later, and maybe even at the time, I feel defeated. Because it seems to me that one wrong just sweeps away a whole mountain of things I have done right, and in the matter of a few angry sentences spoken, I can erase ten times that I have spoken softly and kindly, even in the midst of stressful situations.

  I am reminded of what I read not long ago in the “1000 Gifts” book, and I feel the sting of conviction.

  She writes “Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan’s way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus’ way?  Why else get angry?  Isn’t it because I think that complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want?  When I choose – and it IS a choice – to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness?  Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective – more expedient – than giving thanks?”

  Wow!  And wow!  I even KNOW this in my head, and yet I can’t always seem to make it reach my heart!

  Now Kendall is hurt and as I’ve learned a long time ago, “hurting people hurt others.”  Next thing I know Nikki is crying because Kendall shoved her as they were in the bathroom trying to get their teeth brushed. 

  It is cold and raining outside and isn’t going to warm up much today.  Kendall is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, despite the fact that I told him it wasn’t going to be warm today and he should dress accordingly.

  I tell him to get a sweatshirt.

  The one he wants to wear is dirty and needs to be washed.  I noticed it the other day. I am doing laundry this morning, so I tell him that he needs to get a different sweatshirt, because that one needs to go in the laundry.

  He doesn’t like any of his other sweatshirts, he tells me.  I say “Well, then, at least wear a long sleeved shirt.”

  After a while, he calls to me from his room “Mom!! I need you right now!”  He needs help with the long pants he has picked out to change into and he can’t find any long sleeved shirts in his drawers. He is almost crying again.

  I say “They must be there somewhere” as I rummage frantically through the drawers.

  Because now I have a son who is standing in his tidy whities while the bus could show up any second and the other two kids are already out in the driveway waiting.

  Turns out, the weather has been so warm that I never got any of Kendall’s fall clothing up from the basement yet.  There is not a single, long sleeved shirt to be found in his entire dresser.  But there are two sweatshirts, both of which he refuses to wear because he “doesn’t like them.”

  I give him a quick hug and tell him he just has to go with his t-shirt and long pants, and when he steps out the door, he is crying again and says “But I’m gonna be cold.” 

  I say “Just go!! I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find another sweatshirt for you.”

  He heads down the lane while I quickly run downstairs, find the tote labeled “Kendall – Fall 2012″ and rummage through. Thankfully, there are two sweatshirts near the top. I don’t know if he will like these either, but I grab both and run out the front door.

  The school bus is already at the end of the lane, but Kendall is only halfway there.

  I slip my tennis shoes halfway on and I run, yelling his name, holding out the sweatshirts.  I don’t know what the bus driver thinks.  Kendall is still sad.  Almost crying. I know it is because I spoke harshly to him.  He looks at the two sweatshirts I hold up.  A decision must be made. NOW! I can tell by his face that he doesn’t really like either one, but finally he picks the blue and orange Adiddas one and shuffles off to the bus.

  Nikki turns around, and now she’s crying because “She needs a sweatshirt too”.  She is wearing long sleeves, so I think she is fine, but it is too late. The bus is there. The driver has already waited long enough.

  The kids get on the bus and it leaves.  I come back into the house and I feel like “What the heck just happened?”

  It is the stuff of nightmares. Not being able to find things and the bus is waiting.

  I sit at the table with my head in my hands.  How do I go so wrong?  How will my kids ever grow up to be healthy adults with a Mom like me? 

  I pray.  I thank God for second chances, even when I feel like I don’t deserve them.

  I contemplate going to the school at lunch time.  Taking a sweat shirt for Nikki (even though by then she will probably have long forgotten that she wanted one) and taking Kendall in my arms and apologizing to him (he will not have forgotten). 

  And then I stand and stare at their pictures. I look into their eyes and I wish I could hit the rewind button.

  • 9:13 am
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