Tiny Podcast

4:45 is too early but the baby is awake and he is hungry, just like most mornings. I think he grows at night and uses up all his stores. He’s kissing my face and my arm and poking his brother with his toes.

“Don’t wake him up. Baby, let Mommy sleep, please. Mommy is so tired. Please don’t lay on my face. Please don’t kick me. Stop touching your brother, he’s trying to sleep. Look, the moon is up and the sun is not. It’s sleeping time. Sshhh.”

It’s no use. We do this every day and it never works.

I tell my self again that I’m going to install the baby gate today, the new one that maybe he can’t climb, on his bedroom door today. Tomorrow, I tell myself, he is going to learn to play in his room and I am going to sleep till 6. I say this knowing it will not happen because I don’t know how to use a drill, I have to work all day, and there will be no time to complete any tasks beyond the obligations of the day. I say this because it helps me not cry like yesterday morning, and I say it even though I know I have too much anxiety to sleep if this fearless boy is awake. I have a vision of him using his bed as a trampoline to catapult himself out of his second-story bedroom window that I feel in my stomach and take a full minute to fade away.

“Ok, baby. Let’s go downstairs.”

I put him in his high chair and turn on a show but not THAT show or THAT show, he wants THE OTHER SHOW but not THAT other one, THIS one.

Peel the banana. Pour the water. Get the raisins, realizing I’ll be scraping them up with a butter knife on Saturday.

Pour the coffee. Add the sugar. Add the cream. Clink the spoon.

Sit.

Scroll.

Breathe.

Footsteps. Deep breath. Wild card child is awake.

“Please be in a good mood, please be in a good mood,” I whisper as a half prayer, half demand.

“My stomach hurts. I can’t go to school today, I CAN’T.”

“You should go back to bed. It’s early. Still dark. You’ll feel better in a while.” I hold my breath again.

“I CAN’T GO TO SCHOOL!”

Oh, this is the kind of morning we are having today. I see. Sigh.

Ignore the child. Drink the coffee. The child goes back upstairs.

Sip. Work on a freelance writing task. Breathe.

It’s 6:30. Already late.

I go upstairs to wake the big kids. They move slow and I get mad. They move faster.

“Wild child, put your school clothes on.”

“I’M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!”

I call his dad. Dad doesn’t answer.

I cuss under my breath and start breakfast.

“Are ya’ll dressed up there? Come down and pack your stuff. Take the dog out.”

Fighting upstairs. Yelling. Crying.

I yell, loud and mean. I hate it.

They come down, big kids dressed. Wild one, not.

“I’M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!”

Oh, boy.

I call his dad, who answers. Dad talks him into getting dressed. Everyone is crying, everyone is tired, everyone is hungry, and if we don’t get in the car in 10 minutes, everyone will also be late.

“You feed the dog. You dress the baby. YOU PUT ON YOUR SHOES BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO SCHOOL.”

More yelling. Another call to dad.

We are in the car. It feels like it’s already been a whole day. Four of us are wearing shoes, three of us are crying. One of us is still hungry. It’s a regular day in the neighborhood.

Wave to the crossing guard, pull up to the door with one minute to spare. Salute the teacher on door duty with his keys in his hand, ready to lock the door in 30 seconds. We made it but just barely.

“Good-bye, love you, have a good day.”

SLAM. STOMP.

Turn left, heading to the next school where I am a teacher and the baby goes to his class.

Late, late, late. Always late.

I cry a little. Moms can cry without making a sound, did you know? I try to answer the baby’s questions happily but really, I want to put on my noise-canceling headphones.

Drop him off. He’s happy to see his friends and teachers and that’s a gift that is never lost on me. If he didn’t release me happily, I couldn’t do my job. I couldn’t take that.

Unlock my classroom, take a breath, turn on the lights and the heat and it’s time to go.

Sit in a circle. Ask the eighth-graders about their weekends, even the ones who always pass. Look them in their eyes, listen to their stories. Hope my kids’ teachers get a second to look at my kids’ eyes, too. Wonder if they will.

Grammar. Literature. “No, you cannot go get your pop tart out of your bag. You know why. Yes, you can go to the bathroom.”

Next class. Juniors and Seniors. None of us are sure if they are children or adults. None of us are exactly sure how to behave. Read a short story, try to lead a meaningful discussion. Explain (again) why we won’t read the story with the accent of the Chinese immigrant we are reading about. Send someone to the office for violating the cell phone policy (again). Feel immediately conflicted about that, wonder if I should have let it go. I wonder if he had a stomachache like my own wild child this morning. I wonder if it was less his stomach and more his heart, like my child.

Bring my lunch to my classroom to sit with a student who needed to talk about the things kids need to talk about sometimes.

I wonder about my own kids. Are they ok? Are they getting Influenza Type A at this very moment? Are they included? Are they being good friends? Are they understanding the material? Did my kids resist the delicious looking pizza lunch and eat the healthy, gluten-free lunch I packed? Are they feeling anxious? Left out? Are their teachers as tired as me? I hope they are kind anyway.

Two more class periods. Kids, kids, kids everywhere. All of them brimming with hope and possibility and life and nonsense and excuses and contradictions.

Talk to a parent in the hallway, recognizing this means I will be late and my kids will come home to an empty house. Pick up Shep from his classroom and grit my teeth and try to be cheerful while he stops at the water fountain and then to hug every teacher and student he sees on the way out.

I realize it’s raining and very cold and neither of us have a coat today.

Buckle him in. Buckle myself in. Breathe.

Pick up dance carpool friend #1. Drive home, arriving 15 after my kids are dropped off but thankfully, this time, no one is fighting.

“Get ready for dance and get in the car! We are going to be late.”

Pick up dance friend #2.

Drop four kids off at dance.

Pull back in the driveway at 4:20. Sit in the driveway and breathe until Shep starts yelling.

Send Shep upstairs with Dad and Eli.

Breathe. Put on the headphones and listen to a novel on 1.75 speed because the library will take it back in a few hours.

Start dinner. Do breakfast dishes. Pick up the banana peel from under the high chair. Leave the raisins.

Send big boy out the door to walk to his youth leader’s house for youth group. Feel anxious about that.

Put Shep back in the high chair, dance kids come back through the door.

Dinner is on the table and the LAST thing I want to do is sit and eat with my family but I do it anyway, even though I’d rather be hiding or doing the dishes. I just want the day to end. I want to be alone.

Listen to their stories. Look them in the eyes. Don’t fight with anyone about what they will or won’t eat. Yes, you can have an apple and peanut butter. Argue with Kyle about the apple. Give the kid the apple even though Kyle thinks kids should eat what is served or nothing. Decide to fight about that on Saturday.

Take the two little ones from the table to the tub. Cross my fingers that the kitchen is really being cleaned by the assigned child while her dad folds a load of laundry and starts another.

From the tub to the rocking chair. Read the books, sing the songs. Lay the baby in his bed, knowing he won’t stay. Think about that baby gate. Wonder how hard it could be to use a drill.

Send the big girl to bed. “Don’t forget to put your retainer in. Did you brush your teeth? Is the kitchen clean? You can read but you need to be in your bed, not moving knick-knacks around in your room this time.”

I wonder if she is getting what she needs from me. I wonder if she did her homework. We are so busy and she is such a good kid. Does she feel loved? Do any of them? Are we too busy? What would we cut out if we were?

Rock the wild one, looking at the big moon outside the window. Think about the morning, about the way I yelled at him, the way I looked at him. I think about how he cried when the anger was all used up and it was clear he was going to school no matter what. I wonder if it’s all my fault that he doesn’t like school. Have I made all the wrong choices? Is he in the wrong school? Wonder if I should burn my whole life down and rock him forever. Wonder if I should quit my job and move to a little shack in the woods and grind my own grain and can vegetables. I wonder if he would be happy then. I wonder if he will ever be happy. I wonder if I am happy. Is anyone happy? Am I allowed to ask that?

The front door opens. The big one is home. I tell him he can’t play his game and he has to shower and go to bed. We argue about that. Walk away. I hope he does what I said, knowing I am too tired to stick around and make sure. Go downstairs. Sigh at the halfway job someone did in the kitchen. Feel like that is somehow my fault, too.

I take my vitamins. Drink some water. Eat some chocolate.

Sit.

Breathe.

Look at Kyle, eyes half-closed already but trying to read his book about God. His days are wild, too.

Think about all the things that aren’t done.

I didn’t check to be sure everyone has a uniform for tomorrow.

I didn’t write anything meaningful. Probably won’t ever get an agent or a publishing contract.

Didn’t make the dentist appointment.

Didn’t prepare for the Bible study I’m supposed to lead in 12 hours.

The oil in the van still needs to be changed.

The dog needs to go to the vet.

Did I text my friend back? I didn’t, did I?

I was going to go for a walk today.

I haven’t talked to my cousin in a month.

I should fold that load of clothes that just buzzed. I should tell Kyle to.

Should we have gone to church tonight? Are we making the wrong call to opt out of the mid-week small group gathering this year? There’s no way we could do it, I know. How did we ever make it before? How does anyone?

Did anyone take out the trash? Waking up to a full trash can is almost as demoralizing as waking up to a full sink.

So much grading to do. Am I a good teacher? Am I giving them what they need for the ACT in April? Will they be prepared for their next step?

What am I going to pack for lunch tomorrow?

Remember we are out of bread.

Decide to worry about that tomorrow.

Think about my kids. Think about my mom.

I think about Ameerah, the one who lived under my roof for most of seven years. I wonder if she is taking her allergy medicine. I wonder if she knows how much she is loved. I wonder what she will do after she graduates next year. I wonder if she is happy.

I wonder if I’m doing anything right. Part of me always feels like the hammer is just about to fall and I’m about to realize that everything I thought was ok isn’t. I recognize that’s not normal.

Think about being 36. Think about having another baby. Imagine adding first-trimester exhaustion on top of 13-year-old impulsivity. Decide that’s insane but cry a little anyway. Imagine having a kindergartener and a college freshman in 5 years. Cry some more. Put that thought away. Again. For now. It always comes back.

I pull open my laptop and work on a freelance project for a few minutes. My eyes won’t stay open.

It’s 10.

I get in bed a few minutes before Kyle and try to breathe like my therapist taught me, deep and slow.

“There is no dinosaur chasing me. I am not in danger. My kids are safe and well. The bills are high, but they are paid, or at least they will be. I am not a cavewoman and there is no dinosaur.”

Deep breath. Again.

Resist the temptation to look at my phone, knowing that it’s bad for my sleep. I wonder how many hours will pass before a footie-pajama wearing toddler will come looking for comfort. I wonder if anyone will have a nightmare or sleepwalk down the stairs tonight.

Kyle comes in, turns the light off, falls asleep easily because he is exhausted, his breath getting steady and slow. I match mine to his. I pray in that twilight way, the same way I’ve been praying my whole life. I fall asleep, but lightly. I’m waiting.

Next, footie-pajama feet are padding down the hall toward me.

“Mama, I want you.”

“Come here, baby. It’s all right.”

Finally, we sleep deeply for a few hours, almost to sunrise. It’s enough.

I wish I had known sooner how hard this would all be, for you and for me.  What I would have done with such information, I’ll never know. Would I have opted out to avoid the pain, the stretch, the breaking it’s required of me?

Probably not. 

I wish I had known how hard I would have to fight for an inch of my own air to breathe sometimes and how many years it would take to realize I was choking. 

I wish I had realized sooner that even though I would have to fight for a little air, I could have it. 

I wish I had known how invisible I would feel sometimes.  I wish I had known how insignificant and stuck I would feel on the hardest days.  I didn’t know I would feel this way sometimes and I certainly didn’t know that I would feel ashamed for feeling this way, too.

I wish I had known that just about every system operating in the world requires mothers to kill either their instincts or their ambition.  I wish I had figured that out sooner and listened to both better.

I wish I had known that I would feel misunderstood so much of the time by almost everyone. 

I didn’t know how afraid being a mother would make me, the stakes seeming to inch higher with every passing year, with every step they take toward independence. Have I done enough good to counter all the bad?  What has it been like for them, being mine? Will they suffer because of me? Because of what I am? Because of what I am not?

Being a mother means making impossible choices and keeping a straight face while you do it, lest anyone see the truth, that is how little you know.  

How do I know what to let go of? What to fight for? What to hold onto? 

Do they know how viscerally I love them and how I can’t breathe without them, even though I need my headphones and NPR  to survive a day surrounded by them? Do they know how I can’t breathe at night because I am so afraid that I’m getting this wrong and afraid of all the dangerous blind spots I haven’t discovered?

When my first batch of children were young and I was too, I was convinced there was one path to follow and a single, sure formula I could use to guarantee happy, healthy kids who wouldn’t smoke or drink or chew or run with kids who do.  I know just enough now to know that almost none of us knows much of anything for sure and all those formulas and paths I thought I could trust have disappeared like puffs of smoke before my very eyes. Where once I saw footprints in front of me on the path, now there is nothing left but dirt and my irrational fear of sinkholes and quicksand.

There is nothing but these open hands, a little shaky and totally empty and outstretched now.  There is nothing left but the long, long list of all the times when God met me in my lack and grace made up the difference.  

Maybe that’ll be enough.  

Maybe if I can’t teach my kids how to never be depressed or unbalanced or doubtful or angry or terrified, I can teach them how to hold their own weaknesses and mistakes and fears as loosely as they hold their strengths and accomplishments and Bible Memory Awards.  Maybe if I can’t teach them how to impress everyone all the time, I can still teach them how to press their whole breaking hearts into Jesus, the One who came to be with us and in us.

Being a mother is so, so hard.  I don’t know anyone who has really found a way to balance the demands of earning and managing money, caring for a home and a family, being a good citizen of the world much less a faithful member of a faith community or  minding their own soul care. I see some of you trying to make room for yourselves among all the other things that clamor and I have the urge to raise my fist in quiet solidarity. I know how hard and scary it is to start to tell the people around you that you need a little room too, after long years of pretending to be a saint or worse, a martyr.

Raising kids is so terribly hard and so consuming and so very good and also brutal and exhausting that I don’t know how any woman actually survives it.  Except I do know how I’ve survived it, and that’s barely and only by the breath of God that has filled my lungs over and over again, amen.

December was a mess and the rest of the year wasn’t exactly a glowing success.  Some of the choices and changes I’ve made and things I’ve tried haven’t worked out  like I hoped and I’m licking some wounds and fighting to feel a spark of hope. Today, I feel low. I feel low and lacking and embarrassed and tired and I can’t talk myself out of it, no matter how hard I try. 

And then I remember Advent, when the nights were starting to get so deep and dark and long that we all found ourselves a little disoriented at 4:45 when the windows made us swear it was midnight. I remember the day, not too long ago, when the light broke through the long darkness, bringing the hope of the whole world.  I remember how the night started its retreat as the days stretched out across the hours again. I remember still.

The spark of hope remains and even though it flickers and sometimes it even wanes, I can’t deny it.  On the exhale, in the pit of my stomach, the Spirit of God is with me, near as my next breath. It’s enough for the moment I’m in, I’ll leave the rest to worry about itself while I take myself for a walk, I think.  There’s enough daylight left for that, I think. But if not, I can walk in the dark a while. The light has come and is coming still.

A note:

This is not the sort of post I thought I’d be sharing today. I tried to write something, anything else.  I wanted to be cheerful and upbeat and write about my intentions for the new year. But then I thought of you, the ones who are in these trenches or perhaps a different type of trench, and I couldn’t offer you anything less than what I know to be most real today. I wanted you to know that I am with you, God is with you, and you are surely not as alone or invisible as you may have thought.  We can talk about resolutions another day.

The world is funny, isn’t it?

One minute, we are all gathered to watch grown men hurtle their bodies through time and space, aiming to inflict enough force to flatten their opponents. We cheer, yell, clap, scream at the impact. We watch these games, knowing that there are precious brains under the helmets that aren’t designed to absorb such brutality. We know that men who spend their careers knocking heads often suffer grave consequences. Such sacrifice is honored in our patriarchal culture. Male aggression is not just normalized, it’s lauded.

The second quarter ends and instead of flipping the channel and engaging the family in a round of charades, we all watch the familiar show with some strange, feigned shock at the sight of breasts and bottoms while we clutch our pearls and reach for our phones.

The screen is flashing with sequins and there are women everywhere, flipping, turning, rolling, singing, gyrating. It’s a whole production.

Small screens flash, too. Christian social media is immediately ablaze.

“Trash.”

“Don’t they know God didn’t design their bodies to be used this way?”

“This is not empowering to women.”

“Disgraceful!”

“I wouldn’t want my daughter to see a performance like that.”

I am not here to offer a moral admonition to Shakira or J-Lo. I’m sure they wouldn’t be terribly interested in my opinion on the matter, anyway. I bet you wouldn’t, either. Enough has been said already.

I am not here to pass judgment on any of my dear friends who found the performance inappropriate or even offensive.

I am wondering, though, if there aren’t some important questions we should pause to consider.

First, why is a free, adult woman choosing to dress and move provocatively on a stage a cause for such uproar? Is it that her body is a temple? Is that why so many of us took to the internet, exclaiming disgust and outrage?

If so, why is the violence and injury the players were visiting upon each other moments prior a thing to celebrate and revel in? Are these hulking men’s bodies not temples for the Spirit of God, the same as Jennifer’s and Shakira’s? Do those bodies not also deserve tender care and preservation and protection?

What are we really saying about our bodies as temples of the living God when we can’t abide the sight of a woman commanding an audience of thousands with her body for a few minutes at an event where men professionally visit violence upon each other for hours on end to our great glee?  Where is our lament for the bruises, the breaks, the irreversible damage professional football can cause?

Here is the NFL player arrest record from 2019. Where is our outrage with the NFL players who beat their women, even their pregnant women? What about the players who abuse animals? Drugs, guns, DUIs, these all get a pass but rump shakers like Shakira and J-Lo we will not abide. We light up the night with our critique of them.

I watched the performance again a few minutes ago and I was reminded of the story of the woman who had been caught in the act with someone else’s husband. Now, she lived in a time and a place where women were considered property or dogs and we can’t gloss over that. I think we have a lot of reasons to wonder whether she had actually committed any sin at all or if she may have merely been the victim of a man and the harsh, patriarchal culture of her time. I digress.

When Jesus entered into her story, he did not shame or mock her or announce his disappointment in the way she was existing in her body. He did not call attention to her body at all.

What Jesus did do, however, was call out the violence and name the secret shame of the men who foamed with the desire to break her will and her body and to beat the flame of life right out of her. He shattered the patriarchy, at least for that moment, simultaneously holding the mob to account and liberating the woman in a way that only the God-man could have.

I don’t know what Jesus thinks about rump-shaking, whether the rump belongs to a white cheerleader or a Latina singer. Maybe I’ll ask him about it one day, but I have a feeling when I find myself face to face I’ll think of something better to ask. Maybe I'll ask Him how He felt when J-Lo and Shakira used their platform to speak truth to power in the name of the thousands of little children who have been separated from their parents in the name of America First.

I don’t know what Jesus thinks about football. I am positive I won’t ask Him about that.

I think I do know, as much as any of us know anything, what Jesus thinks about women and little children and violence and shaming mobs.

That’s all I have to say about that.