Figuring Life Out Together

I've neglected to take the time to write and reflect and ponder what parts of our life and my thoughts to share here in this space.  It is not that I'm not thinking about what I would write, how I would flesh out my thoughts and feelings. Often, I just don't have make the time for writing. Also, I find myself fluctuating between wanting to get out the every day joys of our life in pictures and words and thinking it will just come across as trite and I should spend the energy myself on how to describe my thoughts on this journey which I can't tell if I'm leading or following in this experience as mother.  I revel in the chance to enjoy that role more fully in the summer, but so often by the end of the day Anna Cate, Molly and I feel like Olivia and her mother.


We we wear each other out.

 Similarly, I fluctuate between thinking my two girls are the most precious pair of sisters I've ever seen and just when I want to sit down and tell about all that love in words and pictures, I think again that they are most antagonistic little manipulators compacted in little bodies.

 Saturday night, they were moved to tears over who got the blue corn on the cob holders and the next morning, they fought all the way to church about who got to wear which pair of sunglasses…. and it was raining!!!   One night, they were fighting, and whining and probably hitting when I told them to separate and sleep apart, but when I went to check on them I found them all cuddled together. . .


We have had a busy summer; the girls have enjoyed swim team, a couple Parks and Rec camps (basketball and softball for Anna Cate), a few day trips trips to the pool, a local park or the amusement park nearby Kings Dominion. Lately, I've noticed my frustration is higher because I want them to be more grateful but it seems like it is never enough.

Swim Team is a big part of our summer, and while neither of them is the fastest swimmer out there, I'm so thankful for the opportunities they have to improve themselves. (More on swim team in another post)

Molly is the youngest kid on the team and her progress has been stunning.  As I may to have alluded to before, Molly tries my patience, but I realized one day when I was watching her dive and swim across the 25 meter pool without stopping that this is a part of who she is. The same kid that fights me tooth and nail over the minutia of life will dive and swim and push herself to limits that amaze me even more than she frustrates me.  

And it is these simple yet deep realizations about life and the human journey I am learning from them and this ride that make me want to write it out so one day I'll know I remembered how precious and frustrating it all is.  I'm sure they will remember my yelling and cussing every now and then and my "no TV in the summer" will be changed to that it starts when Mommy wakes up.  I'm not perfect and I'm a slacker but these lessons I'm learning are just breathtakingly simple yet profound.

So while I could spend the time on this blog showing pictures of our typical summer with beach trips, amusements parks, swimming and relaxing. . . .


and while I want to focus on their faces who represent what our whole life is about, I really want to appreciate their spirit.

I would rather share with posterity the deep sense of relationship and struggle and love and humor I find in their very being.  Helping me to appreciate the being rather than the doings of our summer is a book I'm reading among other things this summer "The Conscious Parent." It speaks truth to me in the idea that this parenting journey is really another way to bring awareness to our own lives.  I've dabbled enough in yoga, read Eckahrt Tolle and "The Four Agreements" to understand the way the ego works and the value in self beyond my judgmental thoughts, and the beauty of the present above the illusion of "what's next or better."  

 A couple vignettes below represent how their spirit brings me awareness in the midst of relationship filled with frustration as well as enchantment, both with Anna Cate and Molly and with my experience as their mother.

Molly Mae. . .
Molly fights me on just about everything, but mostly it is about her wanting to do things herself.   One day while she yelled at me for trying to help her make a bed simply because I pulled a blanket straight, I asked her why she gets so mad when I try to help her; she said, "because I think you don't trust me." Truth and perspective boosted my patience. 

So often I forget she is just a little girl trying to establish and figure out her place in this world.  While I get so frustrated with her, I find myself so amused and fascinated by her as well. One day after I totally lost it on her and her selfish ways, I said, "I must just not be a good Mommy because I can't help you learn to share. I need you to go to your room because I can't be around you right now." That night at dinner, she asked to say the blessing and said something like "Thank for such a good mommy who helps me learn how to be nice, but God it is so hard to be nice."  Promise she said that. Recently she said, "it is just really hard being nice; it is not hard to be mean." It reminds me when once I asked her to tell her sister she was sorry for hitting her, she quipped, "But I'm not sorry."
One day last week after moments of consecutive patience on my part, I lost it. "Damnit, Molly I'm so sick of you arguing with me," and she, through tears, said, "Well I'm so sick of you cussing at me." 

Yet in the midst of her raw self-absorption and quick humor, she can be so pure in her love and affection. One night last week, after we exchanged "I love you," I asked her what  her favorite thing about life is (trying to encourage gratitude in my children's consciousness). She said, "what we just said….the love." She is so precious, a little mores while she is sleeping as long as she is not rubbing my neck.

Anna Cate. . . 

She amazes me in her ability to care for and think about others….except when it comes to picking up her shoes. Anna Cate will wear me down about why I don't give the homeless person on the street money, or immediately gives of whatever to her sister.  For instance, if Molly lets a balloon fly away that they each got at a restaurant, without asking, Anna Cate will give hers up. She thrives on making others happy. But she can be sassy and thoughtless, leading me to completely lose my cool when her room is messy or she sneaks TV on her kindle during quiet time when she is supposed to be reading.  This is another thing I go back and forth on -- at what point are they just being kids and at what point am I allowing them to be brats?!!? 
 I cringe at the excuse, "they are just kids!" Well….will we say that about 16 year olds texting and driving, or 17 year olds drinking or high schoolers engaging in unhealthy, intimate relationships?!  Anyway, back to Anna Cate -- she's a dear. I look at pictures of her and realize she's just a little girl, too, trying to figure it all out, which includes trying to watch too much TV or dance too many moves to kids bop for my comfort.  
 The week of Vacation Bible school, we had signed up to provide sanctuary flowers for church and rather than flowers, we got school supplies to go along with the mission they kids learned about that week. It is a group of volunteers who tutor English as a Second Language Learners. This was the display.

After we left the store where Molly and Anna Cate got to stack up a cart full of supplies to donate, Anna Cate said, "this makes me feel so good, Mommy, doesn't it?"  And lately at night, she wants to make sure I tuck her in because she says she just misses me during the day. She is such a wonderful person, aside from all her "kid-like" tendencies to sass and wonder what I'm doing for her next. I'm kidding, mostly.

So in the midst of all the doings of our summer, I hope we will remember that we've taken the time to be together, which includes being who we are as we struggle to be grateful, or nice or patient. We are on this journey together and I'm so thankful that these little spirits are leading the way.  I hope that Anna Cate and Molly will always know that while I mess up, lack self-control and need a neat house that more than anything, I just love being with them.  I hope that in the midst of wearing each other out, when Anna Cate and Molly realize that their parents are just two people who had kids, that BJ and I are not larger than life and that we, like them, are just trying to figure it out. Thankfully, we are charting our course together.



“You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” 


In case you care about the doings of our summer in pictures, I've created a collection of some of the highlights (Vanderbilt baseball winning the National championship with my parents in town, the wedding of my dear friend Dorinda and a fabulous weekend in DC, a beach vacation with Nana and Daddy Doug, visits with our friends the Smiths, and lots of other summer time scenes along with some "selfies" of Mommy's patience boosters -- working out).



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