Advent Begins

It's the first week of Advent and already, I'm impatient.

Coming two months early to start, I guess I always have been. It doesn't explain why I'm always late everywhere, but it does shed light on my inability to diet, budget or maintain a cleaning routine. It also explains why I struggle beyond the easy level with Rock Band, I keep jumping the count.

Like everyone, I am my own worst enemy. Original sin just messes with every gift we have if we let it and I do all too often. Delayed gratification is something I struggle with; I like the immediate hit of a comment on a blog and thus often surrender the better prize of a crafted publishable piece. I eat the pie when it's served. I don't take pitches and I panic in the pocket in touch football. The present that is perfect at first glance is too much to not purchase. I don't like looking, I like finding. God knows this, so He placed my future husband in front of me first day of college.

This year's prayer theme was "Wait on the Lord." Essentially, my husband and I have thrown this line out at each other all year long whenever things got hard. Sometimes it has meant serve, other times it has meant patience and most infuriating, sometimes it has meant both. Advent is the Church's "Wait on the Lord" instruction to all of us.

You'd think a year of meditating on this bit of wisdom would have paid off, but I still give hints about presents if they're really cool gifts. I used to do my shopping last minute so I wouldn't mess up and tell people what I'm giving. My current solution had been to tell SOMEONE what I got someone else but even that makes it harder for me not to give more hints to the recipient. It comes down to the fact that I don't like secrets and really stink at surprises. I've always found out what each kid I was having was. I always jumped up and down the last week hoping the time would be sooner than the induced date scheduled. Again, God knows how to work around my flaws and never has indulged my impatience on this point.

Even the one kid who was premature made me sit for a week and the other one that needed an emergency c-section made my husband wait in a room alone to pray while the doctors got ready. I had to wait to find out she'd been born, I didn't feel a thing and she didn't cry at first. Then we got the shock of great joy and that was what we needed, seeing her face and touching her cheek. This is what Christmas is; the shock of the angels, the shock of the star, the shock of the little family in the stable being the salvation of the world; the shock of seeing the one you love completely for the first time.

Christmas is the scheduled delivery day when time will slow down, when we will look around and miss whoever is not there, and feel the day would be better, more and more wonderful if everyone were in one place. We will long for Heaven because Earth only hints with all it's wonder and beauty and bounty but does not satisfy and we really really know it.

So as of today, the all Christmas carols radio station(with the notable exception of a few banned for life tunes), is allowed. We made a list of what we hope to have happen during these next few weeks but have promised not to freak at what doesn't. I will try to "Be still and know He is there." Holding onto the infant Jesus I know will bring the strong true peace not of this world but right now, out in the fields, it's hard not to want to run straight for that star. But then I remember, "Wait on the Lord." So I'm waiting. I'm not patient, but I'm waiting.

Have a blessed Advent.

Scary Phrases

Children have the unique ability to elicit pure terror in their parents by what they say, do, don't say and don't do. The following is by no means an exhaustive list, but if you suffer from tremors after reading, you can't say you weren't warned.

10) Dad to toddler, "Where is the toothpaste?"
9) Five year old to Mom, "I can't find my shoes."
8) "We made a rainbow in our room." (Children are holding open markers, no caps in sight).
7) "Nobody's hurt!" (Most effective when uttered the instant Mom or Dad walks through the door).
6) "I forgot my math book." Always spoken when one is pulling INTO the driveway.
5) "My shoes are still missing." after parent has given a list of places to look.
4) I need a poster...cake...clay...usb....(after 9 pm on a weekday) for tomorrow.
3) "I saw the baby with your keys." in response to parent tearing through house looking for car keys, usually said without looking away from television.
2) "I'm sorry Mom." (No explanation given).
1) "I still can't find my shoes."

Is that the Tryptophans Talking?

After Thanksgiving, while adults struggled to remain conscious while walking from the table to the couch, the children begin a series of hyperactive sports and art projects that require both grown-up supervision and even worse, participation. One child wanted to play cards, another Rock Band and a third colored posters for Christmas. Two wanted to do yoga and several demanded baths, knowing that I’d have to fake that “responsible parent” thing with company watching.

They got what they wanted but every moment was a physical sacrifice without the benefit of burning away the calories consumed. All I wanted was a long hibernation.

Why don’t the Tryptophans in turkey make kids sleepy?

Maybe it’s like caffeine which calms children with ADHD but keeps everyone else up, that the food chemicals work in reverse. If so, I’m handing out Mountain Dew to everyone under 12 next year all day long, even the baby’s bottle. The trouble is, I know that would never work.

Reverse psychology only works as a concept in movies. I can’t tell my kids, “Keep your room messy. I don’t mind if it looks like the toy box exploded. There are so many more important things you could do with your time.” And expect to find anything but a room filled to the brim with dirty clothes and massive lego buildings bristling with army men, toy animals and hotwheels. Besides, they’d know I was fooling.

By the same token, I know they have selective hearing and memory and as such, I also can’t say, “Play all the video games and watch all the tv you wish” and not know that statement will be considered an enforceable oral contract for the next year.

With children, they have the house rules and everyone knows, the house always wins. They can eat bad food and not gain weight because they’re growing.

(It never worked for me that way).

They can play games instead of dutifully doing the laundry. They don’t have to entertain, they can zone out on cartoons if they wish after dinner without committing a social faux pas.

After the big meal as we were closing down for the night, my daughter remembered the assignments given for completion over the long weekend and she moaned, “I can’t wait to be a grown up and have no more homework. My free time will be my own.”

Speaking up and shattering that illusion would have been cruel so I held my comments but writing all of this up and trying to carve out a article with a gut filled with stuffing, cranberries and turkey, I mused over the apparent momentary existence of free time. I was writing on my computer. I was momentarily free. Blogging was a form of mental jogging for me, when the rest of the world would fall away in the process. It was liberating. It was a release. It was…then my oldest son came into the room and said, “Can I update my Facebook?”