Silencing the inner critic

I tend to be rather critical of myself in pretty much all aspects: work, running, wife-ing, and mothering. I've always been my own worst enemy. At times, this quality is helpful as it pushes me to reflect and change and improve. But most times the critical voice inside my head is so damn annoying--like Janice's voice from Friends.

Sure you ran 11 miles, but you could've run a little faster. Did you hear that rude comment J said to K? You know he learned that from you, right? Don't bother applying for that job; you'll never get it. You're feeding your kids sandwiches again? When was the last time they ate something green? No, Skittles do NOT count. Your husband probably would be more happy with a more traditional, more feminine, and more stable woman. 

For me, this voice is loudest during moments of chaos--when the schedule gets busy and things begin to slip out of my control, and so, I fight and claw to regain that control. I do things like choose my kids' outfits when they're perfectly capable of choosing their own clothes. I reject all help from my husband. I run farther and faster. I snap at my kids when they drop crumbs on the table. As you can imagine, I am a very unpleasant person to be around when I let that Janice voice win out, and it happens more than I care to admit because it's so easy to focus on our flaws. It's easy to make a list of all we don't have, all we haven't accomplished, all of our mistakes and failures. Our culture lives with critique on the tips of our tongues because we are afraid of failing or being forgotten or messing up our kids.

Yesterday, J came home from school, and as he was unpacking his backpack, he asked me if he could tell me a sad story.

"Sure, bud. What's the story?"

Yesterday I ran away

This last week was ROUGH.

My work schedule was slammed with students. As a writing coach, I meet with students one on one to help them improve their writing skills while empowering them to understand the rhetorical situation and make their own smart choices. It becomes mentally and physically draining when I'm logging almost 6.5 hours of back to back contact time with students four days a week. I usually have Fridays off, but instead, I went in to work for a few hours to meet the needs of my students.

Thursday my husband came down with the cold/sinus/blah junk that I had a few weeks ago.

On Friday night while attending a play that a friend of mine was directing, I got word that my great-grandma passed away. I have beautiful memories of her from when I was a child. She lived a long, full life, but death has a way of dredging up unexpected emotions.

Saturday my husband and I spent much of our day trying to diffuse tantrums.The bedroom walls endured their usual beating from our kids' unspoken emotions--likely frustration with our boundaries, sadness at all the loss they've endured, confusion about who to be mad at. A sense of helplessness reverberated throughout our house. The last tantrum stretched on until 10:30 PM, and my husband and I collapsed soon after, our conversation about solutions always cut short by sleep.

On Sunday morning I picked my son up from Sunday school and the volunteer teacher reported, "We had some problems with him today. He wasn't listening and the other kids were saying that he said bad words. You might want to fix it." I know she has no context of our situation, but her words were just another reason to call myself a failure as a parent.

Yesterday I ran away.

Parenting Should-Haves: Mamas, Give Yourself Some Grace

I've got a new post up on Her View From Home this week encouraging mamas to give themselves grace. Here's a teaser:

"Mom, J was saying mean things about you and dad yesterday on the bus. He told people you say the F-word and that you don't feed him for five days. He's lying. He lied."  

I can always count on my daughter to be honest. But, for the love, we were six blocks form the kids' school, running late, and my coffee was cold. At that moment, I didn't have the emotional capacity to process something so significant.  

Immediately, from the back seat, J piped up, "Someone ELSE said that about their parents. Not me."  

I tried to remain calm while also, politely, call BS on my son who frequently takes creative liberties with the truth. A few seconds later, when he realized I wasn't going to believe his lie, he caved.  

"Well...I said it, but it was about my BIRTH  parents." 

Click here to read more! 

I quit my full-time job, but I'm not a failure

I've made some terrible choices in the last 30 years. The 90s were a decade of poor choices for me--I mean, JNCO jeans, body glitter, and white tube socks with Doc Marten wanna-be sandals?!? My poor choices expand beyond fashion and reach into more significant realms like alcohol consumption and $0.25 tacos at dive bars. Fortunately, I've managed to wise up with age and have made a myriad of good choices, but the one resonating with me the most lately is my decision to step away from teaching.

Now hold up: If you're expecting one of those rant-y, passionate here's-why-I-left-teaching letters, this won't be it. Helping young people engage with the world around them, uncover gems of wisdom from quality literature, and walking with them during tough moments was AMAZING. I loved lesson planning and learning how to more effectively manage my classroom. I loved how political and challenging teaching could be. It was my calling...until I became a mother to two high-needs children.

Talking to our kids about tough stuff

If you pay attention at all to the news, you've noticed that the world seems ablaze with hatred and violence--it's a big pile of stinking, burning garbage. Bombings, terrorist attacks, the GOP nominee spouting hatred, police officers becoming targets of violence, innocent people stereotyped and killed out of fear...the list marches on and on. It would be easier to just shut off the media, tune out the noise, and retreat to our cozy, safe spaces. There is definitely a time to unplug (I'm thinking and praying about my own media fast..more on that in another post). However, there's also a time to engage. There's lots of ways a person can engage: Participating in protests, through writing, through volunteering for an effort, and through dialogue. Because I'm a writer, I often tend to engage through writing, but lately I've been focusing my efforts more on dialogue and conversations with my kids to help us all wade through the muck and have a greater understanding of it and our place in all of it.

Using books to spark conversations of social justice issues

This piece is a partner piece to another post. I didn't want to overwhelm readers with a super long post. Essentially, this is a list of books I've found recently to be good entry points to tough conversations about social justice with our kids. We need these conversations now more than ever. So, check with your local libraries or local bookstores to see if they have these titles! As my kids age, I'll continue to expand my list of books for older kids :) If you have a favorite book to teach kids about the world, leave the title and a brief description in the comments section!

Grades Pre-K-K: 
A is for Activist:  We haven't read this book, but I came across it when searching for books to add to our

library. From what I understand, it's a visually appealing board book that moves through the alphabet but not in a watered down, A is for apple fashion. For example, "A is for Activist. /Advocate./ Abolitionist. Ally./ Actively Answering A call to Action. [...] Y is for Your. And Youth./ Your planet. Your rights/Your future. Your truth./ Y is for Yes. Yes! Yes! Yes!"  The Amazon review says the book is for kids ages 2 and up; I never had a 2 year old, but it seems like these words might be too advanced for them, which is why I categorized it in Pre-K/K. In fact, I've even added it to our Amazon list to order for my almost 2nd graders. There's a similar book called Counting on Community that addresses the concept of community while also teaching numbers.

Helping Our Kids Develop a Habit of Service

Note: I've become sort of obsessed with Parent.Co---their content is just smart and unique. So, I'm proud to have a piece published there this week. You'll find a snippet of the article below. Click here for the full text! 

...we choose to talk with our kids about the world and current events. Writer and humanitarian Bob Goff explains in his book “Love Does,” that he and his wife talk with their kids about major news items so that their kids hear it from them first. This allows parents some sort of control in how we present tough issues to our kids.

We’ve shown our kids pictures of refugee children in Europe stuffed on rafts using the sea as an escape route. We’ve bought them maps and atlases to study together so our kids begin to have an understanding of the just how big and diverse the world is. We’ve watched videos about families living in war-torn countries. We give them age-appropriate descriptions of the presidential election, the terrorist attacks in France and Belgium, the horrific mass shootings in our own country, racism. 

These conversations haven’t been easy. Our kids have cried at the tragedies in the world and have asked tough questions. Often, I’ve doubted our decision to be honest with them, and I wonder if I’m just destroying their innocence.

Not the fun parent

Confession: I am not a fun parent. I like to plan fun things for my kids to do while I watch from the sidelines. I just don't engage well in imaginary play. In fact, the last time my daughter and I played with her dolls, I dressed my doll in a conservative tunic, leggings, and hipster glasses readying her for a day perusing the aisles of used bookstores. K's doll was decked out in tulle and glitter and big sunglasses and was headed to the ball for an evening of dancing.

"You're dressing your doll in that?" K inquired as I held up my doll.

Playing with my kids just doesn't come naturally for me.

Conversely, you will often find my husband playing with our kids--jumping on the trampoline, playing catch, wrestling in the living room, playing tag in the yard--he has earned the fun parent award.

My husband playing catch with our kids while I watch from our hammock

There is one thing, though, that I love to do with my kids: Music.

Trading self-doubt for courage

I hear people say things like, You are the right mother for your kids. While I want to believe them, somewhere deep within--from a dark spot in my soul I call BS on this line (Side bar: my kids think BS stands for babysitter!). When I find myself cradling my thrashing daughter who is screaming that she hates us, the sentiment You are the right mother for your kids feels cliche and sarcastic.

Since I became a parent via foster-adopt I've gone through the ringer of self-doubt. Every opportunity I missed, every tantrum from one of my kids, every time I make a mistake (so, daily...) feeds the belief that I am not the right mother for my kids. 

If only they had someone who was more patient, stronger, less sarcastic, more motherly--then they'd be better off, I think.

The story our actions tell

I have a serious sugar addiction that I blame on my mother and my grandfather. Before I had children, I could happily indulge in candy and ice cream in my living room at 4:30 in the afternoon. Now that I have children, I have to sneak my sweets (I am too selfish to share them with my kids, #FoReal).

This is what it looks like when I eat a box of chocolates....

I swear--my kids can hear me opening a tiny box of Nerds from across the damn house because EVERY TIME I am about to eat their Halloween/Valentines/Easter candy, in the privacy of a locked bathroom, they come a running from the depths of their basement playroom, yelling, "MOM! WHAT ARE YOU EATING?!" Now that I'm a mom, my behavior (and my sugar addiction) simply is not overlooked.

On Bravery

Here's a bit of a confession for the day: I am a worrier...a brooder...a dweller...a nervous Nelly.

I don't know where this stems from since my parents seem to be fearless and for as long as I can remember, I've been performing. Throughout elementary school I was a competitive gymnast and had no problems flipping and jumping and balancing in front of a crowd. I loved the thrill of performing. I remember watching my older cousin's volleyball games and doing back handsprings and cheers on the sidelines simply because I LOVED being watched by a crowd. In middle school I bravely donned my olive green cargo pants and crop-topped Calvin Klein baby doll shirt to sing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in front of the entire student body (DON'T JUDGE). In high school, I performed in musicals and ran varsity track--getting a thrill at each round of applause and sound of a starter's gun. I even gave a speech at my high school graduation in front of nearly 300 of my peers and even more of their friends and family. Like most folks, I remember the proverbial butterflies before public performances, but I don't remember freak-outs prior.

Maybe time has just given me a set of rose colored glasses (has it really been twelve years since I graduated?!), but I feel like my sense of nervousness has increased post high school.

Go Ahead: Fill Your Proverbial Cup

About three weeks ago my work schedule changed a bit; I added a second campus and 11 extra hours to my work load. That doesn't read like a lot more work, but I went from working three days a week to five days a week. I'm still juggling my kids' various weekly appointments, and I've been swamped with student appointments as we approach that mid-term mark in the semester. But this week....this week it's SPRING BREAK, and my spring break just happens to fall two weeks after my husband and kids' spring break, so that means an entire week BY MYSELF. 

Self (Re)Discovery

"Who were you before becoming a mom? What sort of things did you like to do?" my therapist asked.

I explained that prior to becoming a mom, I willingly devoted most of my time to my job as a high school English teacher. I sponsored many school activities, coached cross country, and focused on establishing myself as a professional by attending graduate school and teaching conferences. I told her that I ran 25-35 miles a week and sang in a bluegrass band. Free time was spent with my husband or with my friends.

"Well...do you think you can still do these things now?" she inquired.

My son and toy guns

Yesterday was my seven year-old son's "gotcha day"--a day we we celebrate his adoption, when he officially became ours. I took him to one of our local bookstores to let him pick something out; I had hopes that he would choose a new chapter book, a comic, or maybe even an atlas (he's really into maps right now), but the minute we stepped foot in the toy section of the bookstore, I saw him lock eyes on it. I tried to redirect him, "Hey! Look! An atlas of space!" I shouted and pointed to a shiny cover on the top row--but there was no turning back.

"I want this. Can I get it?" he asked without taking his eyes off the tiny, chintzy, plastic, orange toy gun that would surely break by the end of the week that nearly all kids from the 70s and 80s had.

Tips for church staff when working with traumatized children

Sunday morning is the ONLY morning my family gets to fake normal. It’s the lone day of the week we all look presentable. Since we’re there for a mere hour and fifteen minutes each week, there’s little time for my kids’ trauma to unfold in the form of questionable behaviors. There’s also the fact that we’re still relatively new to town and our church. While it’s clear by looking at our family that our kids could be adopted (one dark brown child, one light brown child, and two very white parents), most in our church aren’t aware of our kids’ stories and prior trauma. So you can imagine the pit of nausea that developed on Sunday morning when I heard my husband explain to our tantruming, pajama-clad son that we were leaving for church as a family of four in 20 minutes whether he was out of his footie-jammies or not.

To the parents of my struggling son's classmates

Note: There's a lot that sparked me to write this, but the story of a young man in Ralston (Reid Adler) who committed suicide has haunted me for the past few weeks. Reid's story is very different than my son's, but it made me think about my son and how difficult school has been for him. Here's just a teaser of my post...if you want to read more, click here.

To the parents of my struggling son’s classmates:

...when your child tells you about my son’s interesting behaviors, would you engage in an age-appropriate conversation about this? Your child and mine don’t need to be best friends. They don’t need to play together every recess or sit together every day at lunch. He doesn’t need to be invited to your kid’s birthday party. And, it would even be appropriate for your child to distance him/herself from my son during his outbursts and episodes. However, could you think about your child playing alone at recess day after day? Could you think of how your child might feel about him/herself if every day he/she took multiple trips to the principal’s office? I hope this thought moves you to explain to your child that sometimes kids can’t control their behaviors. I hope it encourages you to talk to your child about being friendly, even to those who are different...

Finding liberation in my anxiety

Note: This post originally appeared on Her View from Home. Click on it, and if you're feeling generous--share the link with your friends.

Night time is the worst. I often lay awake with my husband sleeping peacefully beside me, my brain replaying the terrible moments of the day. Every moment of compassion I missed with my kids and my husband replays like a CD tripping over the same measure in a song. I try reading, praying, sleeping, listening to music. Nothing shakes me out of this downward spiral. If I'm lucky, I'll just lie awake for three hours before I get up to take a sleep aid. Some nights the constant memory replay turns to a pathetic show of crying myself to sleep, but at least with these nights, I am allowed some peace in sleep. The worst nights find me crying myself to hyperventilation--so much that my arms and hands and face grow tingly from lack of oxygen. The latter doesn't happen often, but a few weeks ago my husband witnessed it for the first time in our nearly ten years of marriage...and it was humiliating.

I've struggled with anxiety for quite some time, but it reached a peak last spring and dipped off until a few weeks ago. My anxiety is usually situational and grips me when life just feels too much. It hits when I'm not busy working or doing stuff for my family….so nighttime. I think this is what fueled my constant need to fill my schedule for so many years.

Six or seven years ago a doctor told us that we'd never have biological children--confirming what we had already suspected two years prior. To avoid facing my grief, I plunged headlong into advancing my career--I graduated from college, started teaching full-time, began my Masters Degree, coached speech, quiz bowl, cross country, and helped with my school's musical. I presented at state and national level teaching conferences. Most of my energy was spent on my job, and whatever time I had left, I ran--logging usually 25-35 miles a week, and when I ran, I listened to podcasts and thought about my job. There was no time for me to feel anxiety.

I kept this habit up until one year ago. My husband and I had adjusted after making a big move from a tiny town in western Nebraska to Omaha a few years earlier. We were teaching at a large, urban school; I was adjuncting part-time at UNO, and we had just adopted our first child from foster care and welcomed a second child the same age as our first child. Our proverbial plates were full. A breaking point was inevitable.

It was sometime in December when I was up at one in the morning chipping away at the stacks of my students' research papers that I felt the choking, burning anxiety creep into my throat. It was something I felt many times in the last year but had managed to push down with more work and more miles. But I couldn't do it anymore. I rested my head on a stack of research papers and cried to the point of hyperventilation--my hands, arms, and face tingly from lack of oxygen. I knew something had to give. I couldn't sacrifice my husband or my kids or my health, so the obvious choice was my job--the very thing I used as a distraction for seven years. I had tried to quit my job a few years before, but I chickened out and took a last minute teaching job again. Over the next few days, I spent time praying about this difficult choice, and I ended up resigning from my teaching position mid-year and found my way to a part-time job.

With part-time work comes moments of stillness (no matter how much housework I do to avoid these moments) when the anxiety creeps in and tries to consume me. I’ve juggled immediate feelings of sadness, inferiority, and doubt about my decision to leave a job I was good at (teaching) and replace it with a job I’m still fumbling my way through (parenting). I’m learning, though, that while I prefer to keep these moments of anxiety to myself, I simply can’t ward off the anxiety on my own. That night in the bathroom a few weeks ago with my husband rubbing my back, holding my hand, helping me breathe, crying with me--I realized that I don't have to be alone in my anxiety. When I finally moved past the immediate feeling of humiliation, I was able to feel liberated. It’s difficult to let others in on these moments when we are nothing but a hot mess, but for the love---just do it. Find one person with whom you’d be okay exchanging hot mess moments. Be there for each other and allow yourself to feel liberated even in your weaknesses.

Moms: Discover your identity

I've gone through a number of identity shifts in my lifetime. In elementary school, I wanted to be an NBA star (despite my obvious height deficiency and a serious lack of any basketball skills). I donned the baggy basketball gym shorts, collected every Muggsy Bogues card (short folks, unite!), watched Space Jam on Saturdays, and played knockout with the boys every recess (and lost...every recess). In high school I shifted from a punk rocker to a hippy intellectual wearing Goodwill jeans from the 70s, old wool cardigans, hair wraps, Birkenstocks, and skipped classes to read some book written by a beatnik or a transcendentalist. Soon after starting college, I married a clean-cut, slacks-clad young man just starting his career as a music teacher. I was suddenly a wife--a newly-minted 20-year-old wife still working on her college degree. Self-conscious and unsure of this new identity, I replaced the silver hoop in my nose piercing with a tiny stud and tried to be a grown up while still taking college classes and working a part-time job at the mall. I paid bills, made meals, cleaned our apartment, and studied while most of my college friends were still living in the dorms, partying. Two years into my new marriage, I scored my first grown-up job as a teacher, and I soon realized that I loved it. Comfortable with my marriage and role as a wife, my I allowed my job to become my identity.

Then...on the verge of starting my sixth year in the classroom...I became a mom, and everything I thought I knew about myself went out the window.

Suddenly I spent my days teaching and worrying about my children. My evenings were devoted to family, and my nights were spent grading. My weekends were filled with cleaning, grocery shopping, and more family time. I rarely had time for me. Sure, I'd sneak out for an occasional run, but I didn't engage in the hobbies I once loved. Teaching gave me much-needed confidence, but when I became a mother--that confidence went down the toilet.  Any free time I came across I used to read about how to be a better mom--because I didn't know what in the hell I was doing (still don't!). Gone were my hobbies, my confidence, and eventually---my job when I couldn't handle the complicated dance of being a wife, a mom, and a teacher. I discovered that a person can only devote herself to caring for others and neglecting herself for so long before reaching a breaking point when something has to give.

It's been three years since I became a mother, and I'm just now taking time to figure out who I am in this new season of life. It's hard to let go of the things I once loved and embrace new, budding passions, but I recognize the need for this reinventing, and I realize growth can come of it.

Moms--if your family has become your identity, save yourself from reaching an ugly breaking point by engaging in activities now that fill you up. Take time for you each day. If you don't know where to start--do something you once loved, or modify something you once enjoyed to fit more with your current season of life. We can't take care of our husbands and children and coworkers and parents and friends until we are in a regular routine of practicing good self-care. Put down the laundry, walk away from the toddler, pick up a bottle of your favorite beer to enjoy with dinner, and let your school-aged kid do some of the housework so you can have time for you.

Saying no to more children...for now

We discovered the Nebraska Heart Gallery (a website featuring pictures and bios of kids available for adoption in Nebraska) while we were working on our foster parenting license three years ago. Halfway through our licensure, we inquired about a sibling strip of three, but since they were spoken for, we were informed of a little boy about to go on the Heart Gallery--this little boy would eventually become our son. After we adopted him, it was only a few weeks before I started creeping on the Heart Gallery reading bios and thinking about giving Jon a sibling. We made a few inquiries, and when nothing panned out--we decided this was a clear sign we needed to wait. But I looked at that website every day...sometimes multiple times a day, and my heart ached for these kids. Their pictures burned in my mind. Six months after we adopted Jon, because of an inquiry with the Heart Gallery, we were matched with our now daughter. It's been 15 months since she moved in and seven months since we adopted her. Just a month ago my husband and I had that conversation...the more kids conversation. We laughed, I chugged a beer, and while our kids each cried in their rooms, we quickly agreed that we had reached our limits with kids.

......then I looked at the Heart Gallery's website last week......and I saw two little boys with whom my son went to daycare and a handful of kids whose bios have been up on the website for three years. Then I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to be done adopting kids....

My heart aches for these kids who haven't been able to find homes. Every kid deserves a home, and I desperately want to give all of these kids a forever family--to allow them this experience. But the truth is....my husband and I are tired EXHAUSTED. And we are already stretched to our limits emotionally and physically. We could not fit more therapy appointments in our schedule unless I quit working altogether. And it turns out that I enjoy the break of working--even part-time. I could not do the difficult full-time stay at home mom gig that adopting another child would require.

But you guys....these kids who are waiting...I keep thinking about Jeffrey--whose sister has already been adopted---who went to daycare with my son. I think about Dom, Naomi, and Chire--a sibling strip of three who we prayed about for a year asking God for direction about pursuing these three who are now eligible to be adopted individually--whose pictures show how they've grown up while waiting for their forever family.

I don't cry when I box up my kids' tiny clothes like some moms who know they are done with kids. But I do get misty knowing that I cannot offer Jeffrey, Dom, Naomi, or Chire a forever home right now. In five years or even in ten years we may be in a different place and be able to welcome more kids, but for now we just can't. However-----if you've ever considered more kids or adoption, would you check out the Nebraska Heart Gallery? Would you consider saying yes to these kids? Adopting older kids is incredibly difficult, but.....these kids have often experienced more difficult things. If you want to chat about adopting older children, I'd be happy to talk with you; just hit me up on email or Facebook or leave me a comment below!

What I learned from traveling with my kids

My husband and I adopted our son from foster care in March of 2014 and our daughter from foster care in July of 2015. Both of our kids have experienced significant trauma and struggle with attachment issues that are often expressed with defiance towards us and other frustrating behaviors, so when I clicked “purchase” to buy four non-refundable plane tickets to Texas over Christmas break for our first vacation as a family of four, I wondered if I had lost my mind.

After talking with the kids’ therapist, we decided not to tell our kids about the trip until we left for the airport. The night before our flight, I tossed and turned with anxiety about how they would react to the news of going on a trip (kids with histories of trauma don’t like surprises). Would they cry and throw a tantrum? Would they fake excitement and then save all their anxiety to come out in the form of tantrums/bathroom issues/food hoarding on the plane for one hundred strangers to see and judge us for the lack of control we have over our children?  Or would they save all of these issues for Texas forcing my husband and me to deal with behaviors rather than spend precious moments with my grandfather? My own anxiety robbed me of sleep.

We woke the kids at three in the morning to dress them and hurry them out to the hotel lobby so we could wait for our shuttle. We surprised them in the hotel lobby and video taped their reactions--our son, the introvert, gasped at the news and covered his mouth--his wide eyes darted back and forth between my husband and me as if he was trying to figure out what this all meant. Our daughter, the extrovert, shouted, “FOR THE FIRST TIME I GET TO FLY ON AN AIRPLANE!” We explained where we’d be traveling to, how many days we’d be gone, that we’d make a stop at South Padre Island to swim in the ocean, and that we’d have a layover in Minneapolis--a city our son has wanted to visit ever since a classmate of his moved there last summer. I waited on my tiptoes in the hotel lobby for the tantrums….but there were none. There were none on the shuttle, none at the airport, none on the plane, and none for the first two days of vacation. My husband and I were deliberate at filling our days with equal amounts of fun activities in Texas and free-time for them to play and rest back at my grandpa’s house. We tended to a few meltdowns and defiance on our last day of the trip, but none of these behaviors were severe.

Our kids...running into the Gulf of Mexico

As I scan through all the photos from our trip and see the pure excitement on our kids’ faces, I’m realizing just how important this trip was for our little family. I think this vacation told our kids that they can trust us to provide for them above and beyond their basic needs. I think the trip affirmed for our kids (especially our daughter who we recently adopted) that their place in our family is firm. For my husband and me, the trip taught us that our kids can handle certain amounts of stress as long as we are deliberate about balancing them with predictable routines.