A Stroke of Faith

My sister called my cell last Friday morning while I was sitting in Berkeley Springs at a baseball game.  "Mommy collapsed.  I am taking her to the hospital."

Our mother is 88.  She had just come out of a pretty difficult water aerobics class--yes, you read that right--and grabbed some groceries at Food Lion.  Upon reaching my sister's vehicle, she went straight down.  First miracle:  Straight down.  Not forward on her face, nor backward on her head.  She didn't break or bruise a thing.  A couple men were standing by and rushed to my mother's aid.  Another man stopped his car and helped them get her up and into my sister's car.  She was weak and listless.  My sister tore back to my mother's house and grabbed her medicine, the things she takes daily, because she knew she would be asked.  She put our mother's cold stuff in the fridge.  People have questioned that.  I would have done the same thing.  It's the parent-child relationship.  I don't know exactly what's wrong but Mommy will want her food put away.  There was a sweetness to the action, and not a foolishness.  Because even though we're grown women who have raised (and are raising) our own children, we are still daughters, and within that relationship we still retain some of the thoughts and feelings of little girls toward their mommies.  So, the cold stuff got put away.

As they flew to the hospital, my sister did all the stroke tricks and our mother did not pass.  Along the way, my sister asked a zillion questions, even one particular question that, considering the circumstances, was necessary--but it certainly took a lot of courage to ask:  "Mom, do you want to be cremated like Daddy?" Second Miracle:  They didn't wreck or get pulled over.  One of the sweetest songs ringing in my heart right now is that while my mother was continuing in her stroke, God ministered to her in a precious way.  He tells us in John 14:26 that He will recall His Word to our remembrance.  She recited Psalm 23 in the midst of her situation.  And He caused her to be able to.  I was wondering about calling that fact the Third Miracle, but her ability to recite scripture in the midst of her uncertainty was not a miracle, rather a promise.  I have a mother whose every breath is a thankful one, whose every hope is in the Lord Jesus.

By the time they made it to the hospital, my mother's left arm was retracted and her mouth drooped on one side.  The amazing folks in the ER whisked her into the back, evaluated her and sped her off for a CAT Scan.  (BTW--thanks for that!  You saved our sweet Mama's life!)  By the time I reached the consultation room, the Scan was in progress and we were about to meet the neurologist.  His team finished the Scan and he confirmed our fears.  Until that point, I nearly had myself convinced she had forgotten to take her blood pressure meds, that this wasn't actually a stroke, that she simply needed to get back on track with her pills.  The neurologist was kind and encouraging.  She had been given a clot-busting drug and was responding well.  As Mommy was transferred to ICU, we updated our sibs, spouses, kids and other family members.

Miracle Three:  I remained strong and without tears.  The next day a whole bunch of us gathered in the ICU waiting room and wore out the double doors into the unit--two at a time.  The strangest thing occurred.  Our mother remembered every second of the previous day.  She recalled her water aerobics class, her grocery trip, the exact sensation as she collapsed (complete weakness), the men picking her up and placing her into the passenger seat of my sister's car, the ride to the hospital.  She seemed great.

And then, the next day she seemed less great, and today less so.  She is fragile, yet still, even within the weakness of her body, she is encouraging and sweet, and funny.  The nurse asked her today if she knew where she was.  When she said she did know, her nurse continued:  "Where are you?"  ISRAEL.  Israel?  My heart dropped.  And then I saw my sly Mommy wink at my youngest daughter.

I don't know what our tomorrow will bring, but there is One who does, and it's on Him that I have to cast this one.  That became crystal clear tonight when I sobbed my eyeballs out because I feel so terribly lost when I think of, perhaps, losing my mother.  

A Celestial Birth Announcement

A Celestial Birth Announcement

“Exalt the Lamb,”

Speaks the Father

To a sun, to a star, to

His Star,

And joyful light bursts, expands, explodes,

Announces, declares and glorifies

From within—

To without,

Floods tiny Bethlehem,

Ancient promise of the coming Redeemer

Fulfilled in supernova,

Fresh and unusual stranger

To the night sky,

Created to announce

The birth of one tiny Baby,

Jesus.

                             ~Paige Tighe

                               Christmas, 2012

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A joyous Christmas to all--and may the God of Peace bring you contentment and abiding knowledge of His awesome Presence this year and forevermore.

                                                                                                        ~PT

A Whirlwind of Hooligans (Part II)

When a three-year-old cups my face in his sticky little hands and whispers, most confidentially, "I am riding to church in your car because you...are...my...Nanny," I lose all sense of anything but his dreamy eyes.  When a two-year-old wakes in the night with boogies streaming out of his nose and cheeks as red as apples and wants only to lie across his Nonna (translation:  Nanny), I don't care what miserable toddler disease I catch; I only want to comfort him.  When I've been out of the house from moon-to-moon, and crawl in from another long day of teaching and chauffeuring, and a wee baby tears his toothless mouth wide because he's delighted to see me, I am energized.

It is pure foolishness to place two families under the same roof and expect an atmosphere of enduring peace.  Especially two passionate, hard-headed families with children spanning from tots to teens, a couple big dogs, a bunch of temperamental cats (some indoor/some indoor-outdoor) and one hermit crab.  We have very little peace under our roof, but much joy.  And our joy arrives in snippets, not streams. In bottles, not barrels.  But here's what we do have:  LOVE.  We have discovered that we love enough to forgive minor transgressions.  We love enough to stay relational in the face of anger and self-centeredness.  We love enough to keep our tongues when it would feel much more satisfying to loose them.

A Chinese friend told me many years ago that the Chinese symbol for "too much trouble" (pronounced:  mah-fwong)  is the image of two women under the same roof.  Time and experience have proven this again and again in my life--not, however, in this time or in this experience.  I am discovering that I can anticipate my adult daughter's responses because she is so much like me.  We parent similarly.  And we come up with the same kookie stuff for dinners.  She is a resourceful homemaker and understands how the house needs to look and feel when I drag myself in the door in the evenings.  She rarely snaps back when I am grouchy.  She knows what brings me snippets and bottles of peace.  I appreciate this child so much, and learn from her compassion toward me and her many kindnesses toward the whole mob of us.  Hats off to you, Cheryl--yours is not an easy path, but your grace and diligence make us all want to do better!  Big love to you!      

A Whirlwind of Hooligans (Part I)

Our children were lengthening their bones and leaving us at an alarming rate.  They were pursuing relationships and bachelor's degrees, they were buying cars and marrying.  They were raising families.  Our number had shrunk from eight to five.  I found myself crying over our lack of sippy cups in the cabinet and Matchbox cars wedged under the couch. Our vacuum cleaner never smoked from sucking up Polly Pockets and no Barbie hair clogged the bathroom drain.  Our youngest child was almost twelve, and no longer needed his hot dogs sliced down the middle, and our oldest spent most evenings sequestered in her room.   

Our house had become quiet, and to a mother used to hustle and flurry, the quiet was nearly unendurable.  How many times did I search the heavens for free-falling babies?  How much did I fuss and coo over babies in stores?  How many knowing smiles did I bestow on frazzled strangers at Walmart, frazzled female strangers with toddlers spilling from their grocery carts?  The answer:  too many and too much to be considered sane or, at the very least, polite.

Guilty.  Me.

When the phone rang one early August evening and the flat, angry tone in our daughter's voice came through the wires from far, far away, I reached back through them with comfort.  "Come to us," I told her.  "Pack up your three babies and your husband and make your home here until you figure things out."  I was dizzy with excitement; our home would be full of babies again.  We would grow to ten; and we would make it work.  Concerns, stifled, went unspoken. 

Convincing the current oldest child was a different story--she had only just last year made her way into the Circle of Trust and Favor.  As Number Four, she had arrived at oldest and was loathe to relinquish the title.  Plus, as we considered the logistics, we did not anticipate the living situation with great hope.  While we longed to squeeze our long lost and dearest loves, reality and experience dictate that the honeymoon wears off in time and that grown children really shouldn't move back home.  But there was a need, and it was our job to meet it.

We have been pleasantly surprised.

Harder Than I Thought...

This is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.  I don't mean having the grandboy with us; I mean, packing him to go home.  I will allow that it has been very busy at our house for the past three weeks.  His mother has been gone, and we have had to add the wants, needs and habits of a potty-training, nap-forsaking two-year-old to an already almost impossible schedule.  (Did I mention we have also agreed to adopt our daughter's six-month-old lab?)

Our grandboy spent the first week of his adventure adjusting.  He, like a tiny preschool liquid filling the spaces in an existing container, poured himself into our home and hearts.  He was compliant and pretty flexible.  He became less picky about his food, hung out with his older aunts and uncles, didn't assert himself very much and was generally well-behaved.  In short, he went with the flow. 

Then, the slippery slope, the point at which he began to create the flow.  We think he spent his first week observing our behavior and storing data.  His tendrils sought out the chinks in our armor, the weak spots in our hearts.  He is absolutely the youngest unschooled--but very accomplished--psychoanalyst we have ever met.  Bumpie and I were completely unprepared for this savvy new generation of toddler.  He became enamored of his beautiful aunts, and ran to them at even the suggestion of discipline from us.  He decided to use his little blue potty only when he wanted candy, forced the girls to stay awake with him when he couldn't sleep (once until 5:20 a.m.) and trapped Bumpie in his web of sticky fingers and cute baby words.  None of us tired of him, though; not once has he been a pain.

I thought I would be okay about packing his things.  But as I folded his tiny clothes and sorted his little wee toys, I began to long for the child who was still here.  I lingered over his sippy cups, smelled his no-tears baby soap.  Like his mother and Uncle Raymond, he hid a most odd assortment of objects in secret places.  I couldn't help smiling at their discovery.  In a compartment in his riding toy I found the dog's baby, a flat-head screwdriver, a soda bottle wrapper, purple Mardi Gras beads and a hairbrush.  In a cabinet, we found some crackers, the Wii remote, a shoe, some batteries, a comb and a fork.  I am sure there are undiscovered treasures yet to be found.

Yesterday, a few chicks hatched here.  He promptly named them after his brother, his grandfather and his aunt.  The chicks are named:  Baby Miam (Liam), Baby Bumpie and Baby Aunt Mawie (Molly). 

The Importance of Being Scheduled

Having little ones on schedules is really important.  We live in a scheduled society, and unless we are fortunate enough to design our days without input from life's demands, they are good for us.  Rigidity is not good, but as our children grow, the notion that things just happen when they happen, doesn't serve them.  It hinders them.  (Refer to the beginning of sentence #2:  We live in a scheduled society.)  They become people who arrive places--like work--when they feel like it and lose entire days without accomplishing anything.  I am not opposed to losing a day here and there as a mental health fix, but if some type of order isn't followed, a day becomes several, becomes a week, a month, a year, a lifetime.

I have found that having the grandboy here helps me keep a schedule.  I don't think his mother will be very happy to know that he goes to bed much later than he's used to and, thus, sleeps much later.  You see, I am a morning person and she is a night owl.  I need the wee hours to make things happen in the house, and in my work.  That way, I belong to my family when they wake up.  We do keep regular mealtimes for both the kids and the animals here at Open Hand Farm (that's us) but most activities tend to start later and wind down later here.

In the bigger and extended-out sense, kids who don't value compartments of time, will become adults who don't value compartments of time.  I declare this entire discussion null and void as it relates to the people predisposed to completing tasks--I think they will naturally create the schedule that works for them.  I also know that if you give a baby the opportunity, he will create his own schedule and, initially, it will revolve around the basics--sleeping and eating.  (Could you see a little baby's TO DO list?  Wake up, eat, drift back off to sleep, wake up, play, poop, eat lunch, sleep, wake up, eat, play with sibs, cry while the rest of the family tries to eat supper, play with Daddy, bath, late night snack, sleep.)  My mom came from the school that told mommies to wake their babies up EVERY FOUR HOURS on the button or they would grow up to be delinquents.  Guess what?  I still grew up to be a delinquent.  (I'm much better now.  LOL)  I don't actually think the schedule had anything to do with it.  

All this to say:
1.  Schedules are good.
2.  The schedule that suits your family is the best one.
3.  Like it or not, we live in a world ordered by time and, thus, schedules.

Back To Our Senses

Phew!  I was starting not to recognize us.  We were beginning to do all the poor parenting things we used to criticize other people for.  We slipped into grandparental overindulgence and began to create a monster--but no more!  We realized our error both in our grandboy's behavior and in his lack of pooping.  He began to turn into the the yittle boss, which is funny because that's what his mother insisted she was at three years of age.  She and I were going roundy-round about one thing or another and I said to her, "YOU are NOT the boss."  (I was very emphatic.)

She puffed out her little chest and put her adorable little hands on her hips.  She furrowed her beautiful little brow and narrowed her amazing blue eyes and corrected me.  "I the YITTLE BOSS!" she said.  Her son was beginning to assert himself in similar fashion.  He was also deciding what he would and would not eat.  Bumpie and I were giving in because we wanted to be popular.  We figured out how stupid we were being when we realized our grandboy hadn't pooped in two days.  His mother did have a similar tendency, naturally, but it was an epiphany moment for us and we knew we had to be more responsible.  So...we began feeding him bananas and peaches and watermelon and eggs and LOTS of water and limited milk products and no junk cereal.  We say "no" sometimes and have even had to use the time-out chair.  It should be noted that even though the grandboy is strong-willed (like his mommy), he is also smart and has only had to sit on the time-out chair twice.  It's good when we can learn from our own mistakes, isn't it?

And guess what?  We, too, have learned from our mistakes.  We are still popular because we hug him and hold him; we tell him he is wonderful and beautiful; we take him fishing (bishin') and swimming (simmin'); we kiss his boo-boos and sing "Jesus Loves Me" with him.  We feed him chocolate chips when he uses the little potty and don't scorn him when he prefers not to.  I think too many parents and grandparents allow bad--and destructive--behavior because they want to be popular.  Don't they realize kids love to be loved and paid attention to?  Kids need parameters, and really do respond well to limits.

Grandparenting: My New Frontier

Oooo!  This is fun!  Dear hubby and I became grandparents a couple years ago, but our daughter lives in NC, so we saw the baby twice when he was really wee, but then not again for two years.  Last summer he acquired a little brother.  Two weeks ago, when our daughter and her little guys invaded, we officially became Nanny and Bumpie--the most fun, junk-food-offering grandparents in the world!  We feed the grandboys cheese puffs and allow them to slurp coffee (no sugar, of course).  Our older grandboy chooses his own attire--even if it's none--and doesn't have to eat balanced meals if he doesn't want to.  We don't want to cramp his style.

We have NEVER behaved thusly with small children.  We were fun parents (I think) but we never served up snacks instead of meals and allowed people to run naked.  We followed rules, kept our young 'uns squeaky clean, and did not allow them to eat sugary cereal or drink syrupy drinks.  We did homework with them and observed an early-evening bedtime.  Teeth were brushed twice a day--scrubbed might be a better word--and they held their silverware properly by eighteen months.

Our daughter has been looking at us, like, "Whuttt?  Who are you people and what have you done with my parents?"  And this is the really funny part--guess who the tough guy is now?  Our dear daughter, that's who!  She is disciplined with the two-year-old and consistent.  She doesn't make excuses for bad behavior, and she doesn't ignore it.  She insists that he holds his fork correctly and is diligent about teeth brushing.  We just stand back--we haven't crossed the line of overt grandparental interference yet--and feel sad for the poor little guy.  He didn't mean to kick the dog.  He didn't try to spit his food on the table.  He might have screamed something that sounded like "NO!" but we aren't really sure that's what it was.

The boys' mommy has graciously allowed us to keep the two-year-old for two weeks while she travels a bit.  We are having so much fun!  But...both Bumpie and I have purposed in our hearts to try really, really hard each day to be more strict grandparents.  It's just so hard when they're so cute, when they snuggle into your arms and say, "I loves you, Nanny."  It's just so hard.