Dinner Fail 5,633

So in attempt to get ahead on my week I spent the better part of Sunday and Monday prepping our food for dinner this week. We start Life Groups tonight and for some reason I turn into a not so nice wife/mom as I am rushing dinner along to get out the door. You know the kind that tells their kids to hurry up and eat, stop taking, just eat...we are late again. Yeah I can be that mom.

Knowing all this I thought I'd get ahead of the ugly mom syndrome and plan my menu. I even drew out his cute little grid in which the hubs said I should just make an excel sheet and save it...if you know me you know I believe that Excel is the spawn of satan! I even paroozed Pinterest like all good moms do for some new menu items. Got my list, drug the kids to Costco and Sprouts and we were set for the week. 

Since we live in SoCal and my kids are creatures of habits we have to have Tacos every Tuesday because "duh Mom it's Taco Tuesday night". I got the pork for carnitas, the salsa, the avacado to make guacamole, the corn tortillas for us and flour for the littles. It was going to be divine. The pork had marinated for 24 hours and was going to be put into the crock pot before I left to drop everyone off at their schools.

I go to school on Tuesday and Thursday's. As I was walking up to my class this morning it hit me. I never put the darn pork in the crock pot. What are we going to do for dinner now? Should I text Corban and ask him to do that one handed (he broke his right arm a few weeks ago) and hope that he gets the pork into the crock pot and not all over the floor? Knowing that I just mopped last night the potential of the mess was a risk my OCD could not deal with! The risk was too big. I tried to call the hubs, but he didn't answer. Onto plan B. 

Since we are starting Life Groups tonight I wanted to pick up some cookies to bring like all good leaders do right?!? Yes I should have made them myself like any self proclaimed Monica Gellhar but I spent all my time preparing the meats and I ran out of time to make cookies. Off to Sprouts I go. I am always a sucker for an olive bar.

Thank the lord for Sprouts. Cesar salad, spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread is what's for dinner. Let's just hope those creatures of habits I have will forget it's Tuesday. Oh and the cookies thank God I didn't forget those. Yes I had to circle back for them. Obviously my ADD is in full force today!

I hope all of you have a fantastic dinner! Off to Life Groups we go and believe it or not no ugly mom syndrome reared its ugly head!

Home School may not be for every Mom!

I wasn’t ever really good at the whole school thing. I grew up under the shadow of an incredibly smart older brother. In high school, he had like a 4.6 GPA. I might have had a 1.4 on a good day. The only thing in school that I was good at was getting out of school, ditching until the nuns caught up to me. My Dad finally took me for testing and I was diagnosed with dyslexia, auditory discrimination (my Dad says I hear what I want to hear), and I was ADD. I had to re-learn how to write, and learn how to read and comprehend what I read. Last time I was tested in college I have a reading comprehension of maybe a 10^th grader.  I love to read now, but it is one of my biggest struggles.Today we have so many different options of where to send our kids to school, private, public, home school, charter school, on-line school. I grew up at a parochial school and then finished up high school at an all-girls Catholic High School. Laugh if you may, but it was probably the best four years of my life.

I am giving you this back-story to shed some light on our current family situation. When my oldest son was in kindergarten at a traditional public school we found out quickly that that program was not for us. We moved him over to a charter school and have been in seventh heaven ever since. Honestly, I didn’t want my kids to be gone five days, I know that might sound lame, but it’s the truth. However, when my middle son, Corban started school we knew something was not right.

Since Corban is a boy and was a young kindergartener there wasn’t much the school was willing to do. It seemed that since he was a boy he would “just grow out of it.” Then came and went first grade, again we were told that “he is a boy, he will grow out of it.” In second grade, his teacher saw through the “he’s just a boy” argument and guided us to get him tested. We have been with Julian Charter School since first grade. They tested him and after reports were submitted to the school and his medical doctor, Corban was diagnosed with Dyslexia, Discraphia, and ADHD. He also has visual issues that block him from learning the typical way. I would argue that he has auditory discrimination as well, but maybe that is just a “boy thing.”

When we got the test results back, it crushed me. I think Thom thought I was a little crazy, but I felt like it was the end of the world. After a few days of tears and peanut butter and chocolate ice cream I came to the conclusion that we would fight this and get through this. Pretty much everyone knows what Dyslexia and ADHD are, but Discraphia isn’t as well known. Basically Corban is under-developed with his gross and fine motor skills. Because of this, he lacks the ability to form letters, to write, to draw. He has spacing issues with his letters and the pictures he draws. He lacked the inner core strength to ride a bike, to tie his shoes, to run without looking like Phoebe. To his credit, this never stopped him from trying. He finally learned how to ride a bike at the age of 8 and last year at the age of 9 he learned to tie his shoes. He still wears his shorts and t-shirts backwards and laughs at himself as he marches back to his room to fix his clothes. He is still working on his motor skills. At times he still runs like Phoebe, but he is making progress!

When we moved to Pine Valley, Thom and I decided that we would stay with Julian Charter School through their home school program. This meant that I would be home schooling him five days a week for nine whole months, for the next two years. What on earth was I going to do….For the past 8 years we have been with the charter system and I have helped with homework, projects, or one day a week at home instruction of some kind….but homeschooling full time was daunting, I think I might have cried like a lot!

My friends said that I was the perfect person to home school him because I knew what he was going through. I knew his limitations and I could empathize with him. I wish that were true. There have been days where I get where he is coming from, but for the most part I have gotten frustrated, extremely frustrated. Some days I have to call Thom to come home at lunch and talk to Corban because one of us were not going to survive and I obviously have a better survival rate then the boy. In time Julian Charter gave him more services, we had vision therapy, occupational therapy, assisted time of instruction. Seriously last year I was driving all over San Diego County it was exhausting. My oldest came with us one day and said to me, “So basically all you do is drive around all day?” I looked at him, took a breath, and he was smart enough to get out of the car for a while.

I wasn’t sure that we were going to make it through 4^th grade with Corban. You might agree with my friends that I was the perfect person to help him, but you have to understand that I took short cuts and figured out ways how to ditch classes or memorize everything I could to get through the test. My tricks were not appealing to Corban nor could they be Corban’s way of doing things. He had the opportunity to learn how to do things the correct way. I just was in over my head in showing him that way. When you have a child that looks and for the most part acts normal people don’t understand that there are underlying issues that make his life incredible difficult. People outside the walls of our home don’t always understand how we have to talk with him, explain things to him, process things with him. Some people would argue that we do to much for him, those people don’t get much of our attention. Our heart is to get Corban to the point where he not only can function in the world, but where he can thrive in the world. There are still days where Corban is just off and the end of the world is about to happen. Nothing we say or do is right. He goes from anger to tears in 2.5 seconds. You may see him walking around camp, our church, or even the baseball field “talking or arguing with himself.” Just know that he is not crazy. We have tried to teach him how to process his emotions without hitting walls or someone in the face because those options will not bode well for him. I wonder how many adults actually need to learn how to process their emotions…just sayin’.

As I said before, we moved to Pine Valley in 2013 to work at a Christian Conference Center. So yes, I am a Christian. I am also an incredible sinner who is prone to wander to working things out in my own strength and pride. There’s a funny thing about working or being in “ministry” though, people think that you are supposed to have it together or at least try and pretend that you do. I have never been good at pretending that I had anything together. I have never been good at playing this “Good Christian” role and I wasn’t about to start. I have always lived a fairly transparent life especially with my people, my tribe. For some reason though this all changed in 2013. I became a different type of person on some levels. I was struggling hard as a mom, as a friend, and as wife. I didn’t know how to help my son. I didn’t know why my levels of emotions were up and down. I hid. I pulled back. I put my head down and pushed through. I didn’t like to share about our struggles because we weren’t supposed to have struggles. There were days that Corban would be his fun loving self and then there were days that he either would be a crazy man or an angry man. There were days where I would almost loose my mind trying to teach him what a long A or short A was. Spelling, writing, were like a living nightmare for us. I didn’t know how he would respond in situations so I stayed hidden from the world. We would engage with a handful of people, but I would never share how lonely, sad, mad, and frustrated I was. I would never share how scared I was. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed help. I needed to be honest with myself, Thom, Corban, and others.

I know many of my friends who live and breath by home schooling their children. Obviously I am not one of those moms. That doesn’t make me any less of a mom though. In fact knowing my limitations I was able to set boundaries with Corban. I was able to ask Thom for help. I was able to talk to his therapist and develop a plan of action for him and sometimes re-develop said plan of action because that wasn’t working either. His therapist would tell me, it is going to take time. I didn’t think I had any more time to give. Honestly some days I didn’t want to give anymore time. I quit my job, I gave up getting involved in different ministries at camp, I wasn’t mentoring or doing anything for that matter that I wanted to do. All I was doing was tending to Corban and our other boys. I felt a part of me, a big part of me had died and I didn’t know how to get that back. All I knew what to do was to start praying, start talking, and start being real again. Real with Thom, real with Corban, real with our other boys. Letting them know my limitations. We started to get more involved with our church. Finding things that I could do that brought back that glimpse of life in me again. Funny thing is, when you are real with others, that bridges the gap for them to be real with you and sometimes a bond is formed. Motherhood is the hardest job that I have ever had. Being a mother of a son with learning disabilities has been incredibly difficult. I have found the solidarity with other moms whose kids may not march to the beat of the standard drum, but I had to open up. I had to be vulnerable. I had to be real. And in doing this, it hasn’t always been welcome. Some have been put off by our story. Some have been judgmental. Some have been less than gracious. Some have said we haven’t prayed enough. Some of those people have been put into my journal of people that I want to punch in the throat if I were not a Christian.

I had a count down of the number of days that I had to home school Corban. I would often tell the number to Thom. In fact just last Christmas I was so excited to realize that I was just a few months away from freedom. Julian Charter School has a middle school-high school program here in Pine Valley and Corban will be mainstreamed next year. Can you hear the excitement in my typing of those letters?

Well that excitement came to a hault today. Today I sat here at the computer putting together my lesson plans for the last 8 weeks of school. 8 weeks. In 8 weeks he will be free. I will be free. I will return to my carpooling role. No longer will I be sole responsible for his education. His IEP will be in effect at school. His accommodations will be set in place. He will continue his therapy, but he will learn from three to four other teachers that are not me. I will not have to make lesson plans. I will not have to dread teaching science or math. I will not get to “get my nerd on” when it comes to teaching him history. We will not have to figure out together grammar, reading, and reading comprehension. I should be jumping for joy, but if I am being honest I am a little sad today knowing that in 8 weeks our relationship will look different, it will be different.

The last two years have been the hardest years of my life. I wanted to quit more times than I can count on my two hands. Each time I would go there, I would pray. Pray for strength. Pray for wisdom. Pray for words to speak to Corban so he would understand what we were learning. Pray that I wouldn’t loose my cool. Pray that I would speak words that would lift him up and not tear him down. And then there were days I would have to ask for forgiveness for the times that I said ugly words that hurt his soul. Days were we would work through communication with him and learn how to enjoy him for who God made him to be. I don’t know that I would be who I am today without these past two years. Being able to be real and honest with others and being able to empathize with others as they walk through the path of IEP’s and ADHD, and understanding that their kids might not “fit the typical mold of what a child should be.” I don’t know if I could say that I wouldn’t trade these past two years for anything, because there were days that I was DONE. However, the bond that has formed between me and Corban can not be replaced. We have grown so much through this process and for that growth I would do it all again of course knowing what I know now right…I guess at the end of the day I am telling you all of this to encourage you in that you are not alone. I want to be one of those moms that sees a two year old having a full blown tantrum in the store and smile at the Mom, help her, and tell her this shall soon pass. I want you to hear what I am saying and not what I am not saying. I am saying that if you are struggling as a mom, as a homeschool mom, as a mom with a child with special needs YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Don't hide from the world. Don't fake it until you make it. Be real. Be honest. Allow other people to help you. Don't waste your days in misery. Life is too short. Reach out and ask for help.

If you ever get the chance to get to know Corban, you will find that he is one of the most caring, loving, forgiving, funny as all get out kind of kids. In all of the years that he has been dealing with his disabilities he maybe felt sorry for himself two or three times. He is a fighter. He doesn’t give up. I am so proud of him. I am going to miss the snout out of him next year. I might even be grieving the loss a little bit right now, but I will enjoy the next 8 weeks. Knowing that God has sustained us through this tough process. Knowing and trusting that when he is back in school he will be okay. Knowing that if you see him in town with his shorts or shirt backwards that you will quietly tell him and giggle as he runs to the bathroom to fix himself.

A Few Things I've Learned Over The Past 25 Years...

So barring nothing tragic happening to me in the next three days I will actually have out lived my Mom. How is that for an opening... You see 25 years ago on March 16, 1989 my Mom was killed at the hands of a drunk driver in front of me and my teammates at my softball game. Funny thing is, is that I was mad as all get out at my mom. I didn’t want her at my game, but that afternoon as I turned around to get the signs from my coach for the next pitch I saw my mom sitting in the stands. She kept smiling at me. Giving me that little smirk and lifted eyebrow as if to say I’ve got your number kid. She knew how to play my game and would not give into my 14 year old antics. In between the last innings she pulled me out of the dug-out and now what seems to be prophetic said in her southern voice, “No matter what happens know that I will always love you and whatever you do from here on out, be sure to make God smile.” She scooted out to go set up an event at our church. She got in her car, turned left onto Lambert Road and in a sound that still wakes me up at night left this world to be with Jesus.

Shortly after my mom died, I was angry. I hated God and I hated the person that killed my mom.  One Sunday when I was walking down the hallway of our church I overheard someone say that I was going to be going to hell in a hand basket now that my Mom was gone. So pretty much, I now hated three people! I was bitter towards this person for some time, but I now can show them some grace because in all reality they weren’t exactly wrong. The years from 1989 to 1999 were pretty much outlined with bad choices, hurtful relationships, running from my creator, hiding behind walls of shame, and living life for my own purposes. Sounds like hell to me. But the Lord in his mercy gave me another chance to begin living, living for Him. Without going into too much detail, after walking away from the Lord for 10 years he wooed me back in and since October of 1999 I’ve been on a journey to discover and follow Jesus. So much has ensued from 1999 to 2014, marriage, babies, serving Him in full time ministry, gracious gifts from above. But there are specifically some lessons that have taken longer than others to learn so in the past twenty-five years this is what I have learned from my trip to hell in a hand basket.

1.    I CAN’T OUT SIN JESUS’ FORGIVENESS: This is a re-occurring lesson that I think I remind myself of often. From 1989 to 1999 I think it is a fair to say I was a Hot Mess!  I was a fake, a phony. I didn’t believe in God, but I played the game because I didn’t know how to tell people that my heart had been broken.  I wanted nothing to do with a God that would take my Mom from me. I made a lot of horrible choices, broke a lot of peoples trust and burned a lot of bridges. But and here is the good part in Romans 5:8 it says, “ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Jesus Christ hung on a cross to pay my debt and because I believe that he died and has risen again I too can spend eternity with the Lord. I don’t have to try to earn his love. I don’t have to add anything, He has paid it all. The Lord did not wait until I had all my junk together to die. The Lord didn’t as Matt Chandler says, “Die for a better version of me.” He died for me when I was a hot mess and says to me, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11: 28-30). Every breath I take is a second chance from the Lord given to me to make much of Him in how I live my life and love those he has placed in my life.

2.    I NEED TO FORGIVE AS I HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN. Matthew 18:35 Jesus is telling the parable about the unforgiving servant. The king forgave one servant for a gihugic debt but then that same servant went out and threw someone who owed him a few bucks in jail. The king gets word of this and throws that servant in jail. Jesus tells the crowd that his father will do the same if we do not forgive people from our heart. For years I would dream of sending that person who killed my mom letters, pictures of her six grand-children every year on the anniversary until I was convicted that I would not want the Lord to shine pictures of my sins in my face like rubbing a dogs noise in the mess they made on the floor. When I finally gave in to giving up my right to seek revenge on this person the Lord began to soften my heart, my own life was restored and I was let out of my own prison of unforgiveness.

3.    LEARN TO LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE? One of my favorite stories in the Bible is that of Joseph, the favorite son. I’d like to think of myself as being the favorite child. Okay you all know that my brother is the favorite but a girl can wish! Seriously though, Joseph had so many dreams of all that the Lord was going to do through him, he couldn’t keep them to himself. Because of his chatter his brothers were annoyed and threw him in a pit. Then he was sold into slavery. Then brought into Pharoh’s court only to be blamed for doing something he didn’t’ do and thrown back into jail until his gift for interpreting dreams was remembered. Joseph had no clue that the dreams the Lord gave him early on included a pit, but Joseph hung on and what satan meant for evil the Lord used for good. It has taken me 25 years to see that what satan meant for evil in destroying a family, two kids, and the loss of our children have because they will never know what an awesome Grandma they would have had.  All of this pain has been used for good not evil. On this side of Heaven I wont know why the Lord allowed this to happen, but I know that through our story as a family and individually people have been reached, the gospel of Jesus Christ and his redeeming power has been shared and the Lord has been glorified through this situation.

4.    GOD WON’T GIVE YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN HANDLE. This might look good on a coffee mug or a t-shirt, but it makes me want to poke you in the eyes when well meaning people said it to me after my mom died. For so many years I walked around baffled at how this statement could even be true. I was hurt, confused, and angry as all get out. Who in their right mind would think that a 14 and 16 year old were strong enough to handle walking on this earth without their mom? The answer is that no one thought that. You can argue theology with me later, but I think this is a lie that satan feeds us to pull us away from God. The truth is that God will give us more than we can handle to show us how much we need him. He provides us a way out, but we have to choose his way out. We can choose to obey him and live an authentic life of pain and sorrow and even joy in that sorrow or we can run from him and live in disobedience. Living life for our own passions. Trying endlessly to fill the void left from not having him rule our lives. As I was taught from my old senior pastor, it’s okay not to be okay, but it’s not okay to stay that way. I had to choose, was I going to press into Jesus and trust him to heal me from the inside out (how many of you are singing right now?) or was going to run away? Was I going to continue to try and fill my life with things that would make me feel better for a short period of time only to wake up the next morning with a heart that was still broken?

5.    IF YOU CAN COUNT YOUR FRIENDS ON ONE HAND, YOU ARE BLESSED.  That morning when my Mom dropped me off at school, I laid into her. I was annoyed, hurt, frustrated. I always knew my Mom was my biggest fan, but of late she had not been to many of my games. In fact the weekend before she was gone with her girlfriends at their annual Palm Spring get-a-way. To say the least, I was a total jerk to my Mom that morning. I couldn’t express to her that I didn’t like that she hadn’t been to my games and that I felt like she was paying more attention to her friends and playing the piano for voice lessons instead of paying attention to me. After my Mom died these ladies that I thought had taken her attention away from me actually looked after me. They watched out for me. They kept tabs on me. They even came to my high school graduation. And now thanks to social media we have been able to re-connect and share our lives even when we are miles apart. They remind me how much my mom loved me. My mom always told me that I should have one handful of solid friends that can speak into my life and tell me when I was being a well I wont repeat what word she let slip out of her mouth, but you get the point. Looking back on the Sundays we spent sharing a meal with these families, doing life with these families has modeled for me how to be a friend to others. I take great honor that like my Mom I too am blessed with friends to do life with. To be able to speak into each others lives. To live with, love, and laugh with. Friends that challenge me to be all that God wants me to be. To be a better wife, mother, and friend. Being 14 I didn’t see the value in those friendships, oh but how I do now! I could never thank you ladies enough for modeling this type of friendship, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17 NIV) These friendships have laid a foundation that I hope to model for my boys daily!

6.    LOVE GOD AND LOVE OTHERS If you knew my mom, you knew if for just a brief moment in time what it meant to be loved. She loved the Lord with all of her heart, mind, and soul. I can still see her playing “I Surrender All” in church and her body moving to the music. She served others without wanting any acknowledgement. She served out of obedience, because it was her living sacrifice to the Lord, her act of worship. Our door was at times a revolving with friends, interns, and exchange students from foreign countries. Interns would stay the summer and still stay in contact with her even when they went back to school. Our house was opened for Bible studies, swim parties, bbq’s, and any other reason to have people over. She deeply enjoyed helping others and I would watch her serve sacrificially day end and day out wanting nothing in return. I have learned the beauty of serving others from her example. I have learned and am still learning how to Love the Lord with all of my heart, mind, and soul. It might have been derailed at times, but the Lord in his graciousness is working in me so he can work through me.

7.    I NEED TO BE INTENTIONAL WITH MY KIDS Like I said before; my mom was my biggest fan. I know that she loved me. My mom would pick me up from school and it was a rule in the car that when asked how my day was I was not allowed to say the four letter word, “Fine.” I had to give details of my day. She would tell her friends that I would talk her ear off, but not once did I ever feel that she was annoyed or pre-occupied. She gave me her full attention, she asked specific questions about my life, what kind of music I liked, who I was hanging out with, and who I had a crush on. There was no doubt in my mind that she didn’t care for me. I knew that she fought for me, on her knees every night in prayer I knew that she was fighting. Even though she was only in my life for 14 years, in that time she modeled for me these things that in turn I do with my kids. I don’t have a 14 year old yet, almost there, I pray that I will be consistent as she was with me.

At times I can’t believe that it has been 25 years since my mom died and then there are times that it feels like yesterday. I am so grateful that I have had these 25 years to process all of this and I am thankful that the Lord in his grace has given me another day to praise him and live for him. I look forward to each day the Lord gives me to learn more about him and what his purposes are fore me.

My mom would always say after asking her a ton of questions in 2.5 seconds, “what are you doing, writing a book?” So yes mom I am, I am almost on Chapter 40 and how deeply I wish you were here to see how this folds out, but I know that your remnants run through my story and will run generations to come. I know that one day we will meet again in Heaven. Mom, I will do everything by the power of Jesus to surrender my life daily to him in order to “make God smile.” Until we meet again Mom, I love you to the moon and back!