Birds of a feather...should flock somewhere else

For the second year in a row, a couple of blackbirds have built their nest in the gutter just outside my bedroom. (Disclaimer: I don’t know if they are actually blackbirds. I just know they are black birds. I tried to look up what kind of big, aggressive nincompoops like to build nests in gutters but the search engine fairy failed me.) We built a sunroom onto our house a few years ago creating an L-shape with our bedroom. Apparently, the resulting corner gutter is prime real estate.

 As I sit in my room, I hear birds fighting for this property. I can imagine every awkward movement of their large wings in such a confined space. They squawk and snap at each other. It is in all respects ANNOYING. If it’s true what the naturalist John James Audubon said that “hopes are shy birds flying at a great distance seldom reached by the best of guns,” then these not-so-shy birds are the exact opposite of hope—misery maybe. And the gun thing is questionable. Being a pacifist and non-gun owner, I’m surprised by my growing desire to see their birdy bodies riddled with bullets, feathers floating slowly to the ground after the smoke clears…I digress.

 On days when I want to sit and write in this private sanctuary of my bedroom, I’m frustrated by the constant noise. “Cut it out, you morons!” I shout at them. “There are about forty trees within seconds of here! Why did you build your stupid nest in my gutter?!” For some reason, my yelling doesn’t make a difference. Perhaps they don't know English. I’ve even resorted to sitting on the floor by the door to the patio with my laptop in front of me trying to get something done. Every time I hear them clattering around, I open and shut the door quickly to send them flying to the nearby pine trees only to hear them return in a few minutes.

 (Another disclaimer: Seeing as how this is the second year of this nesting, we would have been smart to place some sort of deterrent in the gutter during the off season. My husband Brent and I discussed this plan of action: What kind of material should we use? Who will stand on the ladder and who will hold a broom to swat away possible attack birds? Unfortunately we never got past the “planning” stage. I’m definitely regretting my laziness now since it’s illegal to remove bird nests that are being actively used unless they are home to an invasive species like house sparrows or European starlings. I’m not sure if these black birds are officially registered as invasive but they have certainly invaded my gutter.)

 If this year turns out to be like last year, another sound will soon be added to the thrashing and squawking. Soon I’ll hear the cheeping of baby birds and a new emotional conflict will plague my soul. Instead of just being annoyed by the pesky adult birds, I’ll succumb to my maternal feelings of cherishing anything newborn, even if it cries a lot. And this is all by design.

 The birds nest by design so that their eggs will have a safe place to hatch. No one teaches them what materials to gather or how to scout for possible locations but they do it every year. By design, mothers are compelled to love the fragile and tiny so that they will nurture and care for those too weak to care for themselves. I’m designed to see even the annoying aspects of nature around me so that I can be in awe of our Creator.

 Although I’d love for them to leave, I’m grateful for these stupid birds. I’m grateful to live in a place where I can witness wildlife—even if it’s just a squirrel drinking from a puddle in the middle of our pool cover or an over-sized groundhog pushing an imaginary friend in our porch swing (yes, that actually happened). Life and living things are a blessing and if I have to be reminded of them by squawking then that may be by design, too.

Double the Fun

“My name is Abby and I am the mother of twins.”

“Hello, Abby.”

“Welcome to the mothers of twins support group…”

It’s just in my mind, of course. I don’t go to any such meetings. Early on, I had plenty of opportunities to join groups when my girls were babies but I honestly couldn’t imagine using precious baby-free time to sit in a room with other moms every other week and eat light refreshments. There was so much I’d rather be doing, like sleeping. I got through their baby years the way our early pioneer foremothers did: I circled the wagons and held off the barrage of poop, pee, and spit up until the savages retreated to their naps.

I’m just kidding. My daughters, now almost twelve, were never really that bad, although I’d have to be hypnotized to remember the majority of their first two years of life. It’s all a blur. I do remember feeding them with a special nursing pillow (“My Breast Friend,” Boppy’s odd cousin, with sharp angles and a fabric slipcover featuring psychedelic, dancing bears and giant, building blocks that spelled words like CAT and DOG) that allowed me to feed them at the same time. None of this nursing discreetly in a parking lot stuff for me, no sir. I had to be in bed and shirtless for everybody to be hooked up correctly.

I also remember long walks pushing their stroller. We lived in an older neighborhood with wonderful, tree-lined sidewalks so we’d make the circuit around the block and head back. We had a double stroller but for the first several months the girls were too small to occupy a seat alone. Instead, they were tucked in together like they were still in the womb…but with straps.   

When they were a little older, their personalities began to emerge. Ella loved to sing and dance around in a dramatic fashion. A somber ballet was playing out in her head, no doubt. Lucy on the other hand was all about the facial expressions: Anything for a laugh. They were both bossy and very verbal, so there was nothing quiet about our home. They liked to debunk the stereotype that girls are dainty by wrestling each other at some point every day. I liked to debunk the stereotype that moms break up daughters who wrestle by sitting on the sofa and watching. They giggled and giggled until a pigtail was pulled or an arm got scratched then it was over. I would pull them into my lap and say, “That’s what happens when we wrestle,” as if I didn’t think it was a great form of pre-nap entertainment.

They crawled then walked and their teeth came in but unlike better moms, I didn’t write anything down. I don’t know what their first words were but I do remember Ella saying “Maybe so, Baby Ho” so I knew their intake of Dr. Seuss books was more than adequate. They played together and were each other’s best friend/worst enemy.

I stopped dressing them alike somewhere around kindergarten. For some reason, we’re expected to keep them identical (even if they’re obviously not) at all times. So if one poops out the back end of her striped onesie do I have to change the other one too so that both of them now have matching polka dot onesies? That sounds like too much laundry and maybe a level of hell. (An eternity of rolling a huge boulder up a hill with Sisyphus would be better than trying to remove breastfed baby poop stains.) I still got a few matching outfits out of them on Sundays but that eventually ended too. They wanted to be independent of each other, their own woman. Deep down, I suspect they felt comfortable loosening their reliance on each other because they knew the other sister was never going to be that far away.

This year, we decided to put them in two different schools for 6^th grade. It was a difficult decision but an attempt to preserve the fragile ecosystem of twin sisters. I get it. I understand being compared to a sister, only mine was two years older than me. Teachers met me with certain expectations, often unrealistic. Having a twin is even worse. As a parent, when I try to praise one, I end up dissing the other one. Everything is political when it comes to vying for pecking order with your siblings. So we’ve decided to do the only thing we know how to do, keep going. Keep making mistakes in spite of our best intentions and start saving for their future therapy sessions. The most I can hope for is that they will someday enjoy the benefits of having a sister. They will do as I do with my sisters, complain about their childhood and bemoan their parents’ parenting. They'll be so grateful to have another person who completely understands their crazy family. At least, they’ll bond over something!

Thoughts from the Pot

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with public restrooms. How many times have I heard one of my kids’ panicked screams break the calm reverie of a long car trip (thank you very much, inventor of the DVD) to tell me they “HAVE TO PEE NOW!!!”? We pull into whatever is the next available pee receptacle and do what needs to be done to save the car upholstery. It’s usually something that hasn’t been cleaned this millennia but it solves the problem and isn’t that why God created hand sanitizer? I’m grateful it was there but grossed out until I can shower.

Recently, I went to a middle school swim meet at a very nice private school. The facilities were clean and mostly plentiful, but I had one issue with them: They were too quiet. After downing my large Coke Zero with vanilla from Sonic, I found the nearest restroom to the indoor pool complex. This particular restroom was only a two-seater, which meant several ladies waited in line behind me. The bathroom was as sound proof as a recording studio. Nothing from the hundreds of people just outside the restroom could be heard, only the tinkling from within. Talk about humiliation. I didn’t know anyone in line but I felt the need to small talk. Unfortunately, the sounds I couldn’t help but hear only made me need to go more. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “How about the weather? Looks like it might rain.” No good. All talk of precipitation was off limits if I wanted to get out of there without making a puddle. At that moment, I wished for two things: 1.) Some kind of music piped in to mask the bathroom noises. Macaroni Grill even plays “Learn to Speak Italian” CDs. Brilliant. (Dove posso trovare? Where is the bathroom?) 2.) To make as little sounds as possible when it was my turn. I was suddenly grateful I didn’t order any food from Sonic when I got my coke. Had I eaten a breakfast burrito there would have been sounds aplenty.

There are so many examples of love/hate relationships. Usually, we prefer to say bittersweet. When our kids tackle the next hurdle towards adulthood, it’s a bittersweet moment. We want to see them grow and mature but we also want to keep them little and adorable and taking long naps. Some experiences are more bitter than sweet and vice versa, but I have realized most experiences have both. It may seem clichéd to look for the silver lining in every dark cloud but finding the love amidst the hate is the only way to persevere through some tough times. Finding things to be grateful for makes the low points seem more temporary.

So I salute you, public restrooms! You have saved me countless times! Thank you or as my Italian friends would say: grazie molte!

Daydream Believer*

I’m an excellent driver. Being a mom, I’ve perfected my ability to simultaneously drive the van, discipline the kids, and change the DVD—that’s multi-tasking, my friend. In spite of this amazing talent, my husband does the driving on long car trips. “It’s not because you’re a bad driver,” he tells me. “It’s because you can sleep in the car and I can’t.” Okay, valid point. I’m also an excellent sleeper. 

Due to my tendency towards motion sickness, I can’t read a book or check Facebook on my phone or crochet in the car. Turning around to pass out juice boxes even makes me want to puke. My husband will no longer humor me with car games (“Female actress from the 1980’s. You’ve got twenty questions…go!”), so I either sleep or daydream. When I’m not feeling very sleepy, I’ll recline my seat and just start thinking. 

Sometimes I fantasize about becoming a famous author. I’m being interviewed at the red carpet premiere of the movie version of my latest novel. Cameras are flashing as the paparazzi are yelling at me, “This way, Abby. Who are you wearing, Abby? You look amazing, Abby! How did you lose those thirty pesky pounds?” I would just smile and say, “Clean living, boys. I credit it all to clean living.” 

Sometimes I write a screenplay in my mind. For instance, I recently created an entire drama starring my husband and me. It was a “It’s a Wonderful Life”-type story where we broke up my freshman year (instead of dating all through college and getting married the day I graduated). He married a seemingly genuine, but--in my opinion--overly attractive girl. They moved away so he could enroll in medical school but she realized being married to a poor med student wasn’t what she had signed up for so she left him for a dermatology resident who was willing to help her finance a new Lexus. We met years later. I had never married and he still loved me. It was like that Dan Fogelberg song they play at Christmastime except we didn’t meet at a grocery store and I didn’t spill the contents of my purse while we laughed until we cried. 

And sometimes I just fantasize how I could organize my pantry better. 

With the current pace of our often-hectic lives, it’s a nice break to be able to just sit and daydream. A friend who is now cancer-free recently told me what a treat it is for her to go her oncologist every three months for a check-up to get a CT scan. She’s forced to sit very still under a warm blanket in a dark room. There’s definitely something appealing about that! 

We’re pulled in so many directions. We have calendars on our phones reminding us where we need to be in the next five minutes and yet we still feel like we’re a day behind. Even now, as I’m typing, I hear an annoying voice in my head telling me to go down to the laundry room and take the sheets out of the dryer so the towels can go in. It’s dizzying. 

So here are my New Year’s Resolutions: Slow Down. Pray More. Invite God into my Daydreams. I may not believe all of my daydreams, but I am a big believer in them. I’m going to make room for plain, old thinking and see where God takes me.

 *I’ve had the song “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees in my head for the entire time I’ve been typing. When I get to the part “You once thought of me as a white knight on a steed…” I always get stuck. I keep singing the end of the verse something like this: “But how much paper do they really need?” I looked it up and, believe it or not, that’s not how it goes. So disappointing.

Finding Hope

A very sweet friend recently gave me a handmade necklace for Christmas. It had a pendant with a picture of a songbird, some lovely beads and a couple of tiny charms—one of a leaf and one that says HOPE.  The accompanying card was chock full of scriptures and encouraging words about the successful completion of our son’s adoption from Africa. The main theme of the note was her charge for me not to lose hope.

I wore it all of the next day as I ran errands and carpooled kids around town. Compliments were made by friends and strangers and my heart was cheered every time I looked at this thoughtful gift. It wasn’t until I was getting dressed for bed that I realized one of the charms was missing. That’s right—I lost HOPE.

Even though I love a good bit of irony, it was a kick in the shins to my spirit. (That is, if spirits have shins.) You don’t realize how close to the edge of despair you are until you get a little shove sometimes. Some days it only takes a light breeze.

Once I picked myself up off the floor, I began to ponder what hope really means. With the Christmas season in full swing, I can’t help but think about a night many years ago in Bethlehem and the hope that Christ’s birth brought to this world. When the angels told the shepherds, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” it must have been a huge source of encouragement. These men smelled like sheep and were ruled by an occupying government. They needed a shot of hope. They went to the stable and saw that the angel’s words were fulfilled. And then what? They went home and slept and woke up to another day of sheep herding. Jesus didn’t start his ministry for thirty years. Chances are, He didn’t even begin healing and preaching during the shepherds’ lifetimes.

So how was this hope?

I can see now that I confused “hope” with “happiness.” Hope is a perpetually-filling reservoir and happiness is a fleeting rain shower. Hope is seeing God’s majesty to create anticipation for greater things and happiness is the majesty of one moment that doesn’t usually live up to the hype. Hope can be a long wait, but it will be worth it.

Some part of the shepherds’ spirit must have known that night was unlike any other. (I’m guessing the chorus of heavenly beings probably tipped them off.) Even if they never saw the culmination of that miraculous birth, they were able to die with the taste of promising hope on their lips. That’s a gift…if you can hold on to it.

A few days after I lost the charm on my necklace, I was sitting in the carline and talking to a friend on my phone. I was asking her if I could borrow some items for our church’s Christmas play. My list was full of props like gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (God works in mysterious ways…) As I was talking, I looked down in the floorboard in the narrow space by the console. I saw something glinting in the afternoon light. Yep, you guessed it…I found HOPE. I had to stop mid-sentence to collect myself. I hadn’t even tried to find the charm because I had assumed it was lost in one of the many places I had visited that day. But here it was, patiently waiting for me to pick it up and marvel at it. I carefully slipped it into the change part of my wallet so I could re-connect it to my necklace later. Now that I think about it, I may just leave it in my wallet. HOPE is that precious to me this year!