No Substitutions, please!

In certain circumstances it may be just as satisfying to be the runner-up as being named the winner. For instance, according to the International Ice Cream Association, vanilla is by far the preferred ice cream flavor over #2 choice, chocolate. Not one to dither over arbitrary titles, I’ll happily take a scoop of each.

In most cases, though, we don’t want to be the alternate, the understudy, the substitute. When the man of her dreams is kneeling before her with an open box in one hand, she’d rather not hear, “You weren’t my first choice but you came in a close second. Will you marry me?” On the highlight reel of her life, that invitation would come just before getting her older sister’s hand-me-downs and finding out her new ride is the family’s old minivan.

That’s the educational equivalent of walking into a classroom and telling the students you are their substitute teacher. Every child responds differently. Some greet this news with anxiety. Others welcome the occasional change to liven things up. Then there are those streetwise and entrepreneurial students who quickly size you up to determine how much of a fool you are and what they can get away with. When I recently filled in for a second grade teacher while she was away on her honeymoon, I met one such Machiavellian eight year-old. I had read them a story about a group of friends who build a clubhouse. After we finished, I dismissed them to their desks to draw a floor plan of their own clubhouse.

One little girl grabbed me and said, “Whenever we design a clubhouse, we always get to use pipe cleaners and beads and glue and googly eyes. I know where they are. I can get them out.”

I gave her the look I’ve been perfecting for the last year and a half I’ve been substitute teaching. It’s a mixture of my “I’m-shocked-by-your-behavior!” look and my “You’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me” look. It involves some major eyebrow acrobatics but it’s pretty effective. I gave her a blank sheet of printer paper and sent her to her desk.

My no-nonsense approach is meant to convey that though I’m not the real thing, I’m the next best thing…and I’m all you’ve got today. A substitute teacher who wants to survive must have this approach or she’ll hear “That’s not the way Mrs. _____ does it!” all day long.

I wasn’t the only one who had to deal with the reality of being a substitute that week. I was surprised to learn that in the second grade, there is note-passing. Here’s the first one I found:

Transcript-

Boy: I like you, _______. (I erased the name to protect her identity.)

Girl #1: Cool. Will you give me candy?

Boy: Yes ________.

Girl #1: Fun dip please! OK?

Boy: OK. Don’t tell nobody

Girl #1: OK. And I want lolypops

She’s playing him like a violin made of Fun Dip and lollipops, right? Well, the saga continues. I found another note crumpled under a desk, same boy but different girl. It read:

Girl #2: Who do you like the most?

Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2. He’s a player.)

Girl #2: Can you tell me who you like the 2^nd best?

Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). Okay

Girl #2: What about 3^rd?

Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2).

Girl #2: 4^th?

Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2).

Girl #2: 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 11^th?

Boy: You, ______ (Girl #2). All the time.

Girl #2: Really?

Boy: Yes. OK but for the record I don’t like you. I like _________ (Girl #1)

Gasp!

Girl #2: Who do you like more, me or _______ (Girl #1)?

Boy: I will think about it.

Love is not for those with fragile hearts! The second girl was smart to check where she stood with Casanova, Jr. After she realized her iffy spot in his affections, she was gone. No matter how much Fun Dip you’re promised, it’s not worth it to play second fiddle when the fiddler’s a player.

Cool

When I was in middle and high school, my older sister had the coolest best friend. She over-flowed with a bubbly confidence. Her constant gum-chewing gave her a nonchalance I envied. She perfected a wink that punctuated her statements with self-assurance.

Not one to wear the latest fashion, (During the Keds craze, my sisters and I drew blue rectangles on the back of our Walmart sneakers to give the near-sighted passerby the impression we were wearing the real thing. It was a temporary fix, unfortunately, because we used dry erase markers.) I was always thrilled when I got her hand-me-downs. She knew how to dress and fix her hair. She was a cheerleader and she had a boyfriend whose letter jacket she often wore. There was something so effortless about her sophistication.

As a chronic over-thinker, I felt like an awkward goofball in her presence. I studied her winking and tried to incorporate it into my conversations but it didn’t work. Instead, people asked me if I had something in my eye. I couldn’t keep up with the fashion trends, even if I knew what they were. I didn’t have a boyfriend and I wasn’t a cheerleader. I came to realize I would never achieve the level of coolness I saw in my sister’s friend.

Now that I am old(er), I see cool in a different way. When friends arrange a birthday lunch for me or a prayer session for our pending adoption, I see cool. When my husband works hard all day then comes home to play soccer outside with our son even though he’s exhausted, I see cool. When teachers use their free time to work with struggling kids and their own money to buy these kids books at the Book Fair, I see cool.

The lack of effort used to impress me. That’s the false claim of youth: Don’t act like you care. Now I’m impressed when I see someone exert an effort they didn’t know they had to do the things that need to be done without expecting anything in return. Giving that last bit of energy or brainpower or spending money is what amazes me now. It would be so easy just to let someone else make the effort.  What if we all stopped coloring the back of our sneakers and got busy being the real thing—the hands and feet of Jesus?

Crazy Mom Days

(This is an homage to one of my favorites books, Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but I’ve tricked it out...mom-style.)

When I woke up this morning I realized that I forgot to take out my contacts last night. I tried to peel them off my eyeballs but they clung to them like second skin. I finally just gave up and left them in with the understanding that I would spend the day blinking and peering through a fog.

After more investigating in the bathroom mirror, I found a long blond hair sprouting out the middle of my forehead. It wasn’t there yesterday. How could it grow so quickly? Did I accidentally replace my regular moisturizer with Miracle-Gro?

I got the kids out the door for school. When I returned home I emptied the dishwasher. After all the plates and flatware and drinking glasses were neatly put away, I realized the dishwasher detergent was still in the dispenser, a chalky, soapy chunk. The hot water is what really sanitizes the dishes anyway, right?

Starting my period really caught me off-guard. I was totally unprepared with supplies. (I’ve only been doing this nearly every month since I was twelve.) The only feminine hygiene products in the house were those giant pillow pads they pass out in the hospital after you give birth. I decided they would be better than nothing.

I make a grocery list and head out to Kroger. I get all the way in the store before realizing that I left my reusable bags in the car. I turn around to go back and fetch them but the automatic doors will have none of that. You know how some doors that say “ENTER” are fairly loose in their interpretation of the term? “Enter…Exit…I don’t give a care.” Well, these doors were really sticking to their guns. I stepped forward, anticipating them to spread apart and ran into them instead.

While perusing the produce section my list got sprayed by the automatic vegetable mister. Then I hit my head on one of those thoughtlessly placed hanging scales. They obviously don’t want me too near the vegetables.

I spent most of the day running errands. When my list seems too long for the allotted time, I give myself pep talks. “Okay, you can do this! Just go to three more places and it’s back home!” At a recent soccer game, I got a mosquito bite down the front of my shirt. I was doing an indecent amount of scratching as I drove around town. This fact, plus the talking to myself, plus the stress twitch I had developed in my right eye, all added up to me looking like a crazy person who should not be allowed among regular people.

When it was time to pick the kids up from school, I noticed how hot the afternoon had become. I went to change into shorts and then I paused. I hadn’t shaved anything above my knees all through the winter, jeans-wearing months. Now I had a nice set of bangs to set off my Bermudas. That’s why God made capris. (One could use the same logic that God also made bikinis, but we know Him to be a loving God. I’m pretty sure Adam made the first bikini for Eve. It was part of her punishment for eating the fruit—bikinis and painful, messy childbirth.)

After homework was finished, supper was eaten, baths were taken, and children were in bed, it was time to breathe (and get my eye to stop twitching). I don’t know how full-time working moms do it! How do they get it all done when they’re away from home eight hours everyday? I’m in awe of them! There are days when I feel rushed and pulled and rung out, and I know that working moms have those days much more often. They are my heroes!

Spring Break with Elvis

When Spring Break rolled around last week, we were faced with five whole weekdays with no work or school but also no plans. Though we knew it was coming, we had treated the week with hesitancy. When the optimistic part of your brain is in a constant state of hope for travel news about the final stages of an adoption making plans that include family vacations—events that require both time-off and money—are tricky.

A few days before the week began, I called up our dear friends who live in Memphis to make sure they’d be in town: We were westward bound! We booked a Quality Suites in a nicer part of town with an indoor pool and Continental breakfast. We could’ve just stopped there. If push came to shove, our kids would be cool with a deepish puddle and a waffle maker. That was about all the hotel had to recommend itself but that was okay. We were actually going for three main reasons: 1) To see old friends, 2) To show the kids where we used to live, grocery shop, worship, etc., and 3) To get out of town.

We arrived on Monday afternoon. Our first stop was the house we moved to after we’d been married a couple of years. (Fun fact: It dead-ends into Rosser Road.) It looked basically the same: It had the same brownish gray wood siding and the grass still won’t grow under the large oak trees in the front. The new owners had upgraded the mailbox from the one we had. Ours came with the house. It was topped off with a metal silhouette of a couple on a bicycle. Considering that it’s now a very basic, very plain, standard-issue black metal mailbox, I don’t know if that really qualifies as an upgrade. The “bicycle-built-for-two” mailbox was probably a collector’s item.

After our car ride down memory lane, we went to our friends’ house. Russ and Amy moved to a different house in town just before we left Memphis but for a big chunk of our time there they had lived across the street from us. In other words, the couple on the two-seater Schwinn on our mailbox could’ve pedaled to their house in about thirty seconds. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly six years, but we picked back up with a comfort and familiarity you only experience with old friends that have been your rescue. That may sound a bit over-reaching but it’s true. I have friends from high school that I can go for years without seeing and then—click—we’re back to our same roles, our same conversation shorthand. That’s because we were each other’s rescue from the teen years. It’s the same with Russ and Amy. We were young adults together, navigating responsibilities like church work and trash day. We were newlyweds together, discussing what was normal to fight about and cheap to serve for supper. We were new parents together…no explanation necessary. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re supposed to be doing. We spent Monday night laughing and reminiscing and watching our kids blend seamlessly like they’d never been apart.

On Tuesday, we went to Graceland. If you’ve never been to Elvis’ home I highly recommend it. Our kids have now been to the Trifecta of American Homes: The White House? Check. The Biltmore? Check. Graceland? Check! Afterwards we went to lunch at our favorite hamburger joint, Huey’s. Then we took a tour of the children’s hospital where Brent used to work. Guess which part was the kids’ least favorite? Luckily, it was Resident Appreciation Week and they were serving frozen yogurt in the conference room. Phew! Barely missed a huge Whine-a-Palooza! (If your kids don't whine at some point, it's not a real family vacation.)

We took the kids back to the hotel to squeeze in a little swim time before returning to our friends’ house for supper. The kids needed to splash and yell a bit after Graceland lines and hospital tours. While they were swimming, they took turns baptizing each other. After Ella took Knox’s confession and gave him a good dunk, he looked at me and asked, “Does that count?”

“Does what count?” I asked.

“Ella just baptized me. Does it count?”

Hmmm. “No, honey. Daddy wasn’t watching. When you do it for real I’ll make sure he’s not on his cell.”

It’s been almost nine years since we left Memphis but we still carry it around with us. No, I’m not suggesting that Brent wears a white, bedazzled jumpsuit under his clothes every day. I’m also not saying that we are renovating our house into the shape of the Pyramid. What I mean to say is that during the years (eight for Brent and about 6 1/2 for me) we lived in Memphis we became “BrentandAbby,” an entity, a team, a force to be reckoned with. We did the “leave and cleave” God was so jazzed about in Genesis. After five years of married bliss, we brought home 10 pounds of beautiful baby girl. (That’s 10 lbs divided by two, for any of you mathematicians out there. Our twin daughters weighed about 5 lbs each.) If our marriage were a book, Memphis would be a really pivotal chapter most likely titled "Campbell Soup and Grilled Cheese again?" or maybe "Making Our Dreams Come True (Or Other Phrases from the Lavergne & Shirley Theme Song)." Either way, it would be an amazing chapter!

Sweet Dreams

A few nights ago, I awoke to the sight of my daughter Ella standing by my side of the bed fully dressed, wet hair combed, and ready for school. I glanced at the clock—12:45 am.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, groggily.

“My alarm went off so I took my shower,” she replied. “I guess it was just a dream.”

“Go back to bed. It’s the middle of the night,” I told her.

“Should I change?” she asked, pointing down at her blue jeans, t-shirt, and cardigan.

“No. Just go to bed.”

The next morning I reflected on the weird sleep practices of my kids and I did what I always do when it comes to oddities in my offspring—I blamed it on my husband.

Before we were married, I heard stories from Brent’s roommates about his frequent sleepwalking (or sometimes sleep running). Once he was found sitting in the corner of his dorm room playing an invisible video game complete with sound effects of his own making.

After we were married, Brent continued with his nighttime activities. Once, I was shocked awake when he stood at the foot of our bed, yelled “Spiders!” and ripped the covers off me.

For a Labor Day weekend early in our marriage, we went to the beach with another married couple. We were too poor to get separate hotel rooms, so the four of us shared one room with two queen-sized beds. All through the night Brent attempted to answer the hotel phone that never rang. He also picked up a large cardboard carton of Whoppers candy. Slowly he turned it upside down, letting the hard chocolate candy balls bump into each other, creating a rainfall of clattering sounds. Not satisfied with the level of noise he had just made, he slowly turned the carton right side up, creating the racket again. Our friends lay in the bed next to us, shaking with laughter.

Now that we’ve been married more than fifteen years, I’ve noticed that his crazy sleep behavior has pretty much disappeared, or I’ve learned how to sleep through it. Now his only sleep-related strangeness comes in the form of dreams. We’ll be standing in our shared bathroom in the morning following a dream-filled night. As I insert my contacts, he’ll tell me some ridiculous scenario involving a person he hasn’t seen since middle school, his job at a McDonald’s with a malfunctioning cash register, and a sudden locale change to his grand parents' house that was swiftly filling up with miniature marshmallows.

It’s always a weird feeling to get a few hours into your day before you see someone who you realize was in your dream. Even if his role in your dream is completely innocent, it feels oddly intimate and slightly embarrassing to see him. Recently and in the span of a few days, two different people told me they had a dream about me. In one instance, I was giving birth to a baby. In the other one, I was in a house packed full of kids. No matter if these dreams foreshadow any baby news or they just predict a future slumber, these dreams encourage me. They're not embarrassing at all. These dreamers were thinking of me even in their subconscious. They could've been dreaming about marshmallows or spiders or Whoppers but their minds were full of me and kids.

From "When" to "If"

After waking up my son Knox for school this morning, we lingered a while in his bed discussing possible ways to make his bedroom more toddler-friendly before bringing home a new little brother/roommate. Involuntarily, I found myself saying “if,” instead of “when.” “We should go through all of the tiny pieces that go with your Star Wars figures if we bring Ezra home…”

Fortunately, Knox didn’t catch my slip-up. He happily jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen like always. I, on the other hand, have felt burdened by this alteration in my vocabulary. My hope has waxed and waned throughout our adoption process but I have recently felt myself spending more time at the “Depressed Pessimist” side of the spectrum as opposed to the “Expectant Optimist” side. With document expiration dates looming in the very near future, we’ve begun the updating process for our files. Nearly all of the paperwork we filled out so many months ago must now be filled out again. The first time was exciting. This time is just depressing.

Kind friends encourage me with: “Just keep praying!” They say, “Trust God’s perfect timing!” I hear their words but it doesn’t ring true. I can’t imagine that God is pleased with orphans having to wait for a family. How can He approve of the under-staffed Embassy that makes investigating these cases take so long? Is He busy elsewhere when children die of malnutrition and diarrhea when they simply need something to eat and clean water to drink? From my inferior, earthly point of view, God’s timing really stinks.

So there’s the chasm I must jump to have a faith that can move mountains. Trusting God when everything’s going great is a breeze. Trusting God when He’s not going in the direction nor at the speed I’d prefer feels foolish and a waste of time.  So I ask myself, who was I really trusting when there was smooth sailing and calm water for as far as the eye could see? God doesn’t change but I have more moods swings than a Miss America pageant has costume changes.

My consolation during this Faith Battle Royale that’s being waged in my heart and mind is my faith in Him doesn’t change His faithfulness toward me. He is the same God no matter how poorly I try to define Him. His power isn’t diminished just because I can’t see the evidence of it. He is gravity, tethering me to this Earth with invisible bands. I can spend the rest of my days denying the existence of gravity--something I can't see or hold--but I can’t escape its reality.

I'm grateful for the friends who continue to pray for our son and the millions of other children who need families. I have days when my prayers seem to bounce back to me like a hollow echo--empty and mocking. It's a great encouragement to know that when I can't (or won't) pray, there are others who step in to fill that chasm.

Drama Nerd

I wept into my Kleenex as I watched the cast of Les Miserables on the Oscars a few weeks ago.  They sang a medley of three songs: “Suddenly,” “I Dreamed a Dream, and “One Day More.” I’m always a sucker for Broadway musicals. And I’ll see just about anything live. There’s an adrenaline rush for me in spite of the fact that I’m just an observer. Maybe this heart palpitation can be attributed to my own oft-times disastrous experiences on the stage.

When I was in the second grade, my classmates were set to perform a Christmas program. I was selected to be one of the graceful Sugar Plum Fairies. I won’t say more, but you can read the rest of the incident in my post called "Scars". (Spoiler: I was neither graceful nor good at remembering my line.)

In the third grade, we performed a play all about Johnny Appleseed. I had the honor and distinction of being the first person to have a line. I was supposed to be one of several grandchildren who runs onstage and awakens their sleeping grandpa. Then I was supposed to say “Grandpa! Grandpa! Read us a story!” They asked the “grandchildren” to wear pajamas for their costumes. My mom made me a looong white nightgown. As I climbed the stage right steps, I stepped on the front of my nightgown. In a split second, I was facedown in front of the entire audience as they awaited my line. Did I run out crying? No! The show must go on, so I mustered up every bit of courage and soldiered on.

In fourth grade, the theme for our play was the life of Thomas Jefferson. We sang songs about the Louisiana Purchase and the Whirligig--the spinning desk chair he invented. We also sang a song about the debate between the Secretary of Treasury (Alexander Hamilton) and the Secretary of State (Thomas Jefferson). It was high drama, folks! My part was a narrator/townsperson who explained the importance of the debate while fellow townspeople marched in a circle behind me with protest signs in their hands. I had a fairly long paragraph to memorize and it took a lot of concentration to recite it. This was only made more difficult when I was whacked in the back of the head with a protest sign in the middle of my monologue. Did I falter? I can’t really remember. The rest of the play is kind of foggy from there forward.

In the seventh grade, I tried out for a part in “Friends Forever,” a Michael W. Smith musical full of parents who don’t understand, friends that move away, and a Boys vs. Girls number called “Get Real.” I got the part of Janet, the girl who moved away. I’m pretty sure I gave a heartbreaking performance every practice. It was a real tear-jerker. On a rainy day before the big night, we were asked to perform “Get Real” in front of the student body after Chapel. In the song the girls and boys faced each other on stage, taking turns advancing on the other group while snapping and singing. That was my limit of coordination. We were supposed to wear sunglasses for the song and I had left mine in the classroom. I asked our teacher if I could run and get them. When I returned, chapel was still in progress so I planned to sneak in the front and sit with my fellow actors on a front pew. Instead, when I entered the room my foot slipped on the wet floor and the momentum I had gained while running to the class and back carried me, on my rear and splayed out on the wet linoleum, across the front of the school. Humiliation galore. I wished I were actually moving away like Janet.

I developed an even greater appreciation for the theater when I was in high school. Despite our relatively small school, we had a really active drama group and I was thrilled to be involved in any way possible. When I was a freshman I was scenery, a.k.a. a “bench sitter.”  Over the next few years, I helped with props, lights, and sound. I was stage manager and assistant director. I recorded lighting cues and fed lines to forgetful actors. When we put on a performance of Miracle Worker, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan, I wrote down each move that Helen and Annie made during a silent food fight. They had to recreate this blocking every time they performed it, grabbing handfuls of scrambled eggs and throwing them in the exact same sequence for every performance.

I finally tried to sneak out from behind the curtain and be on stage again my junior year. Our spring musical was The King and I. Our director had already asked me to be Stage Manager but she said I could also have a small part on stage. I auditioned to be one of the king’s daughters. I lied about my height—the princesses were supposed to be 5 feet tall or shorter but I was more like 5’3”—and I got the part. When they stood me up with the other princes and princesses my deceit was revealed and I was told I had to be a prince instead. Was I embarrassed to play a boy? Please read the above paragraphs. I would only embarrass myself if, while playing a boy I also: a) tripped, b) got hit in the head, and c) flubbed my lines. What’s the chance of that happening? I would need to enter the Bermuda Triangle of Embarrassment.

I am a Drama Nerd but I’ve never been much of a Drama Queen. There are a million differences between a “Drama Nerd” and a “Drama Queen.” The most obvious one? A Drama Queen rules her kingdom through revealing, public episodes of high emotion and intrigue. A Drama Nerd is the master of no kingdom; her fiefdom is theatrical information, song lyrics, and internal emotions.  When I think back on my high school years with my fellow Drama Nerds, I can’t help but smile. We spent all of our free time painting sets and searching for props and laughing…we did a lot of laughing. I wouldn’t switch to Drama Queen for anything. Who wants to be a queen all by herself when she can be a nerd with a bunch of friends?