::: we'll dress him up warmly and we'll send him to school :::

Well, here I am, going on Day 3 of having two children who've left home, Bard away at college and Houdin at training for his year-long trip to Africa. Did I really just write that? Is my son going to *live* in Africa for a year?

Wow.

I was once accused of being "provincial," and, while I don't think I am, it's still pretty amazing to me when my kids leave the country, considering that the only country I've ever gone to is Canada. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm also nervous.

But even more than that, I find it so strange to be without two of my arms. This week has been especially strange since I have no children in my home during the day. I know I keep saying that, but it's like, Oh. My. Gosh. This house is SO weird without kids hopping all over the place!

And I'd like to say that it's cleaner, but it's not. I've been spending so much time running around that I haven't really had any time to clean, and that was one of my top priorities. Maybe tomorrow, huh? I guess other things are just more important.

I met with Monet's math teacher, counselor and tutor today about his difficulty with math and his general assimilation into the school environment. I felt pretty good about the meeting, and I felt good about his participation in tonight's soccer game, but after having a good talk with him on the way home from soccer, I'm more frustrated with the way other kids are behaving. I had thought, naively, perhaps, that the adjustment into this school would be easier because it's a Mennonite school, and there would be a strong focus on care and compassion. Unfortunately, some of the kids, particularly some of the Mennonite kids, are pretty disappointing to me. Monet shared with me tonight that when they're on the soccer bus, he sits alone because the other kids don't want to sit with him. One kid told him he couldn't sit in the empty seat next to him, and one kid actually asked someone else to trade places with Monet so he wouldn't have to sit with him. Monet told me that he feels like he has to apologize to the other kids when there's nowhere else to sit and he has to sit next to someone. He feels like he has to *apologize* to them for them having to sit next to him! The best advice I could come up with was to tell him to find something to do that he could do alone, like reading a book or playing with his iPod. But he didn't have his iPod tonight on the soccer bus, he said, because he let one of the other kids play with it on the way home. It made me want to hug him, but it made me want to cry. He would never think of treating someone the way these kids are treating him, and he's even going so far as to share with them one of his prized possessions. I don't really understand what they find so repulsive about him. He's smart, he's talented, and he's funny. I suppose it's because he has struggled with math and soccer, and so he's one of the weak ones, the low man on the totem. I pray that he finds a friend who will accept and appreciate him for who he is. Doesn't everyone deserve that?

I guess the comfort comes in the knowledge that people make fun of what they don't understand. I guess right now, Monet isn't even human to these kids, doesn't even have feelings, because they don't know him. Part of me wants them to know him, and part of me thinks, "Wow. You don't really deserve this boy's friendship." Today, one of the kids I had thought was going to be a friend, walked by Monet's locker and called him a failure. Monet said it was a joke, that the boy was only kidding, but why kid like that? Why? And since this is a boy on Monet's soccer team, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of team sports?

And I suppose that's another reason I'm feeling frustrated. Monet *chose* to play soccer. He's only one of 32 boys in the whole school who have chosen to play soccer this season. It's been a hard adjustment for him, but he has stuck with it, and he's improving. He wanted to quit, but in the end, he chose to stick with it. He goes to every practice, every game, and sits through the varsity games, too. And yet he would be less ridiculed had he chosen not to play a sport at all. It's almost like there's a kind of humiliation and punishment that comes from putting in the effort. If you're not good enough, the message seems to be, don't even try. We don't want you.

But he's continuing on, and I'm proud of him for it.

I wish human beings would just learn to behave, to be kind to one another, and to treat other people with the same respect with which they'd like to be treated. You'd think that, in a Christian school, a school of Monet's own denomination, that wouldn't be too much to ask.

Let's hope it's not.

::: wouldn't you give your hand to a friend? :::

If you know my boy, Monet, send him a note or give him a call today to encourage him. He has had a hard time transitioning from home education to private school. His class is a small one, and a close-knit one, from what I understand, and considering that he's not very outgoing or talkative, I think he's having a hard time breaking in to the circle. He's having a rough time of math class, though he's certainly making improvements, and he claims to hate English and History. Soccer is hard for him, too, but he's sticking with that, too, and making improvements.

I get frustrated with school kids sometimes. Tonight at the soccer game, I was a little disappointed by the way some of the kids were making fun of and laughing at other kids, and the hyper-focus on the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, and the borderline foul language and sexist comments (in a socially conscious Christian school). I was also frustrated by how much value was assigned to success in sports over success in other areas of life. Monet is an excellent artist, but there's no art class for the freshmen this year. None of the administration seems bothered by this, but I wonder how they would react if I told them that there was no soccer/tennis/baseball/basketball for their child's year.

I want Monet to succeed, and I want him to make friends, and I want him to be healthy, but moreover, I want him to be happy and to serve God fully and with a pure, humble heart. While I'm hoping he can gain the tools he needs to do that while attending this school, I'm a little worried that he won't, that he'll be pulled under the current of the unhealthy trends of his peers and be swept away from the gifts that God has given to him because there's no value being assigned to it by his peers and mentors.

So, if you think about it, give him a call or drop him a note today.

::: i get a kick out of you :::

Monet has had some pretty big life adjustments these past couple of weeks. Just a short time ago, he, Bo and I made the decision to send him to a local private school for his freshman year. After fourteen years of being at home full-time, this is quite a new experience for him.

Part of the experience has been participating on the Junior Varsity soccer team at his school, his first experience with playing on a sports team since his venture into little league baseball years ago, which left him feeling as if he'd never want to play team sports again. The coaches were in it for the win, and didn't really seem to have time to teach a new player the rules, encourage him, get him on track with something that could boost his confidence. The players were nasty, snobbish and insulting, cliquish and cruel. In a nation where obesity is a major physical and emotional health problem, sports situations such as that don't do much for encouraging physical activity.
It's been a big challenge, but his coaches and teammates have been very encouraging and patient. It's been a good experience so far.

Yesterday evening, he played his second game, and, while he's not the strongest player, he played to the best of his ability, even with some allergies and wheezing wailing on his body.

We've worked hard to encourage him to continue through the season. Friends and family have helped encourage him, too. We're hoping that, by the end of the soccer season, he'll have a great sense of accomplishment for struggling through something, and he'll be a better person for having completed it.

And I probably will be, too.

::: wintery thoughts on a wintery day :::

It's a child's dream, a snow like this. We didn't get it for Christmas, but we're welcoming it all the same. It's the time of year when we discover that we don't have enough matching gloves and mittens, or someone is missing their snowboots, or that a pair of pants doesn't fit under the snowsuit anymore. The snow bikes, snowboards and sleds are dug out from the barn, ramps are made, shovels are re-purposed from digging holes to making ramps, and I, the mother, venture out long enough to make an appearance, take a few trips on the sled, and get laughed at for my lack of snow savvy.
And then I head back inside to make a batch of homemade hot chocolate with real whipped cream, a dash of grated dark chocolate and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Everyone claims their favorite mug while I revel in a job well done, listening to the "oooohhhh!"s and "yum!"s as they drink it up.

It's great fun to look out onto the hillside from the warmth of my house and feel like I'm lazing around inside a giant snow globe.

I wish I were independently wealthy. I'd love to take my children downhill skiing. It was the only "sport" that I loved as a teen, aside from fishing. Every Monday after school, all season long, a group of us would climb aboard the bus with our ski club advisers and make the long drive to the closest slopes (Ohio isn't exactly known for its skiing spots) where we would suit up, pull on those giant ski boots, and do that awkward, clomping ski-boot-walk out to the lift. For hours, we'd ride up, ski down, ride up, ski down, the time passing so quickly that it was always a surprise when it was time to leave. I could ski anything on the slopes, from cruising the bunny hops to carving the moguls, and never sustained any injury, aside from maybe my pride every time I backed onto the lift chair, which I never really could get the hang of, or the few times I fell getting off the chair, which were probably the two hardest parts of skiing for me.

Still, I don't remember being intensely fearful of the process, except for the time that one of my club mates broke her leg. I don't think it had occurred to me up until then that one could actually get hurt having this much fun. I may have had a bit more respect for the slopes after that, but never fear.

When I was a young mother with two toddlers at home, Bo and I took an evening to hit the slopes. I was so excited about getting out there, after having been off of skis for about five years. I suited up, pulled on those big ski boots, wiggled my fingers into my gloves, donned a warm winter hat, wrapped a warm scarf around my neck, and clomped awkwardly to the lift, preparing to race my way down the hills for the first time with my hubby in true ski bunny fashion.

But when I got to the top of the first slope, something happened to me. Something inside of me clicked, snapped, and locked up, and I found myself perched at the peak of a very modest hill, eyes wide, experiencing an unfamiliar feeling.

I was afraid of the slope.

Suddenly, the stupidity of this sport zoomed into view for me. A mortal being attaches long, narrow boards to her feet, perhaps even waxes them, puts her fists around two sticks that end in sharp points, rides high in the sky to the top of an snow-covered hill and, along with hundreds of other people she doesn't know and can't fully trust, races down an icy path. I began to realize how brittle bones are, and how vulnerable the back and neck can be, and how irresponsible it would be for a grown woman to leave her two babies motherless just because she wanted to get a little thrill by speeding down a snowy slope.

Nope.

I don't recall how I made it down that hill, though I'm sure I skied it. Did I enjoy myself, or did I pray for my safety the entire way?

Somehow, I got to the bottom, snapped off my skis, and nestled myself into a comfy chair next to the fireplace in the lodge with a cup of hot chocolate.

Every once in a while, the ski bug bites me, especially when I see Houdin and Monet out there trying to make jumps on our little hillside, and I want to give it another try, but now it's the cost of the thing that prohibits me. I should just put the trip on the credit card and go for it. After all, I can't take it with me. Of course, if I follow that plan, I might be leaving it behind a bit earlier than I had planned.

What did you leave behind when you crossed the threshold of parenthood? What did you pick up? What would you love to see your children do that you did as a child, but you just haven't done it yet? What do they do that you never would have dreamed of doing at their age?

::: the boy of summer :::

My Boy
.....has never batted cleanup,
has never once barehanded
..........a ball that's on the fly.
My boy
Doesn't start the lineup--
.....he always goes down lookin', but he doesn't know why.

My boy.
He's a cream-puff hitter,
has never beat the tag with a bent-leg slide.
My boy
only gets free transportation.
He's never whiffed a bomber,
.....never once struck out the side.

But he knows the trembling whinny of the Eastern Owl's Screeching,
can identify Draco on a cool, clear night,
stands over the griddle of his own bubbly pancakes
while the waking rays dance
through the kitchen skylight.

My boy--
he's a real bench-blanket,
the first one to the hotdogs,
the last one off the field.
My boy--
he's a six-o'clock hitter,
the coal out in the diamond where his errors are revealed.

But he can share with you the magic of a morning dove's mourning,
can spot a satellite as it slides across the sky,
snips green chives into farm fresh scramblers,
lifts a tune to heaven that can make the angels sigh.

My boy
builds boxes for the bluebirds,
knows how to locate North by the drinking gourd's bowl.
My boy
runs through the fields and heads for home;
My M.V.P.--this boy of Summer--how he blesses my soul.
He's my boy of summer, and he blesses my soul.