“Look Up”

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Being a parent means sometimes you learn amazing lessons from your children.

I have been sporadic posting lately, because I have been spending more time reading. Good, Old Fashioned book reading for pleasure. Despite the break from letting time sucking TV and news consume my life, I still find myself falling in to the trap of modern technology and culture: Texting, instead of calling. Texting, instead of face to face meeting and chatting. Looking at my phone in the midst of conversation. Checking social media, full of people I have never met, instead of meeting with those I do know.

I am guilty of ‘looking down’, and based on what I see around me, I’m not the only one.

My oldest recently returned from study abroad in Europe. We made the decision in advance to only use Wi-Fi when available to communicate, meaning her phone was pretty much useless. She was therefore ‘liberated’ from the tether of her phone, and came home with a whole new perspective, and priorities. Arriving home, we find her no longer dependent upon a phone with 3G and a data plan, along with access to technology to socialize or communicate. She quite often leaves it at home. It is refreshing in this day and age of ‘everything technology’.

Did she spend her time in Europe looking at an illuminated screen?

No, she did not. And she came home RICH in memories and experiences.

Does she spend her time now, looking down?

No, she does not. And she seems all the more happy for it.

So watch this video, and take a lesson from a 21 year old. I did, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Black Friday – Avoided

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It’s the day after Thanksgiving and all is quiet in the house. And while I love Thanksgiving Day, I love the day after even more. I get to sit in my sweats reading the news or a book. The kids are home, usually sleeping in till noon. Hubby walks the dogs for me. There are plenty of leftovers, so no real cooking effort needs to be made.

Yes, it is the perfect calm before the storm: The storm of festive flurry we call Christmas.

Thanksgiving has a gentle lead up to it. Mother nature does her part, slowing the cycle of life to a dormant state of rest. Plants and animals alike preferring to sleep through winter, to be awakened by springs breath, tickling them to awake. One is busy through Halloween, preparing ourselves for this time of ‘wintering over’. So, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, attention can be focused on giving thanks, untouched by the other distractions so prevalent in spring and summer.

Thanksgiving is the time of year families turn inward, reconnecting and cherishing each others presence. It is the time of year we seek out those who might not have the blessing of genetically related family, extending the hand of familial friendship, embracing new connections and relationships so that hopefully no one unwillingly spends the day alone. In our home, with the exception of my brother (who drives the long 4 hours in traffic) we don’t have our own extended family nearby. Instead, we have been blessed with amazing family friends with whom we have created our own traditions, and break bread with. Some years our little family has shared the occasion with three or four families, house bursting to the seams with laughter, conversation and joy. Some years it has been quiet and cozy, shared with one other couple or my brother, an emphasis on comfort and intimacy. All have been wonderful and wonderfully different.

When Thanksgiving Day is over, it’s the perfect time for me to pause before mentally and physically gearing up for the chaos that todays culture has created, Christmas. We all try not to get caught up in a ‘keep up with the Jones’ attitude towards Christmas; but many of us have traditions we wish to keep. The result can be a self imposed pressure to fit all that we have individually defined as ‘Christmas Spirit’ into the Christmas season. Ideally, we spread the ‘reason for the season’ throughout the year. But let’s be honest, it is at least nice to have a time of year were we are encouraged and motivated by society and culture to be intentionally giving and sharing.

And so we come back to Black Friday, a nightmare of consumerism, resulting all too often in the most base of behavior. It’s hard for me to fathom the very people who were sharing their time and table one day, embracing the concept of Thanksgiving, are the very same people mowing down their fellow man/woman in a mad rush to be the first at the bargain table the very next day. For those who work this day, I thank you for your patience and service. It can’t be easy to work on Black Friday, but with the demand for the stores to be open, someone must be there to open the doors and ring the cash registers. And ring they do.

I’ll leave the thrill of the sale to others. I am going to sit here with my steaming cup of coffee and give a pass to the madness. As I read the headlines of the morning, history has been a good indicator of the present. I am reminded of an appropriate metaphor: Don’t feed the beast. So, I won’t. Instead, I think I’ll make a leftover turkey sandwich and be very thankful I am home.

 

Sleep-less

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You’d think an empty nester would have the luxury of sleeping, all through the night. 

No children out and about to worry over, no children’s friends tromping through the house as they come and go. And it’s fall, which means short days, long nights. The temperature lowers, perfect for snuggling under the covers, all toasty warm, with the window cracked so the fresh, crisp, chilly air can filter in. It’s the time of year where one is busy, winterizing both inside and out, ending the day with a body and mind ready to drift off to slumber land. 

But, I have a puppy. And a puppy gets in to things a puppy does, eating things a puppy shouldn’t. And then the puppy tummy lets everyone know it’s not happy. 

And so, for the past couple of nights, I am up repeatedly letting puppy out to do puppy’s ‘business’. 

I’m not complaining mind you, at least ‘Little Man’ is now old enough to rouse me from my slumber, instead of making a mess. It convinces me, God wisely gives infants to young parents, who’s youthful bodies can more easily handle the rigors of sleep deprivation. That said, here I am up every couple of hours, hurrying the puppy down the stairs and out the door, standing bare foot on cold hardwood in my chilly kitchen, waiting for little Mister to do his business. Gratefully, he returns and is as anxious to get back to his bed as I am. I crawl into the warmth of my bed, he settles down, and all is good until the next tummy grumbling. 

Infancy passes all to quickly and it feels like it was just an eye-blink ago that I was awaken in the dead of night by the cry of my baby daughter, and blurry eyed stumbled to her room to nurse my precious little bundle in the wee hours of the morning. Now it’s a much older version of that self, repeating the motions with much less grace and not nearly as much resilience. But, just as child infancy passes, this will too. Until my girls have children of their own and ‘Nanna’ can watch them, I choose to look at this inconvenience as a blessing. I could be grumpy, resentful at the intrusion of my beauty rest, but I choose to be thankful for the refresher of wonderful memories. 

So here I sit, sleepily, at my kitchen table, a large steaming cup of coffee at my fingertips, sipping it’s body warming contents slowly, feeling the veil of fog begin to part. I gaze out at the maples displaying the colors of fall, swaying in the crisp gentle breeze, crystal clear heavenly blue sky as a backdrop; a picture perfect Kodachrome postcard. Honestly, how can I be crabby? How can I be anything but grateful and willing to count my blessings?

And such is the irony of life: ‘Little Man’ sleeps with perfect contentment near my feet.  

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