Ft Hood and my kids

Yesterday as we drove to school I started talking to my 7 yr old about Veteren's Day coming up on Wed.  We discussed what a veteren is and who we know who is a veteren and why we are thankful to them.  It was a pleasant and fairly uneventful conversation.  The one that followed though rocked me.

When we arrived at school the boys noticed the flag was half mast.  My children know what a half mast flag means, they have for over a year.  So the 4 yr old asks, "Mommy, why is that flag part way down?"  I replied with what I usually have to say when we see it like that, "Because some soliders died, Honey."  My kids being as observant as they are remembered that the flag was down last week for the same reason and asked, "AGAIN!?"  I replied with, "No, guys, this is for the same soliders as last week."  Again my boys are super observant and they know that usually when I answer that the flag is half mast because a solider died, the flag is usually flying regular the next day.  I watched them starting to process it while we waited  for our turn in the school drop off line.  Suddenly my 7 yr old asks, "Did they die in Afganistan or Iraq, Mommy?"  Again, I am open and honest with my kids about the WONDERFUL AND AMAZING AND SACRIFICAL job that our military does.  We don't personally know anyone in Afganistan but we know of people there like a friends husband and another friends step son and my cousin is stationed in Iraq.  We pray for them regularly and so the boys, particularly the 7 yr old is aware of the danger and the job.   But back to my story.

After thinking for a moment if it was too much to share I answered his question.  "No, Son, they died here in America on a military base in Texas."  Quiet filled my car and then the question that rocked my day,  "Mom, how did they die?"  Thoughts flooded my mind as I quickly processed if I should answer that or not.  Finally I said as tears welled up in my eyes, "Um, another solider killed them."  The 7 yr old looked sad and slightly confused, the 4 yr old gasped loudly and said, "Was it a bad guy, Mom?"  At this point we are the next car in line for drop off so I told my kids that I wanted to answer their questions but I wanted to give them the time and attention that they deserved for it so I promised them that I would answer any questions they had to the best of my ability after school.  My oldest got out and walked into school and I said a silent prayer that God would give me wisdom to know what to share.

The rest of the day was uneventful.  The 4 yr old completely forgot the mornings conversation and never brought it up again.  I was shocked however when we pulled up at the school to pick up in the afternoon and my 2 yr old pointed to the flag and said, "Oh no!  Solider die, Mommy.  Sad."  I thought for sure the 4 yr old would immediately pounce on that comment and start rattling off questions again but he didn't.  No one mentioned it all evening long.  I kinda thought that they had maybe forgotten.  While I do think it is important to answer their questions, I also don't think that I need to direct their attention to it either, so I waited and said nothing. 

Evening comes, I got the 2 yr old to bed with no issue, then got the 4 yr old to bed with no issue.  As I think I'm about to get the 7 yr old to bed with no issue, he climbs up in my lap and says, "Mom, did that solider who killed the other soliders do it on purpose or on accident?"  Deep breath, quick prayer and then I answered, "It was on purpose." More thinking and a very concerned look and he asks, "But why?  Why would one solider kill another solider?  Why did he do that?"  The best way I could think to explain was to tell him that the solider was sick in his brain and he finally snapped and went crazy.  The conclusion my son came to amazed me.  He said, "Mom, I think that maybe he had been to another war and his brain got sick there and he was afraid to go to war again."  How is it that my 7 yr old got that when few adults do?!?  Now granted his was a rather imaginative way that the guys brain got sick, something along the lines of a bug crawling into his brain and laying eggs or something like that, but nonetheless, he got the concept. 

The conversation ended with me telling him that there are more good people in the world than bad people.  Yes there are bad people and people who do bad things but there are many more good people than bad people.  He got very excited at this news and told me that means that the good guys will always win the wars if there are more good guys than bad.  While not completely true, I loved his little boy logic!  We discussed once again that God is good even when life is bad and then he went to bed with absolutely no issues.

As a mom, I so wanted to shield him from it all.  I wanted to pretend that it never happened so that he wouldn't need to worry about it.  I know though that burying my head in the sand will not make their questions go away.  They are going to hear bits and pieces and I cannot possibly shield them from everything.  Since I cannot shield them, I want them to get the information from me, told with grace and compassion rather than from the newscast or school.  It was a difficult conversation, much more so for me than for my sons, but it was needed and important to them.  Sometimes it sucks to know that I need to answer their questions to the best of my ability and in an age appropriate manner.  Sometimes it sucks to feel so strongly unanswered questions don't go away, they just get bigger.  And sometimes it sucks to have to tell my children hard truths.  Thankfully I survived this one!  Prayerfully, I'll survive the next one!

WHAM

Have you ever had something emotionally smack you upside the head?  Soemthing that you had no idea was lurking around the corner and then BOOM it knocks you over?  I had that happen last week.  My darling husband brought up a movie that is now 15 years old.  Should have been a safe bet, right?  I mean we have watched that movie several times together and it isn't the movie itself that makes me feel icky.  But when Ethan mentioned that it has been 15 yrs since it was in the theater, the wham hit me.  I remember the night I saw it.  I remember the friend I saw it with.  And most importantly and uncomfortably I remember WHY I went to see it. I went to see it because I had been told it was a bit of a tear jerker and I desperately needed to cry that night.  The movie did not move me to tears as I had hoped it would that night.  It was ok, you see, if I cried over a movie, a work of fiction, but for some reason I couldn't let myself cry over the circumstances in my life that were bringing me such pain.  I went through counseling a few years later but when this one came up, I mentioned it very briefly and in as little detail as possible.  I diverted everything a different direction but I didn't realize that I had done it.  I haven't thought about it much over the last 15 yrs that have passed and I guess I thought I had come to a reconciliation (for lack of a better word) in my heart toward the situation.  wham, I guess I was wrong!  The emotions hit me so hard, that for a moment I felt as though I couldn't breathe.  I have spent the last couple of days pondering this and what I need to do next.  Tonight I read my friends blog (which you can read by clicking here) and it brought me to tears because it is exactly where I am now.  I find peace in the arms of my Father and yet I still feel the pain of this situation when I am directed towards it.  I don't feel angry or bitter towards the people involved; does that mean that there has indeed been some reconciliation in my heart?  Years ago the memory of this prompted anger that those of you who know me would find it difficult to fathom of me.  Yet now it doesn't prompt anger, just hurt and discomfort.  As I type this I realize that the hurt isn't what it was.  There has been some healing there.  Now I need to hand this to the Father and let Him work in my heart and bring the healing and wholeness that He desires.  I don't think it sounds as difficult as it did when I first started writing.  He is faithful and He is good!

only in Colorado

Tuesday night at midnight we were under winter storm warning.  While the warning didn't start till midnight, the snow started early in the evening and by 9:30 it was starting to cover the grass.  Wednesday morning I awoke to more snow and no school.  Thursday it continued to dump snow on us.  It was roughly a foot and a half of snow in 2 days.  Then today, school was back in session.  The main roads at 7:30 am were wet but not bad.  The side roads were a little slick still though.  The sun was shining and by 11:30 am I had shed my coat and was comfortable in my long sleeve tee shirt.  I even cracked the windows on the way home from the grocery store (the high was high 40's today).  By the time I left to get Will from school the snow was completely melted from my driveway and probably 10 inches or less left on my grass.  Only in Colorado can we have a dumping of well over a foot of snow for 2 whole days and then the next day it is beautiful and halfway melted!!!!!!!  So we may not get a true fall but we do get 60 degree days in January sometimes so I guess I'll concede that it balances out.  The boys loved the snow and 2 days of no school.  I love that it is melting quickley so that driving will not stay messy for long!

sleep where for art thou?

It is nearly 2 am and I am awake blogging.  I'm exhausted, but here I sit on my computer.  I should be in bed.  I have to wake up in just over 4 hrs.  The thought of how tired and coffee dependent I will be tomorrow is torturous and should have driven me to the comfort of my warm bed hours ago.  Yet here I am, once again avoiding sleep.  Back in the day I used to avoid sleep too, but for a different reason.  Then I had horrific nightmares that happened more often than not.  They were terrifying and I would wake up crying and shaking and sometimes screaming.  The nightmares finally stopped about a year after I got married and I slept like I had never slept before.  Then I had kids.  No nightmares, just late night feedings and middle of the night feedings.  They finally learned to sleep through the night and once again I slept beautifully.  I refuse to say I slept like a baby.  For anyone who has ever been awake every 2 hrs to feed a newborn, you understand my aversion to this statement.  Baby's DON'T sleep that wonderfully!!!!!!!!  So  over the last 10 months or so, I find myself avoiding sleep again.  I'm sure that some part of it is that when everyone else is in bed, I finally get to take off the mom and wife hat and let myself be Dawn.  I love sitting in the quiet of my house when I am responsible for no needs.  So on one hand, I do enjoy talking to long lost friends on facebook, reading everyone's blogs and writing in my own blog.  On the other hand, my eyes are drooping pretty badly right about now and I'm wondering what I'm still doing awake.  Why am I dreading going to sleep?  I need to be in bed before Ethan's alarm goes off at 2:20.  I'll get scolded if I'm not.  I have so much on my mind.  I cannot think and process it all during the busy daylight hours and so that leaves only these late night hours to process everything my brain is thinking.  I think I hear Ethan's footsteps overhead, I may already be in trouble.  It has been a rough couple of months. I am feeling like I can tackle life again but I just need to absorb everything that I've not had the emotional or physical energy to process these past couple of months.  How do I do that?  I am finding myself hungry for soul friendships.  I have several so it's not that I am looking for new ones.  It is just that I am craving that time with friends who know me to my core and don't judge me and who encourage me.  And I want that time when I don't have to separate 3 boys fighting, or deal with poor attitudes or make dinner or change a pullup or make someone pick up some mess, or in our house I hear myself say a little too often "Flush the toilet and put the seat back down!"   I want that quality time with a kindred spirit that does not involve my whole family of 5.  So I find myself here.  I read blogs of people dear to me and feel like I am a part of their lives even though I know they have no idea I read their blogs.  Tonight I discovered that some read my blog as well for a sense of belonging in my life and I also never knew.  So we still know so much about one another, feel like years or miles never separated us, feel like we can still hold each others hearts, and yet neither one knows that the other feels the same way.  It's a lonely way to have dear friends!  How is it possible that I have 2 friends that I talked to today who I think about and pray for regularly, we were really close years ago and now live really far away, but today is the first time in ages that I have actually verbalized how much I love them?  I can barely believe that all 3 of us have allowed ourselves to get lonely while loving and praying for the other!  The problem is communication.  I feel those things but have I said them?  Unfortunately the answer is no!  I am completely blessed and fulfilled by my time with the Lord.  I know that I am growing in my walk.  But even Jesus had his friends who supported Him and encouraged Him.  He had 12 but only 3 were soul friends.  Twelve men surrounded Him, three guarded His heart.  Today I found myself longing for the three.  And this evening I found it chatting on facebook.  It was like balm to my soul to talk with my friend.  We talked mostly about what's going on in her life, her struggles.  But still it blessed me, I felt that closeness that we once shared.  I knew that our friendship is still strong even though years and miles separate us.  I think I needed to write this just to remind myself that it is ok to need people.  Even Jesus, God's own son, needed more than time with the Father, he also needed companionship.  I didn't know when I started this where I was going with it, just knew I needed to vent.  Now I know what I needed to figure out.  I need friends,  some who are fun and silly and you have a great time when you're together, some who will kick my butt when needed, some who will cry with me, some who will encourage and support me, and some who will allow me to be all of those same things to them!  And there is no shame or guilt in needing others.  God designed us that way and delights in how he made us!  

the land of the living

My mind is flooded with thought right now.  I thought about getting on facebook but realized that I would be updating my status every minute just to say it all!  I finally feel like I am joining the land of the living again.  Last week I had a sinus infection, the week before was swine flu, and the 2 weeks before Ethan was sick.  So October has been a blur of cough syrup, motrin, elderberry syrup, antibiotics, raging fevers, sudefed and a cough that just won't leave.  September was a blur of raw emotions.  September I talked to very few friends, it was a really rough emotional month and I went into survival mode.  It was also a month of serious financial burdens, some that nearly pushed us over the brink of the mountain.  August was busy!  We had a vacation with my parents and started school back up just days after returning.  I feel as though I have been on auto pilot for 3 months now!  This week though, I feel like I have finally rejoined the land of the living!  Today after dropping Will off at school, the younger kids and I drove to Parker to spend Ethan's lunch break with him at work.  It was a delightful and refreshing morning.  We went from there to a lovely friends house for coffee and lunch.  I haven't had a chance to connect with this friend for a couple of months and last year we saw each other at least once a week.  It was needed time just enjoying each others company.  We actually chatted until it was time to go pick Will up from school.

It is interesting to me how going into survival/fight or flight mode, changes everything you do.  I'm really grateful for the understanding of all the people I've neglected over the past months.  It hasn't been intentional, just circumstancial.  If you are one of the people I've neglected, please accept my apology.  I was struggling so desperately to hold on to me that I didn't put forth the effort to hold on to you!

So, along the lines of other thoughts..........   My husband looks at me so proudly and in love when he hears me discuss sports.  It is kinda funny, but also enjoyable.  Football in particular.  I corrected the announcer on Sunday while watching the Vikings/Steelers game.  Ethan beamed at me and commented that he loves that I can actually legitimately correct the announcers.  Who knew that being able to follow a football game and watching Yankee's playoffs with my sweetie would bring the adoration factor???????  You should see the look I get when discussing this one:  This season, Jay Cutler = 11 TDs, 10 int,  Kyle Orton = 9 TDs and only 1 int.  I personally prefer the guy who is consistent but not flashy.  Cutler's flashy has lost us too many games!  I'm pretty sure that I saw drool slipping out of Ethan's mouth at this point!  ;)

We just had parent teacher conferences last week for Will.  As always, we received a spectacular review.  I wonder why his teachers can never ever picture him refusing to get his belt on for school.  In class he is such a great kid.  I wish he was as excited at home to get ready for school in a timely manner or do his homework in a timely manner as he is to learn when he finally reaches school.  I guess it is the headache of most parents but still..........

Last week I saw Will's best friend.  Bailey came up to me and very excitedly told me, "Mrs. Hempel!  Guess what?  I had H1N1 and LIVED!"  I informed him that I had also and gave him a big high five.  It was the highlight of my day that day.  The next day though I felt bad for him when his mom told me that Bailey actually thought he was going to die when the doctor gave the diagnosis.  Poor little guy was crying and asking if he was going to die.  The doctor confirmed what every other medical person I know has said, it sucks and it is not any worse than seasonal flu.  The doctor, in his great wisdom, told Bailey that he was a healthy little boy and would most definitely live.  He told him what to expect, a fever for a few days and not feeling very good and then back to his wonderful boisterous self.  I am grateful that the doctor in urgent care had enough sense to not feed this little boys fears but rather to encourage him and his mom!

The H1N1 and lived story happened on the same day as this conversation between Bailey and Will.  They both (and Bailey's big sister as well)  wanted Friday to be their day for hot lunch.  Will only gets it once a week.  It was to be sub day on Friday and the boys wanted subs.  The reason, "I love sub day, you get seconds!"  Bailey's older sister confirms this and my friend and I laugh hysterically at the logic of boys.  It isn't bc that sounds best, it is all about how many servings you can get!  True boys!

I think that my growing less coherent by the minute thoughts are soon about to start rambling.  Besides, the dryer should be close to done with the work/school clothes so that I can sleep!  I keep trying to decide if it is time to share yet what the Lord has been working on in me over the last several months.  It's not bc it is super personal, more that it is a lot of typing and explaining.  Maybe next time?   I know, I'm a tease, but it is late and I'm tired!

THAT mom

Today in the grocery store, I became "that" mom.  She is the mom that before I had children of my own I critcized fiercely.  She is the mom that you are sure you could easily parent better than and secretly wonder why God decided to grace her with children.  Do you know her?  Well, today she and I were the same.  With the older two in school, I decided to take a quick trip with just my 2 yr old to the grocery store.  He has recently decided that he really doesn't like sitting in the front part where he is supposed to sit and he insisted that he wanted to sit in the cart.  This morning he was so dang cute when he said please and I was so dang tired from him trying to take over my bed twice last night that I agreed.  He knows the rule, you have to stay on your bottom or you have to ride in the front with a seatbelt.  Starting out he did a FABULOUS job.  I didn't have to remind him at all.  I was starting to think that maybe he is getting big enough like his brothers to sit there with no problems, but I was wrong!  I reached for a box of cereal and as I did, he did the same and went tumbling head first out of the cart.  We were right up against the aisle so he hit the cereal lined shelf mostly and then I caught him right before he crashed into the floor.  Of course he is screaming, I'm comforting and three old people are GLARING at me.  Isn't it odd how you barely see anyone in the store until you have something happen that you wish no one had seen?  The old man next to me who had originally been talking to us, telling me how cute Josh is, now wouldn't say a word but instead just kept staring at me like, "How could you let that happen?  Why on earth wasn't he in the front where he belongs?"  And at the exact second that Josh fell, another older man walked into the aisle and and old woman stopped at the end of the aisle.  They all stared and you could almost hear their contempt for me as a mother.  I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide forever!  Josh is fine.  He has a bump on his forehead and one on the bridge of his nose, but otherwise unharmed and his normal happy 2 yr old self.  When I relayed the story to Ethan, he made me feel better in such a silly way.  He asked, "Did you say it was all old people giving you dirty looks?  I wish they would have said something so that you could have responded with, 'Hey, you let your kids ride around in the back of pickup trucks and didn't seem to think it was going to hurt them!' "  I laughed when he said it but it is true.  We didn't have carseats when we were kids, we didn't always wear seatbelts, we rode our bikes without helmets, ate butter, drank Kool-aid, and played tag in the street, and yet we all lived!  Yeah, probably shouldn't have let him sit in the back, not the safest thing I've done this week, but I did and he is ok now.  I think it scared me more than him and in all honesty, he is less traumatized by it all than I am!  And so, for those of you who would never dream of letting your child be that reckless, or for those of you who are now convinced that if you had kids, you would do a much better job of keeping them safe, I say this, I shouldn't have let him ride in the back, but it wasn't a mistake that God graced me with my children!  I'm not perfect, but I love my kids a whole lot even when I do dumb things like let a 2 yr old ride in the back of the cart.  :)

my overactive brain

I have a lot on my mind.  Not particularly bad or good, just lots of stuff.  Like for instance, how do I get my blog to not automatically upload to facebook?  I'd rather link it there myself, then it would show up under links instead of notes. And how do I get my spell check back on my blog instead of word strike?  I don't like typos and don't want to see them on my blog. Plus there is a fair amount of words that I regularly misspell that you the reader would have no idea thanks to spell check!  See, not glamorous, just on my mind. 

Other things like, why is my first grade son doing homework for nearly 2 hrs at least once a week?  Will the day ever come that he does not reverse his s,b,d,7, or 3??????  And on that note, how much of what he tells me from school actually happens?  Today while he was climbing in at pick up time, his teacher opened the door and was telling me something.  I asked her a question and she looked at Will rather quizzically and asked, "Where in your amazing imagination do you come up with these stories you are telling your mom?"  So, did he really get a cookie from Mr. Victor the lunchroom guy on his birthday? Very possibly.  Did everyone really get one?  Doubt it.  Does the mom of one of his friends who occasionally helps in the classroom really sometimes grab a students arm and squeeze very hard often resulting in a red hand for a moment to get them to calm down?  Not sure, but concerning if it is true.   Don't you wish there was a http://www.truthorfiction.com/ for your kids school day?  It would be so easy to weed out the rumor stories right away!

Another school thought, yesterday Will's pants split in the crotch during gym class.  He told me he just avoided girls all day because he was embarrassed.  I asked when it happened and the rough answer was right after lunch.  I would have gladly left my "mommy playdate" to bring him new pants.  He was so embarrassed!  He said that his teachers thought his pants would be fine until school let out so they didn't call me.  Again, I'd like to hear the whole story.  Did it happen with only an hour or less of school left and they didn't see it being worth the trip?  Odd little tidbits that don't exactly make 2+2=4. 

On Friday he hit his best friend with a bat.  How do you explain that??????  I mean I wouldn't condone it by any means but I would at least understand it if it was someone he didn't like or even one of his brothers.  That's what siblings seem to do.  But his best friend?  The kid he begs every day to carpool with, the one who Will cried when he found out they were in different 1st grade classes?  I'm kinda at a loss.  I mean, Will's a pretty good kid for the most part.  Usually his bigger "imperfections" are only completely unleashed when it is just us as a family.  This is abnormal.  So I guess that leads me to the question, what is going on in his little brain?  How can I help him to navigate through it all? 

Though it seems as though I said a lot of negative about Will just now, I have to say, I am dang proud of that kid!  He is such an amazing joy, even when he is being a booger.  His school does a "stoplight" form of behavioral chart.  Green = good behavior, yellow = less than great behavior and red = poor behavior/consequence.  Then there is the ever elusive silver.  Silver is reserved for going above and beyond the call of duty at school.  Will has always been green, that is, until last Monday.  As his teacher put him in the car on Monday, she told me, "Will's planner won't reflect this because it happened at the very end of the day, but he is on silver!  He has the opportunity to be silver all week.  This is also the first time we have ever awarded silver on a Monday!"  Will was bursting with pride, so was his mama.     ;-)   He told me in the car that his teachers said that there was someone who had done really great for the past few days and as soon as she said that, he knew it was him.  It was a bit difficult to congratulate him and ask him how he felt about it and not equate pride with the action.  I am always proud of him, not just when he does well in school.  I want to convey that so I make sure when I tell him I'm proud that I tell him I'm proud of his character rather than his actions.  Make sense?  So I told him that I knew he had worked hard to get to silver and that his hard work paid off.  I asked him if he was proud of that accomplishment and reaffirmed that I thought it was great that he had tried so hard and succeeded.  It was much harder to put into practice than I thought it would be.  I let him know how special getting silver was while the whole time focusing on who he is not on what he did.  That is one difficult parenting truth though!  I so wanted to scream from the rooftops how proud I was that my son was the first kid to get silver on Monday.  I think I gave it just the right amount of attention, he seemed to be very pleased with how I handled it.

My blog is getting rather long and I've probably lost the interest of nearly everyone.  I still have thoughts though.  Like for instance, when did my grammar get sub par and my sentences turn into run ons and when did I start beginning sentences with but, and, or so?  I don't think I mind.  I like my writing but I think because I still hear my jr high and high school English teacher, Mrs. Wille,  in my ear telling me that I shouldn't start my sentence that way, it still feels as though I am being naughty!  I know, just revealing my dorkiness to everyone, got it!

I'm also discovering that while I still despise conflict, I handle it much better that I used to.  I have a mental conflict right now.  There are people who I don't understand and sometimes don't want to understand.  I feel like there is a close to even split as to if there will be peace or conflict when we engage. I don't want to have conflict and I find myself stressing about how to talk to those who bring out conflict in me.  Did any of that make sense?

I think I have rambled my thoughts enough for one night.  I don't want to ramble so much that people quit reading the handful of coherent thoughts that I do have. So (see, I just did it again!), I think I'll head off to dreamland, get some rest and have more coherent thoughts tomorrow after I've had coffee!  I may not share them all, but rest assured, I will at least have a few of them throughout the day tomorrow :)