Falling Behind

I had a friend tell me the other day that I had been falling behind on my blog.

She is right.

I had a long drive yesterday, relatively to myself, and I really tried to wrap my mind around just why that is.  When this blog was first born, my children were far less self-sufficient and it seems like I had to feed them more often.  They also made more messes and far more laundry…..so why does it feel like I had more time then than I do now?  The only thing I have been able to come up with is that though the physical demands my children place upon me may have decreased by a bit, ( I haven’t fed anyone in the middle of the night for a good 3 years now……except myself…..on a rare occasion…..there may have been pie involved) the mental requirements have grown by leaps and bounds.  Gone are the days of us staying put. I have schedules to remember – they go places and require services.  I have to get them to their lessons and practices and appointments, remember what they are supposed to be doing for these lessons and practices and appointments and make sure they have whatever they need for said activities.  In some ways, I feel like I am learning how to play the piano all over again and I will also be starting both 2nd and 6th grade in the fall.  This will be my fifth experience with 2nd grade – I attended myself back in ‘8? and taught it for two years so I think Reese and I are going to do really well.

But its not just the secretarial and chauffeur duties that have increased, its even the communication.  Gone are the days when my children’s questions can just be answered with something like, “Oh that’s just the way God made (fill in the blank)” or even the greatest answer of all time “Because…..”.  Too often, especially lately, my children’s questions have resulted in me telling them about things that even I don’t really even understand, and I certainly wasn’t ready to tell them about.  Somewhere, Mattie has learned that when the flags are flown at half mast, that means someone has died or in memory of some significant event.  I suppose she learned this in school, that’s why we send her there, but this summer I have really wished that maybe she hadn’t retained as much knowledge.  “Mama, why are the flags flying at half mast?” This is questions that unfortunately “because” just won’t answer.  The answers to these questions have not been able to be just words tossed into the back seat as we drive along. There have been words like, “shootings, hate-crimes, babies drowning and alligators, discrimination, prejudice and death”. So, so much death.  Just this past weekend, a young man my kids went to school with passed away in a car accident.  How do you explain that to your kids? He was here, he wasn’t sick and he wasn’t old…….he just wasn’t wearing his seat belt. These are not conversations where “because” will suffice as an answer.

My parenting has become much more cerebral since starting this blog.  I sleep more and i probably go to the bathroom more by myself, but I definitely have to think about my plan of attack for raising these children WAY more.  They are asking questions, hard questions, and they are developing personalities and attitudes that need to be molded into positive traits rather than the type that will land them in jail.  And the hormones are coming. A few have already arrived and set up camp.  But I know my days are numbered before things get real.  So Neely, if you wonder why I have fallen behind on my blogging, its because I am curled up in my closet in the fetal position praying that God will keep the Puberty Express away for just a little bit long.  I hear the whistle blowing, the lights are flashing, its inevitable. The attitude and teeny tiny boobies that have already attacked Mattie are way more than enough for me to handle as it is.  But please, Lord – keep her little just a tiny bit longer.

So much thinking, explaining, and trying to make them into kind people who others will want to have around when they are adults…..they are also staying up significantly later here in the summer and don’t nap during the day…..maybe that’s where all my free time has actually gone! Either way, I think I figured out what has been going one.

---