Relax Your Butt

Sam fell asleep in the car this afternoon, and I opted to try to transfer him to his bed instead of following my traditional course of action, which is to listen to music and text and generally avoid responsibilities in my car until he wakes up. Bringing a sleeping child inside is a risk - the parental version of Russian Roulette.  There are so many factors working against you:

-Seat belt maneuvering -Car door noises -Cold -Wind -The darn birds

Each obstacle that doesn't yield a screaming baby is a Russian-Roulette-caliber sigh of relief; it is hope and life and an hour of nap time to accomplish things.

I lifted Sam onto my shoulder without incident; he was exhausted, and all 30 lbs of his two year old self pressed heavy into my chest.  I laid his blanket over his back to shield him from the elements - one of my hands tenderly, protectively on the back of his head, and the other bearing his weight under his thighs.

Halfway between the car and the house, I felt Sam stir.  I felt him flexing and releasing his legs, his butt, over and over, fighting for sleep.

Now here is the delicate balance, the dangerous dance:  You must get to the bed ASAP, but without increasing your heart rate enough for the child to sense it.  You have to move quickly, fluidly, and silently with a little bit of a waddle, so that your bent knees absorb all the bumps and jostles.

When Sam started to squirm, I picked up the pace and whispered, "Shh, shh, shh, don't wiggle."

He kept on flexing and squirming, trying to carve out a warm, safe space in the crook of my arm.  "Shh, shh, shh.  Relax your little butt.  I've got you."

Then I said, " Trust my arms.  Trust my strength.  Trust my love."

And I felt a familiar surge in my chest.  The God-speaking-surge.

How many times has He whispered those words to me TODAY?

"Kate, stop wiggling.  Relax your little butt.  (How glorious that in relation to all the cosmos in the hollow of His hand my butt is very, very small.)  Trust my arms.  Trust my strength.  Trust my love."

I am a strategist and an energy-preserver and I work really well within structure and flounder outside of it - and that makes me a wiggler.  That makes me want to know what's going on and why - not so that I can control it (I tell myself), but so that I can prepare for it.  I'm very flexible as long as I know exactly what is going on.  (So, about as flexible as an anvil.)  I say, "Jesus, your will be done.  But give me a heads up as to exactly what your will is, so that I can adjust my attitude and my expectations and generally get on board."  I get agitated when God does not consult me about His plans, or at least update me.  A little common courtesy is all I ask.

But that's not how faith works.  For who has known the mind of the Lord?  And who has been his counselor?  Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.  How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out.  (Romans 11:34 & 33)  Faith is not for the faint of heart.  And God tells me, every day, some days more patiently than others, every time I stop for long enough to listen:

 Stop wiggling.  Relax your butt.  Trust my arms.  Trust my strength.  Trust my love.  I can carry you.

The Night I Bathed in the Toilet By Candlelight

Here's a dirty little secret of mine: I  bleach the hair on my arms. I have great hair,  but the downside to having thick, dark hair is that I have thick, dark hair.  On my arms.  On my legs.  On my eyebrows.

Yesterday I decided to try Nair for the first time ever.  Because, what's the worst that could happen?

HA HA HA HA HA.  WELL.  Let me tell you about the worst that can happen.

I applied a thick layer of the cream to my arms and waited the prescribed one minute.

It is important to note that the instructions for Nair state, in capital letters, "DO NOT LEAVE ON FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES."  It is also important to note that my oven was self-cleaning while this ill-fated attempt at hair removal was going on.

At the end of my one-minute, at which point the acid had nearly disintegrated all of my arm-hair and I was climbing into the shower, the greedy, power-hungry, menace of an oven sucked up all the power in the entire house and every single breaker blew.  Including the one for the water pump.

I flipped on the shower, the pipes hissed at me, then - silence.

Silence except for the voices in my head going, "No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO."

I rushed to the sink.  Nothing.

I ran to the kitchen and yanked open the fridge.  Why is there no bottled water in my house?!

Then the lights went out.

Then I said a lot of cuss words in my head.

So, to recap:  I am standing in my kitchen, in a towel, in the dark, with acid slowly burning the hair off of my arms, and in 8 minutes, my skin - and the water is out.

Things I considered: 1. Rinsing it off with juice. 2. Running to the neighbors house in my towel. 3. Using the water in the toilets. 4. Wiping it off with a towel, letting the hospital treat the boils with skin grafts, and wearing long sleeves every day for the rest of my life.

I hope you'll agree with me that using the water in the toilets is the lesser of the evils represented here, effectually proving that I'M NOT CRAZY.

And that is how it came to pass that I stood over a toilet, a lantern between my teeth, and frantically sponge-bathed Nair off of my arms with toilet water, in a surreal, embarrassing race against the clock.

Which brings me to the morals of this story - there are three.

1.  Any over-the-counter product whose main selling point is that it chemically burns things off of your body in 2 minutes, do not use that thing.

2. Amend your toilet cleanliness standards from "A Party Guest Should Be Able to Throw Up In It" to "Would Personally Be Willing To Rinse Nair Off Of Arms In It."

And finally, most practically,

3. Cleaning your oven is overrated.

Update:  There are no boils on my arms, and the rash should disappear any day now.  Aaaaaannny day.

Storms and Kisses

(source)

This morning "pre-storm" was in the air.

The hours and minutes before a storm are like negative space.  Like all the molecules in the air arrange themselves into little concave vessels, ready to be filled with with water and wind and electricity.

This morning the sky was dark and green.  The birds were conspicuously absent.  The wind came out to play.

I stood out in it - feeling the wind, the electricity, and the eager, open-armed molecules on my skin and it occurred to me:

The moments before a storm are both empty and full; they are tentative, and charged with invisible energy, like the moments before a kiss.

Happy Friday, friends. Kate

The Good Stuff Sticks

In case you missed it, I wrote a post over at the walk in love. blog earlier this week.   It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and something for which I'm desperately grateful:  the good stuff sticks.

"The chancellor of the university I attended used to say, "You have more bad days than good ones."

I love that.

Because, if not bad days, then at least blah days, right?   Or side-tracked days, or I Yelled At My Kids Again days.

But remarkably, even with all the blah, frustrating, and downright awful days, people keep on doing extraordinary things.  Dreams stay alive.  Hard work - creative work - keeps happening.  Marriages hold fast.

People keep climbing Everest and keep having babies EVEN AFTER THEY KNOW HOW HARD IT IS.  Like, they know about running out of oxygen, and excruciating cramps, and pushing bodies past their physical limits,  and wondering why they thought this was such a good idea in the first place - and I've heard Everest is tough too.

Last month I took my daughter to Snow Mountain for her birthday.  It was 58° outside.  Y'all, don't hate, that fake snow was magical.  There was tubing and sledding and snowman-building.  There were Christmas tree s, lights, snowballs, train rides, and hot chocolate.  It was straight out of a freaking postcard ...until..."

You can read the rest of the story here!

Letter to 22-Year-Old Me

It has been almost six years since a doctor told me that Madeline was blind. I remember everything.  What I was wearing.  What he said, exactly.  The 6,704,870 thoughts I had on the drive home.  Some traumas turn into blurs; this one is emblazoned on my memory.

In my wildest hopes I would not have dared to image Madeline as she is today.

This is what I would tell six-years-ago-me, if I could.

Kate,

Everything is going to be okay.

Right now, in the future, Madeline is watching The Magic School Bus episode about outer space.  That's right - she can watch TV.  She sits really close on her little red footstool, and she has two younger brothers, with perfect vision, who also sit close because that's how their big sister taught them to do it.  (They also took their first steps with a white cane, which was adorable.)

Here is what I want you to know, young, scared Kate.

Madeline is going to have friends.  She is going to run - fast and hard and fearless.  She knows braille.  You know braille.  It is hard, and you're going to cry and quit for a little while, but when Madeline is in kindergarten, you help her with her homework and you both read it pretty effortlessly and everything is okay.  (Incidentally, Madeline is going to surprise you all the time with the things she can see.  Even when she is six, she will still be surprising you - and every doctor and teacher she has.)

You've never cried in an IEP meeting, or after one.  Only before - because fear of a thing is almost always worse than reality.  Try not to worry.

Madeline is incredibly bright.  Her vocabulary is enormous - annoyingly so.  But she's not just smart-bright; she's a sparkle.  Everything in her whole life is over-the-top big.  She says things like:

"I know I have a lot of days left to live, but I know that no day could possibly be better than this day."

"I will listen to you, I will listen to teachers, I will listen to anyone, even after I DIE I WILL LISTEN."

"The only thing better than your painting is GOD."

And "Pluto is the most important planet in my life." 

She is some kind of special; people are drawn to her.

There are so many bright, happy things about your life.  Here is the most important thing:

Darling, do not fear what you don't really know.  Do not grieve for things you have not lost yet; you may not end up losing them at all.

Madeline's middle name is Hope - you had no way of knowing how perfect a christening that was for her, but I am here to tell you she has lived up to it in every way.  She has been spreading hope, warm in the hearts everyone who has the privilege to watch her, for six years now.  For six years, just sparkling and hope-spreading: hope to families touched by ONH, hope to teachers, hope to doctors, hope to friends - hope to everyone.

Don't worry.  Don't be afraid.  It gets better.  You get better.  You are carried on rhythms of grace, on the backs of friends, and on prayers of the faithful the whole way - every step.  Every hard-fought step, every uncertain step, every hail-mary, God-save-us step, you are carried.

Life is brutal and it is beautiful; Glennon Melton calls it brutiful.  And, God, is it ever.

But you can do this.  You are doing it, and you are doing a good job. Darling, do not fear what you don't really know. 

love, present Kate

P.S.  She does eventually learn to buckle her seat belt and put on her own socks, so don't sell her; she pulls through.

 (All photos by Brooke Courtney Photography)