Roots and Wings

To begin with, a quick “thank you” to the many people who reached out last week to see how we were all faring with Maddie away at sleep away camp. In many ways it was a looonnngg five days, since, if you’re a reader of this blog you know that when we dropped her off, Madeline was scared and crying, trying desperately to put on a brave face. We could send one-way emails so that she could hear from us every day, but she was only allowed to communicate with us via snail mail (which we received today. Apparently the camp post office has actual snails working there). So the difficult part was trying to figure out if she was having fun.

 

I try to refrain from giving tips on this blog, since we all know that I’m just making up this parenting thing as I go, but I did want to share advice from a friend I spoke with for a Charlotte Parent article I wrote last winter, about camp communication. She said that she told her son to give a “thumbs up” in pictures if he was having a good time. That way, each night when she checked out the photo galleries (most camps will post pictures on their secure sites each evening and try to have shots of all campers), it would be their secret “signal” that he was okay. I told Madeline this same thing- and experienced massive relief when, in the first photo of her, she was smiling and giving a huge thumbs-up. In hindsight, I should probably have told her that she did not have to do the thumbs up in every single photo…

…as she did start to resemble the Fonz on the third day. To mix things up Dan sent an email and told her to throw him a peace sign.

I guess it’s a good thing she wasn’t there longer; we would have had her throwing up gang signs. But anyhoo, this put us totally at ease; she looked like she was having a great time and I figured there was no way she was going to want to come home.

What happened Friday evening when I picked her up is a moment I’ll replay in my mind over and over in the years to come. Seriously, I need to revisit this exact scene the first time she brings home a failed test/breaks curfew/ tells us she’s joining the circus.

Maddie sat in a small crowd downstairs, and when she caught sight of me, literally tore past the other kids, tears streaming down her face, and jumped into my arms. It took her a full minute to gain enough composure to speak, and then in her little high-pitched voice said the seven sweetest words in the English language: “I’m just so happy to see you.”

Of course, I cried. How could I not? There was the overwhelming relief that she was safe, healthy and coming home. She later told us that she had a really good time, recounted tons of adventures, and said that it was “a great experience.” But she had been homesick every day.

“I can’t tell you exactly what I missed so much,” she said. “Just the feeling of being home.”

At first, I was torn about this statement. Though I’m happy she deems her home a place to be missed, we want her to grow up to be independent and adventurous. But after further reflection, I think all of us, child or adult, would feel this way. When we are out of our comfort zone, we long to be somewhere safe and predictable. Our homes are more than just walls, they are safe havens. Whether we are pulling warm sheets from a dryer or simmering marinara sauce on a stove. Caring for our gardens or laying our heads on our pillows. Our homes evoke feelings of being safe, content- at peace. I’m glad that my child views her own home this way; I hope as she matures that she’ll understand that she can wander away for a while- and it will still be there for her return.

“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”   -Maya Angelou

 

 

On First Aid Kits and Letting Go

Today we dropped Madeline off at her first sleep away camp. It didn’t go exactly according to plan.

Let me back up. Way up. As a kid, my only experience with sleep away camp was one night at my hometown YMCA, in which the girls tossed a pair of my underpants around the tent. I left the next morning. Sans underpants.

That memory was skillfully buried in a grave alongside a few other cringe-worthy incidents (slipping on a tomato in a crowded college cafeteria was one), until a few years ago, when I had a discussion with a friend who is a college counselor at an elite private high school. I asked him how he and his colleagues prepared their students for the trials and tribulations of the real world, when those kids had spent so many years in a protective bubble.

“Sleep away camp,” was his reply.  “It takes them out of their comfort zone.”

So I began to look at sleep away camp a little differently. I started to think about how good it would be for my girls to try something that was new, different, maybe even a little scary. And how that could help them grow.

Maddie was totally on board with the idea. And this summer, just before she turns ten, seemed the perfect time to put the plan in action. We chose a camp about an hour away, that was only five days in length as opposed to others that had a minimum two weeks. Plus, she’s going with three of her friends from school, which put her at ease.

For the last two months, all she’s done is talk about how excited she was. We went to the orientation, where she checked out the cabins. She tried archery, which she absolutely loved. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that maybe she should pick another sport; instead I sent up a silent thank-you that the Hunger Games are purely fictional. I wouldn’t count on her to take down any of her own meals.

She was so excited about the whole adventure that I forgot who she is deep down, and why I wanted to send her there in the first place. Because the truth is, she’s a sensitive, emotional kid who has never really ventured out of her comfort zone. She’s never had to. When we finished checking in and a counselor announced that it was time to say our goodbyes, she turned to me, panicked, and started crying.

“I’m not ready yet,” she whispered, clinging to me. “I’m scared.”

My heart broke a little, just then.

In the end, I know that she’ll learn she can do hard things. Even though she’s scared, she’ll get through this. It’s what makes us well-adjusted, and confident, and brave.

I’m scared too. I’ve had a hundred awful scenarios run through my head as to what could happen when she’s away from us. Often, what is best for our children is letting them go, letting them learn and discover who they really are. But it’s not always easy. When they are small and easily wounded, our instincts are to make them better. It’s difficult to understand that sometimes it’s best to allow them to feel that pain. So they learn how to apply the salve to their own wounds. So they know how to do it again in the future, when you aren’t there.

I hope we’ve given her enough of a first-aid kit. I hope she’s able to fix herself up when she’s feeling banged around. I hope we’ve packed that kit with enough band-aids and Neosporin. Because it’s up to her to do the rest.

I promise I wasn’t being cruel taking a picture of my visibly-upset child. Her sweet friend Ella was comforting her here. May we all have friends in life who step in when we’re in need.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” -William G.T. Shedd

Look! I Made a Lemon.

Tonight we had friends over for a Memorial Day barbecue and they were admiring my lemon tree.

Okay, maybe admiring is a strong term. Noticing, maybe. Looking at. Commenting on.

But to me, my lemon tree is amazing. I got him last year on Mother’s Day. My own mother and I caught sight of him at a local nursery, and on a whim, I decided to buy him, as a gift to myself. Despite the fact that southern California climates are better suited for lemon trees. Despite the fact that I literally have never been able to keep a plant alive. Despite the fact that I often forget to feed my own children unless they remind me, and a lemon tree can’t talk.

I placed him in a sunny corner of our back deck and watched him grow. Per instructions, I watered him often, sprinkled his soil with iron on the first of each month, the scent lingering on my hands for the rest of the day, reminding me of how things can grow when they are nurtured.

Late-summer, he blossomed, his pot overrun with a riot of white blooms.

Fall came, mild and forgiving here in North Carolina. But as September rolled into October, the sunlit days grew shorter, and I knew my lemon tree’s days on the back porch were numbered. His leaves began yellowing, then dropping. It was around then that I was in the kitchen and heard Molly shrieking. “Mom! There’s a lemon on this tree!”

And there it was. At first, I feared that the good folks at the garden center had actually sold me a lime tree, as he was completely green, but a little research told me that this it took 4-6 months for a lemon to ripen to yellow.

But his timing was off. Just when the earth was preparing to hunker down for the winter, here was a little bit of life just beginning. How do you keep something alive when the world is against it?

I moved him indoors a few weeks later, and he dropped leaves until he was nearly bare. Finally I placed him in my master bath tub, where the opened blinds bathed him with exposure, and he stabilized. I’m hoping my neighbors didn’t catch sight of anything unsavory, with those blinds open all winter, but I hardly cared. This lemon tree HAD to live. His fruit NEEDED to ripen. I’d made mistakes along the way- gone a day or to too long without watering, placed him over a heating vent when I moved him inside. But I needed some success here. I needed proof that hard work gets results. I needed to see after all the petty arguments with my children, after all the self-doubt and second-guessing, that when you love and nurture and care and protect, that something good comes out of it. There will be wrong steps and missed turns and you’ll get mixed up and lost, and winter will set in and it will be hard, hard, hard- but at the end- at the end, there will be a beautiful fruit that you created.

We’ve had a cold spring here in North Carolina, and I didn’t move my little lemon tree back outside until last month. By then his lemon- just one- had ripened. It was a small victory. Just one fruit. But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It had been difficult, but he had done more than survived- he had thrived.

We all face winters in our own lives. Sometimes, the odds are stacked against us. Sometimes survival in itself seems a victory. And now we are in charge of these little people, who rely on us to get them through their winters as well. That lemon reminds me that’s it’s possible. We soldier on. Because when we do it right, at the end, there is fruit.

The girls and I cut open that lemon and I cooked up a simple syrup and we made it into lemonade. And I would totally be lying if I said it was delicious. After all, nothing in this life is perfect.

But it sure was sweet.

“And so it goes, this soldier knows…” -Ingrid Michaelson

 

 

Cheaters Never Win…And Winners Never Cheat. But Maybe I Should Have.

Yesterday, I had a bad experience with a cheater.

No, not the adulterer kind- this was more like the kind that you might come across in grade school. The one who would “accidentally” knock over the Monopoly game board right after you rolled the dice that would put you on Free Parking.

Only she wasn’t a child, but a full-grown adult. I played her in a tennis match. Let me preface this by saying 90% of the time, the women you meet on the other side of the net are fair and fun. This was not one of those times. My opponent blatantly cheated, calling shot after shot of mine out. In the past I’ve played women who between sets were taking hits of oxygen while putting drops in their eyes for their glaucoma. They made better calls than this girl, despite the fact that their vision was clearly compromised.

Okay, full disclosure. I’ve never played anyone with glaucoma. I was making a point. I did, however, play a woman who I honestly, truly feared might just code on the court. I had the defibrillators ready just in case. No one wants to win because your opponent dies.Because then it’s a retire, not an actual win.

I digress. Girl I played, big, HUGE cheater. And I let her get away with it.

I’ve taken the last 24 hours to reflect on how I should have handled the situation. Despite the fact that I was thoroughly ticked off, and aware of her M.O. (and knew it beforehand; I’m not the only one that this has happened to. The tennis community is like high school. Word gets around), I didn’t directly confront her at any point during the match. Instead, I was passive-aggressive, saying polite things like, “Oh- are you sure that ball was out?” or, after she challenged me when I called the score, “Yes, I’m sure that I’m up 40-15 in this game. I believe in Karma. If I cheated, I know it would come back and haunt me.”

Afterwards, one thought crossed my mind. How would I have acted if that was one of my daughters on the court, being mistreated?

Of course. I would have raged. I would have lectured them about sticking up for themselves. I would have used every fiber of my being to convince them that they should never, ever, allow someone to treat them in that way.

Which begs the question… why didn’t I stand up for myself? If I’m so unwilling to let that happen to one of my children, why is it that I didn’t simply say, “I know that you’re calling my good shots out.” Or “You’re a liar, liar, pants on fire!” Well, maybe the first option.

I think that women are conditioned to not make a scene. In the end, I would have rather been polite and lost than been accusing- possibly to be construed as rude and aggressive- and won. And yes, I’m completely aware that my husband and probably many of my friends are reading this and saying, “There’s no way Amy is so polite/soft-spoken/demure that she wouldn’t have caused a scene.” But I didn’t. Because it’s hard to be the squeaky wheel. We think we can “fight the power,” but sometimes, when push comes to shove, we’re more concerned about how we appear to other people. Pathetically, we want people to like us.

I’m angry about the situation. Angry at her, angrier at myself. So, I’ll take it as a lesson. Next time it happens, I’ll take the challenge. I won’t let someone push me around because I’m concerned about how I’ll be perceived.

And I’ll tell this story to my daughters, because I believe that personal experiences are the best teachers. And I hope that one day, whether it be a mean girl or bad boss or unjust social situation, that they’ll stand up and say three little words. This is wrong.

And they’ll fix it.

Full disclosure- this is not me. I’m not sure who this is. But this is how I felt.

“Don’t stand up for yourself. Fight for yourself. Don’t be strong. Be indestructible.” – Unknown

Hope Is the Thing With Feathers

This past weekend my nine-year-old, Madeline, ran the Miles for Marnie 5K here in Davidson. For her to do a race is not unusual; she loves to run and finishes a 5K every few weeks.

But this race was special. Because Marnie, the event’s namesake, is her friend from her 3rd grade class. And Marnie is a cancer survivor.

Marnie was diagnosed with a Wilm’s tumor just days after she began kindergarten at Davidson Elementary. For the next eight months, she endured chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries.

Marnie’s mom, Robbie, is a friend of mine, and we’ve talked at great length about her daughter’s ordeal for articles I’ve written for various publications. Robbie is my hero; she epitomizes strength and character. She’s always incredibly composed and articulate, calmly relaying stories about infections, fever spikes, unplanned hospital stays. She talked about hair falling out when you comb your child’s hair; so you avoid combing and let your child have ratty hair.

I asked Robbie about feeling helpless, and she recalled a time when she was holding Marnie on her lap, pinning her arms back so the nurse could access her port, and Marnie screamed over and over, “Mommy, no! Please don’t let them hurt me, Mommy!” Because, how do you explain to a five-year-old that this is what will save her?

When my own baby- Madeline- was eight months old, I took her to our pediatrician with a rash. Within an hour, he had shipped us downtown to what is now Levine Children’s Hospital, where he told me, “There will be a bed waiting for her, and you’ll be meeting with an oncologist.” I remember my blood literally going cold.

When we got there, they took us into a dark room and laid her tiny, naked body on a steel table and desperately searched for a vein which simply wouldn’t make itself accessible. It took eight tries for them to draw blood. I don’t think I’d ever felt more helpless in my life.

But Madeline was one of the lucky ones. Four days and several transfusions later they released us from the hospital with a diagnosis of Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura, a platelet disorder that, though extremely serious, was not leukemia.

Since then, I have spent an ample amount of time wondering how it is that she was one of the lucky ones. This was, in part, because we spent the next year with weekly, then monthly appointments at Levine, where it was not uncommon to be stacking blocks next to a three-year-old with a tumor sticking out of his stomach. There but for the grace of God, Go I.

What we went through could never even begin to compare to the Howilers, I know. But I tell the story because every parent has experienced a situation where a child’s fate is no longer in our hands. At some point or another, we are all helpless. Only love can sustain us.

And hope. I have to believe, there is always hope.

Marnie is an example of that hope. After eight months of treatment she was declared No Evidence of Disease.

There have been bumps in the road since then. Marnie had a questionable scan and they returned to the hospital to have them redone, months later. Robbie tells of the ultrasound tech that made a joke, the nurse who talked about how much Marnie had grown. Marnie is proof to them, that there is hope. That a child can thrive after cancer. That there is light, and it flashes all the more brilliantly when we know the depths of the dark.

This past weekend, Marnie led the race as she has the previous two years. Every participant and volunteer surrounded her, high-fiving and cheering. And she ran ahead and met her mom and the two of them ran off together, two souls that displayed the strength of the human spirit, how life is a gift. How hope endures.

And it was a good day.

“But as for me, I will always have hope.” -Psalms 71:14

Hello from Davidson!

Well, hello there.

Welcome to Moms Lake Us, the blog written for moms of Lake Norman, Charlotte and beyond. I’m glad you stopped by!

My name is Amy and I live in Davidson with my husband Dan, daughters Madeline and Molly and two very poorly behaved rescue mutts, Wylie and Mr. Butters. If you already live a frazzled and slightly chaotic existence with just two children, I highly recommend adding a formerly homeless dog to the mix. Or two.

Like so many women of the area, I love being a mom. LOVE it! Well, 95% of the time. Maybe 90%. Okay, 80%.

It’s that other 20% that does us all in, right? The lost shoes, quibbles over homework, the sheer and utter heartbreak when your child comes home and says she wasn’t invited to the birthday party. And yet it’s the 80% that drives us on. The way their hair smells after a bath. The giggles that float downstairs as they play school. The feel of a warm, chubby hand tucked in yours as you guide her across a busy street. I made this. She is mine.

Like so many others, I exist because motherhood is not the only role I play. I am a writer (you may have seen my stories in the Charlotte Observer), I play tennis (some days better than others), I dance, I read hundreds of books, and I love drinking wine with friends while making fun of contestants on the Bachelor. I believe that I am a better mother and person because I have interests which extend beyond my family.

They say a mother’s work is never done, and I know this to be a fact on so many levels- from the laundry strewn across the floor to the end-of-day reflection on how I could have better handled a situation with one of my daughters, or my husband, or a friend. I am constantly growing. Or at least, I hope I am.

I believe that sharing life’s experiences is what connects us and makes us whole. I hope you agree. And I look forward to the ride.

Love,

Amy