I (Still) Hate Skittles

(Re-posting this story, originally written when the twins had just turned four, because every year I dread the CANDY, CANDY, CANDY of Halloween and, every year, my kids' joy and excitement help lead me through.)

I hate Skittles. 

I do not want to, as the slogan suggests, "Taste the rainbow."

If a Skittle accidentally fell into my mouth, I would spit it out.  This is how I feel about most candy, except for Sour Patch Kids.

My twin boys, though, like every other four-year-old on earth, LOVE Skittles. 

And M&Ms.  

And Blow Pops. 

And all the other crack-in-a-wrapper kids get at Halloween. 

//

The candy-consumption-negotiations began bright and early the morning after a late night of Trick-or-Treating.  Isaiah came out of his room with his bag of candy slung over his shoulder, like a little Santa's sack.  He stumbled down the stairs, focused on navigating the precious bag, as though it was worth its weight in gold.  

Before I knew what had happened, he deftly negotiated the potential consumption of one piece of candy after lunch.  He then proceeded to remind me of our deal before breakfast, after breakfast, before preschool, after preschool, before lunch, etc.  

The candy of choice?  A full size bag of Skittles. 

He and his twin brother waited all morning for their agreed-upon candy.  This, for a four-year-old with candy on his mind, is like waiting a lifetime.     

Finally, a lifetime passed, and the candy was distributed in the few minutes we had to spare before leaving to watch their brother's school parade.  Isaiah tore into his bag in the blink of an eye and before I could get a handle on the situation, it was half-eaten, then spilled and picked-up, twice.  

Foreseeing the potential for a disastrous candy spill at the parade, I turned to get a zip-lock bag for both boys so I could pour their candy into separate preschooler-compatible packaging.  I sat Levi's candy on the counter, hoping to open it for him and avoid a repeat of Isaiah's spill-and-pick-up performance. 

I forgot, though, that a four-year-old tears into a candy-wrapper like a squirrel attacking a plastic feeder full of sunflower seeds.  Place a thin layer of plastic between a toddler and a handful of sugar and stand back – all sorts of destruction is sure to ensue.

During the brief moment my back was turned, I heard Levi’s bag of Skittles explode.  A rainbow of sugar shot all over the kitchen floor.  I spun around and discovered that he'd ripped open one whole side of his bag with one swift, semi-miraculous, yank.  Skittles rained down, and scattered (or would that be “skittled”?) under the island, across the rug, and behind the heavy iron radiator. 

This was a crisis of epic proportions.  Children hunt spilled candy like the women hunting her one lost coin in Luke's gospel; kids hunt lost candy with the kind of determination and passion that God’s hunts lost souls.

Levi immediately started crying while Isaiah quickly began grabbing and eating every one of his brother's Skittles he could find.   

This was less than twenty-four hours after Trick or Treat and I had already had it Up To Here with sweets.  I wanted to explode like that bag of Skittles.  I wanted to hunt down the person who thought it was a good idea to give little people bags of candy bigger than their faces.  I wanted to scream and stomp on the candy in a fit of rage.

But, I didn't.  

I dug deep inside myself and caught a glimpse, for a brief moment, of the rainbow shining right in front of me.  I saw how every moment has a rainbow and - everyone knows -  rainbows lead to hidden treasure.  Rather than breaking the moment further, I somehow saw and embraced the invitation to be the hero  - I reached for the pot of gold.  

I knelt down beside the crying boy and the thieving boy and began gathering candy.  With due diligence, most of the loss was recovered.  We put the rainbow in a new bag and I zipped it tight.  Then, we ran out the door together, two boys clutching baggies of brightness and one Mama carrying a rainbow in her heart.

//

By the way, we did miss one red Skittle.  This, I know, because the dog found it . . . and spat it out. 

Even the dog knows better.          

Burp (verb) syn. bolt, rout, ruck

Burp verb

1. noisily release air from the stomach through the mouth; belch.

2. a noise made by air released from the stomach; a belch.

Synonyms: bolt, rout, ruck

Earliest known use: 1929

My eight-year-old son has discovered the art of burping.  I don’t know where he stores them in his wiry frame, but he’s mastered a long, loud release of wind that rumbles through the air like freight train rattling down the tracks.  I’m pretty sure he learned the skill – practices it, daily – with the other third grade boys in the back seats of the school bus. 

For the most part, I dismiss his frequent eruptions.  I figure, it’s part of having a boy and, while I don’t want to be talked at or hear the alphabet song sung in burp (a skill he’s also working on), I’ve decided to save my outrage for other more offensive aerial explosions that I’m sure are soon to become a hobby as well.   

The burps, though, light a fuse in my otherwise rarely lit husband.  He says the mere sound of it is like nails on a chalkboard.  I find this both surprising – he is a former boy, after all – and amusing.  My husband is so seldom angry while I’m so frequently irritated, it does my heart good to see him lose his parental cool from time to time. 

We both agree on one thing, though, no burping at the dinner table.  Otherwise, in the living room, the van, I tell my husband he’s just going to have to let it go.  He gives me a pained expression in reply. 

//

I have a habit, sometimes, of repeating things.   Every couple of months or so, I turn to my husband in the middle of the mundane and announce in a voice filled with surprise, “Apples make me burp.”  Usually, I say this after burping, as though I myself am just discovering the funny little quirk.

 

“I know,” he says, “you told me that.”

“Oh,” I say.

// 

One night, sitting on the couch watching TV, my husband burped.  “Ba-ba-ba-bup,” he said, opening and shutting his mouth as the air passed, breaking it into a multi syllabic expression. 

I looked at him.  “What was that?” I asked. 

“A burp,” he said.  “It’s what you do.”

“What?!  I don’t do that!” I said, incredulous.

“Yes, you do,” he said, surprised by my denial.  “You do it all the time.”  

“No, I don’t,” I replied, scrunching my forehead as though searching through a mental catalog of past burps.  “I never do that.”

He couldn’t believe my denial and I couldn’t believe his accusation, so we returned to watching TV as the long-married are want to do during an argument, especially if they want to stay long-married.  Later though, who could say how long – a day? a week? – I happened to burp with my husband nearby. 

“Ba-ba-ba-bup!” I said.  Shocked, I looked him in the eye and laughed.  “Oh, my gosh!  You’re right, I do do that!”

//

I’ll never forget learning to burp a baby, watching the lactation consultant sit my tiny, hours old daughter on her knee.  She cupped her hand just under the baby’s jaw bone, tilting her fragile body forward precariously, pounding with her other hand on the soft, rounded back.  Holding my daughter that way, whacking her back, felt completely counter intuitive, but I quickly learned that, aside from slinging her onto my shoulder with my bone pressed just so against her diaphragm, it was the best way to get a burp.  

There are few things as satisfying as mastering the art of burping a baby and knowing, with that hearty gush of air, that you’ve saved your baby pain and yourself hours of broken sleep.

//

I started out this morning wanting to write about fish burps.  Fish burps, I now know, are a common side effect of fish oil supplements.  Review after review on Amazon had customers who switched from one product to another explaining, “I couldn’t take the burps anymore!”  The highest complement for fish oil online seemed less to do with its effectiveness than with the consumer’s relief, “No fish burps!”

I don’t like fish and I was hoping maybe the general sense of alarm over fish burps was nothing more than hysteria.  But then I got my first fish burp last week.  It was round and full, a small explosion of fishiness that rolled up into my mouth, silently.  I was shocked, surprised.  I thought to myself, “Fish burp!”  Then I texted my husband, who loves fish and who I assumed would be more than a little envious.  

“I had my first fish burp,” I wrote. 

“How was it?” he replied.

“Fishy,” I wrote.

//

It occurs to me that, unlike the word ‘hiccup,’ which can be used to describe an unexpected interruption, the word ‘burp’ has no positive use aside from its frowned-upon bodily function.  This, I think, is too bad.  Is there no potential for positive association with the humble burp?  

Author Anne Lamott has a well-loved quote in which she describes laughter as "carbonated holiness."  It's a lovely idea, but we all know what carbonation leads to - an accumulation of air in the stomach that must somehow be released.  Maybe, then we could push Lamott's metaphor to the extreme and suggest that burps themselves are unexpected explosions of holiness.  Maybe.  

The truth is, I didn't know what to write about this morning, except I kept thinking about (and enjoying) those round, full fish burps and the thought of those burps - the thought of writing about them - felt like a lump of air building pressure right in the center of my writer's digestive system.  It soon became clear I wasn't going to have room to get much else done if I didn't make way, somehow, for that content to escape.  So, I wrote almost 1000 words on burps and found I had much more to say than I thought I did and perhaps this post itself is a bit of a 'noise made by air released.'  I suspect, like every good burp, it's hit you in one way or another - igniting offense, laughter or a simple reflective pause.  And, now that I think about it, that's what holy things always tend to do.  

The Day After (#SmallWonder Link-up)

The rain this morning sounds like sleet.  It’s the Monday after Resurrection day.  Plundered Easter baskets spew plastic grass on these old wood floors and the hollow chocolate bunnies have lost their ears and faces. 

The oldest boy is sick, again, even though he's already on antibiotics.  This winter he barely clears one hurdle before hitting the next.  Today I’ll call the Dr. and leave a message explaining the latest symptoms and we’ll probably head into the office again for more tests which will likely confirm a virus.  

Maybe this is how it always is, the day after resurrection and the day after that - the chaos, the mess, the uncertain way forward, this working out of our salvation.  This is not to say nothing has changes, but what has changed is still only the seed of what will be and we are, again, gardeners tending its slow and steady progress. 

*   *   *

We finally have a #SmallWonder button!  If you want to use it, simply copy the image, then add it to your post or sidebar with a link to www.afieldofwildflowers.blogspot.com.  

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

This is Four (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

Almost to the library's exit, he stops and leans in the office window.  He’s Dennis the Menace with a buzz cut.  His puffy red winter coat hangs unzipped and flapping, bright blue rain boots peak out from under brown fleecy pants.  Two library books travel tucked under an arm. 

“You organizing things?” he asks.  The hand he talks with flaps along with his words.  I hang back, watching to see whether the librarian will untangle his garbled words without my intervention. 

She does, and a short conversation ensues.  He’s all charm and delight and she’s grateful for an interruption. 

Then, “Mom?” he asks, in his overly loud serious voice, “What’s that heart shaped thing?” 

It’s a whiteout dispenser, not exactly heart shaped, but close enough.  The librarian demonstrates its abilities before the twins who peer in wonder. 

“Mom?!,” he shouts again though I’m standing only a few feet behind.  He’s done with casual conversation and pushing through the door.  “Can you get me one of those?  I can use it in my office.”

He has an office he built himself, under the laundry table and, naturally, he keeps it well-stocked with office supplies.  These he keeps separate from his tools which are stored in a wide variety of tool boxes ranging from metal to cardboard to plastic.   And the tools and office supplies are never mingled with his “weapons,” which he keeps in stashes in the living room and his bedroom. 

He’s my little “worker man,” the one who casually announces how he will split his time as an adult, between working and helping me out at home.

Before the brief window conversation he stood exploring the library’s vestibule while I checked out a tower of books. “What’s this?  What’s that?  Where’s the light switch?” he yells.  “Where’s the light switch?!  I found a light!”  Like some little grand inquisitor, he surveys every new environment, hunting out any unknown gadget or machine. 

In the children’s section, he hovers near the board books.  He chooses a bible story book, because it has a handle, a Dora book (because of its flaps) among others.  His selections baffle me.  I don’t want to bring home board books, they’re boring and so small they’re too easily lost.  In a compromise, I sort through the pile, paring it down to a manageable mole hill and suggest we sit for a few minutes to read the ones we aren’t bringing home.

For once, they accept my suggested deal without negotiation.  We pile together in a big, red armchair forming a mountain of people, boots and coats.  The twins rest, one on each leg, leaning back against me as I lean back into the chair.  The weight of their bodies on me is a welcome comfort, the heat and pressure of presence like I would imagine a hot stone massage might feel. 

Their weight in my lap feels like coming home, always, and in the midst of its joy and comfort, I'm aware of this season's ending. 

We wander through a sparkly princess book about friends and then two more picture books snatched from a nearby windowsill.  The boys bake on top of me, zipped up fully in their winter coats.  They grow still under the soothing waves of words and I feel first one then another yawn expand and then deflate Levi’s barrel chest. 

I'm caught here in this time between where one moment my lap is filled with drowsy little boy and the next he's amicably chatting up the librarian and collecting resources for the next time he needs to "work for awhile" in his office.  

This is four, this moment between inhale and exhale that lasts only as long as you can hold your breath. 

But the truth is, it never lasts, nothing does. 

Rather than holding my breath, I’m learning to breathe deep, to lean-in to the blessing of each moment as we move along together, these boys, these blessings and I. 

*   *   *

Guess what?  We finally have a #SmallWonder button!  If you want to use it, simply copy the image, then add it to your post or sidebar with a link to www.afieldofwildflowers.blogspot.com.  

Are you or do you have writer friends local to the PA, Maryland, New Jersey area?  If so, would you consider attending or sharing the information about the upcoming writing retreat to be held here at the farm house?  You can find more details under the Writing Retreat tab.

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

The School of Love

She has something to tell me and we head upstairs after dinner, leaving the boys in our wake.  Flopping onto my soft, floral bedspread, surrounded by windows and light, she flops too, glowing with bright beauty.

“I like ****,” she says, the words escaping like a happy bubble, a delicious secret. 

I thought we were heading upstairs to talk about chores, to escape for a few brief minutes the din of boys.  With those words, though, the scene changes - I'm transported from the daily to a china shop of delicate wonder, precious, and I’m cautious lest I be a bull.  She is like a beautiful flower unfurling in front of me in one swift movement. 

We lay on the bed facing the ceiling and I ask gentle questions about the boy in question, the one she “likes.”  I’m careful to keep things light – to show interest, but not too much – to honor and reflect her interest and joy.  This is the first of what I hope will be many conversations and I navigate it cautiously, like a young surgeon performing a delicate maneuver.    

She has handed me a gift – her heart in outstretched hands and I’m awed by her trust and my own sacred responsibility to handle with care. 

Sitting together on the porch swing a few nights later my oldest boy, who’s been more snuggly of late, leans into my side.

“This isn’t anywhere near as romantic as I am at school,” he boasts.  Surprised, I ask him to tell me more.  This boy, this lover, has always had his eye on someone and this year is no different. 

“We pinky-swore to be Valentines,” he tells me, of the girl he likes who’s “little and blond.”  A few nights later he's at a loss to remember her name, but still swears he's in love.

They're young, I know and so we are practicing, as we have always been, the sacred art of holding each other’s hearts – the intimate steps of revelation and receiving, the holding together of dreams, hope and longing.  I am practicing, practicing opening room for their growing, changing love; practicing the art of a gentle, steering word, shared smiles and silence. 

Of all the gifts that children bestow this one - this long, slow lesson in learning to love well - is the one that strikes me most.  

My One Super Power

Every day we battle, literally and figuratively.

“Stop arguing with me,” I say.  Then, as he continues in protest, I declare, “I’m not going to argue with you!”

Meanwhile, he points his little finger-guns at me and “pchoo-pchoo” in my face.

“Put your fingers away,” I say and he does, but his hazel eyes are still alight with the fire of battle.

Off he runs to man a pirate ship, kill a bear and battle the household pets.  But before long, he’s back in the kitchen, a little gnat buzzing circles around my legs.    

“Me have Super Powers!” he says, his arms raised and fists folded like a boxer.  “Me a bad guy.  Me destroy you.” 

Sigh.  This is almost-four-year-old boy through and through.  He wants to “take over the world.”  He “has a plan.”  I am the only one standing in his way.

Leaning down, I scoop him up by the armpits and snuggle him in as he wiggles and giggles.

“Me have Super Powers too!” I say.

“What’s your Super Powers?” he asks, leery.

“Me have Love Power,” I reply, triumphant.  “Me have Hug 

Power.”  Then, with finality, I declare, “Love Power always wins.” 

He’s pretty sure that love is NOT a Super Power, but surrenders anyway.   

Linking with #TellHisStory.

A Story With Dragons In It

He walks out from behind the tall stacks in the children's library, holding each book like an offering.  His brown eyes turn up to meet mine, searching for a verdict.

 

"Can we get this one?" he asks. 

 

Somehow, despite being unable to read, he finds them tucked in among hundreds or thousands of books, the ones filled with dragons and swords, monsters and pirates.  He pulls them randomly from the shelves, chapter books two or three inches thick and I receive each request with dread. 

 

As resident bibliophile, I'm also the literary gatekeeper at our house and somehow the job seems so much more difficult, so much more complicated when it comes to my five-year-old son.  He wants to read about adventure and conflict and I am worried about violence and magic and things beyond his understanding.   I don't want to shame his natural curiosity, but I want to be careful too.

 

He holds up a thick burgundy book with a heavily embossed cover.   A fire-breathing dragon flies menacingly over a mountainous village.  The title, "Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons" is scrolled in medieval script beneath the dragon's wings. There are gem stones embedded in the cover and each page is filled with elaborate illustrations of maps, dragon lore, and even a detailed dragon "life cycle."  The well-made pages look aged and weathered and there are pull-out booklets filled with secret writing and spells.

 

I look at the book and I look at my son. 

 

I see his longing and curiosity, he will absorb this book like a sponge.

 

"Yes," I say, "we can get it." 

 

He responds immediately, roping his sister into reading aloud right there in the library. 

 

During the two week borrowing window, he pours over the pictures and we print page after page of dragon coloring pages from the internet for him to color.  He practices drawing dragons of every shape and size.  My husband and I discuss the book and the difficulty of choosing boys' toys and books that are interesting but wholesome.  We consider the fact that we both loved "The Hobbit," which centers around a quest to slay a dragon and wonder whether it's too early to introduce the "Chronicles of Narnia."

 

Mostly I wonder if I should have said no, if other parents, more Christian ones perhaps, would've said no.  I think about the fact that my yes came from a desire to bless, not the dragons and spells, but the curiosity and hunger for adventure the dwells so naturally within each of my boys.   

 

Then, one Sunday at church, the older kids sit drawing while the adults sing and I look down to see my son drawing the outlines of dragons on his plain white paper.  I wonder what the people around us will think; I wonder what I would think if it was someone else's son. 

 

Pushing my worries aside I sing and pray.  Looking down I catch him watching the man to my right who's singing with gusto.  His open face absorbs the man's singing in the same way he absorbed the dragon book, then he bows his head again to his drawing.  

 

When the singing stops I sit and he eagerly pushes his paper toward me.

 

There are two dragons, one on each side of the page. They stand with their heads raised to the sky, toothy mouths gaping as fire pours out and up. One boasts a pair of jagged wings and both are covered in scales, surrounded by piles of jewels. 

 

"Are they dragons," I ask, "and are these their gems?"

 

"Yes," he says with pride, "They're singing their songs to God and giving him their gems." 

 

*   *   *

 

We watch and wait and worry our way through parenting, like poorly trained refs working a Championship Game.  Convinced that every call we make matters in some way, we wait and wonder how it will all add up.    

 

In her book, The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris, a poet, describes the book of Revelation as "A Story With Dragons in It" and says the following, 

"Dragons within, dragons without. Evil so pervasive that only the poetry of apocalypse can imagine its defeat. And to do that it takes us to the limits of metaphor, of human sense, the limits of imagining and understanding. It pushes us against all our boundaries and suggests that the end of our control--our ideologies our plans, our competence, our expertise, our professionalism, our power--is the beginning of God's reign. It asks us to believe that only the good remains, at the end, and directs us toward carefully tending it here and now. We will sing a new song. Singing and praise will be all that remains. As a poet, that's a vision, and I promise, I can live with." (emphasis mine)

In Norris' words, apocalypse sounds a lot like parenting to me - a challenge so extreme that it pushes us beyond all knowing to a place of trust.  Trusting and tending, we nurture the good and bless it and in so doing, we write the song across our hearts, across our lives that we will all one day sing. 

 

And, who knows, maybe the dragons will be singing too.  

 

 

This post is linked with Jennifer Dukes Lee and Imperfect Prose.

I'm Gonna Miss That Boy

Tomorrow, they turn two and two weeks later my big boy will head off to kindergarten. 

We walked last night through the spritzing rain and I held his hand with the always dry, cracking skin while my husband pushed the big wide stroller brimming with little brothers.  I thought about the way he and I walked so much when the twins were little.  We walked to survive, walked so we could, for one brief part of the day, face in the same direction, side-by-side.  He who wanted to go-go-go and chatted me up like a friendly salesman and I, ever the introvert overwhelmed by the sea of humanity that filled our tiny bungalo. 

I would push those boys along out in front of me and they sailed smooth like a boat on a glassy sea save for the hand of their brother resting on the stroller handle.  That pressure, that hand, irked me, but he held on relentlessly, his hand like an umbilical cord holding us together, two castaways stranded on the island of twins. 

And now I will walk him to school with his older sister and turn and walk home alone behind the double-wide, no hand to hold, no gentle pressure on the handle.

The other day, he said to me, casually, at lunch, "So, mama, how are you enjoying adulthood?" 

I'm going to miss that boy.  

This post is linked with Five Minute Friday.  Click on the link to read more posts on the prompt "lonely."