The Cupcake Mistake (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

After the early morning flurry of getting the older two out the door and onto the bus, I reached into the refrigerator and gingerly slid out the cool, glass baking dish covered with a layer of plastic wrap and tinfoil.  It was Sophia’s birthday and I was dropping off cupcakes for her class. 

The night before, I baked two rounds of cupcakes involving multiple trips to the store.  In the end I had a hot kitchen, twenty-four mini cupcakes (for school) and six large (for home) all topped with blue icing and white sparkling sprinkles.  I planned to drive them to school hoping to save her the possible embarrassment of dropping them on the bus or on her way down the hall of the new school where she was only just beginning to settle-in.   

The twins were two years old.  Picture that, if you will, two two-year-old boys swirling at my feet.  We had just moved into a new, old farm house and were living in a sea of chaos.  It was a miracle I made it to the van with the twins and cupcakes unscathed.  After buckling everyone in, I drove cautiously on a mission to deliver birthday happiness and cheer.  I wanted my daughter to feel special, no matter how much effort it took. 

Parking in the bus circle, I left the twins buckled in the van and approached the locked door, cupcakes in hand.  After being buzzed in, I chatted with the secretary and watched as she tagged the glass dish with a post-it note and called down to my daughter’s classroom.  Mission complete. I sighed with relief and drove home.    

In the afternoon I waited happily for the bus.  My daughter got off and crossed the street wearing a paper Happy Birthday crown.  

“Did you get the cupcakes,” I asked, all smiles. 

“Why did you only send six?” she asked squinting up at me quizzically. 

“What?” I said.

“Why did you only send six cupcakes?” she repeated.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“There were only six,” she said.

Standing in the driveway, it dawned on me.  I grabbed the wrong dish.  There were two glass dishes in the refrigerator, both covered with tinfoil, one held the twenty-four mini cupcakes and the other held the six large.  I grabbed the smaller of the two dishes and in the flurry of morning and my considerable effort to get her first birthday at a new school right, I messed up. 

“Are you serious?” I asked.  “What did you do? When did you realize?”

She had gone to the office to pick up the dish and, walking back to the classroom, realized my mistake.  Entering the room, she told the teacher, “There’s only six cupcakes.”  Her teacher took things in stride and divided the six among 22 students, cutting each cake into quarters. 

“Are you serious?” I asked again.  “I’m sorry, Sophia. Why didn’t they call me?”

I was mortified – my daughter, the new girl at school, embarrassed by her wacky Mom. 

But she was happy. 

“There was an extra piece because of the way she divided them,” she said, “so I got two pieces, more than anyone else.”

My daughter was fine, but it took me awhile to get over my mistake.  We joked about it immediately - how ridiculous to send in six cupcakes for a class of twenty-two students.  I sent an email to the teacher apologizing and making it clear I wasn’t the kind of mom who thought six cupcakes would cover the situation.

Those cupcakes, baked and eaten some two years ago, come up again from time to time.  In our family, they’re the epitome of an accidental, public gaffe.  In such situations, there’s nothing you can do but grin and bear it and hope maybe someone, somewhere, ends up happy despite your error.   

I thought of the cupcakes again this morning as I drove a van full of kids to a friend’s house.  Sophia sat in the front seat beside me and I held her hand, rubbed her back and worried I’d fail her in any number of public or private ways.  I so want to get it right where my kids are concerned, sometimes I try so hard a mistake is inevitable. 

But, the cupcake mistake helps me remember mistakes can be gifts.  Every time the kids and I relive my foolishness, we create a common language for the kind of things that happen in life no matter how hard you try and we practice the kind of humor and humility necessary to keep going.  In other words, we make space for our humanity together.  Oh, and also, we laugh a lot.

*   *   *   *

Only 15 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

Yesterday, On West 1st Street (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Saturday morning our kids were all away at sleep-overs.  John got up early and brought two cups of coffee back to bed.  When I stirred from my nest of sheets and sun, he asked, “Are you ready to hear about what I saw this morning?”

I guess I must have been ready because he told me how he let the dog out the back door, then went to the living room and looked out the big front window.  Across the street, the field has gone from green to gold and on the porch, two cats - one black, the other calico - sat facing the field.

“Really?” I asked, interrupting.  

We have one cat, Blackie, who wanders outside, the other, Perfect, is skittish and  rarely ventures from her self-imposed seclusion in the second story of our house.  When she does manage to make it outside, she ends up hiding in the garage, pressed out flat on the shelf formed by the open garage door.  Most of her adventures end with me on a ladder, coaxing her down, then carrying her back inside. 

“Yes,” he said, “I think it was Perfect.”

Seeing the cats, he went to the porch door and opened it.  Then he saw one cat, trotting off calmly down the road and Blackie sat alone on the porch.  We puzzled for awhile over the cats.  He was certain it was Perfect he saw on the porch and the cat trotting away looked an awful lot like her too, but “trotting off calmly down the road” isn’t in her repertoire.  

The more questions I asked, the more his story started to fall apart.  Blackie spent the night outside, that much we knew for sure, but I thought I saw Perfect in the morning.  How did she get outside with the doors and windows locked tight all night?  Maybe a third cat was involved? 

“This story is starting to sound less and less believable,” I said. 

“It’s true,” he said, laughing. 

“Next you’re going to say, ‘Then, along came a tiger, wearing pants, riding a unicycle.’” I said.  “And then I saw an elephant playing a banjo,’” I mimicked.  “This is starting to sound like a Dr. Suess book.”

I worried about Perfect all morning.  I scanned the rooms upstairs and quietly circled the garage calling her name and listening for an answering mew.  John cut out a cabinet in the kitchen and I worried the deafening sound of the circular saw would terrify her.  I trimmed shrubs around the house, hoping to find her cowering in their cool shade.  When we went out to lunch, we left the screen-less window open and the mud room door, hoping she would ease her way back home.  After lunch I found her back inside on the upstairs landing, jumpy and out of sorts.  She’d clearly had an adventure. 

Later we decided to wash the dog.  After trying to coax her upstairs and tugging her on a leash, John gave in and carried her to the upstairs bathroom.  Coco loves to go upstairs, but refuses to because the black cat guards it with growls and hisses and razor sharp claws - the upstairs is Perfect’s Oasis and Blackie likes to keep it that way. 

John set Coco her down in the bathroom and I shut the door, then we trimmed her fur with the electric clippers, focusing largely on her tail and hindquarters.  I hugged her body, holding her still while John trimmed her heavy wool coat.  She didn’t like it and skirted away when she could, but we cooed and praised her and she was torn between her dislike of the clippers and enjoyment of the attention. 

Satisfied with her haircut, we turned on the hand-held shower and John lifted her into the tub.  She shrank as the water soaked her coat.  She raised a tentative paw and looked longingly over the side of the tub, but stayed put under a steady stream of warm water and praise.  “Good girl, good girl, Coco,” we chirped.  I drizzled shampoo down her back and John scrubbed, clucking and singing over her like a mama bird over her chick.  Then the rinsing began and we exulted in the streams of dirt pouring down the long white tub toward the drain.

Crouched there beside my husband on the bathroom floor I remembered the first baths with our babies, the blue plastic tubs set on the dining room table and filled just so with warm but not hot water.  John is the bath man at our house, taking the honors of those first tentative sponge baths then graduating to cups of water scooped and poured over waving legs and arms.  He cooed and clucked over our babies singing love in half-flat tones and they, much like Coco, endured the alarm of water on skin, pulled along by the attention that poured down from their father’s eyes, his words and hands.            

When the dirt was more or less done running down, we turned the water off and I threw a towel over Coco’s head.  John wrapped her and lifted her to the floor where she shimmied and shook with that silly all-over-wet feeling dogs get and we were happy and pleased. 

These are a few of the things that happened yesterday on West 1^st Street.  The cat got lost and found, the dog got washed and trimmed.  At the end of the day I shut the chickens in the coop and walked slowly back into the house, looking out over all the green glory of this place of goodness we’ve been given.  Then I stepped my bare foot in chicken poop in the mud room and the cool, wet shock of surprise on my foot, the down-to-earth reality of that moment, summed up the day quite well.

*   *   *   *

Only 16 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

   

Painting, Playing #SmallWonder Link-Up

Sophia asked for art supplies for her tenth birthday and a friend dropped off a huge bag filled to overflowing a few days later.  “I should’ve asked for art supplies for my birthday!” I said, admittedly jealous.  She opened them that night and sprawled them all around the living room floor.  But in the days and weeks after, they sat in her room untouched.    

“When are you going to paint?” I asked the one night after dinner. 

“When I think of something really good to paint,” she said.

“Then you’re never going to do it,” I said.  She huffed and shot me a deflated look. 

“I don’t mean you can’t make something great,” I said, “It’s just, if you wait until you have something great to make, you’ll never do it.” 

She shrugged.

The next time we went to the library I stumbled across a book, Painting Lab for Kids.  Each project focused on a specific skill set.  The ideas were bright, fun, and encouraged experimentation.  I grabbed it for me among the usual stack of Geronimo Stilton and Super Heroes for the boys as well as Sophia’s stack of Nature Encyclopedias.  I looked through my painting book quickly one night before bed and saw Sophia paging through it later the next day.    

Then one random night in the middle of the week I pulled out the book, some hand-me-down canvases, and dug in.  The project I chose involved layering thick swaths of paint in different colors, swirling, then scraping them to make designs.  I tried it once, it was interesting.  I tried again. 

Dipping and scraping, I used an old driver’s license to smear paint, while the kids swirled in and out of the kitchen.    

“What are you making?” they asked.  

“I’m just playing,” I said.  And I was. 

I took a toothpick and carved elaborate flowers in the wet colors.  Then I painted over it, hoping it would somehow show through.  It didn’t and I moved on.  I found a glass jar and began stamping circles, twisting the jar upside-down in two shades of blue.  I liked it, so I kept going.

“What are you doing?” my daughter said.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I’m just playing.  Why don’t you pick one of the pages and try it too?” 

Miracle of miracles, she did. 

The technique she chose didn’t work terribly well and she grew frustrated, but I kept minding my own business.  “You can always paint over it if you don’t like it,” I said, over and over again. 

Finally, she loosened up.  In the end she found a color scheme she liked, swirling greens, yellows and oranges on the canvas.  She grew pleased with her painting when she stopped forcing it and started playing.  No longer so focused on the outcome, she began to enjoy the process.

 

We were just playing. 

It’s been a week or two since then and I'm feeling the urge to paint again.  I’m eyeing those canvases, wondering if I have the chutzpa to start all over again, painting over the old with something new.  

*   *   *   *

Only 16 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

Resilience (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Resilience

Across the street winter rye,

tall and green, shimmers and ripples

in the breeze.  Heavy rains bend

random patches, large swaths flattened

like giant deer beds.  A thunder storm

with wind and rain beats down long

rows across the street.  Paths,

not of destruction, but of bending to

a stronger force.  When the sun returns

the bent rye rises and stands again.

Friends, #SmallWonder will be taking the week off as summer begins and my family and I head to VA to farm sit at God's Whisper Farm.  We'll gather again on Monday, June 13th.  

*   *   *   *

I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

Establishing Summer Norms (We Don't Lick Each Other!) #SmallWonder Link-up

This is Isaiah,offering me some of his ice cream cone.  

He must have been about 2 years old.  Check out those sweet curls! 

(I'm re-sharing this post from 2014 as we gear up for summer here again.  The twins graduate from preschool this Wednesday and the older kids are out June 1st.  It's such an incredible time of change and transition for work-at-home Moms like me involving fun and memories as well as a dramatically increased workload.  Lord have mercy!)  

There are times, as a parent, when you need to establish norms. 

Simple things like the appropriate surfaces for disposing of boogers, whether one may or may not fart on other people, and whether spontaneously licking another human being is ever appropriate.     

So when, for instance, I see Levi lick his brother’s check, I make a firm and direct proclamation, “We don’t lick each other!” 

Or when someone picks their nose while I’m reading to them at bed time and proceeds to wipe it on the wall, I say, “We don’t wipe our boogers on the wall!” 

As I said, sometimes you need to establish norms.  While other families may do as they please (Licking? Why, yes, please.   Booger’s on the wall?  Of course, that’s fine art to me!) we here are choosing to dance to a different drum. 

//

“Only 19 and ½ more days of school!” my daughter said.

She may as well have been Paul Revere screaming his midnight warning, so great was my alarm. 

Good God, I thought, where have I been? What’s happened?  The hour draweth nigh!

The British, indeed, are coming. 

The British are coming and they are demanding to be entertained, to be vacation-bible-schooled and swim-lessoned, to be play-dated and day-tripped and, good Lord, I am unprepared. 

Nineteen and a half more days and me without a plan.

//

So I decided to establish some norms.

We are doing SLOW this summer.  We are eating ice cream on the porch and watching storms move through.  We are catching fireflies (if we let them stay up late enough) and getting bored enough to use our imaginations.  We are camping in the back yard because it is FREE and state-parking because it also is FREE. 

We are doing KINDNESS, which is a spacious sort of thing that pairs well with SLOW and the NON-LICKING of other people.  It will take practice and there will be sure-misses, but KINDNESS is also free and I plan to help us all be prodigal in its dispensation by the time fall rolls around.

We are practicing GENTLENESS which, good Lord, is a long enough word to be out of fashion these days, but necessary also for when our KINDNESS slips and SLOW starts to feel like stagnation.  We will not hit when we are farted on, though we may hit (it's reflexive) if we are bitten. 

We are doing HOME this summer, because we’ve waited so long to find one and because having a home means making one which isn’t something that can be done without a little presence.  We will be HOME and unhappy and scraping the boogers off the wall.  Then we will still be HOME and laughing as we tell about the ones who ate their boogers and the ones who used them to decorate.  We will be HOME when the first hail storm tears through and when the first peas are ripe for picking.  We will be HOME for skinned knees and sibling frustrations, HOME for sharing and collaboration. 

We will ALL work hard, because I'm not a martyr in the making and we will knock-off before the work is done because, let's face it, it will never really be done. 

We will do vacation bible school and swim lessons and vacation, but they are not our norms, not the hub that holds the spokes of our summer together. 

The British are coming, but don’t worry, it’s ok.  There’ll be almost no licking, I promise. 

*   *   *   *

I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

The Worst Mommy (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(That's my girl.  She turned 10 this Friday!)

I’m up to my eyeballs in laundry when my almost ten-year-old pops into the room.  She’s been outside jumping, running, and playing with her brothers while I whirl between cooking dinner and the endless sorting and folding of clothes. 

“I’m going to try to start calling you ‘Mom,’” she says, “instead of ‘Mommy.’”

My heart lurches as though she’s announced a plan to move to Australia in the morning, to join the circus, to fly far, far, away from me. 

“Oh,” I say, casual as we mothers must be when feelings are on the line, “why?”

I don’t remember her reasoning exactly, but in essence, it’s time to put ‘Mommy’ aside.  Then she hops onto the toilet, continuing our conversation with the door wide open. 

“Remember when I told you to stop calling me ‘Mommy’?” I ask. 

“Yes!” she exclaims, “Why did you do that?!”

It was when we still lived on Franklin Street and she was five, maybe six at most.  I was overwhelmed with All. The. Kids. we had so suddenly, so unexpected.  In a fit of frustration one day I told her to stop calling me Mommy and call me Mom instead.  She burst into tears at the thought and I immediately recognized I was a Truly Awful Mother.  Beginning to relent, I asked, “Why is it so important to you?” Leaning in for a hug, with tears in her eyes, she told me, “It just feels more comfortable.”  

Even a Truly Awful Mother couldn’t argue with that.    

Standing outside the bathroom I’m relieved she remembers the incident, relieved for a chance to explain myself.  “Oh Sophia,” I exclaim, “I don’t know.  I think I was just tired of everyone needing me so much all the time.  I just wanted someone to need less of me."  "You have the Worst Mommy,” I add, grateful for a chance to take the blame.

She laughs and I do too.

  

*   *   *   *

I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

Cooped Up (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(Painting, "Cooped Up" by Lawrence J. Davis)

They were closed in for almost a week.  The new flock, used to living free-range with their former owner, needed time to recognize their new home.  We didn’t want to risk them wandering off.  

“Keep them cooped for two weeks, at least,” a friend said.  “Three, even,” another added. 

So we shut them into the 10x20 room with the nesting boxes and roosting bars, with straw scattered on the concrete floor and food and water readily accessible.  I visited three, four times a day, checking for eggs, changing water, adding food and offering treats like orange slices, stale cereal and popcorn. 

“Peep, peep,” I said, opening the door, teaching them our “call” and to associate coming to me with reward. 

They seemed happy, secure and settling over the first several days. Then the rain set in and hopes of letting them out to wander the yard under a protective eye, vanished. 

The daily egg count dropped.  They broke out once, then again, when we didn’t latch the door securely. 

By day six, they looked pretty desperate.  The mood in the coop was tense and agitated.  When I approached the door one bird, always the same one, flew at the window.  I imagine she was hoping to escape, but it felt like she was flying at my face.  I was irrationally scared entering the coop, like they were a teaming mob ready to turn on me with a moment’s notice.    

They were “cooped up.” 

I thought of how often I’ve said that phrase with no real experience of its meaning.  I thought of the endless stream of snow days, the rainy days and weeks of summer when the kids and I are trapped together at home.  It often seems good and even refreshing at first.  Then, slowly, the atmosphere changes.  We grow tense, desperate.

Tending the chickens, I hear old words and phrases anew. 

I’ve seen a broody hen, how she looks thin and worn, refusing to leave the nest even if the eggs she sits on are unfertilized.  Now I know the word brooding - the way we sometimes worry ourselves sick over things that may never bear fruit - in a new way.  I watch them hunt and peck for grain and bugs in the grass and I see it is exactly the same pause, lunge, repeat method that new typists employ on an unfamiliar keyboard.  I see the marks left by their feet in the dirt and realize the accuracy of describing my oldest boy’s terrible handwriting as “chicken scratch.”   

Every one of these awakenings brings a ping of delight, “Ah-ha!  That’s what we mean.”    

This is what I love about doing new things - this recognition of the way the material world connects, is wedded to, the immaterial and how language spans that gap between the two.  Words strung like beads on a nearly invisible thread connect experiences into a cluster of meaning.  Finding that thread, fingering the beads that line it, is, for me, a source of endless joy and delight.   

P.S. Saturday we built a good sized outdoor "run" over green grass and the girls are no longer "cooped" except at night.  Since our run isn't terribly secure, I get a good bit of exercise chasing escaped birds morning, noon and night!

*   *   *   *

I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.