Low Expectations

I have one New Year's resolution, and it may sound a wee bit odd.

I want to keep my expectations low.

Yep. That's it. 

Now, in the past, I would have seen that as a negative, as another chance to look at life through a cynical lens, but now...now....I see it as a gift. I learned this, as I learn most things, from my children.

On New Year's Eve, we decided to do something as a family, since we'd had a lot of time apart travelling the past few weeks. We packed everybody up in the car, swimsuits on and goggles in hand. Now, you have to understand that we are former Floridians and we loooove a good swim in the pool or the ocean. There, we used to live in a neighborhood with a community pool which, upon our arrival, quickly became a just-our-family-pool as the retiree neighbors ran away. I'll never understand why the arrival of 3 kids with noodles, squirt guns, homemade parachutes, boats and rafts would bother them. But I digress.

We also had one of the country's most beautiful beaches 10 minutes from our house, conveniently located across the street from the world's best donut shop. Needless to say, we frequented the beach....ah...frequently.

In Guatemala, we have missed the water. The beach is an hour and a half away, and while it is undeniably beautiful, the waves are rough and the sand is black, volcanic stuff that I find myself digging out of my kids' ears for days after. We enjoy it, but it takes a village to get there.

So. Back to New Year's Eve and the Great Pool Expedition. We were willing to cough up some extra quetzales and do what it took to enjoy a little sun and water. We oh-so-non-stealthily dragged ourselves, our beach bag, and our three slightly excited children into the local well-appointed, posh hotel and presented our desire to pay for the use of the pool.

Ummmm....No. Not that day. Turns out there were so many guests in town that the pool was closed to outsiders such as ourselves.

Ok...I was quite disappointed, but, having been a mom for just a few years, didn't let it show and turned to console my children...only to find that they were completely nonplussed by the whole thing. Their dad informed them that we would try another hotel, so we loaded all the children plus aforementioned gear and towels back into the car and drove to our next destination.

Ummmm.....No. Not that day. Turns out you had to purchase a lunch buffet...pay $20...blah, blah, blah.

Having been a mom for a few years, I turned to console....what?? My children were still nonplussed. Getting a little sad, but still....maintaining a ridiculously positive attitude. It's tricky when they act more mature than I do.

Finally...we ended up at a glorified cement pond near our house....and my children splashed and played like it was the most upscale, four-star pool they'd ever seen. Nobody complained, nobody whined about the fact that the water was a frigid 70 degrees (did I mention we're Floridians?? We're used to 90 degree heated pools!). We ate our PB&J's and made fantastic memories together.

Watching my kids splash around in what, for most middle-class kids, would be a boring place (no slides, no kiddie pool, no diving board), I felt prouder of them than I can describe, and more convicted to be childlike. Keeping my expectations low. I thought I'd learned that here, but I often use cynicism disguised as low expectations, and that's just plain being negative. If I am truly approaching my life as a gift, I will keep my hands open and my eyes up and look for the gifts along the way...not expecting them, but celebrating them when they happen, even when they don't look exactly the way I'd planned they would.

And they happen every day.

More Than Enough

I really, really wanted to complain tonight. I'd spent two hours in the kitchen baking bread for tomorrow and cooking dinner for tonight (this after the exhausting trip to the Bode for the ingredients, and the task of disinfecting every piece of produce and refilling the water purifier that I use for cooking and cleaning the veggies).

I really, really wanted to take advantage of the fact that my kids were outside and say some of my favorite four letter words as my non-self-lighting gas oven decided to have a mind of its own and shoot up to 400 degrees, thereby burning aforementioned bread. And just yesterday, it would barely get up to 300.

I was going to have a little pity party about how, even after spending such a long time in the kitchen, one or more of my sweet, beloved children would certainly find something in the dinner that he didn't "care for." Someone would ask, ever-so-politely-as-he-has-been-warned-to-do (sub-text: threatened with immediate bedtime or other drastic punishment), "Mom...um...how much do I have to eat??"

Before I could oh so justifiably hit the red button on my full-scale pity party, I had an inconvenient memory.

I remembered a day last summer when my family and I went to the village of Santa Maria de Jesus, just 20 minutes away from us.

I remembered watching as the women in the local church there served a hot lunch to over 100 small children, many of whom were enjoying their only hot meal in days, many of whom had brought two or more siblings along with them and were feeding them before they ate their own lunch...many of whom had orange streaks in what should have been jet-black hair, indicating severe malnutrition.


I remembered feeling like I should help cook or clean up, and going to the back of the church, to the pastor's home, only to find that these women had cooked for over 100 children with no stove. No sink. No counter. No food processor. No visible appliance of any kind. Just an open fire, backbreaking work for hours, and an intense desire to physically feed and spiritually nourish the children in their community.

There is a great accountability in knowing. Once you have seen and known, you cannot pretend that you don't know. You have a choice to forget, to shove aside what you have seen, or to remember and choose to be incredibly grateful for what you used to take for granted. After nearly four years here, there are too many things to begin to count for which I can never complain about again. And while yes, sometimes that is annoyingly inconvenient, in reality it is a gift. I don't want to be the same as before.

So, tonight, as my family sits down to (what I think is) a delicious dinner of pasta and salad and then wakes up to warm pumpkin bread, I will remember that there is a woman out there, just up the mountain, who is cooking over an open fire a very simple meal for her family. And I will choose to be grateful for my beautiful kitchen, the laughter (and yes, arguments) of my children, and the reminder that I have no need to worry about tomorrow. I have more than enough for today.

Do Re Mi

I have heard it from enough people now that I believe it is an empirically proven fact: Moms who play the piano should not actually TEACH their children to play the piano. 

Ugh. I took great pride in the fact that this could not be true for me at least....that I could certainly save our family a lot of running around and a lot of money by simply teaching my children the "Good Boys Do Fine Always" rules. And the rests. And the half notes. And the scales. 

Apparently, in this case, as in many others, I do not rise above the rules and laws of nature. I get much too distracted during their practice times when I hear a wrong note. It is much too difficult to NOT stop and correct said note. I'm sure my mother never struggled with this. After all, she just listened to me practice, blissfully unaware of what things should have been sharped and which should have been flatted. To this day, she swears she loved to hear me practice. 

There was a bit of poetic justice recently when, upon hearing me bang out some old Baptist offertory arrangements on my parents' piano (fyi the Baptists like their songs loud and full of arpeggios and glissandos...more amens that way) my youngest son commented..."Wow. I didn't know my mom could play the piano so good." 

Amen, brother. Amen. Now go practice your scales. And I'll ignore that missed note. Just this once. 

Dear Publix

Dear Publix,

I need to apologize to you. Because...oh....lo these many years I have taken you for granted. Your clean, brightly-lit wide aisles. Your ability to stock when customers are NOT in the store. Your always possessing such apparently exotic items such as sour cream. And popcorn. Your paper-or-plastic bags for which I did not have to pay. Your carrying my groceries to my car WITHOUT asking for money. Your free bagging. Your pleasantries...hello, goodbye, have a nice day.


Oh dear, sweet Publix. I will never take you for granted again. And while I acknowledge that yes, my Bodegona (aka grocery store) is far better than it was a few years ago..from what I hear, people needed to wear closed-toe shoes in the past in order to avoid feeling the rats running across their feet....I miss your generic ice-cream that rivaled Breyer's and Edy's. And I miss the helpful workers in the ugly green vests. And I miss the free balloons and cookies. Oh. Yeah. That was for my kids. I digress....

To sum up: while I miss shopping at the place where I never truly appreciated that "shopping is a pleasure," I will choose to be grateful today that my dear old Bode DID have sour cream....and DID have the eggnog that my teenage son requested....and that I DID have everything I needed to make a nutritious dinner for my family.


But next time I'm back in Florida.....Publix Moose Tracks Premium Ice Cream is at the top of my list. And I'll take it in a plastic bag. Just because I can.

Looking Back

Our family has the somewhat schmaltzy tradition of taking time, each child's birthday, to look back at the photos and videos of the day he or she was born.

Let's be clear that I instituted this tradition, and I am also the only one who tears up each time.

We recently celebrated the birthdays of Nate and Jackson, and we oohed and aahed our way through the moments they first met the world and the moments they first met their siblings and the moments where they muttered unintelligible words. Side note: I am amazed by my linguistic abilities in the past. Toddler-speak is much more difficult than Spanish!

I digress. In the weeks leading up to our move to Guatemala 3 1/2 years ago, Steve spent hours transferring our home movies and pictures to our computers. I spent hours this week going through them, and my heart simply welled up.

First, I asked myself HOW I could possibly be the parent of three such beautiful children when, inside, I still feel like I have the maturity of a 20 year old? Surely, somebody is going to knock on my door and say, "Thanks for babysitting. I'll take them home now!"

Second, nobody, and I mean noooobody looks good in the days and weeks after having a baby. Husbands and family should be required to sign an agreement that, upon punishment of death, they will photoshop said photos.

Third, and the real point here is this: sometimes I have avoided looking back at old pictures because, let's face it, life is messy. Not all memories are sweet. Some aren't even bittersweet. They're downright painful. So it's easier just to choose to ignore the memories altogether. But, when I sifted through those old photos this week, I was reminded again of what a rich and amazing life I've had so far in my 38ish years, of what laughs and antics I've performed trying to get kiddos to smile for a photo, of the tiredness and zombieness of having 3 kids under the age of 5, of the sheer joy of FINALLY getting that baby to laugh WHILE the video camera is rolling! The trips, the Christmases, the simple moments of playing in the backyard and drinking from the hose. The books we've read, the people we've come to treasure, the fashions we've thought looked good!

Life hasn't always made sense, but it has been rich in love, in family, in friendships....and it's even been adventurous at times!

God reminded his people to remember, to look back at the blessings and the miracles he'd performed. I'm sure not all of their memories were good either, but if they reminded each other of the gifts and miracles  in their lives, they could travel farther and stronger and be encouraged together.

So today I look back with a full heart. Life is never perfect, no matter what our Facebook statuses sometimes say. But we can remember how far we have come and how many new memories and photos are still ahead.

In the meantime, I have to go break up an argument in the backyard over who is winning in the Nerf battle. But maybe I'll take a photo first. Just to remember.

Grace and More Grace

I would like to think that I'm a grown-up now. But then there are weeks like this one where I realize that I am as stubborn and as heels-dug-in as a two year old.  Days when my head tells me the mature way to handle stress, the right way to respond to it, but my emotions say a resounding "lalalalalala....I can't hear you!" and then, quite promptly, take over. 

It usually takes me a few minutes to realize that I have blown it, once again. A few minutes more to realize that, because I believe in grace...scandalous, complete grace....I can choose to be forgiven and move on. And try to do it better next time!

The biggest constant in my life, in most lives..is change. And I'm fighting it hard right now. I find comfort in sameness, in routine. But when that is all blown to smithereens, as stressful and difficult as that is, it is a reminder that whatever I thought I controlled, I don't. Nope. Not even a little bit. It's humbling and reviving at the same time. And I'll probably forget it again tomorrow, but then there's that grace thing again. I want to live in it, wallow in it, love like crazy with it. 

So even if I never do feel like the grown-up I should be, at least I am certain of one thing....I will experience another challenge, another change tomorrow. Maybe tonight! And I can cling to that grace to be a little stronger this time, a little more mature....a step more than the toddler stage. Maybe even a preschooler. Grace and peace.

Grace

Sometimes you read something that slaps you upside the head, turns you upside down, and shakes you. Man. I hate it when that happens. So this is what I read the other day:

“There are two ways through life: the way of nature, and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. . . .Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.  .  . .Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.” from Tree of Life


I've been reminded lately that there are approximately 82,524 reasons each day to be hurt and offended. And some days 82,525. Somebody says something that could be construed as criticism, or maybe he doesn't say something he should have said, or maybe he/she ignores me altogether. My immediate reaction is to think, "What is wrong with me? What did I do?" and, if I can't figure that out, the next logical step MUST be to assume that this person is just mean, hurtful and maybe....gasp....human. Huh.


I also read once (I think in a Beth Moore book) that if I am a person who goes through life with an empty cup, holding it out for others to fill it, I will be consistently disappointed and hurt. If I take responsibility for my own cup, filling it with the satisfaction that comes from investing in things outside of myself and my own little world, I will be able to pour out that full cup on my family, my friends, my community. And if I allow myself to be filled up with Grace, a Grace I can't possibly explain or earn, but can simply receive, then I have Grace to spare for the people I love. Or even the people I don't love so much.


Yes, I will get up tomorrow and once again be presented with countless opportunities to be hurt or offended. But I have a choice...to look at that potential offense and choose to leave it there, to not even pick it up, or to obsess and carry it around with me, clouding every interaction I have for the rest of the day. I hope I choose wisely. But, if I don't, there is Grace enough for me, too.