In Which I Play Catch Up

Remember back when I started this blog and I posted five days a week? Those were the good old days. You know, when the kids actually went to school somewhere other than our house, I could blithely run errands to six places during the day without thinking about it, and I didn't own a collection of masks. Ah, 2019, how we miss you. Who would have thought that breaking my wrist at Kittygirl's birthday party on the last day of January this year would not be the most eventful part of our our family's year?

Anyway, the pandemic isn't the only reason I haven't blogged recently. Life just has a bad habit of getting away from me. I suppose I can partly blame it on ADHD, but that's not the only reason. There are just so many immediate things to be accomplished on a daily basis that things like finally sitting down and blogging fall by the wayside. Who am I kidding? It's not just blogging. It's also important but not every day task things that fall by the wayside, like scooping the little boxes and cleaning the guinea pig cage. You do not want to know how much poop was in the litter box when I cleaned it this weekend.

To update you on my last post, Squirrelboy was super excited to receive a letter of acceptance to the National Honor Society a couple weeks ago. Looking back on his early school experience I'm just blown away by how far he's come. I'm regularly amazed by how much he cares about school and how hard he works to submit his best effort. Many of his teachers allow retakes of tests and quizzes. This weekend he retook a geometry quiz twice to get a perfect score. Reader, he got 18/20 the first time so it's not as if he absolutely needed to retake it at all.

I completely missed posting during Diabetes Awareness Month in November, so here's an executive summary of what you should know about type 1 diabetes if you're unfamiliar with it: It's an autoimmune disease. It is not caused by diet. It is lifelong unless a cure is found. It can strike at any age. In fact, about half of new diagnoses are in adults. It's relentless, and something you have to deal with 24 hours a day every.single.day. The one bright spot to having diabetes or having a child with diabetes is the diabetes community, which is amazing. See last November's daily posts for details about these statements and much more.

With this year being totally out of whack, our big summer vacation plans being cancelled, and more recently Thanksgiving and Christmas travel to Grandma and Grandpa's house being cancelled, it's been nice to immerse ourselves in our familiar Advent traditions. In case you don't know, Advent is celebrated beginning four Sundays before Christmas. The name comes from the Latin word "coming", and it is a time to step back, reflect, and prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas as well as to reflect on Jesus' eventual second coming.

We established a tradition when Squirrelboy was quite young of lighting an Advent wreath every evening as a family and reading both a Bible passage and a fun Christmas story. After the reading the kids get to open the Advent calendar. Our Advent setup is below. My ADHD brain, while it struggles to make routines happen, at the same time functions much better when they're in place and established as habits, so Advent, as a many years long habit, is a particularly meaningful time to me and a pleasant break from the chaos that December often brings to a family with school age kids. There's a lot less chaos this year what with the pandemic cancelling so many activities, but at the same time the pandemic causes its own chaos, even if it's just internal, so the break is still welcome.

Another of our Advent traditions is the annual visits of Sam, our Elf on the Shelf, and Isaiah John, our shepherd. I'm presuming you know what an Elf on the Shelf looks like, reader, and if you don't, I'll spare you his slightly creepy visage. I will, however, introduce you to Isaiah John, who is quite cute.

Isaiah John's visit reminds us to focus on Jesus during Advent, as he spends every night while we sleep searching for Baby Jesus, whom he always, conveniently, finds just in time for Christmas morning.  Isaiah John also returns just before Easter, looking for a sheep he seems to lose every year at about the same time. Silly Isaiah John.

Surprisingly, the pandemic hasn't been as bad for our family as you might think it would have been. I think following routines has been part of the key to that. Our kids have consistent places to do their schoolwork, I'm able to give them consistent supervision, one of their favorite activities (scouting) has continued with a mix of digital and outdoor meetings and activities, and we've been able to have unrushed family dinners nearly every night.

I'll be happy when the U.S. is able to get the pandemic under control (not until a decent portion of the population has received a vaccine is looking like the likely timeframe) and we can return to normal activities and normal life, but for the moment I'm choosing to focus on the things that are going well. For whatever reason, that doesn't seem to leave much time for blogging :).

 

In Which My Christmas Tree Becomes a Metaphor for My Life

First of all, happy St. Lucia Day! If you don't happen to  have ever lived in Sweden or be of Swedish origin, you've probably never heard of this day. St. Lucia was a young woman from Sicily in (I think) the 4th century. She was ultimately martyred for her refusal to marry a powerful Roman who was a pagan. She has become the patron saint of the blind (because her eyes were reportedly poked out before she was killed) and of Sweden. She's probably patron of a few other things I as a protestant don't know about.

Sweden adopted Lucia, I think, in large part because her names means light. St. Lucia Day takes place on what (before the calendar was changed) used to be the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year. Her arrival (in the form of girls and young women dressed in white and wearing a evergreen crown with candles) heralds the return of the light and the fact that the days will gradually begin to get lighter and Spring will eventually come. Given that in parts of Sweden it is dark all day long at this point, that's an important reminder.

Facebook posts from my Swedish friends indicate that the commercialized Christmas season has crept further back in the year there just as it has here, but, when I was an exchange student in Sweden in the mid 1990's, the arrival of Lucia heralded the beginning of the Christmas season. Advent had already begun of course, but Christmas decorating, baking, etc., began in earnest after the 13th.

Years ago, before Squirrelboy was born, I was taking my writing more seriously and I had a story published in Spider magazine about a little Swedish girl celebrating St. Lucia Day after her family moved to Peru. When it was first published I didn't have kids', but I offered to come read the story to the classes of my friends who were teachers. Once Squirrelboy started preschool I read it to his class. That continued until 3rd grade. I've now read the story to Kittygirl's class every year since kindergarten, and today was the day. Since I most often come in to read about diabetes, I really enjoy reading something entirely different.

The story was always well liked by Squirrelboy's classmates, but it polls especially well at Kittygirl's Spanish Immersion school. There are both teachers and students at the school who were themselves born in Peru or whose parents immigrated from Peru. It's also particularly gratifying when I read the author's name and the students realized that I, Kittygirl's mother, wrote a story that appeared in a real magazine. I think writers are these far-off mythical people in their minds. Inevitably someone asks if I want to write a book. I was happy this year to report that I've written a book and am researching the best route to get it published.

I've been immensely gratified by the way my kids have reacted to my intention to start taking my writing more seriously, even if it means that there may come a time when I have less time to devote to them. Kittygirl, in fact, social butterfly that she is, would be over the moon if I a) spent enough time writing and b) made enough money to send her to the afterschool program. However, I'm not counting on that since she only has 2 1/2 years left of elementary school. The kids are super excited that I'm working on a book, and both of them have asked to read it when I'm done. Kittygirl even told her gymnastics teacher that her mom is writing a book.

This season has reminded me that my life is a work in progress. I think that's really true of all of our lives, even if special needs of any kind don't figure into them. It feels especially true if you're in the season of actively parenting small (or even taller than you but under 18) humans, but I don't think it ends when your kids leave the house, and I think it applies even if you  never had kids to begin with.

Our Christmas tree this year served as a metaphor for this. Mr. Engineer and Kittygirl left to get a tree at about 2pm Sunday. The idea was that they'd be back no later than 3:30, the tree would be up a little before 4, and all the decorating would be accomplished by the time the kids went to bed.

That's not what happened, however. It was almost 4 by the time the tree-procurers returned, but that wasn't the main obstacle. They had chosen the biggest tree we've ever had. Somehow it didn't occur to Mr. Engineer that our small tree stand might not support a larger tree.

It took him a long time to get the tree balanced in the tree stand. By the time it happened, in fact, we were sitting down to dinner. Five minutes into dinner there was a crash from the living room we all rushed in to see the tree tipped over onto an end table. Thankfully, there were no highly breakable decorations in the path of the tree.

Mr. Engineer made a detour to Meijer after dropping off Squirrelboy at youth group.  He came home with the most expensive tree stand, reasoning that a heavy metal stand would be more likely to help the tree balance. After a lot of work, we realized that stand was also a failure. Mr. Engineer made a trip back to Meijer for a third stand. This time he get one intended for a tree measuring up to 10 feet even though our tree is only 8 feet high. The good news is the new stand was plastic and only half the cost of the metal one he returned. The even better news is that it finally worked.

By the time this was all done, it was time for the kids to get ready for bed. I convinced Mr. Engineer to work together to string lights on the tree. This is an activity that's impossible (or nearly so) for one person to do alone in the position in which we put our tree (up against the picture window in the living room).

It wasn't until Wednesday that I actually finished the tree. Given that I'd expressed late last week that I was going to start taking my writing more seriously I had to actually spend some time editing my long-neglected novel. I also had to grocery shop on Monday and do a handful of other errands. In the end, though, the tree really was the most beautiful one we've ever had and I think it was worth the trouble.

We didn't realize when we set out to get a Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon that it would turn into a multi-day ordeal involving three tree stands, two trips to the store, and a tree crashing down in the living room. If we had known what this tree would bring, Kittygirl and Mr. Engineer might have chosen a smaller tree. I'm sure this hypothetical smaller tree would have been nice, but it wouldn't be the thing of incredibly beauty that our current tree is.

I think life works like that more often than not. We often set out with a particular plan for the way our lives are going to go. More often than not, that beautifully crafted plan crashes around us just as our tree crashed down in the living room.. We could have conceded defeat, tossed the Christmas tree in the backyard, and bought a smaller, easy to decorate artificial tree. It would have looked fine, and I imagine there are families out there for whom this could have been the best choice because of a variety of other stressors operating on their lives.

Most of the time, though, it makes the most sense to persevere and figure out how to reconstruct our plan in a way that fits our current circumstances. That might look like accepting our child's or own diagnosis and figuring out how to fit it into our lives. It might look like realizing our original dream (having healthy kids, or kids who are brilliant in school, etc.) isn't going to happen but learning to find the hidden blessings in what we do have.

As I discussed more in depth in a post back in September, my theology doesn't teach me that "everything happens for a reason" or that God purposely orchestrates every single aspect of every single person's life. What I do believe wholeheartedly, however, is that, at the end of time, everything will be redeemed and that, while we live in time, God can use our circumstances (as horrible or simply annoying as they may be) to teach us and to bless us even though He did not directly cause them and He grieves over the tragic things in our lives as much as we do.

God desires to shape our lives into something beautiful. However, this takes time. In fact, I think we may actually be reshaped into different beautiful things at different stages of our lives. Right now, though, some of us are caught in the messy middle. Maybe we realize we are being shaped. Maybe we even firmly trust that God is shaping our lives into something breathtaking. However, right at this moment, we feel like an undecorated Christmas tree tipped over in the living room. We're afraid we might just be tossed away to make way for something simpler and easier to put up.

In the end, though, God will lift us up, balance us, and decorate us appropriately if we allow Him to do so.

In Which I Celebrate the New Year

Did you know that yesterday was New Year's Day? No, I haven't gotten several weeks ahead of myself. No, I don't belong to some little known culture that follows an alternate calendar. That is, unless you consider Christianity a little known culture. Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, which begins the Christian liturgical year (sometimes called the church year). Weirdly, this is not super well known in the evangelical protestant world.

I was actually introduced to the church year by helping my mother teach preschoolers at her church when I was in high school. Her church is hit or miss when it comes to following the pattern of the church year in the regular worship service, but, in the realm of children's worship, they were great at teaching children about the wheel of the church year. Incidentally, that's also where I learned the Doxology, and I still do a toned down version of the motions we taught the kids every week in church :).

As an adult I settled into a United Methodist church. UMC churches are a mixed bag in a lot of ways, especially regarding how and to what extent they observe the church year. Our church consistently observes Advent, but is hit or miss on acknowledging the whole calendar.

I'm thankful the church is pretty good at observing Advent, because I really love this season. It's such a beautiful way to get your heart and life ready for Christmas. That said, I really like a lot of aspects of the secular American Christmas season as well and I'm not an Advent purist.

My observance of Advent outside of church began when Squirrelboy was a baby. We started buying Advent calendars with those little doors with a small piece of chocolate behind each door. We'd open a door each day, someone would eat the little piece of chocolate, we'd read the Bible verse behind the door and that was it.

Sometime when Squirrelboy was in preschool (I don't remember the year) a friend who knew I was looking for more liturgy in my life sent us a metal Advent wreath along with a set of candles. That wreath was what really pushed us into doing more than eating a piece of chocolate and reading a verse.

We eventually also added a reusable wooden Advent calendar, which has been filled with a variety of things from small toys to candy to pieces of a Lego set that's progressively built during Advent. This year, in case you're curious, the kids had no interest in Lego sets or little toys so each door hides some quarters and two Hershey kisses.

Here's a sidenote in case anyone whose child is newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes finds my blog and reads this post.  Yes, it really is okay for kids with diabetes to eat regular chocolate. In fact, some newly diagnosed people can eat snacks anywhere from 5g-15g carbs without insulin (that's something you need to consult your endo about), in which case they wouldn't even require insulin for a little piece of chocolate. Kittygirl get insulin even for one Hershey Kiss, but she still eats them.

Our Advent setup includes the wreath and calendar mentioned, usually some kind of paper activity provided by our church's children's ministry (that's the paper tree and stickers you see), a regular or storybook Bible, the brochure that came with the wreath suggesting prayers for each week of Advent, and an Advent/Christmas related fiction book that we've chosen to read from every day. The past several years we've been reading through a variety of Santa Claus origin stories. This year's offering is Kringle by Tony Abbott. I fell in love with this book years ago and highly recommend it. It's a Santa Claus origin story told as an epic fantasy featuring shoe-making elves, weather-controlling goblins, Saxon pirates, and even a monk.

Yes, you correctly intuited from the above information that we're devout Christians, we observe Advent, and we tell our kids about Santa Claus. Long story short, I don't think believing in Santa during your childhood and following Jesus for the rest of your life need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe that embracing the mystery of a mythical gift giver can give kids a leg up in understanding and embracing the mystery of the gospel when they're ready to understand it. That deserves its own post, so I'll just leave it there as a tease.

Also pictured is our Advent/Christmas Shepherd. His name is Isaiah John. He's basically a Christian version of The Elf on the Shelf. Instead of checking up on your behavior and reporting your Christmas wishes back to Santa, Isaiah John spends Advent searching for the Baby Jesus and reminds us to prepare to celebrate His birth. On Christmas morning he finds a little plush Baby Jesus. He sticks around for the twelve days of Christmas to remind us to keep celebrating.

Because we embrace contradictions, we also have an Elf on the Shelf. I'm not, however, one of those crazy Pinterest elf moms. If you're a crazy Pinterest elf mom and devising amazing stunts and props for your elf gives you joy, I say forge ahead. If it gives you a headache, you have my permission to stop, for what it's worth. All that Sam (our elf) does is move from place to place in the house each day and deliver letters to Santa. The kids still love him.

We have a pretty crazy schedule, and it gets a little crazier in the month of December because we've had a kid dancing the Nutcracker for the past ten years. I love that Advent gives us an excuse to settle down together every (or almost every) evening and reflect on what the holiday we're preparing the celebrate really means.

If you've never celebrated Advent with your kids, I highly recommend starting it.  You don't need a fancy wreath or a refillable calendar like we have, though those are nice. If all you do is buy a chocolate filled calendar from the store, read a Christmas picture book, and say a prayer, you've made a great start. You can fill in more of the things we use as the years go by, or you can learn about the various traditions and adopt the ones that work best for your family.

Here are some end notes specifically for the types of families who might be reading this. As I said above, it really is okay for a kid with diabetes to eat chocolate. However, if that stresses you out, it's also okay to forgo that aspect. You can use little toys of some kind, put a new special ornament on the tree each day, create a felt nativity scene to fill in little by little, or whatever else works best for your family. Some families like to take turns doing the reading. If this is impossible for your dyslexic or stressful, you can assign him or her a different special role: maybe lighting the candle(s) every day. Finally, if you hyperactive ADHDer can't sit still for multiple readings, just adapt it to whatever is best for them. Read just one Bible verse and a super short picture book. Or read as much as you want but encourage your kid to do something active yet not disruptive while it's happening. You don't all have to be sitting in a circle looking raptly at the reader.

Now, of course, if you belong to another religion and don't celebrate Christian or you aren't religious and you celebrate the secular version of Christmas, Advent doesn't apply to you. However, if you still want to have 24 pieces of chocolate during the month of December no one is stopping you :). If you identify as a Christian of any type and have never paid much attention to Advent, though, I highly recommend digging into what this season has to offer. Our culture wants us to jump straight into Christmas on November 1st at the absolute latest. Advent offers us a chance to slow down, step back, and reflect on what it means that the creator of the universe chose to be born as a human baby in order to bring about our salvation.