In Which Squirrelboy is a College Student, And I'm Not Done Parenting, But Basically Done Blogging

Squirrelboy is now about halfway through his first semester of college. I won't give you details about how his experience has been because, well, he's an adult, and it just feels a little weird to post about his school experiences at this point.

When I started this blog my kids were in 3rd and 9th grade. Now Kittygirl is in 7th grade and Squirrelboy is a freshman in college. The blog was a great way to force myself to get back to writing regularly after a long hiatus. I was even able to help some people recognize dyslexia and/or ADHD in their kids. I helped some other people learn more about diabetes and get a taste of what it's like to live with diabetes.

But I think this blog has outlived its purpose. I may still post my Valentines Day reflections here because it's a nice way to share them with a wider range of people, but outside of that I don't plan to post anymore.

Here are my thoughts on signing off. Raising kids is hard. Raising kids with a disability of any kind is even harder. You know what's even harder, though? Actually having said disability. We can empathize with our kids. We can understand what they're going through in a way most outsiders can't. But in the end we still can't see into their hearts and minds. Even though I also have ADHD I still don't really know what it's like for Squirrelboy to have ADHD, let alone both ADHD and dyslexia. Even though I've done about a million site changes now and calculated about a billion carbs, I still don't actually know what it's like for Kittygirl to have diabetes. I, along with other parents of kids diagnosed at a young age, can relate better than any other nondiabetic but it's still not my body. 

As I said, parenting is hard. Life in general is hard if you get right down to it. But not every moment of every day. There's also a lot of joy if you look for it. Even the darkest night of the year eventually ends in dawn. Even the hardest time in your life eventually passes. It may leave you with scars, sort of akin to how you'll still have a bruise from running into the bed, post on said darkest night (ask me how I know), but it won't always be so dark.

And through all of it, God will still be good. I've been through my fair share of hard times, many (though not all) since becoming a parent. Sometimes I have seriously doubted that last sentence. I can see how you might. But I've held onto it and it's always proven true. It doesn't take away the hard stuff, but it's a tiny pinprick of light in what can sometimes be unbearably oppressive darkness.

So goodbye my five or six faithful readers. Maybe I'll see you next Valentines Day, maybe not. Take care, love your kids with all your might, and always remember the pinprick of light in the darkness. And just because I can't leave without a photo, here are Kittygirl and Squirrelboy on Parents Weekend at his college. Well, not actually at his college. We spent very little time on campus because we have no interest in football. We took a cave tour not far from campus, which is where this photo was taken.

In Which My Kids are Getting More and More Independent, and I Don't Love It

When I started this blog back in the fall of 2019, Kittygirl was 8 and in third grade and Squirrelboy was 14 and a freshman in high school. Now Kittygirl is 12 years old and 4 weeks from finishing 6th grade and Squirrelboy is 18 years old and 27 days from his high school graduation.

They've both grown a lot in independence this year. Kittygirl is handling more and more of her day to day diabetes tasks. When I sent her to a sleepover birthday party in March, Mr. Engineer just spent a few minutes chatting with the parents about food and diabetes tech. We didn't feel the need to give them a crash course in diabetes education or set them up on the Dexcom Follow app.

Squirrelboy has grown in maturity in leaps and bounds his senior year. He's gotten his drivers license and is a responsible driver for the most part. In fact, in some ways he's a better driver than I am. He's grown tremendously as a student as well. Up until this spring semester he always wanted me to go over papers he wrote and often help him get started with writing assignments. But this semester a) he had one class that required weekly papers and the constant practice really helped him up his writing game and b) he discovered the college writing center and now finishes his papers early and sends them there for suggestions on how to make them the best they can be.

Since he turned 18, we've given Squirrelboy a lot of control over his finances, and he's more mature about that than the average American adult. He did research on his own and chose a mutual fund in which to invest some of his money. Mr. Engineer set up a checking account and a savings account for him at our bank. Squirrelboy decided to set up a second savings account that he's using specifically to set aside money for big things, like his backpacking trip to Glacier National Park this July.

He's not perfect. He's only 18, and he's still going to make some mistakes and make some choices that an older adult might have the experience and knowledge to avoid. But overall I feel like he's set up better for life than many other kids I've heard about on the cusp of adulthood. Not that that means Mr. Engineer and I have done everything right. Squirrelboy would be happy to tell you about all the mistakes we've made over the years. But overall the evidence indicates that we've done well. Squirrelboy is a genuinely kind and caring person. He wants to make a difference in the world. He takes responsibility for his actions. He loves Jesus. Any or all of those things could have not happened, especially with all the challenges life has thrown at Squirrelboy.

I have to admit, though, while I'm proud that Squirrelboy is becoming more and more responsible, I'm  a bit sad (okay, sometimes even really sad) that he doesn't need me like he did even six months ago. He used to often want me to come into his room while he did his work for "moral support". At the time I found it kind of annoying. Now I regret having that perspective because he doesn't want that anymore and I really miss it. I'm thankful though that he still regularly gives me hugs and tells me he loves me.

Kittygirl is so social I'm not sure she'll ever not want someone in the room when she's doing her schoolwork, but she's also quite independent already about completing it and, as I said at the beginning, she's taken over a lot of the responsibility for diabetes management. I still play a role, but I'm more of a coach at this point. In the early years I was basically a player on Team Diabetes despite not being diabetic myself.

Parenting is both joyful and challenging at all stages. This past fall I started working three days a week as a teacher in the 2s/3s classroom at a Mother's Day Out program. I love the MDO kids, but I'm really glad I only have them for five hours at a time three days a week. I would not want to be parenting littles at this stage in my life. That said, I would not have been ready to parent young adolescents and young adults ten years ago.

I don't think there's one easiest or hardest stage of parenting. Especially not one easy stage. They're pretty much all hard. And it doesn't magically end when they turn 18, especially not if they turn 18 when they're still in high school, as most often happens. But in addition to being hard, all the stages are also wonderful in some way. It's such a gift watching my kids figure out who they are and embrace it. It's hard too. Some of the things they have to embrace are things I wish they could escape the challenge of, like diabetes for Kittygirl and ADHD and dyslexia for Squirrelboy. But at the same time the things they've learned from living with their disabilities are part of what makes them the wonderful people they're becoming, and I wouldn't trade those people for the world.

Because I always like to include a photo, I'm including a photo of Kittygirl and Mr. Engineer packed for a scout campout this weekend. Squirrelboy is also camping, in a different place. He's testing out his new boots and backpack in preparation for a big backpacking trip this summer. 

In Which I Share a Valentine Reflection: Love and Perseverance

 It's Valentine's Day again, and time for my Valentine homily/reflection. For the one or two people who might just happen across this post, let me share some background.

More than a quarter century ago (wow, that makes me sound really old), on a college campus far away I was a woefully single student looking forward to celebrating Valentine's Day as Black [insert whatever day of the week it was going to be here]. However, at the last minute, I had a change of heart and vowed to reclaim the day as a day to celebrate the love of family, of friends, and especially of God. I sent an email to some friends and family members to that effect. They liked it, and thus an annual tradition was born. It has since evolved into a reflection on my faith and life, with some kind of tie in to love and Valentine's Day.

Last year, when I titled my post "Love in the Time of Covid" it did not occur to me that a year later we would still be in the time of Covid. I won't go into my feelings about all the things that went wrong to put us in this place. The fact is we are here, and going into year three of the pandemic, the theme in my mind is perseverance. It's well past the time when we can use "unprecedented" to describe what we're living through. There are now nearly two years full of precedent. I think the appropriate word to transition to is perseverance.

For students, teachers, and school staff, this can mean persevering through yet another incredibly stressful school year. Most students are back in school in person now, but all is not well. Many of the teachers I know are feeling crushed under the burden of being responsible to enforce Covid safety measures (or, in contrast, crushed under the feeling of terror that there are none). Teachers are reportedly retiring early or otherwise leaving the profession in droves. Those that remain are persevering because of their love of their students and what their job used to be and hopefully can be again in the future. I don't know many healthcare workers personally, but I know they are suffering under a burden as well. 

My hope and prayer is that our love for our fellow human beings will cause those of us who are outside these and other high pressure professions to continue to persevere in the changes we have had to make to try to keep Covid in check so that someday (hopefully sooner rather than later, maybe this spring or summer?) we can come out of pandemic mode and move into the long term stage of living with Covid-19 not as a constant threat but as one of many endemic respiratory diseases that are part of our lives but don't control them. 

We're all incredibly tired of this pandemic, so it's no longer seen as fashionable or heroic to make the choice to avoid large indoor gatherings (let alone cancel them or move them online) or even wear a mask inside. We all just want to be done. The sad fact, however, is that wanting something to be over or even pretending it's over doesn't actually change the situation.

So, how am I tying this into Valentine's Day? Is this just a rant about Covid thinly disguised as my annual homily? Don't you worry, there's a point to all of this. I think that, pandemic or not, all love requires perseverance. Long term romantic relationships require perseverance. My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years. I love him at least as much as I did the day I married him, in some ways more. however that doesn't mean every day is perfect. Some days are downright bad. A successful marriage requires work and perseverance on the part of both partners.

The same holds true with my kids. My kids are amazing. It's incredible to see them turning into productive, wonderful human beings. However, there are plenty of times they're incredibly annoying or their needs are inconvenient. Just today I had to run home after dropping Squirrelboy off at his internship instead of heading straight to the grocery store so I could bring him pants (don't worry, he was wearing shorts, but long pants are required). Just as I was about to pull out of the driveway for the second time, I got a text from Kittygirl, who forgot to bring a mask to school. The school provides disposable masks if a student forgets, but she wanted one of the good masks from home. Both of these things cut into my morning and changed my plans, but I did it because my situation allows for that kind of flexibility and I love my kids, even when their forgetfulness inconveniences me. 

Our faith requires perseverance as well. Especially when the world is on fire and it often feels like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling, it's seriously tempting to just throw in the towel and assume none of it was true to begin with. When I'm in a valley like this (and I'm not at this moment to be clear), I'm thankful that I can look back on times when I witness God answer my prayers and felt His presence. A similar principal can apply in marriage, in parenting, in friendship, and in any relationship.

Yes, there are relationships that are toxic and relationships that are truly abusive and dangerous. Let me be clear that I am not advocating remembering the good times and persevering in an abusive relationship. However, in the case that your relationship (with a spouse, with a friend, with God) is simply in a slump, it's worthwhile to put in the work and persevere. 

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are able to celebrate love in some fashion today, whether it's the love you share with your romantic partner, with cherished friends, with your child(ren), or with God.

In Which I Share a Valentine Reflection: Love in the Time of Covid

Just in case someone happens across this who has never read one of my previous Valentine homilies, here's a quick recap. A long time ago and a few states away (really more than half my lifetime ago now, boy I'm getting old) I was a woefully single college student planning to celebrate Valentine's Day as "Black [insert day of the week here]". At the eleventh hour I did an about face in my attitude and decided to use the day as an excuse to celebrate the love of family, the love of friends, and the love of God. This was decades before "Galentine's Day" or "Palentine's Day" were trending, so clearly I'm a genius innovator :) (also, how did I get so old ?). I sent an email to some friends encouraging them to do the same. Then I sent a similar email the next year and a tradition was born. The tradition has since evolved into an annual reflection on my faith and life, with some kind of tie in to Valentine's Day. As always, feel free to share if you're so inclined. And on to the message.....

Last year at this time I was typing my Valentine Homily on my phone with one finger. Fourteen days earlier I had broken my wrist at Kittygirl's skating birthday party. The lesson it taught me was to rely on others in ways I don't usually like to do. I naively thought at the time that breaking a bone at my daughter's birthday part would be the most notable party of my year. Little did I know what 2020 had in store for the world. 

We're now 11 months and one day past the first of the stay at home orders here in Kentucky. The last time my kids attended school in person was March 13th of last year. The last time I ate at a restaurant was March 5th of last year. I don't even remember the last time I watched a movie in a theater. My purse now always has several cloth masks in it at all times, with spares in my car. I obsessively tell Kittygirl not to touch things on the rare occasions I bring her with me to the store. We lost spring and summer plans in 2020, and spring break travel this year isn't looking wise either. Even summer plans are very lightly penciled in. We really have no idea from day to day what's going to happen, it seems. Oh, and just for fun, our nation went through some pretty serious political turmoil too. You know, because 2021 had to show up 2020 or something :).

Even with all of that, though, this year has been filled with a lot of good. I fell back in love with writing middle grade fiction and started taking it seriously. I finished two manuscripts and learned how to query agents. I found a community of writers in a similar place on the journey and also began to interact with writers on social media and learned that even the famous ones are more often than not completely normal and really nice people. 

I've enjoyed our Covid-enforced reduced and/or virtualized schedule. Many of the meetings I used to have to drive kids to are now on Zoom. There's no more "Let's make sure to get dinner on the table in time for the guys to leave for Boys Scouts!" There's "Hey, it's 6:59, better log onto to Boy Scout zoom". School starts later, and there's no commute to that either. Mr. Engineer has started to go work in the lab for at least a few hours most weeks, but there are still many days when no one has to leave the house and it's pretty great after having spent years feeling like we were constantly going from one thing to the next.

At the same time, I haven't always enjoyed our Covid-enforced togetherness. My introverted soul is thirsting for more time alone. I survive by taking walks alone most weekdays and grabbing some alone time when the kids are otherwise engaged or after they've gone to bed (Which is often way too late. Did I mention remote school starts later than in person school?).

Loving your family during forced togetherness isn't always easy. Who am I kidding? It isn't usually easy. If I have to tell the kids not to touch each other's couch cushions during online worship one more time my head just might explode. Yet I guarantee I'll do it again next week. And then again. Maybe at some point they'll learn to respect each others' space, but I'm not counting on it. What I AM counting on is that the kids will come out of this pandemic not having hated the time. We've done our best to make this ridiculously unprecedented season not horrible and, dare I say, sometimes actually really good. Our big plans got cancelled, but we did little fun things instead. We played more games. We had more movie nights. And we'll continue doing our best to make this time as good as we can until it's over (because, as much as I hate to say it, it'll be awhile).

Back in another life, when I was a graduate student in Hispanic literature, one of the many books by the master Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I was required to read was Love in the Time of Cholera. It really has almost no relevance to what I'm writing about today, but every once in awhile I need to pull out the degrees I don't use and dust them off. The one comparison I can draw is that the protagonist has an awful lot of patience. He literally waits decades after the love of his life marries someone else so that he can declare his love again after her husband dies. Now that's dedication for you. Love in the Time of Covid also requires a lot of patience. You may be patiently waiting for a vaccine appointment so that you can be one step closer to being able to see the loved ones you've had to be apart from during the pandemic. You may be patiently (or not so patiently some days) helping your kids engage with online school even though they're totally over it. You may be patiently donning that mask you're really sick of to go into your job that can't be done remotely.

After all the turmoil of this past year, pandemic-related, politically related, or personal, what I've always come back to is that more than anything else we need to give our fellow human beings love and grace. That doesn't mean people who wrong your or wrong society shouldn't be held accountable. What it does mean is that you're only hurting yourself if you focus your energy on hating them. Grieve the wrongs that are done to you or others. Take action when appropriate. But also look for the good. Look for the love. Look for the joy. It's there, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

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 Squirrelboy Stands Up for His Faith and I Realize How Many Awesome People We Know

Even though I know many families for whom an education at a religious school has been a great fit and I don't disparage it as a choice, I never seriously considered sending my children to a Christian school. Even when I was homeschooling Squirrelboy for middle school I used very little Christian specific curriculum (and modified what I did use) and purposely joined a homeschool coop that, unlike the majority in our town, welcomes anyone and is not tied into a particular religion, let alone a particular expression of Christianity.

So my kids have spent their entire educational careers either in public school or in a homeschool environment that was purposely diverse in terms of the worldviews of the families involved. Despite the fear I encountered from some of the Christian homeschooling families I got to know during my homeschooling years, neither their teachers nor the curriculum they have been taught have been opposed in any way to our beliefs. In fact, both kids have had some amazing teachers in the public schools who were Christians who specifically believed they were called by God to teach in the public schools. They've also had plenty of great teachers who don't share our faith but have not in any way tried to denigrate it.

That was all absolutely true until last week in Squirrelboy's biology class. Since his high school classes mostly operate on a semester schedule he started some new classes in January. In science, he moved from physics to biology. He had met the biology teacher before, and even interviewed him about the climate strike that he helped organize early in the school year, and had a good impression of him.

Squirrelboy still likes the teacher overall, but he was both annoyed an taken aback by the way the teacher chose to introduce the idea of what is and what is not scientifically verifiable. He put, in the category of scientifically verifiable, Earthquakes, and, in the category of not scientifically verifiable, Angels. Point taken. Angels are part of my cosmology, but I agree that they're not scientifically verifiable. I can think of several less controversial things the teacher could have used given that he lives in the Bible belt, but whatever. If he had stopped there, Squirrelboy would have been only slightly annoyed.

The biology teacher went on to speak against all religion as not scientifically verifiable and therefore wrong. He specifically said the the Bible cannot be believed because it is based only on witness testimony. He apparently even went so far to deny the existence of Jesus as a historical figure. Throughout the class period, Squirrelboy respectfully pushed back against these ideas. The teacher gave no credence to his arguments.

That afternoon, Squirrelboy got into the car feeling pretty angry. We talked it through, and he decided he wanted to write a paper detailing the evidence for at least parts of the Bible being historically verifiable and give it to the teacher, just to show how strongly he feels about this issue. 

I wrote a Facebook post about Squirrelboy's experience, and I was amazed by how many people came out the woodwork to support Squirrelboy and his courage in standing up for his beliefs as well as to disagree with the way the teacher presented this issue. I got everything from comments from Christian friends cheering me on for raising a child with a strong faith to comments from Atheist friends who were appalled that an educator would bring his own religious biases into the classroom in this way. All were supportive.

In addition, many people reached out both to me and directly to Squirrelboy with suggestions for resources Squirrelboy can use for the paper he wants to write. Christian, Jewish, and Atheist friends all suggested resources. That Friday Squirrelboy went to a conference with our church's youth group. One of the adult chaperones came up to him and said, "I have all kinds of thoughts and resources to share with you this weekend." Squirrelboy had set up a meeting with our pastor, and the pastor's wife (who was another chaperone) told me she and her husband were listening to a podcast and at one point he said, "Oh, that's a great thing to bring up during my meeting with Squirrelboy!" (though of course he called him by his real name).

Squirrelboy had his meeting with our pastor yesterday, and he said it was very helpful. Kittygirl and I waited out in the van during the meeting, and the pastor came out with Squirrelboy afterward to summarize what they'd talked about. He also ordered a book for Squirrelboy which will be delivered directly to our house. Who does that?

I'm incredibly proud of Squirrelboy for standing up for his beliefs. It's further proof that, so far, I have managed to do a a pretty good job with Squirrelboy despite the evidence to the contrary I might have decided to take from last week's phone misuse affair. I'm particularly heartened by the fact that I've managed to raise a kid who is learning to own the faith he's being raised in for himself. Due to my own upbringing (which I may, or then again may not, write about another day), I have often felt like I'm stumbling through the dark when it comes to what it means to raise children in a Christian home. Last week's evidence is just the latest piece to suggest that I'm doing a good job after all. 

Trust me, it's not because I'm totally awesome and super spiritual. I give all the credit to God for this one.

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 Our Challenges Are NOT a Gift from God (And Not a Curse Either)

Sometimes it's interesting being a Christian in the diabetes community. Because diabetes can happen to anyone, there are, not surprisingly, parents from all walks of life that belong to diabetes parent Facebook groups. However, I always find myself paying particular attention to people who talk about the Christian faith in their posts and/or comments. Christians who post in these groups frequently fall into one of two camps. Camp 1 is what I like to call the Angry Doubter camp. These people are on the verge of losing their faith due to their child's diagnosis. They simply can't believe that a loving God would allow their child to get such a horrible disease and, therefore, God either doesn't exist or is a massive jerk who is not worthy of their worship. Camp 2 might be called the Divine Gift camp. They believe that there is a divine purpose behind their child's diagnosis, and that God gave diabetes to their particular child at this particular time to fulfill a particular purpose. Sometimes they even think they know what that purpose is. Which camp do I belong to? Neither, and in fact I find both equally troubling and weirdly similar in that they both begin with a flawed view of God and of God's purposes in the world. Let me tell you why.

The Angry Doubters seem to be completely unaware of the fact that, the moment before their child was diagnosed with diabetes, the world was full of suffering and evil. Somehow it didn't shake their faith the least little bit that there are girls being sold into sexual slavery, boys being trained as soldiers, storms destroying whole villages, or any of the other myriad tragedies and evils that happen in our fallen world every day. Yet the fact that their child was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune condition with which many people have lived happily and successfully for decades and for which new and better treatments are in near constant development is simply too much for their faith to overcome. Have they been taught that God protects believers and will never let anything bad happen to them? If so, they've been taught wrong. The lives of the apostles and the martyrs of the early church should be enough to make it clear that God does not protect His children from all harm. However, since American Christianity is all too often found in an ahistorical vacuum, they might be unaware of this example. I can have a rational discussion with someone who wants to argue against the goodness or the existence of God based on the evil in the world. However, if your reason for leaving your faith is that that evil touched your own family, it was likely never much of a faith at all.

People in the Divine Gift camp, I think, make the opposite mistake.This is where my Calvinist friends are going to take issue with me. I don't think God looked down at my daughter, or any other person, and thought, "I'll give this one type 1 diabetes. It will be an incredible gift and she'll accomplish great things because of it." I also don't think God looks down on particular parents to be and determines that they are the best possible people to "bless" with a child with special needs of any kind. If we attribute these things as direct actions of God, where do we stop? Did God also give diabetes to the child of the mother in the Angry Doubter camp who has now abandoned whatever faith she had since her child's diagnosis? Did God give diabetes to the young adult who couldn't afford his insulin after going off his parents' insurance and died a month later? Is God pulling the trigger of every gun that kills an unarmed young Black man (or anyone at all)? Is God behind the wheel of every car that causes a fatal accident? Following along this track can lead to a very dangerous view of God.

Now, before you start preparing the fire to burn me at the stake as a heretic, listen to what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that it's not okay to be angry with God because your child has an incurable disease or for any other reason. You do not want to know how often I have raged at God for this reason and others. I find it incredibly unjust at times that our family was given the challenges we were given while other families seem to waltz through life with no serious problems. However, in the end, God is big enough to listen to my angry tirades and continue to be with me. In the end, I believe that God weeps with us over own tragedies and the tragedies of the world (big or small) and is with us when we're ready to get back up and move forward in this messy world. Someday God will bring a new heaven and a new earth. Kittygirl will have a new, perfect body. She will be able to feast at the heavenly banquet table without counting a single carb. In the meantime, God will be with her, with me, and with anyone else who calls on Him. I'm also not saying that God doesn't, at times, use our challenges to bless us and to bring glory to Himself. Our family has met some amazing people because of diabetes. It has made us stronger and made us more observant, conscientious parents. However, when it comes down to it, we could have learned the lessons we've learned in different ways and at different times if not for diabetes. We have allowed God to work in our lives through these challenges, but that doesn't mean we believe He ordained this particular set of challenges for us. It just means He's strong enough to bring redemption through them.