Welcome to our Monday guest post series on Parenting and Imperfection.

Today’s post is brought to us by my friend, Melanie Springer Mock. I love Melanie for a lot of sensible reasons; she’s smart, she’s witty, she’s a fellow adoptive mom who gets it, and she’s willing to reveal her insecurities because she recognizes that telling the truth somehow sets us all free. But I find Melanie particularly endearing because, even though she’s an accomplished author who teaches university-level writing and enjoys quality literature, she’s doesn’t ever make me feel like a faker or a dummy, even though I’m often both. The older I get, the more I believe that’s one of the best endorsements of friendship out there.

Beth Woolsey

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They Do Grow Up Too Fast: Carpe Diem as Lament
by Melanie Springer Mock

This morning, I walked my son to school, his arms crossed, his bottom lipped shoved out just to let me know—if I hadn’t figured as much already—that he was mad. About important things, mind you: shortly before leaving for school, Samuel had discovered the car parked in the driveway, making it impossible for him to play soccer against the garage door. And minutes before that, his brother had taped a collage of baseball stickers on their shared bedroom door, an entirely egregious act because Samuel did not like baseball. Not right then, at least.

While his oblivious brother skipped ahead (this was not his day for crossed arms and pouty lips), I matched my younger son’s strides, trying to convince him anger would not win the day, and that the offenses against him were relatively minor. Looking over at his arms, tight across his chest, I recalled the many pictures of me in the fifth grade, assuming the same posture, letting Kodak and the world beyond know I was pissed: at my mom, my siblings, bad karma, who knows what.

Obviously, being an eleven-year-old on the cusp of middle school and Big Feelings and adolescence is hard work. Being the parent of an eleven-year-old (two, actually) might be harder work still. Not because of the inexplicable anger, the petty sibling fights over insane minutia, the ad nauseum poop jokes, but because parents of fifth graders recognize the ephemeral nature of elementary school, the swift passing of music programs and book fairs and reading logs, all vanishing into thin air. Or middle school, which is essentially the same thing.

Over the last few months, I’ve read several confessional pieces from parents of young children, exasperated by well-meaning strangers who offer up advice about how time quickly passes. To tell new parents that time passes quickly is apparently thoughtless and insensitive, akin to putting baseball sticker collages on bedroom doors or parking in one’s own driveway.

Two blog posts in particular went viral, both essentially about well-meaning strangers and their ill-timed comments regarding time. Links to the posts littered my social networking feeds, passed from one parent to parent because the writers’ sentiments were widely embraced. Steve Wiens, blogging at The Actual Pastor, expressed barely sublimated rage against those “time passes quickly” commenters, saying he would like to “secretly want to hold those people under water. Just for a minute or so. Just until they panic a little.” And Momastery’s Glennon Melton, writing on the Huffington Post, wanted to tell those conveying “enjoy the moment” sentiments to shove it, in the nicest way possible.

While I can empathize with that the frustration, and know they are writing from a place of hyperbolic humor, I want to offer them—and those weary young parents to whom they are writing—a different perspective. Now almost a decade removed from toddler-raising tedium, I now see these “they grow up so quickly!” comments not as advice, but as lament. The interlocutor isn’t necessarily chastising the frazzled mom, imploring her to stop growling at her kids and to celebrate the moment. Instead, she’s mourning what has passed in her own life, and is passing still.

After all, most parents remember well the stultifying boredom of raising toddlers: Those long mornings, stretched to infinity, with only a trip to the grocery store a welcomed distraction. The weariness of strapping kids into car seats, taking them out, strapping them in. The despair of a 30-minute television program’s ending, signaling the conclusion of your own rest as well.

I don’t know that I want to experience that season again (God save me from ever having to watch one more Dragon Tales episode), though its swift passing is a reminder to me that this next season—and the season after that, too—will also go quickly. Soon, my boys will graduate from high school and be set off into the world without me—and hopefully, without too many tattoos or piercings.

Telling a young parent “it all goes so quickly” is my own song of mourning, a requiem to those sweet nights, rocking my sons to sleep; and holding them on a hip, their arms around my neck; and teaching them to ride bikes, their small legs pumping in fear; and helping them learn simple fractions, knowing their math homework will soon be too hard for me.

Another movement of this requiem is now being written, because in less than a week, I will be done walking them through the city park to Dundee Elementary, their arms crossed fiercely—or, on occasions, their steps light, the poop jokes flowing freely. With summer break, my sons’ time at our neighborhood school will be finished. Next year, they will attend a middle school in a nearby town, riding a bus that arrives way too early and carries them too far away.

Enjoy this season, a friend told me recently, her youngest son having graduated high school. It all goes so fast. I knew exactly what she meant. Her comment was not an indictment of me, my harried parenting, or my inability to enjoy the quiddity of the inane, when one son hits another over nothing much. It was lament that this part of her life—the part of mothering in the moment—was now over.

So I’m steeling myself for whatever comes next, because I know from my own childhood experience that middle school can be hell on parents. But I’m reminding myself, too, that it all does go fast, and that even the most ridiculous times—a fifth grader’s pout over a car in the driveway, for example—will someday be part of my lament, a song to a season’s quick passing and to children, growing into adults before our very eyes.

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Melanie Springer Mock is a Professor of English at George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon. She is mother to two ten-year-old boys, stepmom to two adults, and grandma to one (though she is really too young for such a role). Her most recent book is Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World, published in 2011. She blogs about images of women embedded in evangelical popular culture at Ain’t I a Woman? and blogs for Christian Feminism Today at FemFaith.

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You can see all of the Parenting and Imperfection posts here.

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P.S. We don’t really have an ongoing series on housekeeping.

P.P.S. Because housekeeping’s not my area of expertise.

P.P.P.S. Also, this isn’t a real post.

P.P.P.P.S. I don’t think the postscripts are supposed to go at the beginning. You might want to take this as an indicator that we don’t always do things the right way.

Nevertheless, we mopped this morning.

Mopped! Us!

Here’s how we did it, step by step.

How to Mop:

Spill Stuff
Add Water
Add Kids
Add Towels
SKATE

Ta da!

I just solved a problem you probably don’t even have! I give and I give. You’re welcome.

Love,
B

If you need more helpful housekeeping tips, check out:

How to Organize a Linen Closet
The Five Kids Guide to Home Organization
The Ultimate Laundry Solution

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What’s your favorite housekeeping tip? 

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“Finish up your chores and we’ll go get ice cream this afternoon,” I say.

“But do you promise you’ll take us to ice cream later?”

“No, I don’t promise. I intend to take you to ice cream. You almost certainly will get ice cream. But I definitely do not promise.”

“But WHY?”

“Because. If the zombie apocalypse arrives before we’re able to go to ice cream, I don’t want to have to bash in zombie heads to choruses of but you said you’d take us to ice cream. You PROMISED. That is distracting and unsafe, and, frankly, I don’t want to fight the zombies and you at the same time.”

So I don’t promise. It feels like the better part of wisdom.

But I do swear. Which is not the better part of wisdom but is sometimes soothing in a way using nice words isn’t. Words are typically used to express things, and some words express things better than others.

I do try to use appropriate words around my kids, though. And also around the elderly. And also at church. And also at school. And also around very, very nice people who don’t like to hear cussing. I call this Situational Awareness, and I try to teach it to my children.

But I have a mildly bad habit when it comes to playing games. Board games. Wii games. Card games. Competitive games of any sort. “CRAP!” I yell when things aren’t going my way. “CrapCrapCrapCrapCRAP!” Which certainly isn’t awful and isn’t necessarily swearing depending on your culture and whether or not you were raised by a Marine, but it’s not exactly nice, either, and when your 6-year-old sons start to mimic you by hollering “CRAP!” and its close cousin “CRAPPITY CRAP!” at the top of their lungs every single time they get a bad draw in UNO, you might, like me, start to wonder if you need to do a tiny bit of remedial training lest they arrive at Grandma’s house or at school and give away your less-than-stellar example.

So we played UNO this morning, and we brainstormed crappy alternatives. I suggested we might learn to say things like:

OH, MAN
or
OH, NO

But they thought it would be better if we chose:

FART
or
BURP
or
BUTT
or
STINKY POOP

And when I rejected those, they decided on:

PENIS
or
VAGINA
or, when things are particularly bad, the ever popular
PENIS VAGINA

So that’s settled. I cannot WAIT for the next time we get to play UNO at Grandma’s house or, you know, for 1st Grade Field Day when they lose the 100 meter dash. That is going to be AWESOME.

And now it’s times for the And Thens.

And then, in a fit of optimism, I congratulated myself in front of my eldest daughter and my husband for not teaching the littles to say anything worse than crap.

And then my eldest daughter and my husband laughed at me.

And then I asked them why they were laughing.

And then they said I probably have taught the littles something worse than crap and I might be deluding myself a teeny, tiny bit.

And then I said, “No, I haven’t. I’ve been very careful.”

And then they said, “Prove it.”

And then I said to a 6-year-old, “What is the very worst word mama’s ever said?”

And then he put his pointer finger up in the air in the universal I-know-this-one gesture and said, “Ummmmm… shit.”

And then my eldest daughter and my husband - bless their hearts - Could. Not. Stop. Laughing.

PENIS VAGINA.

But then my 6-year-old said, “It’s OK, Mom. I know to never, ever say a word that bad.”

In conclusion, I have taught my son Situational Awareness! Sort of. But, frankly, I’ll take “sort of” over “not at all” any day of the week.

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Share ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. What have your kids said (taught by you or otherwise) that makes you afraid to take your family out in public?

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On Sunday morning, I sent a second kid to her room for lying about personal hygiene. Did I care that she hadn’t showered? No, I did not; I was just wondering. Did I care about the lying? Well, of course. You know, theoretically. Or only because Caring About Lying is in the Mama Manual, but whatever. But you know what really got my goat? What really sent me over the edge? THIS —> When I asked whether she lied, she responded with a proud, gleeful, “YEP!” <—THAT. In other words, she’s totally me as a kid, which we all know is GAH. Terrifying! Does anyone know which stage of childhood it is when kids finally internalize the fact that faking is important? ‘Cause sometimes you gotta sell a “sorry” even though you’re not really sorry at all. And sometimes you gotta sell a “sad about lying” face even when lying secretly makes you feel powerful and giggly. LIFE LESSON, KIDS. LEARN IT.

On Sunday morning, I took a third kid to the doctor. Did I mention it was a Sunday? So I took the kid to the expensive, immediate care kind of doctor because her mouth hurt and was visibly swollen so I knew she probably had mouth cancer or an infection threatening to enter her blood stream or an extremely well-hidden penchant for chewing tobacco that we needed to discover STAT so we could get her into a top-notch juvenile chewing tobacco rehab center. Yeah, I’m not always rational when my kid is in pain.

On Sunday morning, while I took a kid to urgent care for a canker sore, Greg taught our preschool Sunday School class without me. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t help him, and my face looked very sad.

The End

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P.S. Yes, I know it’s Wednesday and I just wrote about Sunday. I started this post on Sunday. I meant to finish it on Sunday. I feel like this is an accurate demonstration of my ability to finish things on time.

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P.P.S. Sunday was actually fine. Weird. But fine. Our family rescued us, as usual. My cousin, our pastor, covered our other church responsibilities. My cousin, the middle school teacher, took charge of the large boy child and jostled him out of his funk. My parents showed up with a chainshaw and a bucket to tame my yard.

And my son wore plaid Bermuda shorts, a Superman t-shirt and fashion forward transportation rain boots to dinner.

What’s not to love?

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P.P.P.S.

Dear James Harbeck,
You’re rad.

Phonetic Descriptions of Sounds Teenagers Make
by James Harbeck

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Chime in! How was your weekend? (‘Cause that’s a fun question to ask on a Wednesday.) Or, if you’re already so over the weekend… what’s happening right now at your house? 

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Welcome to our Monday guest post series on Parenting and Imperfection.

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to my friend and penpal, Fiona Merrick, the smart and witty writer behind the delightful blog, Writing in the Sky. Like me, Fiona utterly fails at niche writing, dabbling in a little bit of everything, which always keeps me entertained and coming back for more. Also, I admit to a certain, extreme level of glee every time Fiona documents her sons’ mishaps with talcum powder or icing sugar; I just feel so understood when I see her home riddled with mess, though, you know?

I hope you enjoy Fiona as much as I do.

Beth Woolsey

P.S. Because Fiona is from the U.K., I read absolutely everything she writes in a Mary Poppins voice. I’m certain I’m being culturally sensitive and entirely accurate when I do so. You might at least try to be more mature than me.

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Cat Sick and the Power of Vulnerability
by Fiona Merrick

I’d like, if I may, to begin this post by initiating a game with which I know many of you are already very familiar: Good News / Bad News. Beth taught me how to play it, and it’s one of my very favourites. Ready?

Good News: this morning, I flipped our mattress for the first time in years.

Bad News: I was forced to flip the mattress because the cat vomited lavishly all over the bottom sheet of the unmade bed before the day had properly drawn breath, and furthermore was also forced to wash all the bed linen, which was only laundered last week. Those sheets had plenty of mileage left in them yet, I don’t mind telling you.

Good News: today was sunny and warm here in north-east England, so – miracle of miracles – even the super-king-size duvet cover had time to dry outside on the washing line.

Bad News: both my boys have summer colds, and I caught one of them walking right into the newly-spotless and recently-dried duvet cover this afternoon as it blew gently in the breeze, wiping his streaming nose all over it in the process.

Good News: nowadays, my standards are very low indeed and I’m going to sink into that bed tonight irrespective of vomit, snot or indeed any other unpleasant substance that comes my way between now and then.

I know you understand, you mamas of one or two or five or ten kids; I know you relate and empathise and get it, because that’s why most of us are here, isn’t it? We read to know we’re not alone, said CS Lewis, and that’s sure as heck one of the many reasons I show up here at Five Kids Is A Lot Of Kids every time Beth blesses us with a new post, because the honesty and the sharing and the warm sense of community we all find here reminds us that we’re not alone. And we need that, don’t we? We need to know that we’re not the only one. I know I need that reassurance, sometimes desperately and urgently.

So I share my cat-sick story – and I have a hundred similar tales to tell – in case something similar has happened in your household this week, so you know that someone’s standing alongside you in all the mess and unpredictability, telling you you’re not alone. You’re not the only one who’s struggling with this parenting lark. You’re not the only one who didn’t have time to deal with an unscheduled cat-sick incident today. You’re not the only one whose house usually looks as if you’ve been recently burgled. You’re not alone. Solidarity’s where it’s at, and I try to embrace this beautiful truth a little more every day, amidst the hilarious uncontrollability of life with children.

I have an initimate friend – the Diana Barry to my Anne Shirley – who reminds me of this often, just by showing up weekly and empathising with me every time. Fiona and I met in our first week of college; named the same and studying Music together, it was inevitable that our paths would cross, but I prefer to call it providential. Almost two decades later, we’re both still living in our university city and bringing up sons, and she visits my house every Friday for coffee and conversation. I could rhapsodise at length about any one of her amazing qualities as a person – and there are dozens from which to choose – but it’s the honesty that I particularly cherish, the honesty which she encourages and offers, and which allows me to say here I am, with a thousand imperfections – let’s be friends who tell each other the truth, shall we?

I know I can open the door to her wearing ripped jeans and no make-up, hair wild and house wilder, and she’ll hug me warmly and step over the scattered toys on her way to my grubby kitchen which never seems to get any cleaner, try though I honestly do. There, we’ll eat and talk and laugh and share and tell truths about the messy corners of our respective lives. And here’s the thing: Fi doesn’t judge me for the things I can’t manage; instead, she tells me about the things with which she struggles as a mother. She never comments on the Lego bricks dotted underfoot or the piles of laundry dropped randomly throughout my comically and chronically untidy home; instead, she tells me about her daily battle with toys and dirty clothes. There’s no need to maintain an artificial façade of domestic competence in front of her, because I know I have her total understanding, which in return means she has both my trust and my honesty.

In eighteen years of friendship, we’ve built something within which we can give and receive each other’s confessions like a gift: a now-unspoken sense of you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine, which is all the more precious now we’re walking the mothering road together. Her willingness to make herself vulnerable in my company gives me the strength to be vulnerable myself: vulnerable in my imperfection as both a parent and a person.

And it’s powerful, isn’t it, this thing called vulnerability? It’s freeing. Liberating. Another person’s willingness to open themselves up invites us to do the same, reciprocating in kind, completing the circle and perpetuating the wonderful truth that imperfection is, after all, the reality here. It’s what enables us to draw one another into a community, one by one, calling out there is room for you here, and you’re warmly welcomed as we do so.

And I think that’s what we all need and crave, secretly or openly: the opportunity to feel included somewhere, weaknesses and all, with encrusted clothing and unbrushed hair, barely erect with weariness and carrying a unique set of burdens, yet still accepted by others. The load is much, much lighter when it’s shared by two or by many, which is just one of the many reasons why I love and value my friend Fiona so very deeply, and why I keep showing up at Beth’s place every time she offers us, her readers and friends, another fragment of her mama-heart. Those freely-given glimpses of another’s life, mess and all, help me to stumble through the imperfections of my own, and even to find the humour in something as outrageously disgusting as a bedful of cat sick.

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Fiona Merrick is the writer behind Writing in the Sky as well as a stay-at-home mother and former high-school teacher. She lives in the north-east of England with her husband Ben, sons Joshua and Daniel and cat Mandu.

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You can see all of the Parenting and Imperfection posts here.

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For example, the other night my 6-year-old expressed some dissatisfaction with the way our house and schedule are organized. And then he offered a reasonable solution – woohoo! – which I captured via video interview so we can all see how this works.

(The sound quality on this sucks. Sorry. A written transcript is below.) 

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Transcript

Me: Hi, Cael.

Cael waves.

Me: Can you tell me what you told me last night?

Cael thinks hard.

Me: About Grandma’s house?

Cael: That it is, um… That they’re more organized and they get us up at 7:00 and then we come downstairs and watch TV, eat breakfast, go back upstairs, get dressed and brush our teeth and get ready for school and go to school.

Me: Yeah. So did you say you prefer it at Grandma’s House?

Cael: Mm hm.

Me: And what’s it like here [at our house]?

Cael: It’s like dirty and … you let us, like, do whatever we want.

Me: We let you do whatever you want? And it’s dirty here?

Cael: Mm hm.

Me: So it’s totally disorganized?

Cael: Mm hm.

Me: And how do you feel about that?

Cael: Like I want to live at their house.

Me: Like you want to live at Grandma’s house? That’s what you asked last night, right?

Cael: Mm hm.

Me: Yeah. Is there anything else you want to say?

Cael: No.

Me: You’re good?

Cael: Mm hm.

Me: OK. Thank you for having this interview with me.

End Transcript

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So here’s the thing.

You’ll note Cael’s conclusion is not to make our house less dirty or more organized; he understands intuitively that’s not possible. Therefore, the only reasonable course of action is to move to Grandpa and Grandma’s house.

There was a time in my mama life when this kind of bold honesty would’ve offended me. I mean, who wants to be told that her mom-in-law does a better housekeeping / child-rearing  job than she does? No one with a shred of dignity is who. My dignity’s long gone, though, so Cael’s idea just sounds practical.

I totally agree, Cael. 

Also, good problem solving, man.

So that’s why Cael and I are moving to Grandma and Grandpa’s house tonight. The rest of this riffraff can fend for themselves.

The End

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In fact, I had to laugh when, as I was drafting this post, one of my favorite bloggers posted her Heavy Summer Reading List. So, you know, if you were hoping to read a voluminous Bible commentary or brush up on the heritage of world civilization whilst lounging about the pool this summer, please head on over to Rachel Held Evans’ blog; frankly, if you look further here it will just embarrass us both.

I joined a book club over a year ago. It’s full of smart, well-read women. Like, three university English professors and a Stanford grad and a CPA and a woman who’s about to take her family on a yearlong sailing trip. These are people who know what to do with a semi-colon and who care about the proper use of who and whom. They’re people who don’t start sentences with “like.” People who didn’t feel even a little bit stabby while reading To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men in high school advanced placement English class. People who didn’t, hypothetically speaking, read aloud the word rendezvous in said English class and pronounce it renDEZvuhs while the whole class giggled under their collective breath.

This book club has significantly raised my reading level, is what I’m saying. In a good way. But they haven’t stopped me from using fragmented sentences like a pro or from reading books that have no educational or spiritual value, so there’s only so much good they can do. At the end of the day, after I’ve read The Geurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, I get lost in fantasy fiction. It’s my go-to genre for total escapist entertainment.

Just in case you’re looking for some fun, noneducational summer reading material – great stories by talented storytellers – I’ve put together this list, my Top 5 Summer Fantasy Series.

All of these books:

1. are well-written. There’s nothing worse than reading a series and wanting to take a red pen to it.
2. have unique, detailed, well-crafted worlds that capture the imagination.
3. are plot- and character-driven stories that make me want to read far, far later in the night than is reasonable for a mama of five.
4. champion strong women and strong men working together. I cannot stand – cannot stand – books that make men the heroes at the expense of women or vice versa.

5 Summer Fantasy Series:

1. The Edge by Ilona Andrews

Ilona Andrews is the pen name of a husband / wife writing team. I have to admit, I’m at the stage in my Ilona Andrews love affair where I’ll buy anything they write. Anything. They’ve won me over with their totally weird mix of urban fantasy, action, humor and romance. A weird mix that works. Ilona Andrews is the writer I recommend to my friends.

On the Edge is the first book in Andrews’ 4-book Edge series which is now complete. Book Description: The Broken is a place where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is nothing more than a fairy tale. The Weird is a realm where blueblood aristocrats rule and the strength of your magic can change your destiny. Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, the place between both worlds. A perilous existence indeed, made even more so by a flood of magic-hungry creatures bent on absolute destruction.

2. Mercedes Thompson by Patricia Briggs

I was a little bit slower to pick up this series. The books are good right from the get-go, but the real strength in the series is the way Patricia Briggs continues to build her characters and their world from book to book. You know how some series break down over time? This is not that series.

Moon Called is the first book in the Mercedes Thompson series. Book Description: Mercedes Thompson runs a garage in the Tri-Cities. She’s a mechanic, and a damn good one, who spends her spare time karate training and tinkering with a VW bus that happens to belong to a vampire. Her next-door neighbour is an alpha werewolf – literally, the leader of the pack. And Mercy herself is a shapeshifter, sister to coyotes. As such, she’s tolerated by the wolves but definitely down the pecking order. As long as she keeps her eyes down and remembers her place, the pack will leave her in peace. (But of course we all know she won’t.)

3. Graceling Realm by Kristin Cashore

Graceling is the first book in the Graceling Realm series. I loved every minute of this book and couldn’t wait to recommend it to my young adult friends who share my love of reading.

Book Description: Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa’s Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power. (from a review by Heidi Broadhead)

4. Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews

I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ll buy anything Ilona Andrews writes. Truth be told, I like the Kate Daniels series even better than their On The Edge series even though (especially because?) it’s edgier than The Edge.

Magic Bites is the first book in Ilona Andrews’ ongoing Kate Daniels series. Vampires aren’t sparkly – or even sentient – in Kate’s alternate Atlanta. Magic fluctuations are reeking havoc on technology, coming in unpredictable waves as the pendulum swings humanity (and others) back to the Middle Ages. Book Description: Kate Daniels a is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up magical problems. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t want it any other way.

5. Penryn & the End of Days by Susan Ee

Angelfall, Book 1 of Penryn & the End of Days is by far the most irritating book on this list. Not because the book is irritating – it’s quite engaging – but because it completely sucked me into its fast-paced world and only one book of the series has been published so far. I just hate coming into a good series on the first book, you know? Because then I have to wait. Argh. But I will definitely buy the second book when it’s released this fall.

Book Description: It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

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Note: Series 1, 2 and 4 above are books written with the adult audience in mind. There is mild sexual content in each of the three. Series 3 and 5 are written for young adults, but there is subtle, mature content in these, as well.

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What are you reading this summer? 
and/or
What are your all-time favorite series?
What books do you recommend to friends?

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School is almost out. Oh, yes it is. And like the indomitable Jen Hatmaker pointed out, thank God ’cause the best of us are crawling on our bloody hands and knees to the finish line and the rest of us just flat-out collapsed on the course weeks ago. I, for example, am sitting in the medic tent with an IV drip and I don’t even care that I’m not going to get my finisher t-shirt this time. They said when I’m done rehydrating I can have a cookie; that’s good enough for me.

So. Let’s talk about the summer, shall we? It’s right around the corner. Which means it’s time to start lying to ourselves and lying hard, parents.

And these are the lies I will tell myself:

1. The summer is easier than the school year. 
2. I need a break, and I will get one.
3. This is the time to kick back and RELAX.

Listen; I know honesty is important. But I like to save honesty for when I really need it. Like when I’m having a mental breakdown after a long summer of lying to myself. The end of August is a good time for honesty where honesty = a beer, a bag of Pop Chips and a novel that will rot my brain. But this is not that time. No; there is a season for everything under the sun, and this is the season for lying.

Lying, after all, has been very, very good to me.

When I found out our 4th kid was going to come with a twin brother, for example, and I wasn’t sure I could handle 5 kids, I lied to myself. You can do it, Beth, I said. You’re going to be GREAT at this, I said. No sweat, I said. Sleep is overrated, I said. I lied and lied and lied because lying was better than packing my bags and moving to Mexico. And you know where lying got me? Through parenting five kids is where. I rest my case.

At the end of August, I will lie to myself again. And these are the lies I will tell myself:

1. The school year is easier than the summer.
2. We need a routine and the homework is worth it.
3. The fall is here; it’s time to RELAX after a surprisingly busy summer.

The End

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P.S. There are other lies I plan to tell myself very soon. My daughter gets her driver’s permit this summer, so this one tops the list: Teaching a kid to drive? Piece of cake.

What essential lies are you telling yourself? Any you’d recommend to other parents in need of a few good stories?

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“Pinocchio” image credit to africa via freedigitalimages.net

I stood on the front porch, frozen for a moment with sudden longing, watching them walk away.

Because Quiet? I remember Quiet.

And I think I understand now why he left. I understand why he thought Chaos was my favorite. I understand that I showered Chaos with attention and that Quiet was hurt by my neglect.

I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t  notice the day Quiet packed his bags and left. I have plenty of excuses but I’m not sure they matter anymore.

I mean, sure, Chaos is gregarious and engaging, entertaining and enthusiastic, and he’s not inclined to judge my little people for so thoroughly rejecting modesty; Chaos is funny and he’s always doing something crazy that’ll make a good story later. Whereas Quiet? Not so much.

But it pains me now to think I never told Quiet while I had the chance that I value him just as much. His strength and silence. His poise. His calm. The unlikelihood he’d ever remove his soiled Superman underwear and twirl it above his head like a lasso before flinging it at my face and running away in delirious, naked joy.

So I stood on the porch on Saturday, and I wondered if it’s too late for Quiet and me. Have I done too much damage? Have I hurt our relationship irreparably?

Chaos came outside to stand beside me, wiggling his grimy hand into mine, and he winked at me and nodded. He knew what I was thinking, and he wanted me to know it’s OK; he’s not threatened by my love of Quiet. Chaos is sure of my devotion no matter how much I long for the wandering one. So I took a wild chance, and I called out to my parents to deliver a message.

I told my parents to tell Quiet hello.

I told them to tell Quiet that I miss him.

I told them to tell Quiet that I still love him, that I’ve never forgotten him, that I think about him all the time.

I told them to tell Quiet that there’s room for him and Chaos both. That I love them equally. That I’m sorry I didn’t show it. That I’d like to try again.

I asked them to let Quiet know he’s welcome anytime, and that I understand he’ll need some time to think about it. Maybe years and years.

It’s OK; I can wait for you, Quiet.

As long as it takes.

xoxo

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Does Quiet still live with you? If not, and if it’s not too personal, why not?
Have you ever welcomed Quiet back home? How did Chaos feel about that?
Have you found ways to live in harmony together? Without appearances of favoritism?
I just, you know, want to know it’s really possible.

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“Volume Knob” image credit to Salvatore Vuono via freedigitalimages.net

Welcome to our Monday guest post series on Parenting and Imperfection.

Today, I’m very pleased to introduce you to Jacoba Alderink, the writer behind A Yankee Mom in Texas. I love Jacoba because, in short, she cracks me up. She tags her posts things like “Questionable Parenting,” “Spawn of Satan” and “Unseemly Confessions.” And she writes about gonorrhea. So, you know; what’s not to love?

I hope you enjoy Jacoba’s light-hearted look at Parenting and Imperfection.

Beth Woolsey

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Passport Mug Shot
by Jacoba Alderink

I like my t-shirts like I like my kids: not clingy. I like to eat a normal-sized meal and walk around with the ability to exhale without making everyone’s eyes spontaneously bleed.

My husband’s idea of a nice shirt for me is, in essence, toddler- sized. Rob likes to buy shirts for me that look like they’ve been shrink-wrapped right onto my post-baby, gravity-afflicted, post-breastfeeding form. (I know. We’re all sorry for that visual.) So while I’m returning his XS gift and swapping it out for a comfy M, I’m warning him to stay away from purchasing anything for the kids.

Kids? Well, kids come with this highly complicated sizing system. They usually wear a size that corresponds to their age.

Rob: What??

Me: I know. Simple as that.

Rob, his mind blown: Why haven’t you ever told me this??

Me: I did, the last time you ordered Minnesota Vikings shirts for the kids – when was that? Last week?

So of course, when Rob went on a business trip to Vegas, due to complex sizing system confusion, he came back with a 5T shirt for my 2-year-old son. On top of everything, the t-shirt was one of those neon orange Las Vegas County Jail numbers, which my husband thought would be a knee-slapper on a little innocent-looking peanut of a boy. I, on the other hand, wasn’t thoroughly convinced of the hilarity.

Rob: C’mon! It’s funny!

Me: Kind of… It’s a jail shirt. And it’s huge. Did you get him some saggy pants, too?

Rob: It’s classic. Plus, I couldn’t remember what size he was.

Me, flabbergasted: ………

So I tucked that shirt into the back of my son’s drawer, occasionally brushing off Rob’s inquiries as to its whereabouts. And then one morning my son came down with it in hand, asking to wear it. I hesitated for a moment, thinking, It’s Monday – no preschool, no Bible study, no public errands to run…maybe we can get through this unscathed.

And then I went to a doctor’s appointment and left the kids with Rob.

And Rob took the kids to get their passport photos taken.

Seriously.

This post originally appeared at A Yankee Mom in Texas.

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Jacoba Alderink, a born-and-bred Midwesterner with degrees in English and art secondary education, resides in Texas with her quirky husband and two underwear-clad kids. A stay-at-home mom and part-time homeschool teacher, she blogs at A Yankee Mom in Texas, littering her unseemly confessions and absurd musings with sub-par illustrations and pointless observations. When she’s not writing, she’s either failing miserably as a parent or cleaning up the cat vomit piles drying randomly around her house.

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You can see all of the Parenting and Imperfection posts here.

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