Queen Kelley

It’s nearly that time again, and I can’t wait! For the past several years, the weather at the Georgia National Fair required shorts and tank tops. The sun beat down ruthlessly, and it was difficult to get into the spirit of fall with sweat trickling down your face. Kids quickly grew hot and tired, and parents chose to leave early rather than wait for the midway lights to shine in the night. This year, however, may be different! According to accuweather, the temperature may range from the low 70s to the low 80s—fairly perfect, I’d say. I’ve almost convinced the King that going to the fair will be a good idea this year. With Ladybug at 18 months, wide-eyed and curious, and Butterfly already a veteran of kiddie rides from our recent trip to Dollywood, they are at prime ages for a few enjoyable hours. We’ll pull them around in their wagon, pointing out the cows, horses, and pigs, letting them at least look at the rides, and buying them some cotton candy and funnel cake. We’ll enjoy looking at pumpkins, haystacks, and scarecrows, huge tractors, and various wares. We’ll let the girls climb all over the playground display and release their sugar energy. I’m sure it will be an evening to remember.

One of my top challenges as a parent, and as the main cook of our home, is to create meals that are healthy, tasty, and balanced. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is incredibly difficult for my family. Apparently, I’m not the only one who struggles. Alana sent me a link to a New York Times article titled “6 Food Mistakes Parents Make.”

I’ll admit to making a few, notably sending kids out of the kitchen (having them there while I cook is stressful); pressuring them to take a bite (I figure a one-bite rule isn’t too much to ask); and sometimes keeping good stuff out of reach (buying things like dark chocolate and candy corn mostly because I like it). I don’t diet, so that one didn’t apply, but even without the dieting I try to think before I make comments like, “I’m gaining a little weight” or “I don’t need to eat that.” I suppose I serve boring veggies occasionally, but I’m certainly not opposed to sprucing them up with cheese and butter. Finally, I don’t think I can be accused of giving up too soon, as Butterfly sees items like broccoli, sweet potatoes, and various peas on her plate frequently.

She is still holding out on me. How did you do?

Blech! It was time to get that nasty roach off the top of the page. And what better thing to replace it than candy corn? Specifically, this new, incredibly yummy caramel candy corn by Brach’s. While perusing the tempting candy shelves at Wal-Mart yesterday, Butterfly and I oohed and ahed over the various offerings. “Let’s choose one thing,” I kept telling her, while secretly pining away for five or so different bags. “Candy corn!” she shouted, and I agreed. It’s long been my favorite Halloween-season candy. The King prefers the pumpkins, which I’ll admit are tasty, but the candy corn can be eaten by the handful, which is a significant criterion for me.

Anyway, I skipped the regular bags at first, searching instead for what I thought was a smarter choice—a large bag full of individually wrapped packets of candy corn. This way, I reasoned, our consumption would be limited, at least as long as our will power held out and we didn’t open a second packet. I found the trick-or-treat bag of candy corn and dumped it into the cart beside a delighted Butterfly. Then something new caught my eye. Brach’s has released a couple of new candy corn flavors, including caramel, caramel apple, and chocolate. I found the caramel especially attractive. Going against my earlier logic, I added a bag of it to our cart.

Later, while heading back to the house, I listened to Butterfly lick her fingers as she finished her tiny packet of regular candy corn. (Ladybug asked to “hold it,” and I let her have a small piece, but she soon spit it out. She hasn’t yet displayed my weakness for manmade sweets, though she’s a glutton for fruit.) In the driver’s seat, I tossed a couple of caramel corns into my mouth and enjoyed the supremely sweet, creamy, buttery caramel taste. Both Butterfly and later the King thought they were too sugary for their liking. This is okay by me. I could easily consume the whole bag within a week…though I really will try to eat only the amount that would fit into a tiny plastic packet. Really, I will. And then I’ll eat another. And perhaps another.

The King and I can usually count on our nights being interrupted once or twice by Butterfly, who still needs help using the potty, especially when she’s half-asleep and likely to fall in without assistance. The other night was no different. I heard her first, so I carried her to the girls’ rubber duckie-themed bathroom, softly illumined by a night light. As she sat on the potty and I watched her for signs of toppling, I thought I glimpsed a dark blackness in motion at the base of the toilet. Gently, I moved Butterfly’s dangling leg aside, and to my disgust, spotted a cockroach creeping up the base toward the seat. It was a moment obscenities are made for. Inwardly, I shouted them over and over, while outwardly I kept quiet and calm. I slowly reached for a towel on the floor, lifted Butterfly’s leg, and shoved the towel over the detestable bug. It all landed by the tub in a heap. “What was it, Mommy?” Butterfly mumbled in a sleepy voice. “Just a little bug,” I assured her. Ha!!!

After tucking Butterfly in her cosy bed, I tip-toed back to the bathroom doorway, only to see the roach scurrying up the wall over the sink mirror. I closed the door and hurried downstairs for the bug spray. When I returned, the ghastly thing was making its way across the top of the door frame. Stupidly, I pressed the button on the spray can halfway, and out came a stream of poison that missed the roach by a mile. By this time, John had ventured into the hallway. “What is it?” he whispered. “A freaking roach!” I hissed back. “Push the button all the way down,” he instructed. Suddenly I realized I didn’t know where the roach went. Then I saw it, only to gasp in horror as it took flight right for my head. I can only imagine what my husband saw as I ducked to dodge the flying roach. It headed toward the shower and landed on top of the curtain rod. I ran into the hallway. “Did you see it?” I asked needlessly. The King’s smirk told me he had.

He grabbed the spray can and walked toward the bathroom, shook the can, then aimed it directly at the roach and pressed down hard. A powerful, wide spray hit it, and it fell and skittered around until it ended up on its back in front of the toilet, dying a trembling death.

Can I just say I can’t handle cockroaches? Give me a spider any day. I don’t mind ladybugs. I even kinda like bees. But cockroaches are repulsive.

It’s a good thing they actually benefit the ecosystem somewhere, somehow. Here’s some info I got off howstuffworks.com. But it still doesn’t change my opinion. I don’t want them in my house!

While Blatella germanica and a few others make nuisances of themselves, most species of cockroach generally mind their own business. Many cockroaches live in warm, tropical areas and feed on decaying wood and leaves. They help break down this organic debris; in the process, they add nutrients to the soil through their waste. They’re also a food source for small reptiles and mammals. In other words, in spite of their bad reputation, cockroaches are an important part of many ecosystems.

Whether they’re digesting wood pulp in a rainforest hiding under a refrigerator, cockroaches are fascinating. They’re primitive insects — they existed millions of years before dinosaurs did and have evolved very little since then. In spite of their unchanging nature, they’ve survived when other species have not. For example, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, but cockroaches have thrived for 320 million years.

[This response is directed toward Richard Warren, who commented on my post “A Different Perspective” with the words “Your [sic] a religious NUT! Childhood Cancer is virtual proof of the God Delusion. If God existed he/she would have to be a sadistic MONSTER!” I respect and appreciate Richard’s opinion and agree that I am quite the nut some days. I thought that publishing my response to him might result in a meaningful discussion among my readers. I simply request that you be respectful in what you say. I reserve the right to remove comments I consider inappropriate. Such is the privilege of being Queen Kelley!]

Richard, I don’t know how you found my blog, but thank you for reading and for sharing your—albeit blatant—opinion about my religious beliefs. I’ll say that if you really knew me and my personal thoughts and struggles with this being I’ve called God since childhood, you likely wouldn’t classify me as a “nut.” In my humble opinion, there are many others out there who are much “nuttier” about their beliefs. But that’s beside the point.

I think the bottom line with us folks of faith is this: most of us have doubts and questions and confusions and wonderings. It’s likely that many of us have walked the path of unbelief. I know I have, and the issue of childhood cancer/illness/poverty is probably the most difficult for me to couple with the existence of God. But here’s the other part of that bottom line: for some reason, one I can’t lay out to you in words, a part of me is drawn to and clings to and has undying hope in the presence of this Other. Jenny, my friend and a cancer mom (who also commented on the post “A Different Perspective”) would tell you this, as would hundreds of thousands of other people who believe in a power higher than themselves.

I’m a fairly rational thinker myself, and I like arguments toward proof of whether something is true or not. Even so, it is my opinion that you can argue about God with believers until you’re blue in the face, and many of your arguments will make complete sense, but there is nothing you can do or say to change the reality that we have experienced personally. I will never feel threatened by someone who thinks my beliefs are ridiculous and jaded and idiotic. The truth is, I argue more with myself about God than I do with anyone else. Graham Greene said, “The believer will fight another believer over a shade of difference: the doubter fights only with himself.” We Christians do argue way too much about intricacies of our faith that, honestly, we can’t possibly know. I’d rather see us settle on the great questions—God’s revelation through Jesus Christ and what that means for us—and get on with serving others in humility. That rarely happens, I know.

The last part of Greene’s statement has been uncomfortably true for me. I’m a believer, and yet I’ve been a doubter more often than I care to admit. And the fight, ultimately, is with myself. Even with all the inconsistencies, outrageous claims, and far-fetched statements connected with my faith, something deep within me keeps insisting that my God is real. Maybe that makes me a complete fool in your eyes, but it is something with which no one can argue and that no one can take away.

Richard, I don’t know what you cling to in your darkest times. I don’t know what gives you great joy or lasting peace. I don’t know what you think happens to us after our bodies die. But I can tell you’ve battled with this crazy notion of a higher power, and maybe you’ve arrived at your personal conclusion. I’m glad you felt free to share it on my blog. Maybe you’ll be back, maybe not. If you do return, perhaps you’ll read some of my other posts about the gifts my children and spouse are to me, about the books I enjoy or the films I’ve seen, and about other observations I make on life, even if they are totally insignificant in the grand scheme of things. You may find other fools like me mentioned in the posts or commenting after them. Again, I appreciate your response and respect your position.

Steven Curtis Chapman is gifted with the ability to step into someone else’s shoes and see life through that person’s perspective. Many of us can do this, but few of us do it often enough or express it with as much grace as Steven does. Of course, in the past several months, the shoes of difficulty have belonged to Steven and his family, as they’ve mourned the passing of their young daughter. But as I listen through this incredible musician’s latest album, This Moment, which was released in 2007, I find treasure after treasure.

Recently, on a rare car ride alone, I heard Steven sing “One Heartbeat at a Time.” Spoken to moms and female caregivers, its lyrics resonated deeply with me. This job, this everyday, 24-hours-a-day job, of rearing my precious princesses is trying, to say the least. I’m frequently exhausted, sleepless, harried, guilt-ridden, overworked, stressed, bothered, and worried. Thanks to an amazingly supportive husband, great friends, and loving parents and siblings, I’m able to walk through these days with a sense of their significance. And, most of the time, I’m able to couple the negative aspects with the positive—I’m frequently in awe, breathtakingly in love with my girls, fascinated by their outlook on the world, inspired, amused, proud, honored to be their mother, free-spirited, and ultimately at peace. (Queen Mother, if you’re reading this, I hope you were able to feel some of those positive aspects when we were small. I may not be changing the world right now as an adult, but at least I’m influencing my tiny corner of it!)

Steven’s words that night were another reminder of the importance of being a parent, even on the toughest of days. I pray that I will remember, through every fleeting moment, that I’m actually “changing the world…one little heartbeat at a time.” It sounds ridiculous, but when you think about it, it’s true. And it’s a high calling indeed.

One Heartbeat at a Time

Lyrics by Steven Curtis Chapman copyright 2007, Sparrow Song/Peach Hill Songs

You’re up all night with a screaming baby
You run all day at the speed of life
And every day you feel a little bit less
Like the beautiful woman you are

So you fall in bed when you run out of hours
And you wonder if anything worth doing got done
Well maybe you just don’t know
Or maybe you’ve forgotten

That you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

With every “I know you can do it”
And every tear that you kiss away
So many little things that seem to go unnoticed
They’re just like the drops of rain
Over time, they become a river

You’re beautiful, so beautiful
How you’re changing the world…

The girls and I spent the morning at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, where they enjoyed the “Polar Bear Den,” a story and craft time geared toward preschoolers. After hearing a guess-the-animal tale, we headed to the craft room. Our leader guided us through an ostrich-making process involving crayons, glue, styrofoam spheres, and feathers. Both girls liked the activity. Ladybug’s favorite part was making colorful scribbles; Butterfly preferred to decorate her finished product even more than the craft required.

Butterfly is that way with many art projects, going beyond expectations and adding delightful details like eyelashes, fingers, or, as with the ostrich today, a rainbow. Needless to say, I always show my pleasure with her creations and frequently display them around the house. Now I wonder if my praise is backfiring. As we carried their ostriches to the van before returning to the museum for more fun, Butterfly said, “Mine was the prettiest.” She proceeded to make other distasteful comments like, “Mine was the best,” etc. Fortunately, no one else was in earshot; otherwise, I would have been forced to bury my head in the sand (ha, ha!).

Immediately, I explained that she was never to say such things to other children. “It hurts their feelings,” I said. Then I emphasized that everyone does art in their own way—some may choose more colors, while others prefer less. Some like lots of designs, while others want theirs to be somewhat simple. It’s all beautiful in its own way. Later, as we rode home, I reminded her that, while her ostrich is lovely, the other children made pretty ostriches too. I even introduced the word “arrogant,” saying that when we talk about how our things are better than anyone else’s, we make people feel bad and not want to be friends with us. She assured me that she wouldn’t say those things to others.

It’s a tough line to walk between appreciating a child’s outstanding creativity (in my biased opinion, her ostrich was indeed one of the more unique pieces) and instilling in them a sense of humility and appreciation for the different choices of her peers. I want her to respect the abilities of other people, to see the beauty in all works of art (even those she doesn’t necessarily like), and to view her own work as yet another part of the brilliant tapestry we’re all creating. At the very least, I want her to keep her self-righteous thoughts to herself. How does one teach that?

Catie. Max. Jay. Rayley. Hanna. Hayley. Carter. Ben. Jacob. Shelby. Maddy. Ethan.

Each name belongs to a parent’s precious child who passed away from cancer or complications from cancer treatment. Each symbolizes a grief I cannot fathom, a heroic spirit I could only hope to attain, and a desperate reason why funding is needed for childhood cancer research.

I don’t talk about this often on my blog. But for years, I have been drawn to families whose children are fighting a battle against cancer. These families, like Catie’s, chronicle their journeys in blogs and photos, and reading entries is like being a part of their lives. Their stories have made me a better mom.

There are many ways to minister to these families—volunteering at places like the Ronald McDonald House, praying for hope and peace and healing, posting encouraging comments on their websites, contributing to various funds in honor or memory of a specific child, buying an elf this Christmas, and more.

One way to honor Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is to donate to the CureSearch “Virtual Walk for 12,500.” Please see their website, curesearch.org, for details.

If you need convincing that this is an important cause, think of the names above and know that they are only a fraction of the children lost to the various forms of the disease we call cancer. There are thousands more who endure each day treatments that destroy their little bodies in a desperate attempt to rid them of disease. And know this too: even one lost to cancer is too many.