Queen Kelley

Last night before climbing into bed to escape into a fabulous fantasy book, I looked at my alarm clock. I haven’t actually used it as an alarm clock in nearly four and a half years—almost to the day of Butterfly’s birth. Curious, I pressed the “alarm” button to see what time it displayed: 6:41. I’m not sure why I chose that rather random time to wake up for work, but just seeing those numbers reminded me of the terribly unpleasant jolt the clock gave when it yanked me from sleep. I don’t miss it at all.

Of course, I still wake up around 6:40 or so every morning, but now it’s to the chattering voice of Butterfly, our “morning glory,” who comes tiptoeing into our room until she stands right beside my face. Then she proceeds to say, “Mama,” and immediately begins a drawn-out explanation of the outfit she’s chosen or the stuffed-animal “scene” she’s created in her room or her plans for the morning. I can’t say it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, because most mornings I groan and fight the temptation to pull the pillow over my head and turn away from her. Even so, Butterfly’s voice beats the alarm clock any day.

No, I don’t miss that blaring alarm. I don’t miss having to hop out of bed and rush into getting ready for a day at the office. I don’t miss carefully choosing my ensemble and putting on makeup and fixing my hair just so. I don’t miss leaving my home for eight hours only to sit in one spot all day long and stare at a computer screen. I don’t miss the pressure I felt to fit everything else into a few hours after work—exercise, errands, dinner, leisure time, bills, attention to my dear husband. I don’t miss any of it. And I simply can’t fathom doing it with two small children in my life.

I like working independently, sitting comfortably on my sofa with my MacBook open in front of me, listening to my older daughter ask question after question about her “rest time” movie, getting up whenever I wish, and arranging my own schedule.

I get tired. I miss adult interaction. My girls frustrate me with their newly developed skills of arguing with each other. (See “Two Approaches to Conflict.”) My “me” time is extremely limited, since my days consist mainly of caring for the girls, editing intensely a couple of hours each day, cleaning house, doing laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, forgetting to get gas for the van, attending storytime or playdates, hauling the kids to preschool, paying bills, caring for pets, and loving on my man (yes, unfortunately my dear King often comes last in a long list). This is why I treasure those 20-minute sips of novel each night before I drift off to sleep. These days are not easy, and I am often exhausted and weary. I sometimes lose myself.

But this morning, as I watched Ladybug attempt to turn somersaults on the floor of my room while I folded laundry (she finally did it and then couldn’t stop doing it), and as I struggled for the hundredth time to portray a good enough “Rolfe” to suit Butterfly’s “Liesl” (she’s developed an affinity for The Sound of Music), I begged myself to soak it in.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity for the me that I sometimes miss, I want to soak in my little girls while they are little. While the days are ours to explore and discover, while our schedules are not yet packed with extracurricular activities and homework, while they still delight in my company, I want to soak it in.

There will come a time, not too far down this road, when I’ll have to start waking them up in the mornings, rushing them around to have breakfast and get dressed and out the door for school, carting them to different commitments, pressuring them to get their work done, struggling to fit in a family dinner, and steering them toward a healthy bedtime so we can do it all over again the next day.

Sure, I’ll be alone while they’re at school. If I have it my way, I won’t ever go back to an outside office. I might finally find the time and the muse to write that dream novel. But I’m sure, on occasion, I’ll miss those little giggles and voices. I’ll miss my tiny companions.

I won’t dwell too much on what’s to come or mourn too much when these days have passed. Instead, I’ll just soak it in. Right here. Right now.

1. See that your sister has something you desire or is doing something that irritates you. Either snatch the item angrily, or loudly shout “no!” When these tactics (inevitably) don’t work, use physical force. Punch, pinch, pull hair, scratch repeatedly for maximum effect. Refuse to stop until someone intervenes. Afterward, scream at the top of your lungs and punch, pinch, pull, and scratch the source of intervention. Continually attempt to escape your time-out spot with no pretenses of secrecy. Act indignant when your parent returns you to the spot. Finally resolve to drop crocodile tears and pout cutely, and say in your sweetest voice, “I ready to talk now.” Nod appropriately when asked if you will henceforth conform to expectations and not attack your sister. Inwardly commit to trying the same method at the next opportunity.

2. See that your sister has something you desire or is doing something that irritates you. Sweetly attempt to negotiate for said item by offering something less desirable in return, speaking in an attractive voice so as to distract your sister from the differing values of the items. Or, in the other case, begin to whine and plead with your sister to stop. Calling for Mama is sometimes helpful. When these tactics don’t work, either grab the item while forcing the one of lesser quality into your sister’s hand, or yell at the top of your lungs. In both cases, bursting into an impressive show of tears complete with a wailing voice and repeated pleas for the rightness of your case are essential. Continue the weeping as you sit in your time-out spot and struggle to prove the innocence of your actions. Finally, agree, wet-faced, to comply with expectations in the future. Inwardly assure yourself that your parent will one day realize that you never do anything wrong and will choose to side with you at all times.

Question: Can you figure out which of my daughters goes for which approach? They handle conflict very differently.

First of all, I’ve gotten helpful feedback from several of you—readers I didn’t even realize I had. Thanks for stopping by and especially for commenting about some of my more recent subjects, sensitive as they are. With the school issue in particular, it’s good to hear from various perspectives, but I feel especially encouraged by those who either attended public school or are sending their kids to one. Patrick said, “You’re always going to worry.” I’ll certainly agree with that! I thought I was a worrier BEFORE I had kids. Imagine me now. Even so, I find that I’ve been able to put my worries in perspective in a way I never thought I could.

As for the mysteries of this journey we call “Christianity,” “religion,” “faith,” “seeking,” or various other labels, I’m comforted to read that a couple of you are in the same boat with me on all this—or at least in the same river. I think some who “believe” are too quick to judge others as wayward when they dare to deviate from the party-line truths we’ve learned since childhood. I’m finding that this spiritual journey is much bigger than a narrow set of concepts with particular names. The magnitude of it—the sheer number of ways the Higher Power communicates with individuals—takes my breath away. What an honor it is to seek, to study, to learn, and to relate alongside all of you. I pray that we never make God too small, that we never think we know it all, that we are always willing to consider another’s perspective on this incredible, mysterious journey, even if it sounds completely crazy at first. We never know when God will reveal another aspect of God’s self to us.

As for my favorite television show, I simply can’t commit to my previous weekly analyses. I wish I could! It was helpful for me to rehash the details and pose my questions. Be assured, though, that my time is limited but my television is always on ABC at 9:00 on Wednesday nights! I haven’t missed an airing of Lost yet. Some amazing show, isn’t it?

Anyway, thanks again, my faithful handful of readers (and those who stop by occasionally), for offering your thoughts.

I leave you with this quotation used by the author of a recent work I copyedited:

Is openness to other ideas infidelity, or is it the beginning of spiritual maturity? What is it that can possibly take us so far afield from the initial believing self? How do we explain to ourselves the journey of getting from there to here, from unquestioning adherence to institutional answers, to the point of asking faithful questions? It took years before I realized that maybe it is belief itself, if it is real, that carries us there. Maybe if we really believe about God what we say we believe, there comes a time when we have to go beyond the parochialisms of law. …When we develop a spiritual life that is beyond some kind of simple, unthinking attachment to an inherited canon of behaviors, the soul goes beyond adherence to a system to the growth of the soul.

Joan Chittister, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir (Chicago: Sheed & Ward, 2004) 12, 13, 19.

Today, a dear friend told me he’s ready for Jesus to come. “I have a lot of questions,” he said. This man, who has lived a couple of decades longer than I, has already experienced a lifetime’s worth of misery, horror, and disappointment. Despite this, he’s neither sullen nor depressed. He’s actually quite jolly and a big kid at heart. He’s also a deep thinker, one who ponders the mysteries of life without fear and poses the unanswerable questions just for the sake of starting a meaningful discussion. He believes, even in all his uncertainty and wonderings, that when he dies he will go to be with Jesus, that he’ll get to ask all the questions that plague him.

On this Easter Sunday, listening to my friend, I nodded. I, too, have a lot of questions. I could write a list of them here, and they would make for a lengthy post indeed. They are the questions of many people, of the believers and the seekers and the curious and the wonderers. Most of these questions are unanswerable, at least on this side.

A disciple of Jesus—one who spent hours with him, ate with him, watched him interact with people, and heard his teachings on the great mysteries—had his own questions. Some call him “Doubting Thomas,” seeing his desire for proof as a negative characteristic. As recorded in the Gospel of John, he didn’t believe his friends when they told him they’d seen Jesus, alive and well, only days after his lungs stopped working while he hung on an instrument of torture. Thomas knew they’d put Jesus’ dead body in a tomb and sealed it. Despite his master’s hints along the way, he didn’t get it. Neither did they. Neither do I.

I don’t think Thomas was a habitual doubter. I think he doubted because of the overwhelming events he had witnessed. Limited in a human body just as we are, confined to a finite moment in time, he had difficulty understanding what Jesus meant by his teachings. I think he had a bold desire for the truth. I think he wanted to see for himself rather than basing his faith on hearsay. He had a need to connect with Jesus personally and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his Lord was truly alive again. I’m with him.

Fortunately for Thomas, he got his chance this side of the afterlife. He saw his friend, his master, his Lord—Jesus. In the flesh, in person, face to face in a real body. He even touched him. “Do not doubt but believe,” Jesus told him. Then comes the comment that pains me: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:24-29)

For most of my life thus far, I’d have placed myself in the latter category. I have never seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, and yet I believe. As time rolls on, though, and as my list of questions grows longer, I find that I long to see him so I can believe more fully, more deeply, more certainly. 

I will continue to believe in a Higher Power, and I will continue to believe that part of that Power is Jesus. As for the details, though, I find that my brain mulls them over and over. I yearn for clarity. I know that, one day, I’ll either get clarity, or I’ll find that clarity doesn’t matter at all.

Is anyone with me?

Growing up, I lived in a small town in which there were three public schools: Smalltown Elementary, Smalltown Middle, and Smalltown High. I attended all three of them, and many of the kids who started with me at one of the few church-affiliated preschools journeyed through the next twelve years and sat with me at graduation. We weren’t all friends, of course, and kids left and new kids came, but we knew each other. We’d seen each other through the early years of runny noses and potty training, all the way through body hair and other major changes. Girlfriends, boyfriends, ridiculous fights, entertaining parties. We knew each other.

A couple of private schools also served our little county, but those of us in the public school tended to think poorly of the students there, calling them derogatory names and assuming they were all a bunch of snotty rich kids. I’m sure the other side thought no better of us.

I stand on the brink of sending my Butterfly to kindergarten. She has one year of preschool left. One last year of only going to school three days a week, three hours a day. Just one more year to enjoy long, unscheduled weekdays in which we explore the community libraries and playgrounds with no thought of homework or carpool lines. I’d be lying if I said I’m not scared out of my mind at the prospect.

Certainly, most parents feel wary about sending their firstborn children off for that initial school year. As long as I don’t fret too much or project my concerns onto my gal, I think we’ll make it. Like any change, this one will be difficult, but eventually we’ll adjust and live into a new normal.

It’s been tough to come to terms with where Butterfly will attend, though. Most of my friends, most of the moms at the preschool—most in my social group, I suppose—send their children to one of the numerous private schools in the area. It’s true that our county’s public schools have a poor reputation. These parents’ choices are understandable as they strive to provide their kids with the best education available. For us, it’s not an option. At least not yet. The King and I have decided to give the public school system a try. We hope that, by being as involved as possible, we can help our bright Butterfly thrive. We look forward to connecting with other families we might not encounter otherwise. We anticipate Butterfly’s meeting new friends. If need be, we are open to other options in the future.

Truthfully, I envy my best friend, a gifted teacher who will homeschool all three of her children this fall. I’ve watched her during this past year with her oldest daughter, heard them talk about the vibrant homeschool community in our area, seen them take advantage of museums and libraries and other weekday opportunities, and recognized the way their lives are being refreshed, relaxed, and revitalized as they set their own schedules. I have no doubt that my friend’s intelligent, creative children will do well with their mother as their teacher.

This too, however, is not an option for us. I shudder to think of the detriment I might cause to my girls’ educations if I chose to teach them at home. I shudder to think of my personal sanity. My gifts are simply not suited for homeschooling.

Some parents will send their kids to private schools, and that’s okay. Some parents will homeschool their kids, and that’s okay. Some, like us, will send their kids to public schools, and that’s okay too. We must choose what we think is best for our children, devote time to them, and express strong hope for their futures.