The Scent of Childhood

If each season of childhood had a scent, the soft baby fuzz of a newborn would be the fragrance of those tiny early months. Along with spit-up, pampers and endless loads of laundry aromas. The toddler years are more of a sticky smell of squishy hands trying to do it all themselves. And lil boys start to get that, well, lil boy smell of sweat and grass and sunshine that sends them straight to the bath full of protests every evening. And if the tween years had a scent, it would definitely be Axe body spray.

Recently one of my middle schoolers (yes, I have TWO at ONCE) told me a hilarious story about his study hall. They are not allowed to talk above a whisper and mostly all you hear is the teacher loudly shushing for 55mins, but one day there was a new sound and smell filling the air. No, not that...thankfully! When a classmate set down his bag the Axe body spray concealed within it started spraying, filling the room with its oxygen-sucking, eye-stinging, cough-enducing essence. Students were gasping air while the teacher gave the poor kid a lecture on endangering others who have asthma. Thirty years from now he will remember that moment and cringe, but hopefully grin, as the smell from his own son's axe body spray fills his home.

One day while grocery shopping one of my boys brought me a bottle of his own Axe spray and asked me what I thought. That is one of those boy-mom moments I slowed down to capture knowing all too soon he will care more about what other females in his life think about how he smells.

As a parent I often feel like I'm making up the rules as we go, just trying to keep up with their changing needs and abilities. When they were toddlers we instituted rules to keep them safe from the hot stove and steep stairs. Now that they are tweens and teens we enforce rules to keep the air quality in our home within breathable limits. Good or bad, any smell that is overpowering is encouraged outdoors. So now he can only put it on his mom-approved body spray outside with lots of reminders that even tiny drop GOES A LONG WAY!

That principle applies to any smell and too often I think I leave the wrong scent...more of a tired-frazzled smell. That is often the scent of motherhood but I want it to be much more. God is challenging and growing me here.

I'm re-reading my favourite book of the year, With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. (If you've been around me long enough to have a deep conversation within the last six months I've quoted this book to you, told you to read it and may have even thrust a copy in your hands.) A lot of the things Skye wrote really challenge me, one of them being:
            "many of the people accomplishing the most for God seemed to reflect his character the
              least. Rather than being marked by peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and love,
              many of them were anxious, impatient, rude, aggressive, and sometimes even spiteful."
               (p.11).
Ouch. I'm finding that how I walk with God and the need to live within healthy boundaries has a lot to do with the aroma I leave behind. Hopefully not an overpowering Axe body spray type of odor, but the loving essence of Christ. When my kids remember the scent of their childhoods, I hope the fragrance of God's incredible, unconditional, and steadfast love for them fills their senses.

It's All Your Fault

Photo by Kayla Harris on Unsplash

We have a little running joke in our house, when something goes wrong we say, "It's all Zoey's fault." Since she can't disagree and easily looks guilty she gets blamed often. It helps us make light of life's frustrations, like red lights when we are running late, or a lost library book. And frankly, it is easier to blame the dog than to take responsibility.

 I've been thinking about apologies lately. Who I need to forgive. Who do I need to ask for forgiveness (okay I need to start thinking about that one). It only took a few chapters of a book on apologizing for me to realize sometimes I'm a terrible apologizer.

As you can imagine, homeschooling provides A LOT of opportunities for practicing this social skill. When you are around the people who know best how to push your buttons you get them pushed often. Isn't that the very definition of siblings? The more time my boys spend together, the more opportunity to work through conflict...in the midst of history and math and climbing crab apple trees together.

This book on apologizing is stirring up a lot of new thoughts for me, especially in how I teach our sons to give and ask for forgiveness. I ask them questions about apologizing: Why they think it is important? Who are they having a hard time forgiving right now? How does knowing God forgives us help us forgive others? They answer these daily questions in their learning journal, a safe space for them to ponder and process. And I get a deeper look at what's going on inside those mysterious boy-minds.

If only it helped me understand why I found a knife murdering the butter, a display of Mo Willems books on my couch, or why the pictures are now all facing the front door? I'm guessing... it's all Zoey's fault.

Update 9/20/18 - Now that I have finished that book on apologizing I can tell you I agreed with about 80% of it. She isn't writing from the same worldview that I hold but it is good to think on why I disagree. And like any book you need to "chew on the meat and spit out the bones."

Gray Hair

Thing 3's latest thing is randomly responding to me by saying, "shrug." I'm not sure where he picked this up. I wonder if it has to do with reading too many comic books and thinking the characters are saying "shrug" instead of the narrator telling you they are shrugging???  No matter the source, this little man continues to make me laugh randomly with his funny way with words. And when he and his brothers aren't making me smile they are giving me gray hair.

One glorious unusually unscheduled Saturday I was desperate to get to a painting project in the garage. I directed the boys to a pile of scrap lumber, some tools and their fort in the backyard thinking they would add a few walls to enclose it a bit more. A few hours later with my hutch a happy antiqued gray (to match my hair, of course) I went out back to discover they had added a third story unenclosed platform to their playset a good 12 feet up. With the trampoline pushed up next to it they can now jump from an even higher level to their deaths delight.

I spotted my first gray hair at least a year ago and promptly named it after our oldest son. A few months ago my hair stylist gently informed me that they were multiplying. I smiled and said that I would name them after sons #2 and #3. I haven't seen them but I'm sure there are only 3 up there. :) But the more I watch my boys grow, laugh at their funny ways, and gasp as they fly off the fort, the more I'll be visiting my stylist, because really, who wants their hair to match their antiqued trendy gray hutch anyways? And I've run out of boys to name them after...