Perfectly Imperfect

So it’s Christmas week! That week that we all fantasize will be like a Norman Rockwell painting, but looks much more like Monet—kind of messy up close, but if you squint you can see the beauty.

 

If you are wondering what I am doing this week, here are some of the roles that I am playing:

Protector of the manger and toy rearranger.

Nativity lamb gluer and elf magic doer.

Chief changer of diapers and chocolate mouth wiper.

Ear wax remover and sweeper with hoover.

Sugar cookie baker and Rainbow Loom maker.

Battery charger and photo enlarger.

Hello Kitty bike searcher and old clothing purger.

Target card checker and Underwood heckler.

Advent awaiter and football bowl hater.

Greeting card opener and wholehearted hoper.

Referee of fights and admirer of tree lights.

Sangria drinker and blog posting thinker.

These are a few of my favorite things!

Ok…My girls are kinda going through a Sound of Music phase this month, if you haven’t noticed. I’m just happy to be out of the Annie phase for a while, actually. And I'm thinking that the Mary Poppins phase is just around the corner.

So….Anyone else struggle with trying to get the perfect Christmas Card photo?  Two years ago we tried to do it ourselves and it was a nightmare.  The girls were either fighting or making goofy faces or pouting or not looking at the camera.  I think we took close to 80 pictures until we got a good one.  I swore that was the last time I would do that so for the past few years, we have been using my talented friend Alix Cloud who managed to get our amazing one shot in 15 minutes this year with no pouting or crying.  Not even from the six month old.

Really, I think the problem two years ago was me, not the kids.  I wanted the perfect shot that showed how beautiful and well-behaved and well-matched my princesses are.  Everyone wants to see the perfect family photo on the card, not the crazy one that is in the other 79.  I was striving for the image of perfection.  When I look at my Shutterfly account now and remember that Christmas—the bangs that Ella had to have because my dad thought it would be ok to cut her bangs nineteen fifties style for me while I was at work, the rosy cheeks implying an oncoming headcold, the pouts and silly smiles, the small stain on one of the red and green dresses--  those 79 outtakes are precious.  And real.  We have many more imperfect moments than we have perfect ones.

 

 

Plus, God has a sense of humor, I think.  He sent to the mom who strives for the image of the perfect family three gorgeous, awesome, amazing, inspiring, and at times frustrating, children.  Two of which were born with ears that do not function perfectly. 

“So you think that if you work hard enough, you can achieve perfection, do you?  Well, here you go!” says the Big Guy. “Now go learn something about the beauty of  imperfection.”

To prove how imperfect life is…here is a video of me trying to get Ella’s reaction to seeing Santa’s bounty under the tree while also trying to attach her implant to her ear so she could take in the whole experience.  The result is a little crazy, with a gem in the middle and then we lose an implant magnet at the end and the camera goes off! O-M-G!

 

I recently finished a book by Brene Brown called, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You are Supposed To Be and Embrace Who You Are. It is an amazing account of her discovery that truly happy people accept imperfection in order to live whole heartedly. 

She says that when we numb the dark we numb the light. And in contrast, when we lean into joy, we can expect tender and vulnerable to be part of the joy.   Doing both pain and joy at the same time is what makes us resilient. 

I buy it all—hook, line and sinker.

This year on our Christmas card we wished for everyone to make and hear some joyful noise this Christmas.  My kids will do both.  Maybe imperfectly, but they will do it.  I am working on leaning into the shrieks and the bickering and the tears and the laughter and the giggly games of peek-a-boo and the music.  All at once. 

Christmas should be that—an appreciation of perfect and imperfect coming together.

Christmas Eve service at my church was a cacophony of joyful noise.  We always attend the 4pm Family Services because you can keep your kids with you in the big sanctuary and it is a noisy service, so it is ok if your kids cry or kick the pew. 

As I watched the Nativity story unfold in words and song, my perfectionist mind took inventory of the things that made us less perfect as a family—the matched dresses, but unmatched shoes the girls were wearing, a tear in one set of tights, at least two runny ears among us (two kids with ear tubes will do that to you in the winter), two implants, one hearing aid, a newly bespectacled first grader’s face (not to mention the contacts and eyeglasses on the parents).  Through all of that, if I really leaned into it, I could see my kids’ smiles of delight at the junior choir’s performances.  I caught Ella serving tea in the pew to her imaginary friends and Wyatt making the other families giggle with his big toothless grin. I was elated to find Ella actually enjoying the bell choir (who says music appreciation is a no-go for kids with Cochlear Implants anyway?) and Avery reading every word of the carols in the bulletin. Especially the hard ones. 

All five of us were present and accounted for and imperfect and glorious.

The pastor said it best when she exclaimed that the 4pm Christmas Eve service always “gets you” because of the noise. At Christmas, we remember that Jesus was fully human.  He even cried as an infant. He was imperfect in the flesh and that is the point.  Crying infants in church on Christmas Eve is a reflection of that night more than two thousand years ago. Beautifully imperfect.

I have to say that Wyatt was a Holy Infant at that service, too.  He never fussed.  He paid attention to the music, he smiled at our pew neighbors, and he fell asleep before the end of Silent Night. I was proud and content as I carried his limp little body through the church to the exit and everyone who saw him made that “aww, he’s so cute” face. My sister-in-law warned me that I need to keep him far away from Buddhist monks, or they may declare him the next Dalai Lama and we would never see him again.  He is that peaceful. 

Until he is not.

Today, he proved that he is, in fact, a human baby. I optimistically exercised my whole hearted living principle by taking all three kids to the local Center for Puppetry Arts here in Atlanta.  We had five tickets because I thought my mom and Keith would accompany us, but both of them had better things to do (like travelling and working), but I did not want the girls to miss the production of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

 

For a minute, I considered inviting our babysitter to join me, but then decided to chance it alone. Not smart, but definitely whole hearted.

We were late, as we chronically are, and we rushed in to sit down in that theater’s version of the balcony just before the lights dimmed.  Every time they go through their spiel about turning off “cell phones and anything that lights up” my stomach clenches just a little. 

Side track: When Avery was four we had her birthday party at the Center for Puppetry Arts and Ella was just 17 months old with a brand new Cochlear Implant.  The implants have little green lights on them that tell you when it is working and when it is not. I believe the lights can be disabled for adult CI users, but do not ask me how to do that because we never think about it.  It is actually really necessary for parents to be able to tell if a battery is out or something is broken.

While we were sitting there waiting for Charlotte’s Web to start, an usher came up to us and tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I would kindly turn off the flashing lights on Ella’s “hair clips” so as not to disturb the other patrons.  I was very taken aback that the lights on her implant would cause a disturbance to the production and looked around me to see how much light it was emitting.

 It was like a hyperactive firefly had landed on her ear.

I could see how the people behind us may find it obnoxious.  Apologetically, I explained that we could not disable the lights and we were not going to take off her hearing device, so they would have to live with it for this one performance.  Ever since that incident, I have been worried that a new usher will tap her on the shoulder and upset her for not following the “nothing that lights up” rule. She would be upset by that now that she is older.  I like that place a lot and think highly of it, but I have no shame in threatening an Americans with Disabilities Act claim if they mess with me.

Anyway…In the same spiel about the lights, they also ask you to take all crying children to the hall to “catch their breath”.  Almost on cue, Wyatt started fussing. 

Now what??  I could duck out of the door with him which was just three feet from our seats, but when the door closed behind me both girls would be sitting there alone.  Would they fight? Get scared? Had I just drawn attention to Ella’s light-up ears with my fussy baby? 

Thankfully, the usher stationed next to the door was an angel in disguise and agreed to watch the girls while I ducked in and out with Wyatt for the entire hour.  I’m guessing he has an ear infection or something because it is not like him to be such a grouchosaurus.  In spite of it all, the girls had an absolute blast at the show and they both were singing along with all of the songs from the cartoon. 

And what a great message for us to discuss in the van on the way to lunch—misfit toys and bionic noses and elves that want to be dentists.  Avery said she liked the part where Clarice told Rudolph that his red nose was handsome.

“Aww, but it’s so different from everyone else’s.”

“But that is what makes it grand.”

 

 We can understand how they both feel.

Here is the photo of lunch afterwards that made it all completely worth it.

Tonight, I am praying that the joyful noises that fill my home this week can continue to bring me joy, and bring me frustration.  I know that living with both brings me the gifts of whole hearted living.

Now back to witnessing the reenactments of scenes from the Sound of Music by the Mini Muse Players. Did I mention such scenes were from the Carrie Underwood version?  And that they prefer the “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” scene?  Complete with mimicking the part where Liesel and Rolf roll down the hill together?

Awkward!!

Merry Everything and Happy New Year!

 

Zen Shower Flower in Child Pose

Doesn't the name of this post make you want to say "Namaste"? 

So...Bathtime is wild at our house. Wyatt is actually really happy in the bath and loves to splash which is really fun at his age, so I'm not really talking about him.  However, having another kid to bathe has not made the daily ritual any easier to get through efficiently.

The real problems lie with the tiny females in my house. I usually have at least one of my girls totally rejecting taking a bath by running for various corners and closets to avoid the tub.  Pretty standard young kid stuff-- they know the routine and after bathtime comes bedtime, so therein lies the need to flee.  Usually one of them is wailing about not getting any deserrrrrrt yet!  Or just repeating "NOOOOOOO" Over and over until I want to just give up. It is a wonder that I do not look like a total drown rat by 9pm every night.  Or maybe I do. I'm not telling.

I had started to notice, though, that the time AFTER bathtime is quite different from before bathtime.  It is actually quite Zen.  The kids are quiet and calm.  Then I realized that dinner is also a hot mess at our house and was reminded of a quote about raising kids that said, "When they get crabby, put them in water." I had an Ah Ha moment.  Why do I insist on crazy dinner followed by crazy bathtime, followed by Zen?  Delayed gratification at its best?

No. Mostly it is because I am programmed to think that this is the proper order of things.  My mom did it that way, so I must also do it that way. Dinner, then bath, then bed. 

In my house, however, it simply was not working to do it that way.  There was exhaustion at dinner and rejection at bath time and it makes for a very long two hours between dinner and the glorious time that comes after the kids are asleep.

So I changed it.  Last summer I flip flopped dinner and bathtime so that we do bathtime at 5pm when we can.  The new order of things is: Bath, Zen, Dinner, bed. It makes dinner a lot more reasonable and less loud.  We have fewer fights over who gets the butterfly plate and who has to settle for the ladybug.  Who knew I could write my own script, people???!!!  Besides, doing it like we had been doing it was the living definition of insanity.

Ella and Avery are also much more inclined to take a shower in the Big Shower in the master bath than to take a bath or shower in their own bathtub.  Go figure.  You know what, whatever works.  Are they getting clean?  Yes, AND often at the same time because there are two shower heads in there! 

 Sheer brilliance.  Look how happy they are in the Big Shower.

So maybe this sounds normal to you and you are wondering where I am going with this.  Here is the wrench-- bathtime for me as a  parent of a kid with cochlear implants, no matter where and when, is the total extreme of wild and shriek-y and then complete Zen. 

Ella has to take off her implants to take a shower and she knows that this is her time to 1) use sound as a weapon against us in a very echo-y place, and 2) not listen.  Literally.  So it is basically bedlam.  She turns on her inner demon and, truthfully, I am lucky if I get all the shampoo rinsed out of her hair so that she at least smells clean for school the next day. 

Today, she was standing on one damp foot on the tile bench in my shower and writing her name with her finger in the steam on the glass shower door.  A horrible bloody scene waiting to happen.  And every time I told her to sit down, she would close her eyes and laugh.  The deaf four year old version of "I can't hear you, Mom."

When she gets soap in her eyes, she lets out the most ear piercing scream that you have ever heard in your entire life.  She can't hear it, so she does not care.  Plus she has no monitor for how it sounds, so she just conjures up the most awful combo of notes that you can possibly imagine.  Like an out of tune cat trying to sing about getting its tail run over. Seriously, in my nightmares I hear her  belting out "I NEEED a TOWELLL NOWWWWWWW!" Worst. Sound. Ever.

But then something beautiful happens when she steps onto the bath mat. She takes the towel that is wrapped around her, opens it up like Batman and falls down into a face down fetal position on the mat.  It is not quite the fetal position, because she is face down.  The towel almost completely covers her body with the exception of a top of the head and sometimes toes.  She is like a perfect little toadstool on the mat.  What's funny is that she usually says (or shouts) "Chair" right before she falls to the floor. My girls play this game that wherever they are in the house, if they yell "Chair!" to each other the other sister comes running and drops down into this modified Child Pose and the yeller sits on her back.  I dunno...some kind of weird sister code that I, who only has one brother, does not get.

The after bathtime in full crouch is transformative to her, though.  Avery never sits on her back because we all know to leave her alone.  Even if we wanted to get her attention or make her stand up, we couldn't because she can't see and she can't hear.  It is like she was in the shower to get out all the wild impulses and now she is doing yoga with meditation before she has to put her sound back on.  One extreme to the other.  Sometimes hair brushing will bring back the demon, but usually after this 5 minutes or so of Child Pose, she is ready to face the world.  I just leave her there until she is ready to get up.  Then she shrieks, "MAAAAMAAAA! I WAAANT my EEEAARS!!" and life is back on, Zen has mostly been achieved and dinner can be had.

One more bath story: Right before Thanksgiving, we had strep invade our happy home.  Ella, Keith and I all got it and it was not fun.  The puke-y, scarlet fever kind.  The put-you-in-bed-for-at-least-54-hours kind. I knew Ella had it right away when she woke me out of a deep sleep at 3am with bright red cheeks, running an obvious fever, and then proceeded to puke on my comforter.  Ella also has her ears off when she goes to bed, so there is usually inappropriately loud and shriek-y tones that wake us up in the middle of the night as well.  Or she just flips on all the lights to wake us up.  Either/or. After the puke, I decided she was going right in the tub so there was no use in putting her implants on. 

I showered her off and was putting on fresh pajamas, Ella did something amazing.  She did not fall down into Child Pose this time.  Instead she started singing. In tune. About the colors of the rainbow.  IN SPANISH!!!  There she was, completely without sound, sick and doing something she despises- taking a bath--and she started singing about colors in Spanish.

"Verde, Amarillo, Rosa...." 

Perfect accent by my French-trained ears, too!

Let me repeat myself:  My sick, deaf, four-year-old started singing to me in Spanish at 3 o'clock in the morning.  A.MA.ZING!  Talk about bright spots, huh?

I will gladly endure a million more wild, shriek-y, showers.  No question.

I found my Zen.