Tag Archives: family

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Hope Is a Superpower

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“Mommy, if you had a superpower, it would probably be a walrus superpower. Then you could break ice with your head!”

Two things here: First, what is it about me that suggests “walrus” to my four-year-old? (And please keep any inklings to yourself, because I really don’t want to know.) Second, as long as he’s doling out superpowers, why couldn’t he grant me a more practical one?

I began to mentally form a wish list of useful superpowers—none of which, you may notice, relate in any way to walruses.

  • The “prepare for Christmas in the blink of an eye” superpower.
  • The “beam laundry from the dryer to the closet” superpower.
  • The “instantly purge the house of clutter” superpower.
  • The “quell whining with one calmly spoken word” superpower.
  • The “inject everyone in the house with gusto for whatever I cook” superpower.
  • The “be astonishingly organized and never procrastinate” superpower.

Caught up in the very idea, I began to make frequent mention of my superpowers. I would use my superpowers to start the van! I would use my superpowers to make a  spreadsheet! I would use my superpowers to prepare lunch! Finally Ace, drained of patience, sighed. “Mommy. Mommy. You don’t need superpowers to do those things. You just use your regular powers.”

Oh.

Right.

Lunch-making would be a waste of a superpower, wouldn’t it?  As would everything on my wish list (with the possible exception of that whining one). All they take is regular powers and some extra effort.

So, what superpower would I actually choose, given a chance?

  • The ability to assuage the pain of grieving friends.
  • The ability to ease the holidays for those whose hearts have been broken.
  • The ability to console those whose outlook is bleak.

And so on.

It’s Advent, the season of spiritual preparation for Christmas, the time of waiting for the coming of Christ. This first week of Advent has focused on hope.  Unlike the word wish, hope indicates possibility and expectation. As Kathleen Norris wrote, “Hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand ” (Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life).

We lack the superpower to magically exterminate others’ pain, but we can use our regular powers to chisel away at it until hope begins to glimmer and gives them ground on which to stand. We can use our regular powers to relay a memory of the loved one for whom they are grieving. To bring them a meal. To pat a shoulder. To send a note. To sit in silence with them. To babysit their kids. To invite them to our home. To send a comforting poem or passage or song. To take them on an outing.

Use your regular powers to clear their path for hope. When one has hope, one can go on.

May you have hope, and offer hope, this season.

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Why I Read to My Kids

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I recently had a conversation with a friend about whether it’s possible to read to one’s kids too much. Is reading several (sometimes many) books to them per day too indulgent? Is this too neglectful of, for example, the laundry festering in piles in the basement or the weeds in the garden?

Everyone knows the advantages of reading to children. Reading promotes a larger vocabulary. Reading encourages listening skills. Reading expands knowledge. Reading raises academic performance. And these are all reasons that I read to Sonny and Ace. But academic benefits aren’t the only reasons for my doing this (if they were, I’d give equal times to math games, which is decidedly not the case).

My friend mentioned that she reads to her four kids so often because it’s guaranteed to get them to stop talking all at once and all the time. Brilliant. This started me thinking about why I read to my kids.

  • It’s built-in cuddling time. Both Sonny and Ace like to snuggle (as do I), at least occasionally, so why not do so while reading? Curling up together on the couch with a book is cozy and preferable to trying to snuggle while I’m ironing or putting groceries away. (I know because my kids have attempted this.)
  • Kids’ books aren’t just for kids.  As C.S. Lewis observed, “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” The Little House books. The Hello Goodbye Window. When I Was Young in the Mountains. Poppleton. Frog and Toad. One Morning in Maine. Chicken Sunday. We All Went on Safari. Charlotte’s Web. What’s not to like?                                                        (Conversely, some children’s books are in fact only enjoyed by children. Really, why does the world need SpongeBob books?  And why do my kids know precisely which library shelf houses these? And am I the only parent who sometimes surreptitiously slides these into the book return slot on the way out of the building, moments after we checked them out?)
  • When the three of us are sitting on the couch reading, nobody is trashing the house. (My husband is a neat freak, so no worries there.)
  • Sometimes it’s irresistibly convenient to hold up book characters as role models. Not often enough to be annoying (I hope), but sometimes it just slips out: “Almanzo stayed outside all day, and it was 40 degrees colder than this, and his mittens weren’t even waterproof like yours! So it’s really not so bad out here, is it? ”
  • My kids are learning that reading is a pleasure, not a chore, and that someone who likes to read should never be bored. Reading definitely soothes them. The other day Sonny said, “I’m feeling nervous about school starting. Can we read?”
  • Books give kids vocabulary to express their emotions and questions. Familiar with Have You Filled a Bucket Today, Sonny and Ace often discuss filling or emptying people’s invisible buckets. (“She said I was getting big. That filled my bucket!” “He yelled at her. I think that emptied her bucket.”) And when we read Badger’s Parting Gifts before their grandpa’s funeral, Ace asked softly, “Is Badger coming back?” (It broke my heart to say no, because I knew what he was really asking.)
  • Reading gives the kids more folks to relate to. Wemberly worried about starting school, too.  Wilbur doesn’t want to go to the dentist, either. When I commented to Ace about his love of drawing, he nodded and explained, “I am like Tommy.”
  • If I read to my kids, then I did something right that day. Maybe the kids watched a little too much TV. Maybe my to-do list (written with such optimism . . . two days ago) remains untouched. That three-hour chunk of time when I was going accomplish something was eaten up by a car emergency. Maybe I pretty much feel like a failure today. Well, I’m going to read to my kids now, so take that, unproductive Thursday.

I just asked my kids why they like to read together. Sonny: “I like to learn more about soccer and hear what Henry and Mudge are doing, because they are funny.” Ace: “When we read it is quiet in the house.”

That’s good enough for me.

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Lessons from a Four-Year-Old

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My little guy turned four a couple weeks ago—but he would take umbrage at being described as little. Despite his reticence toward strangers, he does not hesitate to correct anyone who has called him “little fella” or the like. “’SCUSE me. I am a BIG boy.” (Later he’ll recount the conversation with disgust: “And that guy thought I was little,”—insulted, yes, but mainly astonished that anyone would make such a gross error in judgment.)

This morning he was drawing at the kitchen table. “Come here, Mommy; I have something to teach you. See?” I went to see. “See? If you make a red thing and then color over it with a blue marker, you get a purple thing.” He carefully ran his already-inky fingers over the purple thing. “Except if you color too much with marker in one place, it gets wet and makes a hole, so you have to be careful.”

I took up the blue and the red markers and crafted a purple blob, sans hole. He nodded, satisfied. “I like to teach people things.”

And Ace has indeed proven to be an effective teacher in his four years.

When, at age 10 months, he piled books in front of a baby gate in order to scale it and the next evening actually started to dissemble another baby gate (yes, really), he showed that with a little effort, one not ever need be fenced in.

When, at age 18 months, he seized my hands and dragged me away from chopping vegetables to laugh and dance with him and Sonny to “If I Had a Hammer” in the hall, he illustrated that the carpe momentum opportunities are far more valuable than whatever it is that they’re interrupting.

When he began to fiercely resist having his teeth brushed, he taught me (or, more accurately, forced me to learn) the art of an effective headlock.

When he is eating something particularly scrumptious (be it tangerine slice, M&M, or sunbutter sandwich) and offers someone else a bite—persistently poking it into his or her mouth at the first sign of resistance—he displays not only generosity but also the art of receiving graciously what another is excited to offer. Even if it’s a smudged M&M.

When he stands at the sliding door patiently watching a chipmunk (whom he always dubs Chippy) eat the animal corn he scattered on the deck, he models the importance of taking delight in the small things.

When, first at age 2, and then 3, and now 4 he insists on wearing his beloved firefighter boots to church, yea, even  with his Easter suit, he teaches the entire congregation that a) fashion is not as important as personal style and b) it’s not the kid’s job to make the mom look like she’s on top of things.

When he retreats from a crowded gathering, explaining, “I need some alone time now,” and then emerges, refreshed, 20 minutes later, he proves that introversion requires no apology.

When he spends five minutes buckling his car seat rather than accepting help, he teaches me the importance of doing for oneself. (And patience. Sitting in the garage for five minutes also teaches me patience. I hope.)

When he rejects part of (okay, most of) his wardrobe because “these clothes are not soft, Mommy!” he demonstrates that life is too short to choose needlessly uncomfortable options.

When he stamps and roars through the house in an uncanny imitation of a lumbering T. Rex, he personifies the delightful power of imagination.

When, mere minutes after I snap at him for some not very good reason,  he creeps up behind me, giggling, to tickle the backs of my knees, he challenges me to be a better forgiver-and-forgetter, like him.

And finally, when he bravely advises strangers that he is not little, he shouts to the world that nobody ever has the right to make another person feel small. Ever.

Happy birthday, big guy.