Friday

I have debated and debated and debated with myself about writing about the horror that was Friday, December 14, 2012. One minute my head is full of thoughts and opinions and ideas and the next minute I am just numb from that tragedy.

I have a lot of other “posts” floating around in my head that I want to share with you all but it doesn’t seem right not to pay homage to those sweet children. I need and want to address my thoughts and emotions about  all of the moms and dads out there who are mourning the very quick, unplanned, horrific end to their journeys in the parenting of the their child.

This post is not about gun control or violence in schools or God in schools or mental health. Those are the main topics I’ve seen and heard come up on the news and on social media sites. And those topics are relevant to the tragedy on Friday and I think they should be talked about and reviewed. When we have something like this incident slap us in the face, we should start talking to each other about what drives our society and about what we can do to keep our children safe.

But I don’t want to talk about those things in this post. I just want to share what Friday meant to me as a mom. I’m glad I wrote this all down and if every time you think about Friday you start to get panicky and horrified and sad like I do/did, I suggest you write it down too. Because that incident hit a spot in the core of the “parent” community in a way that changes the way you look at things. We have to process those things and deal with them. I just don’t think we can just jump to the next big event without taking a moment to reflect and prepare ourselves as parents.

So, here’s my Friday:

Like the morning of most of those parents in Connecticut, my morning started out fairly mundane.

On Friday, I woke up sick for the second day in a row. I woke up though next to The Boss Lady and I snuggled up to her under the blankets and I just laid there listening to her breathe and thinking about how I wished we could spend the whole day like that. We took our time getting ready for school that day. I planned to stay home from work to get over the insane sinus infection I had.

When I was getting her clothes ready for school, my sweet girl INSISTED on wearing this silly cookie monster shirt. It’s this bright blue shirt with a cookie monster face on it and it’s *that* shirt that my kid wants to wear nearly every single day. It cracks me up. We’ve managed to compromise to a once a week wearing of the shirt. In a way, I dread that day because there is NOTHING else in her closet that matches that shirt. Olivia’s hair is still very short so the shirt kind of makes her look like a boy. And in a way, I love that shirt. Because she loves that shirt. Because the way she smiles when she has that shirt on and the way she lights up when she says “COOKIE!” makes me light up too.

I took her to school and went to pick up some wrapping paper so I could spend the day wrapping Christmas presents. I'm still a little amazed at how much I thoroughly enjoyed running an errand BY MYSELF and how excited I was at the prospect of having a day at home BY MYSELF. When I got home, I made my lunch. I sat down on the couch and turned on the news. That’s when I first heard about and saw the devastation in Connecticut. I had tears in my eyes the entire time I was watching the news. It was so upsetting that I eventually turned it off and sat in another room, away from the tv so as not to be tempted to turn it back on, turned on Christmas music and wrapped gifts.

I know. That sounds callous and selfish. But I bet a lot of folks had a similar reaction. My head and my heart could NOT fathom what I had seen on the news. I just could not absorb that in an instant, at the hands of another human, 20 children were just gone from this earth. I just could not make sense of any of it.

When Mike got home, we talked about it a little more. The day before, Olivia’s *big* Christmas gift had been delivered and we had been talking about how excited we are to set it up and have it ready for her Christmas morning. Mike said that it made him so sad to think of those kids’ Christmas gifts sitting under the tree or in their parents’ closets never to be opened on Christmas morning. I nearly vomited at that thought.

We went to pick up Olivia from school and I felt such joy at seeing her smile and come running out to the car. I loved the feel of her tiny body in my arms when I hugged her and I had to keep myself from squeezing her too tight. I loved the sound of her small voice and the way she chattered about anything and everything on her mind.  

We were going out of town that evening and about 30 minutes into our car ride, I was contemplating dropping my kid off at the next truck stop with a sign that said “Needs a good home and is potty trained.” True story. My joy at seeing my child just 30 minutes before had turned into a splitting headache from the constant chaos. Her small sweet voice telling me about her friends that day had become an ear drum shattering whine. The tiny body I wanted to hold so close to me had morphed into a mass of flailing arms and legs in the midst of a temper tantrum.

To me this is what parenthood is: it’s that CONSTANT roller coaster and struggle of one minute being on Cloud 9 and the next being in the 7^th Circle of Hell. It’s wanting to give your kid away to some trucker but knowing that you cannot live on this earth if they are not on it. It is feeling like your heart is going to explode from love and your head from insanity all in the same moment.

And I thought of all of those parents. I thought of what their Friday morning must have been like and what their Friday afternoon had turned into. I wondered if they let their kids pick out some ridiculous shirt simply because it made them happy. I wondered if they had to negotiate good behavior for stickers or jelly beans. I wondered if any of them were frustrated at their little munchkins when they dropped them off at school that morning. I wondered if it EVER occurred to any of them that they would never have an opportunity to be frustrated again.

I cannot count the number of times that I have dropped Olivia off at school with a sigh of relief and waved to her teachers as I drove off shouting “Better you than me!” Never has the thought occurred to me that I would not have an opportunity to be frustrated or fed up with Lady Loco ever again. It makes me sick to think about that.

As much as that child can drive me bonkers, I do not want to spend a day on this planet if she is not here. I know that if something or someone were to take her from us, Mike and I would work to make some meaning of our lives. But we wouldn’t want to. We talked about that too on Friday. We talked about how if something happens to her, we would just want to die. For both of us, it is impossible to imagine being alive when she is not. And yet 20 sets of parents were faced with that on Friday and will be faced with that for the rest of their lives. My heart breaks for them.

Here is the conclusion and the meaning I came to from the events on Friday:

I don’t believe that we live in an evil world. Yes, that man was sick and possibly evil. But I don’t think that the whole human race is. Broken, yes. Evil, no. I can’t believe this world is evil based on the outrage that every single person I know showed at this event. I know there is good out there. What I don’t know is the answer to keep stuff like that from happening again. To my child. To any child. I don’t have the answer for that. I’m not sure that anyone does.

What do I know is this: if I lost Olivia tomorrow, I would want to know that every minute I spent with her counted. I would want to know that even if I had been frustrated with her, there was a love between us that was unbreakable. I would want to know that I let her wear a silly shirt because it made her happy and because her happiness makes me happy. I would want to know that my child had been loved by me, by Mike, by any who had known her. I would want her to leave this world knowing that she had been loved.

That’s all we can do as parents: LOVE THE CRAP OUT OF OUR KIDS. We cannot protect them from all harm. We cannot keep them from being taken from us. That’s the hard core and crappy truth. As much as we try to keep them healthy and safe, sometimes that is not enough. Sometimes, things happen outside of our plans and despite our best efforts. So, for the time that Olivia is entrusted to me, I am going to just love her. When I start to feel frustrated or like I want to drop her at the nearest Flying J, I will remind myself that every single day I have to love her means something. Every. Single. Day. Even the hard ones. Even the ones when I fall into bed exhausted and spent. Even the ones when I just want to quit. Every day that I am with her, every day I get to be her mom matters. Her life matters.

Those babies that died on Friday had not been here very long. Can you imagine just 5 (or maybe a little more) years of life? The amount of time they had been here wasn't indicative of their impact. Their lives still had meaning. Their lives still mattered. They changed and shaped their parents in such a short time. I know because Oli has changed and shaped me in ways I never could have imagined. And she's done it in just 2 short years. 

When we say “life is short” never do we ever imagine “short” means just 5 years. But life can sometimes be that short. I’m going to make the most of every single instant of this life with my kiddo. I don’t EVER want to be left here without Oli but if I am, I will know that she was loved every single day of her life. I will know that she got to wear her Cookie shirt, that she got to have joy in her life.

If I lost Olivia, I would want to know that other parents could just learn to take advantage of every moment with their kids. That doesn’t mean every moment is going to be wonderful. Some of them are going to suck. But just try to be in the moment. Try to remember in those frustrating moments that it only takes one moment to take that all away.

I would want to know that people were praying for us. I would want to know that they were praying for our peace and for this world we live in where insane and awful things happen to people's babies. I would want to know that our world still had faith even when it doesn't seem possible that God was present in that moment. Prayer doesn't seem all that powerful when you have to bury your child but I think, I hope, that it is. And it is all most of us can do. Even though it is hard to see God in an event like that, I know He is there. Mike and I have and will continue to pray for those families and peace for the Newtown community throughout this tragedy. May God be with all of those families now and always.   

Let's try, "I love you," instead of, "I farted."

I just had yet another great phone convo with one of my very best friends and spiritual mentor (D$, that’s you!). Darci is someone who believed in me and prayed for me when I could do neither for myself. She constantly reminds me that I am God’s child even when I’m a complete mess and/or butthole. I wanted to share a thought/story that I shared with her and that’s been swirling in my crazy brain for a few days (maybe weeks?) now.

I don’t write a ton about my faith but I hope that you can see that in some of my writing and some of the way that I look at life and this crazy journey of Parenthood. My faith is my rock. It’s the thing that holds the Milligan Empire together. It’s the thing that guides me during all of the uncertainties in raising The Boss Lady. EVERY SINGLE DAY I pray over Olivia when she goes to bed and I pray that God would just guide me to raise her to be not want I want her to be but what He wants her to be to serve Him in her life.

Some folks comment on how I’m much more laid back as a parent than they ever thought I’d be. Apparently I was quite the OCD Control Freak in my pre-parenthood days. Apparently. I think my faith in God’s higher purpose for my daughter has a lot to do with that. Every time I hear the circus music playing in my head, I remind myself that I am here to serve Him in raising Lady Loco. Though Mike and I were extremely blessed to have been chosen to be Olivia’s parents on this earth, we know that she does not belong to us. She belongs to God and we are here to raise her to be whatever He needs her to be. There’s something exhilarating and sort of freeing about that. I know that even when I screw up, He will use those moments to shape Olivia and Mike and me.

So, here’s the thought/story I wanted to share:

If you follow me on Facebook (and I’m quite entertaining so you should!), you know that we’ve had sleep issues with Captain Crazy since August 24, 2010 (that’s the day she was born for any of you who have just joined us). Our new thing to get her to go to sleep is just to lay down with her in the bed. She loves that. If we put her in her bed, it takes her 2 hours to go to sleep. If we just put her in bed with us, it takes like 20 minutes. She loves the closeness. Often we’ll just listen to music or I’ll run my fingers through her hair or tickle her back. It reminds me of when my sister, Michelle, and I were little and she would just beg me (or whoever was laying with her) to tickle her back until she fell asleep.

A couple of weeks ago, Oli and I were laying in bed and I was just looking at her and thinking how lucky I am to have such a beautiful child and I said, “I love you so much Oli A.” And she said, “Mommy I have a booger.” Or something profound like that. And I had to chuckle because I just thought that is so typical that I am looking for some intimate meaningful moment with her and that’s what she has to tell me.

And I LOVE it when Olivia tells me she loves me. I mean, I practically crave it. That may sound crazy but all of you mommies, and probably daddies, out there know what I mean. When that child wraps her arms around me and says, “I love you, Mommy!” I feel like I am going to split open from the complete joy I feel in the moment. It doesn’t matter if the second before she has pooped on the floor or rubbed banana in the couch or purposefully thrown Goldfish on the ground and then stepped all over them. When she says “I love you,” it is the ONLY thing I ever need to hear.

It struck me as I was laying there with her, with her boogers, and thinking how much I love and would have loved to hear her say “I love you” back in that moment, that our God must also crave our love and affection that much. And even though laying there with her was good for her for going to sleep, that intimacy, that quiet time with her is good for me too. I love those times when she will lay quietly with me and just BE. 

Often, I am struck by the correlations between human parenthood and the parenthood of our Heavenly Father. And this is a big one.

I live for those moments when Olivia gives me love and adoration. And she doesn’t give it for any other reason except that she also feels loved and safe and comfortable. It comes with no strings attached. It is simple and pure and I crave that from her always.

Imagine then how much more our God craves our love and affection. Imagine how much more He beams when we purely and honestly say, “I love you,” with no expectations except that we are loved in return. Imagine how elated He is when we just spend time with Him and we are just fully present, we are just THERE.

When your child loves you, is there anything you wouldn’t give her? Is there any transgression you wouldn’t forgive when those three words are said to you? And honestly, even when your child is hateful to you or disrespectful, is there still anything you wouldn’t give her? No.

That’s what we do as parents. We live for and crave those moments that our children show their purest love and affection for us. We always, ALWAYS provide for them even when they are ungrateful, insane Gremlins. And when they say “I love you,” every tear, every heart ache, every dime spent is worth those three words.

When talking to Darci this evening, I told her the following story:

Every morning, Mike and I say a prayer together. It’s something we started before we were married and we’ve done it every day for like 7 years or something. Now that Olivia is up before Mike leaves, she’s been saying our prayer with us in the morning. She holds our hands, scrunches her eyes up tight, and at the end, jubilantly shouts “AMEN!”

One morning, we were praying and Olivia interrupted, “Hey Mommy! Hey Mommy!” Thinking she may have something to add to our prayer, in my very loving Mommy Voice, I said “Yes, love?”

“Mommy I farted!” she shouted joyfully. I just had to laugh and look to Heaven and say “She’s all yours.”

Darci got a kick out of the story and pointed out that we often do to God what Olivia did to us. We interrupt a profound moment or opportunity to spend time with Him to say “Hey, I farted!” or “I have a booger.” And still He loves us and provides for us and just waits for and craves that moment when we say, “I love you.”

Mike and I do so many things to see joy in our child. We take her to the zoo or aquarium for that ONE moment when her eyes light up and she is happy. We tell her we love her about 800 times a day for that ONE time when she says it back. And all of the work and all of the tears and all of the boogers and farts in the world are worth it for that ONE time.

AND GOD DOES THE SAME THING FOR US. FOR ME.

Oh, and by the way, our human parents still crave that too! No matter how old we are! Call your mom and dad, tell them “I love you.” Save your fart or boogers stories for another time. They’ve listened to that crap your whole life.  

I was floored by my little moment. As an adult it is really easy to feel like I am independent enough to not *need* to be waited on or craved. But I do need it. I love knowing that God provides so many things for Mike, Oli, and I and He does it without any expectation. But when we stop in in our day to tell Him, “I love you,” He nearly splits in half with joy over that. It’s kind of a cool feeling.

Okay, so I’m not going to end this with an “altar invitation” or anything like that. BUT, I will say that I think all of us parents (and even those of you who are not!) should take a moment to say, “I love you,” instead of “I farted.” I think we should take a moment to realize that no matter how old you are or whether your human parents are around or not, someone (um, God, in case you missed the point) craves YOU—your love, your affection, your “I love you.”