Thanksgiving Ham

Sometimes I just hate myself.  

Generally,  I don't have time to wade around in my insecurities.  I have three children, a dog and a congregation full of people to lead and care for.  I'm 55 years old and have had plenty of time for God to help me to get over myself.  I've come to accept that I am not a compilation of accomplishments, abilities and actions.  I'm a person who has been profoundly shaped and transformed by the grace that I have found through Jesus Christ.  

But then I have a day like today and I just have a jag of DESPISING my weaknesses, my peccadillos, the stupid things that I have a tendency to do.  Today is Thanksgiving and I feel like I had almost ruined it.  I have roasted at least 40-50 turkeys in my life. It's not a big deal.  I can totally do it; just pick a recipe and make it happen. 

The New York Times Cooking recipe said to roast the dry brined turkey for 30 minutes at the unusually high temperature of 450 degrees.  I'm guessing that the purpose of this is to do something like a sear to lock the juices in. Then I was instructed to turn the temperature to 350 degrees for the remainder of the time.  It really was an elegantly simple recipe, something that an experienced cook, such as myself, could do quite easily while managing teen aged sous chefs, a hungry special needs young adult who kept emerging from his room demanding food and various side dishes.  

The problem was that when I turned the temperature on my oven down to 350 degrees, I had forgotten to push START! What that meant was that, after having been cooked for 30 minutes, my turkey had been hanging out in a slowly cooling oven for the next two hours.  By the time I checked on it, an hour before we were supposed to eat, I opened the oven door to a very comfortably cool oven.  The turkey might as well have smiled and greeted me with a hello for how uncooked it was.

This catastrophe, combined with the realization that I had forgotten to pick up a splurged order of various breads and baked goods at a local bakery until it was too late, drove me to my room to lay on my bed with the door closed, taking deep breaths. I hate that I am a forgetter. . . and a non-detail oriented person.  

One time, I was in charge of travel to a family cruise in Florida and I scheduled our return flights to be for the day before the cruise returned to port.  In college, I would schedule things so that I needed to be in three places at the same time.  This lack of organization is the thing that I am most tempted to judge about myself. 

Granted, I've come far from those organizationally out of control young adult days.  The years of being a full time mom of an incredibly medically and developmentally complicated child certainly gave me organizational and detail management muscles that I never dreamed that I would have.  I am also a pastor of a church where, together with a multi-talented team of staff members, we function pretty well as an intergenerational, multiethnic community of around 300 people who need to turn a middle school into a place of worship every Sunday.

But every once in a while, I still make mistakes out of my lack of detail orientation and organization especially when I am tired.  No matter how much I've grown and matured, I can't seem to escape this part of my personality.

Two things helped me to pull out of the vortex of self-chastisement.  The first is my amazing husband who did not share my hypercritical attitude.  He just told me that he loved me and drove to KFC and to the bakery to see if he could help save our dinner.  (KFC was out of chicken and the bakery was all closed up.).  Just as he came home, I realized that I had also purchased a small ham to serve at a later gathering.  I threw that into the oven to heat and serve with our stuffing, potatoes and veggies.  Fortunately, Thanksgiving dinner this year was just my nuclear family and my mother so it wasn't a huge deal.  The ham was barely warmed and rather boring but it was fine. 

In fact, the second thing that served to give me perspective and stop being so disappointed with myself was how much Josh loved the ham.  My son LOVED the ham.  He asked for more over and over again.  In fact, at one point, while I got up to get more from the kitchen, he grabbed a slice right off of his grandmother's plate.  My mom reflexes are still pretty fast so I grabbed it right off his plate before he could eat it and made him wait for his own piece acquired in a proper manner.  

At the end of this day, I am choosing to think not about what I did wrong or what didn't go well but about the things that I am grateful for.  The six of us were able to sit together for a nice meal.  We enjoyed the food, especially Josh.  My 83 year old mother was able to spend quality time with us.  We played a little game which had us ask each other interesting questions.  We laughed together about funny stories from our pasts. 

As much as I am a foodie, I have to remember that the food is not the point.  The most important part of any feast is the spirit, the love, the people and what or who you are celebrating.  I hope that I am able to keep this on the forefront of my brain as we enter into another season of food and celebrating.  

Happy as a Clam

 

When we first arrived at our friends' beach house I was already a mess.  I was afraid that our unruly, chaotic mop of a dog would pee in their house.  I kept thinking about all of the things which I had forgotten to pack.  It was hot.  I was already tired.  Of course, the biggest worry, as always, was about how Josh would do.  This was a place where we had never stayed before and Josh is always stressed by new places.  

We always let Josh stay in the car as long as possible while the rest of us unpack the car and get situated in any new place.  Alex brought all of Josh's accoutrements into the room which he would get to stay in all by himself: his stereo, his Ipad, his magnadoodle toy.  When there was nothing left to unpack I went out to the van to coax Josh to come in.  I can't remember if I had to bribe him with a snack . . . probably yes.  

I feel bad saying this but, with our family, going on any trip is a big fat risk.  We're definitely had our share of family trips that have spectacularly NOT gone well.  For the past twelve years, we have had the most success vacationing at our dear friends' lake cabin in the mountains.  Josh gets to stay in the basement family room where it's quiet and he gets his own space.  He loves it and he knows what to expect.  If he hears us mentioning "the lake cabin" Josh will start saying "wanna go to the lake cabin" over and over again.  But this year our friends are in the midst of a remodeling project so it wasn't an option.  Also, we happen to be in the middle of a pandemic this summer so we assumed that we would just stay put.  Just when being in our house was going to drive us fully bonkers, some other friends reached out asking if we might want to stay at their beach place about an hour away.  Uh, yeah!

Today is our third day here and we finally felt ready to take the risk to take Josh down the mini-hike down to the beach.  The last time we took Josh to the beach, he didn't like it and he wanted to go home right away, which was a bummer for the rest of us.  But the beauty of this place was just so ridiculous that we had to try again.  Hope went down earlier than the rest of us and she texted me, "MOM! THERE ARE DOLPHINS!"  I looked out of the main bedroom's window and, sure enough, I could see a pod of dolphins frolicking in the water below not far from the shore.  

That was it.  I summoned the energy to pack up all of our beach stuff and drag Josh down the path and three sets of very steep steps down to the beach.  He was scared but he held tight to the guard rail and my t-shirt and carefully headed down.  

It was pretty much love at first sight.  Josh plopped himself down in the wet sand and, for the next two hours, delighted in the sensory input of the cool waves hitting his body.  He was like a little brown lighthouse of joy, waving his arms in the air, laughing loudly and saying some of his favorite words;  "feelings!", "abortion!", "cocaine!", "train!".  Several people walked by and gave us a smile.  

Alex and I took turns closely supervising him in the water while admiring how well the girls had taken to boogie boarding.  We each got some time to ourselves under the umbrella to read as well.  

To top it all off, I quickly found that if I dug into the wet sand a little bit with my feet, it was not too hard to find clams!  Be still my immigrant heart!  Not only was this day going so well but was I going to have FREE seafood to cook for dinner as well?  This is crazy!  

Ok.  Not everything in a given day has to be perfect in order for a day to be wonderful.  It turned out that there is a quarantine on shellfish in this area because of an abundance of a certain marine bio-toxin so we couldn't eat the clams.  Also, one of my supposedly independent teens elected to not apply sunscreen prior to swimming in the ocean for hours so some amount of wailing about crispy skin ensued.  But we all agreed that the day had been very good and we were filled with gladness and gratitude.  

Five Blessings and a Bummer During Quarantine

Like most parents, Alex and I are struggling to create some sort of routine for our kids during this time of "sheltering in place" during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.  I think that all of us are disoriented and stressed.  But do you know who's not disoriented and stressed?  My 17 year old son, Joshua.  He has no idea why we stopped going to school but he seems to be quite cool with it.  School ended a week ago and our household is just barely starting to achieve some semblance of a new structure.

Mostly, Josh gets to hang out in his room listening to music and drawing which he's happy to do.  He takes long baths and goes for at least one walk around the neighborhood every day.  Sometimes, we drag him around to the grocery store or to get pet food.  As long as he has some snacks, he's very chill about running errands.

Today, I was struck again about what a blessing Joshua is.  Here are five things that I have enjoyed about Josh and one thing that I didn't enjoy:

1) Josh has become a good walking buddy.  When he arrives at a street corner, his years of orientation and mobility training kicks in. Josh says quietly to himself, "Look left, look right.  Safe to cross." Then he takes my arm and crosses the street.  It's the sweetest thing ever!

2)  Josh wakes up happy and hungry.  Whereas my other teens have a proclivity to sleep till 11am or noon, Josh wakes up between 7-7:30 am everyday.  I hear him rummaging around in the kitchen and fear of him pouring my sugar canister all over the floor wakes me up in a jiffy.  Once up I decide to make myself a cup of coffee and then I am rewarded with a quiet couple of hours.  Josh has a couple of pieces of toast and some frozen smoothie cubes then he retires to his own room.

3)   Josh is unbelievably happy in the bathtub.  He loves the sensory input of water and our babysitter recently bought him this bath toy which he finds to be a never ending delight.  ("It's like a shower head!!") I am not kidding, Josh can take a three hour bath and make happy noises the whole time.

4)  Josh comprehends that if he wants to use my phone for 5 minutes to watch a YouTube video he has to work for it. 5 minutes with my phone equals at least three chores.  He's actually pretty good at unloading our dishwasher, although if left unsupervised, he can leave all the glasses upside down on the edge of the sink.  Still, I find it helpful to have him contribute in this way and he never complains.  Other chores include taking out the trash and recycling, watering the plants in the front or back yard, brushing his teeth (not a chore but still works in the same way) or putting away clean clothes.

5)  Josh still loves to sniff Mama's hair.  Actually, he sniffs Hope's hair as well.  I think he really has a thing for long black hair.  Maybe blond hair doesn't smell as nice?  Alex has no hair on his head so he doesn't get to participate in this.  One time Hope had a friend over who had the most beautiful long black hair.  The girls were watching a movie when out of the corner of my eye I saw Josh headed over to sniff her hair.  It was like everything went into slow motion, Josh going in for a sniff, me trying to head it off saying, "Nooooooooooooooooo".  Disaster was averted but the friend seemed a little confused.  Anyways, sniffing people's hair is not the most prosocial behavior but it's one of the only ways that Josh initiates connection and affection.  And it makes him happy, which makes me happy.

The Bummer -- Yesterday Josh and I went for a walk to the "Little Free Library" down the street.  For those of you who have not seen these, they are little shelves or cupboards that people put up on their front yards where people can leave a book or take a book.  It tends to be a low key place where people sometimes congregate.  Three people from the same household were there already and as we approached, smiling Josh said in a loud and delighted voice, "F*cker!" Dude, I have no idea where he got that! Seriously, I don't think that I've heard that word in my house ever. (Other not nice words but not that particular one.)  I do know that Josh will pick up a word that he hears and rolls it around in his mind and mouth.  Last month his favorite word, unfortunately, was "abortion".  Oh how he loved to say that word.  Sometimes he'll keep saying it until we say it back to him.  It's the only way to get him to stop.  Well, all I know is that I haven't had a good mortification like that in a while.

Two Words: Retainer and Toilet

"Mommmmmm.  Where's my . . ."  I hear it a thousand times a day.  It's uttered at the beginning, middle, and sometimes near the end of searches for lost items.  Wallets, homework, permission slips, hairbrushes, special rocks which I never knew that they had, they all have a way of hiding themselves in the corners and crevices of our house.  Tonight, it was her retainer.  Somehow, it was assumed that I would know where it was.  I did not.

"Oh . . . my . . . gosh.  Mommmmmmm!  Josh threw it into the toilet!!"

Josh sat at the dining table eating his toast with neither guilt nor amusement.

"Josh, did you throw your sister's retainer in the toilet?"

"Yes"

"What do you need to say?"

"Thank you."

"No Josh.  Sorry."

"Sorry."

What do you think?  Is he innocent?  Does he know what he is doing or no?  

In the face of something that Josh has done wrong, it is never clear whether he is aware of his transgression or not.  Usually, I am too preoccupied by my own (often triggered, distracting, unhelpful) response to really be able to assess whether Josh is experiencing remorse, guilt, or defensiveness.  What I am wondering these days is this:  Does Josh understand that he does things that are wrong?  Does he know that he is a sinner? Or is he "an innocent"?  In biblical language, does he not have the "knowledge of good and evil"?  

As a parent, I am aware that part of how children grow in their conscience is that parent teach them and reinforce that reality by giving them consequences for their actions.  But how does one punish a kid who responds like this?  I can't remember now if I gave him a consequence in this situation.  We were too busy freaking out and trying to figure out if we could save the retainer.  

Miraculously, my daughter was frustrated but not angry.

"Why aren't you angry, Hope?"

"I don't know if Josh knows what he's doing or not.  Maybe he does.  I don't know."  She laid on my bed writhing with tension, amusement, aggravation and a drop of love.

A Fable about a Table

**Friends, this post is longer than my average post.  Please give yourself a few extra minutes to read.  To help you, I've put in more than the average number of photos.  Thanks for engaging with my life and my thoughts!  


My husband tells me that his parents bought this table as a part of a big home redecorating project in the 70's.  That would explain how ugly the table was.  The legs to this table always made me think of furniture that might be in King Arthur's court; heavy, ornate and . . . medieval.  But it was also sturdy and free so we've had it in our dining room ever since Alex's dad passed away.  It is the only dining table that my kids had ever known.

Despite all of the effort that we put into rearranging so that they could have desks in their rooms, my girls do their homework almost exclusively on the dining table.  As soon as I come into the house I plop my computer bag and my purse onto a chair at the table.  Groceries are sorted at this table.  Almost all of our meals have been eaten at this table.  Many guests have been hosted.  Conflicts have been resolved.  Serious conversations have been had.  Many prayers have been prayed at this table.  Our dining table is, in many ways, the heart or the hearth of our family home.

Alex has always taken care of this table as a precious artifact from his family history.  When we have to move the table, it must be done with two people so that it can be lifted not dragged.  Expanding the table by adding additional leaves to it must be done with great care and attention lest it be jostled too much and things get out of joint.  I never knew if this was because the table was so important to him or because he's just a really meticulous dude.  It might be both.

For a long time we had these custom made cushiony cover thingies on the table at all times.  I don't know why.  They came with the table so we kept them on.  And because they were ugly, we always had a table cloth on the table.  And because we had kids, the table cloth was always getting disgustingly gross so we washed the tablecloths almost every day.

Two years ago I asked myself why we were putting so much effort into protecting a table that was almost 50 years old and far from my ideal table.  I made a big change to our lifestyle and decided that we would let our table be naked, come what may.

Well, what came was that one day, while his mom was watering plants in the backyard, Josh took a ball point pen and carved a significant number of shower heads, hairdryers and fans into the table top where he sat to have an after school snack.   Here are some pictures of his "designs".

My first thought was that my husband was going to have a cow.  My second thought was that the table top was already pretty old and worn.  I posted some of these pictures on Facebook and a friend suggested that I simply refinish it.  Another friend even suggested a specific place nearby who might do a great job.  But given the busyness of my life and my tremendous hostility to taking on household projects, I knew that this would never happen.  I just internally prepared myself to live the rest of my life with a dining table with some artwork on it.  Maybe it would just be a conversation piece.  Or we just never let any non-family member sit where Josh usually sits.  I contemplated returning to table cloths.

Alex did have a cow, but just a little one.  He had a calf.  He was upset but quickly submitted to the chaotic power of Josh.  We have an autistic child.  Whaddya gonna do?  Fight to have a semblance of order in our lives?  I think not.

I'm not sure how it happened but somehow my husband and a good friend of his were chatting about what happened to the table.  The friend happened to be a designer and inventor who knew how to work with wood.  And he happened to have a power sander.  I kept coming home from work to see them working on the table with great gusto.  I think they were actually having fun.  Alex was really enjoying learning a new skill, something that he always wanted to know how to do but never had the time or bandwidth.

This is a picture of them and the table before the final varnish.  It was an amazing transformation and resurrection.  I couldn't believe it.  It was a gorgeous color of reddish brown; shiny, gleaming, almost radiating a loving warmth to our home.

Here is a pic of the final work.  Beautiful, isn't it?

How I wish the story ended there but, alas, it does not because two nights ago, the girls had left a permanent marker on the other end of the table from where Josh sits.  As I was preparing his pills, in a split second Josh took the black permanent marker and did this.

I turned around to see him holding the marker in his hand.

"Josh, what are you doing?!!!"  I yelled.

"Josh, what are you doing?"  he replied, calmly, eating a tomato.  If he sensed my emotion, he gave no indication.  It occurred to me that even our dog knows when he is in trouble.  Luther knows when to avert his eyes and get out of the way when I find that he's ripped up a stuffed animal or has peed on the carpet.  But my son acted like it was no big deal, like he was the one who knew some peaceful, deep wisdom that I could not yet fathom.  I just stood in the kitchen with my mouth open, silent, fuming and flummoxed.  Our beautiful, refinished table, was ruined once again.  After a few minutes of silence Josh said to me, "Want more toast".  Sigh.

Years ago, a wise mentor once taught us that we have to remember that the many things that we work to build in our lives are like sandcastles.  We work hard to build something and we want them to be beautiful, excellent, impactful, and lasting.  But in the end, like sand castles, the things we build are ultimately washed away.  Organizations, churches, ministries, institutions, programs, careers, wonderful as they may be, they all have their ends, often sooner than we expect.  Even expensive dining tables don't last forever.  None of the things in my house will last forever.  Even my house will not last forever.  From a Christian perspective, the only things that lasts forever are people and God (and maybe animals, I'm not sure about that one yet).

A few weeks ago while we were on vacation at the beach, we ran into a pair of brothers who were hard at work on a super-duper sand castle.  They had roped off a section of the beach and were building a replica of an actual European castle that they had researched.  Both were engineers who grew up at the beach making sand creations in their childhood. They spent quality  time together once a year by spending a whole day making something beautiful out of sand.  This project took them over 13 hours.  They arrived with their many tools and buckets before dawn and we helped them pack everything up using our flashlights on our phones.  As we chatted at the end of the day, I asked them why they did this and wasn't it a bummer that their creation would be washed away by the next morning?  Exhausted but happy, they said that it's all part of the process.  They did not expect it to last forever.  That was not the point.  Their wives let them take a whole Saturday away from their families not to build the sandcastle but to invest in their relationship as brothers.

I've been thinking about this sandcastle ever since that day.  The beautiful, valuable things in our lives are but a reflection of that which is ultimately lasting beauty.  We will enjoy our lives, our relationships and even our things better if we accept that and just give ourselves to the process of life in this temporal world.

Minor Miracles and Other Things that Keep You Going

Being fifteen has meant that Josh is sometimes aggressive.  When he wants something but can't have it, he might grab, scratch and even hit people around him.  One time when we were in our van on our way home from a family vacation trip to SeaWorld, he suddenly got really frustrated and pulled a big handful of hair from his sleeping sister who was in the row in front of him.   That was a huge bummer.  It broke a lot of trust with that sister and she, understandably, declared that she was going to take a break from helping Josh.  The other sister, also understandably, defended him, declaring that he couldn't help it because he gets frustrated just like all of us but he doesn't have the tools to manage and express his emotions. 

We've employed various strategies and behavior plans to deal with this unfortunate but somewhat expected pattern given Josh's age.  He's a teenager.  His brain is going through a normal adolescent growth process which includes hormonal and adrenaline surges.

One of the things that we do is to leave his presence and let him know that he doesn't get to be around us if he's being demanding or agitated.  Josh's wonderful respite provider, K, knew to do this the other day when Josh was becoming aggressively demanding. Apparently, Josh was yelling and grabbing K's arm.  K firmly told him that he was going to have to be in his room by himself for a while and that K was going to be in the living room.  K said that Josh yelled and made unhappy noises for a few minutes and then was quiet for about 15 minutes.

Josh came out to the living room and silently sat down next to K and then did something that shocked our experienced respite provider.  Josh said, "I'm sorry."

"It was a miracle!" K said as he recounted the experience to me later.  "You know, my colleagues and I talk about how we stay motivated for our work by the little miracles that we experience every once in a while.  This was one of them."

It's so true.  I know many adults who don't seem to know how to utter those words in the course of their lives.  How did Josh access those words and place them in a socially appropriate context?  Was he just repeating a phrase that he heard in a song or on the radio?  Maybe.  But it touched K's heart nevertheless.

As a Christian, I believe that being sorry and acknowledging one's faults/ shortcomings/ fallenness/ sins is a crucial part of opening one's heart to grace.  Yet I also know how difficult it is to speak those works of acknowledging wrong.  Sometimes my husband has to wait a good long time to receive an apology from me in a situation where we both know that I was wrong.

I know that apologizing not something that is modeled by many "adults" in this world but somehow, we all know that repentance is what makes healing and relationships possible.  Sometimes, an apology is a miracle; a sign of some amount of self-knowledge and a desire to heal.  It is a sign of grace and hope.  It is the touch of God.  What a beautiful thing to see that, in that moment with K, Josh had been given the gift of being able to say, "I'm sorry".

I wonder what our world would be like if people were able to say, "I'm sorry" just a little bit more each day.  I wonder how my life would be changed if I was just a little bit freer to say, "I'm sorry".

Swearing, Profanity, and Cursing

Today, as Josh was making himself some toast he dropped the butter knife onto the floor and immediately exclaimed, "Sh*t!"  I looked up with surprise in time to hear him say it again three times with vehemence, "Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!"

After surprise, came amusement.  After amusement, came pride.  My son was using an interjection in a contextually appropriate way!  Way to go, buddy!

As you may know, if you have read any of my other blog posts, Josh is not someone who has a lot going on in the way of expressing language.  In fact, his spontaneous (non-prompted) language falls generally in two categories; echolalia (random echoing of things that he has heard before without appropriate meaning or contextualization) and expressing simple needs or desires ("I want toast").

To have Josh use profanity appropriately with some amount of affect was kind of awesome!  At the same time, I wondered where exactly Josh picked this up.  Was it from us?  From school? From kids on the bus?  I wish I could say that I knew for sure that he must have had this modeled for him outside of our home but, alas, I cannot.  

In our early parenting years, when blow out diapers, interrupted baby naps, and finding people spreading poop on walls were a regular part of our lives, I noticed that Josh was much more likely to echo swear words that came out of my mouth than anything else.  Perhaps this was because they were accompanied with clear and passionate emotion.  

We've been talking a lot about swearing with our (6th grade) girls recently.  We've wondered together why swearing is supposedly bad.  I hate it when people just tell you not to do something without having a reason so I've been thinking about it a bit myself;  Do you refrain from swearing just because it makes you a bad person?  Why do we have the sense that we should not swear?  True, the Bible says that we shouldn't swear but I think that means swearing as in "making oaths" or taking the Lord's name in vain.  Ok, so we don't say, "I swear to God..." or use Jesus' name in irreverent ways. But the specific question that we have sought to answer is "What exactly is wrong with using profanity?  

In her book,  Swearing Is Good For You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language, Emma Byrne writes that "Swearing, it turns out, is an incredibly useful part of our linguistic repertoire. Not only has some form of swearing existed since the earliest humans began to communicate, but it has been shown to reduce physical pain, help stroke victims recover their language, and encourage people to work together as a team."

Even the apostle Paul uses "coarse language" in Philippians 3: 8 when he says, "What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ."  That word which is here translated "garbage" is more accurately "the refuse of animals", "dung" or "poop".

All of these things may be true but my experience tells me that peppering one's language with profanity hurts relationships, especially if one is swearing at someone.  Swearing usually adds a jolt of emotion (usually negative) to a conversation or interaction that is draining, uncomfortable or painful to the listener in most situations.  There is a degrading and disrespecting quality to swearing at someone. In conflict, profanity usually amps things up rather than calming things down which is not conducive to making peace or bringing resolution.  Once you've said, "F--- you" to someone, you really can't ever unsay that.

Now that they are in middle school, my girls are discovering that there is plenty of negativity, anger and meanness in this world.  Using profanity just adds to it.  For Christians, Ephesians 4:29 advises,"Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear."  Also, the practice of self control is important to the life of someone who is wanting to emulate the God of love.  According to James 1:26 "If you think you are being religious, but can't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and everything you do is useless".  Another reason all this matters is that the words we use say a lot about what is in our heads. Philippians 4:8 says, "Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things". As we think about what's right and pure, cuss words are not helpful.

Words are a very powerful part of creating the reality in which we live as human beings.  In general, we ought to try to make our words be edifying, positive, and gracious, for our own sake and for the sake of people who are hearing our words.

But, at this point, if my son wants to express himself by swearing when he drops a knife, I'm still going to smile.  

What are your thoughts about swearing?  Swearing and parenting?  Swearing and being a parent of a child with special needs?  Swearing and the middle school experience?  Swearing in a household with kids?  

What I've Learned from Josh (A Guest Post from "Auntie Rachel")

I've known Josh almost since the day he was born. Susan and Alex lived upstairs from me and my roommate for Josh's first year of life. In light of his heath issues and my night owl tendencies, I had many middle of the night shifts feeding him very specific amounts since his body didn't give him appropriate signals regarding when to eat or the necessary amount. I don't know how much of it is because he was the son of my very good friends who had wanted him so badly and how much of it is because of that year of helping him to live, but I know that I've always loved Josh.

Yet it's tricky to know how to communicate that to Josh or how to have a meaningful relationship with him.

I no longer live in the same area as his family and, at best, I only get to see him twice a year. Generally, I'm good at figuring out how people work and how to build a relationship with them. With people who are important to me, I figure out how to care for them well, how to be a good friend to them, and how to help them know that they are loved.

I have no idea how to do that with Josh.

Some of that has to do with how little time I spend with Josh. Some of that has to do with how little time I spend around people with special needs, particularly autism. Some of that is just Josh and the ways that it can be difficult for anyone to fully figure out how to relate to him, communicate with him, or know what's going on for him.

Perfectionism is a struggle for me and it comes out in my relationships. I work at them. I'm thoughtful with people. I'll go over interactions to figure out what I would have liked to have done or said differently - sometimes intentionally, sometimes compulsively. The more that I care about the person, the more I work. And usually I can see the pay off for that work in strong relationships and people who feel cared for by me.

But with Josh, I don't even know what work would really look like. Despite all of my relational skills, I don't think that I could ever reach the place of feeling like I'm competent and confident at how to relate to him or how to communicate to him how much I love him.

I found myself thinking about Josh recently and aching a bit about how much I love him and how incapable I feel to really communicate that to him. But then God made me take pause. "Oh, Rachel. What's reality here?"

The last couple of times that I've visited Josh and his family, Josh has clearly wanted to spend time with me. The visit before last, it came up just a couple times. Josh likes to spend quite a bit of time by himself in his room. Most of the time others are not welcome. But he very specifically wanted me to hang out with him. "Sit, please." Josh is often polite while being rather insistent. So, I sat on the end of his bed while he drew or listened to his radio for a while. After a stretch of feeling like 'is this really doing something for him?' I got up and immediately received, "Sit, please." So, I sat.

Several months later on my most recent visit last spring, I was washing dishes on the first night and Josh came to get me and took my arm to pull me toward his room with 'Sit, please.' So we hung out. I played some ukulele for him, but I feel like it just gave me something to do. Josh just liked me being present. During the days that I was there he initiated with me so much that it stood out to the rest of the family as atypical Josh behavior. And it was often enough that there was no way to interpret it as random. We couldn't understand it, but it wasn't random. My last dinner with them, Josh was his usually quiet self while I chatted with his otherwise very talkative family. But when I got up to leave the table, there it was again. "Sit, please."

I don't know why Josh likes hanging out with me. Susan, Alex, and I have speculated about what it is about my personality or demeanor that he finds appealing. But in Josh's way, we're friends. And because I love him, that means a lot to me.

But more than that, my relationship with Josh is now a reminder that I don't have to have it all figured out in my friendships for them to become what I want them to be. 

I do think that it's good to work at relationships. They deserve and require that. But I'm never going to need to be reminded of that. I need to be reminded that my relationships aren't as dependent on my work and abilities as I think that they are. Josh is that reminder to me.

Dead Hummingbird

Tough morning. Daddy is out of town. Mom forgot to set the alarm. We woke up just as Josh's bus was about to pull up at our house.  I tried to keep my voice mellow and subdued but I think I ended up sounding serious and intense.  "Girls, Mommy made a mistake and forgot to set the alarm.  I really, really need your help right now!"

The girls picked up on Mom's stressed out tone of voice and scrambled out of bed.  They were very impressive in this mini crisis getting themselves (and even helping Josh) to get ready. Someone got Josh a glass of water.  The other one gave him a very crispy piece of toast. Teeth were not brushed thoroughly and we all had crazy hair but we were only 5 minutes late heading out the door with breakfast in our hands. It was a miracle of morning productivity yet it was clear that we were all adrenalinized and on the brink of snapping at each other any minute if anything were to go wrong.

Do you know what gave me the most energy in the midst of this flurry of activity?  It was the fact that Josh smiled through the whole thing.  My son's super power is that he does not pick up on other people's emotions.  Yes, that's often a downside in social interactions but in moments like these, when negative or stressful emotions are swirling around, it can be so helpful.  Josh woke up happy and was blissfully clueless that others were not.  He was glad to be awake and no one was going to take that away from him.

Unfortunately, we opened the front door and found a dead hummingbird at our doorstep.  I think one of the girls might have even stepped on it's little dead wing as she went out. Weeping ensued. It was like a little handful of cuteness and beauty had been crushed right in front of us.  They demanded that we give it a proper burial right then and there. We three females all felt the spike of sad, negative energy in the moment.  Aya.  What to do?

"Girls, girls, please.  I am begging you.  Can we deal with this later?"  I gently placed the hummingbird's corpse in what I called a "special resting place" under a purple bush in my front  yard.

By some miracle, the girls were both able to choose to be redirected.  Josh was already in the car, munching on an apple and smiling broadly for some unknown reason.  At this point in my life it is such a beautiful thing that at least one of my children is pleasantly resistant to being infected by the negative energy or emotions of others.  He does not get pulled into the panic or anger or sadness of the people around him.  He is just where he is at.  I find that sort of wonderful.  

I want to be someone who can smile and remain happy even when people around me are not.  What is the secret to not getting sucked into other people's stress or negative emotions?  Short of having autism, my guess is that the answer is to become a person who is deeply rooted in peace.  I don't even know what that would look like but I want it.  I want to have a spiritual and emotional force field to the destructive and dark vibes that swirl all around me in my day.  

Sometimes life hands you a dead hummingbird on your front door on a day when you are already running late.  Some days are just like that.  The next time I have one of those days, I am going to picture my happy, apple eating, emotionally unfettered son and try to remember that I do not have to sink into heaviness and despair.  It is possible to be free and happy even on chaotic, dead hummingbird days.  

How to Help Your Typically Developing Kids Love Their Special Needs Sibling

I’m as desperate as the next mom for my kids to get along.  My girls are one year minus three days apart and pretty competitive for airspace and attention so I pretty much pray desperate prayers every day for their relationship.  But I have a special hope that my girls will love their brother in a free and unburdened way when they grow up.  After all, God willing, their relationship with him will last longer than mine.  I realize that every family is different but here are some things that I am learning about how to help foster love and bonding between typically developing kids and a sibling who has special needs.

1       Create and reinforce a culture of snuggling. 

When my husband and I became adoptive parents, we were taught about the significance of “skin on skin” time to bonding so we tried to maximize touch and hugs whenever possible.  In the early days after we brought our adopted babies home, my husband used to rip off his shirt whenever he could and hold them close to his chest.  

Nowadays we try to get some time together in jammies as a family on Mom and Dad’s California King sized bed as much as we can during our precious, lazy weekend moments.  Sometimes we read quietly.  Sometimes someone will read a book aloud.  Sometimes Josh will request a song that we sing part of and he sings part of like "He'll be coming 'round the mountain . . ." or "This little piggy".  Josh will ask to sing or say it over and over until I have to put a stop to it in order to not lose my mind.

Being autistic, Josh has a limited tolerance for being around other people, especially when the girls were more wiggly and vocally eruptive.  But Josh appreciates the sensory input of this kind of family time.  He loves having his head and face rubbed and getting to smell his mama’s hair so he’s willing to be us for short periods of time.  Whole family snuggle times are some of the happiest times in our life together. 

The other day, Hope and I woke up inexplicably early and so we decided to invade Josh’s bed to snuggle with him.  Touch is a nice way to connect, especially with a mostly non-verbal person.  After a few blissful minutes, Hope said to me, “You know what, Mama?  When I grow up, I want to marry someone who can help me take care of Josh.”  I told her how much I appreciated that and that I expect that there will be a lot of people in Josh’s life who will help to take care of him. And then I smiled and almost cried for the rest of the day.

2       Debrief stressful moments.

My husband and Hope were out of town for Halloween this year so it was just Josh, Anna and me left at home to take on trick or treating.  We had plans to walk around our neighborhood with one other family.  Everyone had been prepped with the knowledge that Josh might not make it walking around in the dark with crowds of other people around.  Indeed, he lasted about 7 houses before having a major crying, screaming meltdown on the sidewalk.  (He was unhappy that I wouldn’t let him eat every piece of candy immediately upon receiving it.)  The other family graciously offered to take Anna with them while I walked Josh home.  Anna was very motivated to stay on the mission of pursuing a more ample stash of candy so she was willing to go without me. 

Later, at bedtime, I asked her how she felt about Josh’s public meltdown and having to trick or treat without a parent with her.   Her emotions were complex and layered.  It was good to get to talk about the evening in retrospect.  In the end, she seemed to come to a place of satisfaction and declared it the “best Halloween ever”.  I think that getting some space to talk about how it was for her enabled her to ultimately focus on the good parts and let go of the bad parts.

3      Try to give each child their own special times. 

I am aware that Josh and his needs invade a lot of Hope and Anna’s lives.  They have both spent more than their share of their lives being schlepped along to Josh’s medical or therapeutic appointments.  There are a lot of things that our family can’t do because of Josh.  Their brother often takes more than his fair share of their parents’ attention. 

I have found that it’s important for my girls to each have special time where they get to have our undivided, undistracted attention.  For example, this year each girl got to have their own small birthday parties (In the past we’ve had a larger, joint one because their birthdays are so close together).  Significantly, their brother did not come.  He would not have enjoyed Anna’s soap making party or Hope’s movie watching party anyways.  But the critical piece was that I was able to fully focus on the birthday girl each time without needing to make sure that Josh was not overwhelmed or eating non-food items when we weren’t watching. 

For the past two Easters, the girls have received gift certificates in their Easter baskets for a special overnight with one parent at a local location of their choosing.  This has been a special way to get to have experiences that the five of us could never have because of who Josh is.  Anna and I went to a small amusement park about an hour away.  Hope and her dad explored Alcatraz in San Francisco.  Both trips were definitely good deposits into the love tank.  Both sets of us came home with a sense of overflowing with stories and affection to spare and share.  

Well, those are a few of my ideas thus far in our journey.  Do you have any other suggestions for us?  We are eager to hear your ideas and stories.